On Mr John Fletchers Works.

SO shall we joy, when all whom Beasts and Worms
Had turn'd to their own substances and forms,
Whom Earth to Earth, or Fire hath chang'd to Fire,
We shall behold more then at first entire;
As now we do, to see all thine thy own
In this thy Muses Resurrection,
Whose scatter'd parts, from thy own race, more wounds
Hath suffer'd, then Acteon from his Hounds;
Which first their Brains, and then their Bellie, fed,
And from their excrements new Poets bred.
But now thy Muse enraged from her Urn
Like Ghosts of Murdered bodies does return
T' accuse the Murderers, to right the Stage,
And undeceive the long abused Age,
Which casts thy praise on them, to whom thy wit
Gives not more Gold then they give dross to it:
Who not content like Felons to Purloyn,
Adde treason to it, and debase thy Coyn.
But whither am I straid? I need not raise
Trophies to thee from other mens dispraise;
Nor is thy Fame on lesser ruines built,
Nor needs thy juster Title the soul guilt
Of Eastern Kings, who to secure their reign,
Must have their Brothers, Sons, and Kindred slain.
Then was wits Empire at the Fatal height,
When labouring and sinking with its weight,
From thence a Thousand lesser Poets sprung
Like petty Princes▪ from the fall of Rome;
When Iohnson, Shakespear, and thy self did sit,
And sway'd in the triumvirate of wit—
Yet what from Iohnson's oyl and sweat did flow,
Or what more easie Nature did bestow
On Shakespear's gentler Muse, in thee full grown
Their graces both appear, yet so, that none
Can say here Nature ends, and Art begins,
But mixt like th' Elements and born like twins,
So interweav'd, so like, so much the same,
None, this meer Nature, that meer Art can name:
'Twas this the Antients mean't; Nature and Skill
Are the two tops of their Parnassus Hill.