high in London. Both _Beggars' Bush_ and _The Coxcombe_ abound in rural scenes; but the latter especially, in scenes that might have been suggested by Grace-Dieu and its neighborhood. The rubric prefixed to the _Letter_ by the publishers is of negligible authority. The 'me' and 'us' of the _Letter_ itself do not necessarily designate Fletcher as the companion of Beaumont's rustication: they stand at one time for country-folk; at another for the Mermaid circle, Jonson, Chapman, Fletcher, probably Shakespeare, Drayton, Cotton, Donne, Hugh Holland, Tom Coryate, Richard Martin, Selden (of Beaumont's Inner Temple), and other famous wits and poets; at another for Jonson and Beaumont alone. The date of the poem must be determined from internal evidence. It is written with the careless ease of long-standing intimacy. It is of a genial, jocose, and fairly mature, epistolary style. It betrays the literary assurance of one whose reputation is already established. Beaumont is in temporary banishment from London, for lack of funds--therefore, considerably later than 1606, when he was presumably well off; for in that year he had just come into a quarter of his brother, Sir Henry's, private estate. He longs now for the stimulus of the merry meetings in Bread-street, as one whose wit has been sharpened by them for a long time past: Methinks the little wit I had is lost Since I saw you; for Wit is like a Rest Held up at Tennis, which men do the best With the best gamesters; ... up here in Leicestershire "The Countrey Gentlemen begin to allow My wit for dry bobs." "In this warm shine" of our hay-making season, soberly deferring to country knights, listening to hoary family-jests, drinking water mixed with claret-lees, "I lye and dream of your full Mermaid Wine": What things have we seen Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtill flame, As if that every one from whence they came Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, And had resolv'd to live a foole, the rest Of his dull life. Then, when there hath been thrown Wit able enough to justifie the Town For three daies past,--wit that might warrant be For the whole City to talk foolishly Till that were cancell'd,--and, when that was gone, We left an Aire behind us, which alone Was able to make the two next Companies Right witty; though but downright fooles, more wise. When he remembers all this, he "needs must cry," but one thought of Ben Jonson cheers him: