Beaumont _lyes here; and where now shall we have A Muse like his to sigh upon his grave? Ah! none to weepe this with a worthy teare, But he that cannot,_ Beaumont, _that lies here. Who now shall pay thy Tombe with such a Verse As thou that Ladies didst, faire_ Rutlands _Herse? A Monument that will then lasting be, When all her Marble is more dust than she. In thee all's lost: a sudden dearth and want Hath seiz'd on Wit, good Epitaphs are scant; We dare not write thy Elegie, whilst each feares He nere shall match that coppy of thy teares. Scarce in an Age a Poet, and yet he Scarce lives the third part of his age to see, But quickly taken off and only known, Is in a minute shut as soone as showne._ _Why should weake Nature tire her selfe in vaine In such a peice, to dash it straight againe? Why should she take such worke beyond her skill, Which when she cannot perfect, she must kill? Alas, what is't to temper slime or mire? But Nature's puzled when she workes in fire: Great Braines (like brightest glasse) crack straight, while those Of Stone or Wood hold out, and feare not blowes. And wee their Ancient hoary heads can see Whose Wit was never their mortality:_ Beaumont _dies young, so_ Sidney _did before, There was not Poetry he could live to more, He could not grow up higher, I scarce know If th' art it selfe unto that pitch could grow, Were't not in thee that hadst arriv'd the hight Of all that wit could reach, or Nature might. O when I read those excellent things of thine, Such Strength, such sweetnesse coucht in every line, Such life of Fancy, such high choise of braine, Nought of the Vulgar wit or borrowed straine, Such Passion, such expressions meet my eye, Such Wit untainted with obscenity, And these so unaffectedly exprest, All in a language purely flowing drest, And all so borne within thy selfe, thine owne, So new, so fresh, so nothing trod upon. I grieve not now that old_ Menanders _veine Is ruin'd to survive in thee againe; Such in his time was he of the same peece, The smooth, even naturall Wit, and Love of Greece. Those few sententious fragments shew more worth, Then all the Poets_ Athens _ere brought forth; And I am sorry we have lost those houres On them, whose quicknesse comes far short of ours, And dwell not more on thee, whose every Page May be a patterne for their Scene and Stage. I will not yeeld thy Workes so meane a Prayse; More pure, more chaste, more sainted then are Playes, Nor with that dull supinenesse to be read, To passe a fire, or laugh an houre in bed. How doe the Muses suffer every where, Taken in such mouthes censure, in such eares, That twixt a whiffe, a Line or two rehearse, And with their Rheume together spaule a Verse? This all a Poems leisure after Play, Drinke or Tabacco, it may keep the Day. Whilst even their very idlenesse they thinke