To_ Fletchers _memory his offering. That thus at last unsequesters the Stage, Brings backe the Silver, and the Golden Age_. Robert Gardiner. To the _Manes_ of the celebrated Poets and Fellow-writers, _Francis Beaumont_ and _John Fletcher_, upon the Printing of their excellent Dramatick Poems. _Disdaine not Gentle Shades, the lowly praise Which here I tender your immortall Bayes. Call it not folly, but my zeale, that I Strive to eternize you that cannot dye. And though no Language rightly can commend What you have writ, save what your selves have penn'd; Yet let me wonder at those curious straines (The rich Conceptions of your twin-like Braines) Which drew the Gods attention; who admir'd To see our English Stage by you inspir'd. Whose chiming Muses never fail'd to sing A Soule-affecting Musicke; ravishing Both Eare and Intellect, while you do each Contend with other who shall highest reach In rare Invention; Conflicts that beget New strange delight, to see two Fancies met, That could receive no foile: two wits in growth So just, as had one Soule informed both. Thence_ (_Learned_ Fletcher) _sung the muse alone, As both had done before, thy_ Beaumont _gone. In whom, as thou, had he outlived, so he (Snatch'd first away) survived still in thee. What though distempers of the present Age Have banish'd your smooth numbers from the Stage? You shall be gainers by't; it shall confer To th' making the vast world your Theater. The Presse shall give to ev'ry man his part, And we will all be Actors; learne by heart Those Tragick Scenes and Comicke Straines you writ, Un-imitable both for Art and Wit; And at each_ Exit, _as your Fancies rise, Our hands shall clap deserved Plaudities._ John Web. To the desert of the Author in his most Ingenious Pieces.