COMMENDATORY VERSES.
IN THE JUST WORTH OF THAT WELL-DESERVER, MR. JOHN WEBSTER, AND UPON THIS MASTER-PIECE OF TRAGEDY.
In this thou imitat'st one rich and wise,
That sees his good deeds done before he dies:
As he by works, thou by this work of fame
Hath well provided for thy living name.
To trust to others' honourings is worth's crime,
Thy monument is raised in thy life-time;
And 'tis most just; for every worthy man
Is his own marble, and his merit can
Cut him to any figure, and express
More art than death's cathedral palaces
Where royal ashes keep their court. Thy note
Be ever plainness; 'tis the richest coat:
Thy epitaph only the title be,
Write Duchess, that will fetch a tear for thee;
For who e'er saw this Duchess live and die,
That could get off under a bleeding eye?
In Tragædiam.
Ut lux ex tenebris ictu percussa tonantis,
Illa, ruina malis, claris fit vita poetis.
Thomas Middletonus,
Poeta et Chron. Londinensis.
TO HIS FRIEND MR. JOHN WEBSTER, UPON HIS "DUCHESS OF MALFI."
I never saw thy Duchess till the day
That she was lively bodied in thy play:
Howe'er she answered her low-rated love
Her brothers' anger did so fatal prove,
Yet my opinion is, she might speak more,
But never in her life so well before.
Wil. Rowley.
TO THE READER OF THE AUTHOR, AND HIS "DUCHESS OF MALFI."
Crown him a poet, whom nor Rome nor Greece
Transcend in all their's for a masterpiece;
In which, whiles words and matter change, and men
Act one another, he, from whose clear pen
They all took life, to memory hath lent
A lasting fame to raise his monument.
John Ford.