Imputed to the times, and not to thee.
Some scions shot from this immortal root,
Their tops much lower, and less fair the fruit,
Jonson the tribute of my verse might claim,
Had he not strove to blemish Shakespeare’s name.
But, like the radiant twins that gild the sphere,
Fletcher and Beaumont next in pomp appear:
The first a fruitful vine, in blooming pride,
Had been by superfluity destroy’d,
But that his friend, judiciously severe,