The bitterest experiences of humanity are sprung from misapprehension,--"They have most power to hurt us that we love,"--or from jealousy, slander, unwarranted violence, unmerited pain. And for these the only solace is in death. About this truth Beaumont weaves a shroud of unsullied beauty, a poetry that has rarely been surpassed. In nearly all that he has left us the thought recurs; but nowhere better expressed than in those lines, already quoted in full from _Philaster_, where Bellario "knows what 'tis to die ... a lasting sleep; a quiet resting from all jealousy." His Arethusa repeats the theme; but with a wistful incertitude: I shall have peace in death Yet tell me this: there will be no slanders, No jealousy in the other world; no ill there? "No," replies her unjustly suspicious lover.--And she:--"Show me, then, the way!" No kinder mercy to the tempted, misconceived heir of mortality has been vouchsafed than to 'suffer him to find his quiet grave in peace.' So think Panthea and Arbaces; and so his Urania and Leucippus find. And so the poet closes that rare elegy to his beloved Countess of Rutland: I will not hurt the peace which she should have, By longer looking in her quiet grave. But still more powerful in its blessing than 'sleep' and the 'peace' of the 'quiet grave,' and more fearful in its bane than the penalties of hell,--one reality persists--the award of 'after-ages.' Bellario would not reveal what she has learned, to make her life 'last ages.' Philaster's highest praise for Arethusa is "Thou art fair and virtuous still to ages." "Kill me," says Amintor to Evadne,-- Kill me; all true lovers, that shall live In after-ages crossed in their desires, Shall bless thy memory. Ricardo of the _Coxcombe_ would have some woman 'grave in paper' their 'matchless virtues to posterities.' Even the mock-romantic Jasper in the _Knight_ (which I am sure is all Beaumont) will try his sweetheart's love 'that the world and memory may sing to after-times her constancy.' As to evil, it meets its punishment both in heredity and in the verdict of generations yet to come. "I see," soliloquizes the usurping King in a passage already quoted from _Philaster_: You gods, I see that who unrighteously Holds wealth or state from others shall be cursed In that which meaner men are blest withal: Ages to come shall know no male of him Left to inherit, and his name shall be Blotted from earth; if he have any child It shall be crossly matched. "Show me the way," cries Arbaces to his supposed mother, and thinking of heredity, "to the inheritance I have by thee, which is a spacious world Of impious acts." And Amintor warns Evadne: "Let it not rise up for thy shame and mine To after-ages.... We will adopt us sons; The virtue shall inherit and not blood." "May all ages," prays the lascivious Bacha in _Cupid's Revenge_, "May all ages,"--