part ii
. 1671, p. 87; and in _Loyal Garland_, 1686, as “The Platonick Lover” (reprinted by Percy Soc., xxix. 64). There should be a comma in fifth line, after the word Constancy. Various readings:—Verse 2, _meanest_ wit; and _yet_ a; 3, His _dear_ addresses; walls be _brick_ or stone.
Page 100. _’Tis late and cold, stir up the fire._
This Song, by JOHN FLETCHER, in his _Lover’s Progress_, Act iii. sc. 1., before 1625. The music is found in Additional MS. No. 11,608 (written about 1656), fol. 20; there called “Myne Ost’s Song, sung in _ye Mad Lover_ [wrong: a different play], set by Robt. Johnson.” It re-appears in _Wit and Drollery_ 1661, p. 212; in the _Academy of Complements_, 1670, p. 175, &c. It is the Song of the Dead Host, whose return to wait upon his guests and ask their aid to have his body laid in consecrated ground, is so humorously described. His forewarnings of death to Cleander are, to our mind, of thrilling interest. These scenes were Sir Walter Scott’s favourites; but Leigh Hunt, perversely, could see no merit in them. We believe that the tinge of sepulchral dullness in Mine Host enhances the vividness of the incidents, like the taciturnity of Don Guzman’s stony statue in Shadwell’s “Libertine.”
Thus the hundred-paged volume of _Choyce Drollery_, 1656,—“Delicates served up by frugall Messes, as aiming at thy satisfaction not saciety,”—comes to an end, with Beaumont and Fletcher. On them remembrance loves to rest, as the fitting representatives of that class of courtly gentlemen, poets, wits, and scholars, who were, to a great extent, even then, fading away from English society. To them had been visible no phase of the Rebellion, and they probably never conceived that it was near. Beaumont, with his statelier reserve, and his tendency to quiet musing, fostered “under the shade of melancholy boughs” at Grace-Dieu, had early passed away, honoured and lamented; a month before his friend Shakespeare went to rest: Shakespeare, who, having known half a century of busy life, felt contented, doubtless, to fulfil the wish that he had long before expressed, himself, almost prophetically:—
_“Let me not live,”—_ _Thus his good melancholy oft began, ..._ _“After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff_ _Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses_ _All but new things disdain; whose judgments are_ _Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies_ _Expire before their fashions:”—this he wished._
Fletcher survived nine years, and battled on with somewhat of spasmodic
## action; at once widowed and orphaned by the death of his close friend
and work-fellow; winning fresh triumphs, it is true, and leaving many a trace of his bright genius like a gleam of heaven’s own light across the sadness and corruption of an imaginary world, that was not at all unreal in heroism or in wickedness. He also passed away while young; a few months later than the time when Charles the First came to the throne, suddenly elevated by the death of his father James, bringing abruptly to a consummation that marriage with the French Princess which did so much to lead him and his country into ruin. The year 1625 was the separating date between the autumnal ripeness and the chill of fruitless winter. A sunny glow remains on Fletcher to the last. With him it fades, and the world that he had known is changed.
[End of Notes to _Choyce Drollery_.]
APPENDIX.