The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. by John Fletcher;Francis Beaumont
page 38 of 92 (41%)
page 38 of 92 (41%)
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_That Subject_; _That Joy_ must be _Extacye_.
_Fury_ is the _Complexion_ of _great Wits_; The _Fooles Distemper_: Hee, thats _mad_ by _fits_, Is _wise so_ too. It is the _Poets Muse_; The _Prophets God_: the _Fooles_, and _my excuse_. For (in _Me_) nothing lesse then _Fletchers Name_ Could have _begot_, or _justify'd_ this _flame_. _Beaumont_ } _Fletcher_ } _Return'd?_ methinks it should not be. _No_, not in's _Works_: _Playes_ are as _dead_ as _He_. The _Palate_ of _this age gusts_ nothing _High_; That has not _Custard_ in't or _Bawdery_. _Folly_ and _Madnesse_ fill the _Stage_: The _Scæne_ Is _Athens_; _where_, the _Guilty_, and the _Meane_, The _Foole 'scapes_ well enough; _Learned_ and _Great_, Suffer an _Ostracisme_; stand _Exulate_. _Mankinde_ is _fall'n againe_, _shrunke_ a _degree_, A _step_ below his very _Apostacye_. _Nature_ her _Selfe_ is out of _Tune_; and _Sicke_ Of _Tumult_ and _Disorder_, _Lunatique_. Yet _what World_ would not cheerfully _endure_ The _Torture_, or _Disease_, t' _enjoy_ the _Cure?_ _This Booke's_ the _Balsame_, and the _Hellebore_, Must _preserve bleeding Nature_, and _restore_ Our _Crazy Stupor_ to a _just quick Sence_ Both of _Ingratitude_, and _Providence_. That teaches us (at _Once_) to _feele_, and _know_, _Two deep Points_: what we _want_, and what we _owe_. |
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