More pure, more chaste, more sainted than are plays: Nor with that dull supineness to be read, To pass a fire, or laugh an hour in bed. How do the Muses suffer every where, Taken in such mouth's censure, in such ears, That 'twixt a whiff, a line or two rehearse, And with their rheume together spaul a verse? This all a poem's leisure after play, Drink, or tobacco, it may keep the day: Whilst ev'n their very idleness they think Is lost in these, that lose their time in drink. Pity then dull we, we that better know, Will a more serious hour on thee bestow. Why should not _Beaumont_ in the morning please, As well as _Plautus_, _Aristophanes_? Who, if my pen may as my thoughts be free, Were scurril wits and buffoons both to thee; Yet these our learned of severest brow Will deign to look on, and to note them too, That will defy our own, 'tis English stuff, And th' author is not rotten long enough, Alas! what phlegm are they compar'd to thee, In thy _Philaster_, and _Maid's-Tragedy_? Where's such a humour as thy _Bessus_? pray Let them put all their _Thrasoes_ in one play, He shall out-bid them; their conceit was poor, All in a circle of a bawd or whore; A coz'ning dance; take the fool away And not a good jest extant in a play. Yet these are wits, because they'r old, and now Being Greek and Latin, they are learning too: But those their own times were content t'allow A thirsty fame, and thine is lowest now. But thou shalt live, and, when thy name is grown Six ages older, shall be better known, When th' art of _Chaucer's_ standing in the tomb, Thou shalt not share, but take up all his room. JOHN EARLE. No. VII. DEDICATION TO THE LATIN TRANSLATION OF THE [Greek: Eikon Basilike]. "Serenissimo et Potentissimo Monarchae, Carolo Secundo. Dei Gratia Magnae Britanniae, Franciae et Hiberniae Regi, Fidei Defensori, &c. Serenissime Rex,