[126] Clark's _Aubrey's Brief Lives_, II, 175, 239. Not Mary (Curzon), the wife of the fourth Earl, as Professor Elton, _Drayton_ (1895), p. 45, has it. [127] After the appearance of Montague's edition of King James's _Works_, and before the execution of Raleigh. [128] Save for non-dramatic productions such as Ben Jonson's _Epigrams_, etc. [129] Grosart, _D. N. B._, art, _Sir John Beaumont_, and _Sir J. B.'s Poems_, xxxvi. [130] _B. and F._, Vol. I, lii. [131] Revised by Earle for the _Commendatory Verses_, Folio 1647; but I have retained some of the readings of the 1640 copy included in Beaumont's _Poems_. [132] The version given above is that of Brit. Mus. _MS. Lansdowne_ 777. Of other versions one is attributed to Donne; but the Lansdowne is the most authentic, and the evidence of authorship is all for Basse, whose name follows in the Lansdowne manuscript. So, Miss L. T. Smith in _Centurie of Praise_, p. 139. [133] Mr. Bullen, _D. N. B._, under _Fitzgeffrey_, queries "Nathaniel Hooke." I have not been able to identify Hooke. [134] _Choice Drollery, Songs, and Sonnets, 1656, in Sh. Soc. Pap._, III, 172. [135] _The Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells._ [136] Through the Villierses and therefore probably through the Coleorton Beaumonts. CHAPTER XIV TRADITION, AND TRADITIONAL CRITICISM What we learn from tradition, and from the criticism of the century following Beaumont's death, adds little to what we already have observed concerning his life and personality. Concerning his share in the joint-plays, it adds much, mostly wrong; but of that, later. Mosely, in his address of _The Stationer to the Readers_ prefixed to the folio of 1647, announces that knowing persons had generally assured him "that these Authors were the most unquestionable Wits this Kingdome hath afforded. Mr. Beaumont was ever acknowledged a man of a most strong and searching braine; and (his yeares considered) the most Judicious Wit these later Ages have produced. He dyed young, for (which was an invaluable losse to this Nation) he left the world when hee was not full thirty yeares old. Mr. Fletcher survived, and lived till almost fifty; whereof the World now enjoyes the benefit." The dramatist, Shirley, in his address _To the Reader_ of the folio, says "It is not so remote in Time, but very many Gentlemen may remember these Authors; and some familiar in their conversation deliver them upon every pleasant occasion so fluent, to talke a Comedy. He must be a bold man," continues he, with a prophetic commonsense, "that dares undertake to write their Lives. What I have to say is, we have the precious Remaines; and as the wisest contemporaries acknowledge they Lived a Miracle, I am very confident this volume cannot die without one." Shirley also reminds the Reader that but to mention Beaumont and Fletcher "is to throw a cloude upon all former names and benight Posterity." "This Book being, without flattery,