Built to outdure the sun, as you suppose,
Where your unworthy kings lie raked in ashes,
Are monuments fit for him! No, brood of Nilus,
Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven;
No pyramids set off his memories,
But the eternal substance of his greatness,
To which I leave him.’
It is something worth living for, to write or even read such poetry as this is, or to know that it has been written, or that there have been subjects on which to write it!—This, of all Beaumont and Fletcher’s plays, comes the nearest in style and manner to Shakespear, not excepting the first act of the Two Noble Kinsmen, which has been sometimes attributed to him.
The Faithful Shepherdess by Fletcher alone, is ‘a perpetual feast of nectar’d sweets, where no crude surfeit reigns.’ The author has in it given a loose to his fancy, and his fancy was his most delightful and genial quality, where, to use his own words,
‘He takes most ease, and grows ambitious