CHAPTER XII
BEAUMONT'S MARRIAGE AND DEATH; THE SURVIVING FAMILY
In the 1653 edition of the "Poems; By Francis Beaumont, Gent." there is one, ordinarily regarded as of doubtful authorship, which, in default of information to the contrary, I am tempted to accept as his and to attach to it importance, as of biographical interest. It purports to bear his signature "Fran. Beaumont"; it bears for me the impress of his literary style. Writing before August 1612, to the Countess of Rutland, Beaumont had, as we have remarked, disclaimed ever having praised "living woman in prose or verse." In The Examination of his Mistris' Perfections, the poem of which I speak, the writer praises with all sincerity the woman of his love:
Stand still, my happinesse; and, swelling heart,—
No more! till I consider what thou art.
Like our first parents in Paradise who "thought it nothing if not understood," so the poet of his happiness—
Though by thy bountious favour I be in
A paradice, where I may freely taste
Of all the vertuous pleasures which thou hast
[I] wanting that knowledge, must, in all my blisse,
Erre with my parents, and aske what it is.
My faith saith 'tis not Heaven; and I dare swear,
If it be Hell, no pain of sence, is there;
Sure, 't is some pleasant place, where I may stay,
As I to Heaven go in the middle way.
Wert thou but faire, and no whit vertuous,
Thou wert no more to me but a faire house
Hanted with spirits, from which men do them blesse,
And no man will halfe furnishe to possesse:
Or, hadst thou worth wrapt in a rivell'd skin,
'T were inaccessible. Who durst go in
To find it out? for sooner would I go
To find a pearle cover'd with hills of snow;
'T were buried vertue, and thou mightst me move
To reverence the tombe, but not to love,—
No more than dotingly to cast mine eye
Upon the urne where Lucrece' ashes lye.
But thou art faire and sweet, and every good
That ever yet durst mixe with flesh and blood:
The Devill ne're saw in his fallen state
An object whereupon to ground his hate
So fit as thee; all living things but he
Love thee; how happy, then, must that man be
Whom from amongst all creatures thou dost take!
Is there a hope beyond it? can he make
A wish to change thee for? This is my blisse,
Let it run on now; I know what it is.
The poet of this tribute is not wooing, but worshiping the woman won; reverently striving to comprehend an ineffable joy. The poem is not of praises such as Beaumont in his epistle Ad Comitissam Rutlundiae contemns, praises "bestow'd at most need on a thirsty soul." The writer, here, purports to examine into his Mistress's perfections, but, like the author of the epistle to the Countess, he examines not at all,—he observes the reticence for which Beaumont there had given the reason,—
Nor do the virtuous-minded (which I swear
Madam, I think you are) endure to hear
Their own perfections into question brought,
But stop their ears at them.
When the lines of the Examination are set beside the undoubted poems of Beaumont, they appear, in rhetoric, metaphor, and sentiment, to be of a type with the two tributes to Lady Rutland; in vocabulary, rhyme, and run-on lines, also, to be of one font with them, and with the letter to Ben Jonson and the elegy to Lady Clifton. When the lines are set beside those of Beaumont's own phrasing in the dramas, one finds that in their brief compass they echo the metaphor of his Amintor, "my soul grows weary of her house,"—the hyperbole of his Philaster, "I will sooner trust the wind With feathers, or the troubled sea with pearl,"—the passionate ecstasy of his Arbaces, "Here I acknowledge thee, my hope ... a happinesse as high as I could thinke ... Paradice is there!" The tribute is a variant of those closing lines in A King and No King,
I have a thousand joyes to tell you of,
Which yet I dare not utter, till I pay
My thankes to Heaven for um.