Little is known of either of their families, except that there were numerous poets in both; but Fletcher's father was that Dean of Peterborough (afterwards Bishop of London) who behaved with such unfeeling impertinence to the Queen of Scots in her last moments, and who is said (as became such a man) to have died of chagrin because Elizabeth was angry at his marrying a second time. Was poetry such a drug" with "both their houses" that the friends lost their respect for it? or was Fletcher's mother some angel of a woman— some sequestered Miranda of the day-with whose spirit the "earth" of the Dean her husband but ill accorded? 66 Every devout lover of poetry must have experienced the wish of Coleridge, that Beaumont and Fletcher had written "poems instead of tragedies." Imagine as voluminous a set of the one as they have given us of the other! It would have been to sequestered real life what Spenser was to the land of Faery, a retreat beyond all groves and gardens, a region of medicinal sweets of thought and feeling. Nor would plenty of fable have been wanting. What a loss! And this, their birthright with posterity-these extraordinary men sold for the mess of the loathsome pottage of the praise and profligacy of the court of James I. But let us blush to find fault with them, even for such a descent from their height, while listening to their diviner moods. MELANCHOLY. BY BEAUMONT. Hence, all you vain delights, Wherein you spend your folly; Welcome, folded arms and fixed eyes; Fountain heads and pathless groves, These are the sounds we feed upon : Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley ; 2" Lovely Melancholy."-Tradition has given these verses to Beaumont, though they appeared for the first time in a play of Fletcher's after the death of his friend. In all probability Beaumont had partly sketched the play, and left the verses to be inserted. I cannot help thinking that a couplet has been lost after the words "bats and owls." It is true the four verses ending with those words might be made to belong to the preceding four, as among the things "welcomed;" but the junction would be forced, and the modulation injured. They may remain, too, where they are, as combining to suggest the "sounds" which the melancholy man feeds "fountain-heads" being audible, "groves upon; whispering, and the "moonlight walks" being attended by the hooting "owl." They also modulate beautifully in this case. Yet these intimations themselves appear a little forced; whereas, supposing a couplet to be supplied, there would be a distinct reference to melancholy sights, as well as sounds. It is The conclusion is divine. Indeed the whole poem, as Hazlitt says, is "the perfection of this kind of writing." Orpheus might have hung it, like a pearl, in the ear of Proserpina. It has naturally been thought to have suggested the Penseroso to Milton, and is more than worthy to have done so; for fine as that is, it is still finer. the concentration of a hundred melancholies. Walter Scott, in one of his biographical works, hardly with the accustomed gallantry and goodnature of the great novelist, contrasted it with the "melo-dramatic" abstractions of Mrs. Radclyffe (then living). He might surely, with more justice Sir have opposed it to the diffuseness and conventional phraseology of " novels in verse." "Places which pale passion loves." Beaumont, while writing this verse, perhaps the finest in the poem, probably had in his memory that of Marlowe, in his description of Tamburlaine. Pale of complexion, wrought in him with passion. A SATYR PRESENTS A BASKET OF FRUIT TO THE FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS. BY FLETCHER. Here be grapes whose lusty blood Sweeter yet did never crown The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown For these black-eyed Dryope Hath oftentimes commanded me With my clasped knee to climb: See how well the lusty time Hath deck'd their rising cheeks in red, Such as on your lips is spread. Here be berries for a queen, Some be red-some be green;3 These are of that luscious meat The great god Pan himself doth eat; All these, and what the woods can yield, The hanging mountain or the field, I freely offer; and ere long Will bring you more, more sweet and strong; Till when, humbly leave I take, Least the great Pan do awake That sleeping lies in a deep glade, I must go, I must run, Swifter than the fiery sun. 3" Some be red, some be green.”—This verse calls to mind a beautiful one of Chaucer, in his description of a grove in spring : In which were oakès great, straight as a line, The Flower and the Leaf. Coleridge was fond of repeating it. 4 “That sleeping lies," &c.-Pan was not to be waked too soon with impunity. Ου θεμις, ω ποιμαν, το μεσαμβρινον, ου θεμις αμμιν Τανικα κεκμακως αμπαύεται εντι δε πικρος Και οι αει δριμεια χολα ποτι ῥινι καθηται. Theocritus Idyll, i. v. 15. No, shepherd, no; we must not pipe at noon : With quivering nostril. What a true picture of the half-goat divinity! |