[Commendatory Verses before the “Faithful Shepherd” of Fletcher.]
There are no sureties, good friend, will be taken
For works that vulgar good-name hath forsaken.
A Poem and a Play too! Why, ’tis like
A Scholar that’s a Poet; their names strike,
And kill out-right: one cannot both fates bear.—
But as a Poet, that’s no Scholar, makes
Vulgarity his whiffler, and so takes
Passage with ease and state thro’ both sides ’press
Of pageant-seers: or, as Scholars please,
That are no Poets, more than Poets learn’d,
Since their art solely is by souls discern’d,
(The others’ falls within the common sense,
And sheds, like common light, her influence):
So, were your Play no Poem, but a thing
That every cobbler to his patch might sing;
A rout of nifles, like the multitude,
With no one limb of any art endued,
Like would to like, and praise you: but because
Your poem only hath by us applause;
Renews the Golden Age, and holds through all
The holy laws of homely Pastoral,
Where flowers, and founts, and nymphs, and semi-gods,
And all the Graces, find their old abodes;
Where poets flourish but in endless verse,
And meadows nothing-fit for purchasers:
This Iron Age, that eats itself, will never
Bite at your Golden World, that others ever
Loved as itself. Then, like your Book, do you
Live in old peace: and that far praise allow.
G. Chapman.
[Commendatory Verses before the “Rebellion,” a Tragedy, by T. Rawlins, 1640.]
To see a Springot of thy tender age
With such a lofty strain to word a Stage;
To see a Tragedy from thee in print,
With such a world of fine meanders in’t;
Puzzles my wond’ring soul: for there appears
Such disproportion ’twixt thy lines and years,
That, when I read thy lines, methinks I see
The sweet-tongued Ovid fall upon his knee
With “Parce Precor.” Every line and word
Runs in sweet numbers of its own accord.
But I am thunderstruck, that all this while
Thy unfeather’d quill should write a tragic style.
This, above all, my admiration draws,
That one so young should know dramatic laws:
Tis rare, and therefore is not for the span
Or greasy thumbs of every common man.
The damask rose that sprouts before the Spring,
Is fit for none to smell at but a king.
Go on, sweet friend: I hope in time to see
Thy temples rounded with the Daphnean tree;
And if men ask “Who nursed thee?” I’ll say thus,
“It was the Ambrosian Spring of Pegasus.”
Robert Chamberlain.
C. L.