Thy care for that which was not worth thy breath.
Brought on too soon thy much lamented death.
But heaven was kind and would not let thee see
The plagues that must upon this nation be.
It is hard to say what plagues Drayton refers to, but it does seem unkind of Elizabethan scholars to have so neglected Sir John Beaumont, the purity and simplicity of whose life and elevated tone of work place him in marked contrast to his more versatile and distinguished brother, Francis.
Leaving the domain of the poet let us turn our gaze for a moment towards the heavens. Night’s sable mantle shrouds a sleeping world, and all is repose save the spirit of our dreams. Freed from control the ever active one flits at will in the realms of fairy-land, overleaping all difficulties, revelling in phantasms new and wonderful till day dawns, when she returns to her abode in man’s heavy brain to lighten the labour of his daily toil, and to store up memories of a world closed to mortal eyes.
A distant murmur as of an approaching storm disturbs the stillness of the night, from gathering clouds serpent-tongued lightning flashes across the sky; the furies rage, the curtains of the heavens open and lo! Jupiter appears glowing with unwonted fire. He vows he will suffer no longer the flouting scorn of imperious Juno, and with anger-distended nostrils he sniffs the ethereal air. But what is this that steals over his heated senses? Subduing, soothing, consoling more sweetly than incense from Aphrodite’s favoured altars. It ascends in cloudy wavelets from the abodes of mortals. He determines to hold a council of the gods and summons thereto the heroes of Earth famed throughout Elysium for their knowledge of the odic essence whose spirit has entered his own and quelled the rising of a conjugal storm.
Silently there glides into view a host of genial witnesses to St Nicotine’s balmy influence over the troubled spirits of mortals. Leading the spectral throng are Ben Jonson and Drummond, Beaumont and Fletcher, Dekker and Overbury, swathed in clouds of vapour as if comforting themselves with the old delectable pastime. A little to the rear, pale in the majesty of thought, are Shakespeare and Bacon, Spenser and Newton. Leaning to his friend Shakespeare, Bacon whispers, ‘No doubt the weed hath power to lighten the body of mortals and enable them to shake off uneasiness. But where is Raleigh? He paid devotion to his divinity most constantly, and ought to be able to speak of what return he got for all his worship.’
‘You know, Drummond, as well as I do, that I always did love the weed, in spite of all that King James said against it. Did I not make my prince of swaggerers, Captain Bobadil (who was to me what Falstaff was to Will Shakespeare) descant on the fragrant theme, thus:—