The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes. Beaumont Francis

      To flatter living fooles is easie slight:

      But hard, to do the living-dead men right.

      To praise a Landed Lord, is gainfull art:

      But thanklesse to pay Tribute to desert.

      This should have been my taske: I had intent

      To bring my rubbish to thy monument,

      To stop some crannies there, but that I found

      No need of least repaire; all firme and sound.

      Thy well-built fame doth still it selfe advance

      Above the Worlds mad zeale and ignorance,

      Though thou dyedst not possest of that same pelfe

      (Which Nobler soules call durt,) the City wealth:

      Yet thou hast left unto the times so great

      A Legacy, a Treasure so compleat,

      That 'twill be hard I feare to prove thy Will:

      Men will be wrangling, and in doubting still

      How so vast summes of wit were left behind,

      And yet nor debts nor sharers they can finde.

      'Twas the kind providence of fate, to lock

      Some of this Treasure up; and keep a stock

      For a reserve untill these sullen daies:

      When scorn, and want, and danger, are the Baies

      That Crown the head of merit. But now he

      Who in thy Will hath part, is rich and free.

      But there's a Caveat enter'd by command,

      None should pretend, but those can understand.

      Though Poets have a licence which they use

      As th' ancient priviledge of their free Muse;

      Yet whether this be leave enough for me

      To write, great Bard, an Eulogie for thee:

      Or whether to commend thy Worke, will stand

      Both with the Lawes of Verse and of the Land,

      Were to put doubts might raise a discontent

      Between the Muses and the –

      I'le none of that. There's desperate wits that be

      (As their immortall Lawrell) Thunder-free;

      Whose personall vertues, 'bove the Lawes of Fate,

      Supply the roome of personall estate: