These have been acted often; all have past

Censure of which some live, and some are cast.

*

For this in agitation, stay the end;

Tho' nothing please, yet nothing can offend.

THE CHALLENGE TO BEAUTY: A TRAGI-COMEDY. BY T. HEYWOOD, 1636.

In the Prologue to this Play, Heywood commends the English Plays; not without a censure of some writers, who in his time had begun to degenerate.

The Roman and Athenian Dramas far

Differ from us and those that frequent are
In Italy and France, ev'n in these days,
Compared with ours, are rather Jiggs than Plays.
Like of the Spanish may be said, and Dutch;
None, versed in language, but confess them such.
They do not build their projects on that ground;
Nor have their phrases half the weight and sound,
Our labour'd Scenes have had. And yet our nation
(Already too much tax'd for imitation,

In seeking to ape others) cannot 'quit

Some of our Poets, who have sinn'd in it.

For where, before, great Patriots, Dukes, and Kings,
Presented for some high facinorous things +

His own Play.

The foundations of the English Drama were laid deep in tragedy by Marlow, and others Marlow especially-while our comedy was yet in its lisping state. To this tragic preponderance (forgetting his own sweet Comedies, and Shakspeare's), Heywood seems to refer with regret; as in the "Roscian Strain" he evidently alludes to Alleyn, who was great in the "Jew of Malta," as Heywood elsewhere testifies, and in the principal tragic parts both of Marlow and Shakspeare.

Were the stage subject; now we strive to fly
In their low pitch, who never could soar high:
For now the common argument entreats
Of puling Lovers, crafty Bawds, or Cheats.
Nor blame I their quick fancies, who can fit
These queasy times with humours flash'd in wit,
Whose art I both encourage and commend ;
I only wish that they would sometimes bend
To memorise the valours of such men,
Whose very names might dignify the pen ;
And that our once-applauded Roscian strain
In acting such might be revived again :

Which you to count'nance might the Stage make proud, And poets strive to key their strings more loud.

THE FAWN: A COMEDY. BY JOHN MARSTON, 1606.

In the Preface to this Play, the Poet glances at some of the Playwrights of his time; with a handsome acknowledgment, notwithstanding, of their excellencies.

"for my own interest let this once be printed, that, of men of my own addition, I love most, pity some, hate none for let me truly say it, I once only loved myself for loving them; and surely I shall ever rest so constant to my first affection, that, let their ungentle combinings, discurteous whispering, never so treacherously labour to undermine my unfenced reputation, I shall (as long as I have being) love the least of their graces, and only pity the greatest of their vices.

Ipse semi-paganus

Ad sacra vatûm carmen affero nostrum.”

VOL. II.

Y

COMMENDATORY VERSES BEFORE THREE PLAYS OF SIR WILLIAM KILLIGREW. BY T. L.

I.

THAT thy wise and modest Muse
Flies the Stage's looser use;

Not bawdry Wit does falsely name,
And to move laughter puts off shame :

II.

That thy theatre's loud noise
May be virgin's chaste applause;
And the stoled matron, grave divine,
Their lectures done, may tend to thine :

III.

That no actor's made profane,

To debase Gods, to raise thy strain ;
And people forced, that hear thy Play,
Their money and their souls to pay:

IV.

That thou leav'st affected phrase
To the shops to use and praise;
And breath'st a noble Courtly vein,—
Such as may Cæsar entertain,

v.

When he wearied would lay down

The burdens that attend a crown ;

Disband his soul's severer powers ;
In mirth and ease dissolve two hours:

VI.

These are thy inferior arts,

These I call thy second parts. But when thou carriest on the plot, And all are lost in th' subtle knot:

VII.

When the scene sticks to every thought, And can to no event be brought; When (thus of old the scene betraid) Poets call'd Gods unto their aid,

VIII.

Who by power might do the thing,
Art could to no issue bring;
As the Pellear Prince, that broke
With a rude and down-right stroke

IX.

The perplext and fatal noose,

Which his skill could not unloose :

Thou dost a nobler art profess;
And the coil'd serpent can'st no less

X.

:

Stretch out from every twisted fold,
In which he lay inwove and roll'd;
Induce a night, and then a day,
Wrap all in clouds, and then display.

XI.

Th' easy and the even design:

A plot, without a God, divine !

Let others' bold pretending pens
Write acts of Gods, that know not men's;
In this to thee all must resign;

Th' Surprise of th' Scene is wholly thine.

COMMENDATORY VERSES BEFORE THE FAITHFUL SHEPHERD" OF FLETCHER.

THERE are no sureties, good friend, will be taken
For works that vulgar good-name hath forsaken.
A Poem and a Play too! Why, 'tis like

A Scholar that's a Poet; their names strike,
And kill outright: one cannot both fates bear.—
But as a Poet, that's no Scholar, makes
Vulgarity his whiffler, and so takes

Passage with ease and state thro' both sides 'press
Of pageant-seers: or, as Scholars please,
That are no Poets, more than Poets learned,
Since their art solely is by souls discern'd,
(The others' falls within the common sense,
And sheds, like common light, her influence):
So, were your Play no Poem, but a thing
Which every cobbler to his patch might sing;
A rout of nifles, like the multitude,

With no one limb of any art endued,

Like would to like, and praise you: but because
Your poem only hath by us applause;

Renews the Golden Age, and holds through all
The holy laws of homely Pastoral,

Where flowers, and founts, and nymphs, and semi-gods.

And all the Graces, find their old abodes;
Where poets flourish but in endless verse,
And meadows nothing-fit for purchasers :
This Iron Age, that eats itself, will never
Bite at your Golden World, that others ever
Loved as itself. Then like your Book, do you
Live in old peace: and that far praise allow.

G. Chapman.