His Works (says Momus) nay, his Plays you'd say: Thou hast said right, for that to him was Play Which was to others braines a toyle: with ease He playd on Waves which were Their troubled Seas.... But to the Man againe, of whom we write, The Writer that made Writing his Delight, Rather then Worke. He did not pumpe, nor drudge, To beget Wit, or manage it; nor trudge To Wit-conventions with Note-booke, to gleane Or steale some Jests to foist into a Scene: He scorn'd those shifts. You that have known him, know The common talke that from his Lips did flow, And run at waste, did savour more of Wit, Then any of his time, or since have writ, (But few excepted) in the Stages way: His Scenes were Acts, and every Act a Play. I knew him in his strength; even then when He-- That was the Master of his Art and Me-- Most knowing Johnson (proud to call him Sonne) In friendly Envy swore, He had out-done His very Selfe. I knew him till he dyed; And at his dissolution, what a Tide Of sorrow overwhelm'd the Stage; which gave Volleys of sighes to send him to his grave; And grew distracted in most violent Fits (For She had lost the best part of her Wits) ... "Others," concludes this old admirer unpretentiously, Others may more in lofty Verses move; I onely, thus, expresse my Truth and Love. No better testimony to the character of the man who, even though Jonson was still writing, became absolute sovereign of the stage after Shakespeare and Beaumont had ceased, can be found than such as the preceding. To Fletcher's innate modesty, other contemporaries, Lowin and Taylor, who acted in many of his plays, bear testimony in the _Dedication_ of _The Wild-Goose Chase_: "The Play was of so Generall a receiv'd Acceptance, that (he Himself a Spectator) we have known him unconcern'd, and to have wisht it had been none of His; He, as well as the throng'd Theatre (in despite of his innate Modesty) Applauding this rare issue of his Braine." He was the idol of his actors: "And now, Farewell, our Glory!" continue, in 1652, these victims of "a cruell Destinie"--the closing of the theatres at the outbreak of the Civil War,--"Farewell, your Choice Delight, most noble Gentlemen! Farewell, the grand Wheel that set Us Smaller Motions in Action!"--The wheel of Shakespeare, Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger.--"Farewell, the Pride and Life o' the Stage! Nor can we (though in our Ruin) much repine that we are so little, since He that gave us being is no more."