Hence all you fond delights,
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly
There 's nothing truly sweet
If men could truly see't
Save only melancholy
Come folded arms and fixed eyes
A sight that piercing mortifies
A look that is fastened to the ground
A tongue chained without a sound
Fountainheads and pathless grows
Places where pale passion loves
Moonli ght walks, when all the foals
Are warmly housed save bats & owls
A midnight's bell a parting groan
These are the sounds we feed upon
Then stretch your limbs in a still gloomy valley
There's not in the life sweet save melancholy
By Passionate Lord,
in The Nice Valour (3.3),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS English poetry e. 14, f. 84rev
If a man mean to live: not to fight & swagger, Beaten about the ears with bawling
sheepskins, cut to the soul for summer, here an arm lost &
there a leg, his honourable head seal’d up in salves, & cerecloths,
like a packet & so sent over to an hospital. & all this sport for
cheese, & chines of dogs flesh, & money when two wednesdays meet
together.
By Fool,
in The Mad Lover (1.2.320-328),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 2
4.
– if I studied the country's laws I should so easily sound all
their depth, & rise up such a wonder, that the pleaders that now are
in most practice, & esteem should starve for want of clients. If I travell'd like wise Ulysses to see men, & manners, I would return
in act more knowing than Homer could fancy him. If a physician
so oft I would restore death-wounded men, That where I lived
Galen should not be named, & he that join'd again the scattered limbs Of
torn Hippolytus should be forgotten. I could teach Ovid courtship. how
to win A Julia, & enjoy her, tho her dower were all the Sun gives
light to. And for arms, were the Persian host that drank up rivers
added to the Turks present powers, I could direct common, & marshal them
By Duarte,
in The Custom of the Country (2.1.111-28),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 3
–And
yet the courage they expressed being taken, & their contemt of death wan more upon me than all they did when they were free. methinks I
see them yet when they were brought aboard us disarmed & ready
to be put in fetters How on the sudden as if they had sworn
never to taste the bread of servitutde Both snatching up their swords
& from this Virgin Taking a farewell only with their eyes They leap'd
into the sea --
By Leopold,
in The Custom of the Country (2.2.9-18),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 11
& with such strength & cunning, they swim ming did delude the rising billows, with one hand making way
& with the other their bloody swords advanced, threatening the seagods
with war, unlesse they brought them safely off that I am almost
confident they live
By Leopold,
in The Custom of the Country (2.2.28-33),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 11
1.
The loves we now know are but the heats of half and hour & heated desires stirred up by nature to increase her licking of one another to a lust
coarse & base appetites, earth's mere inheritors and the heirs of idleness & blood.
By Memnon,
in The Mad Lover (2.1.132-44),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 12
things like ourselves as sensual, vain, unvented, bubbles and breaths of air
got with an itching, as blisters are and, bred, as much corruption flows from their lives; sorrow conceives & shapes
them. & oftentimes the death of those we love most the breeders bring them to
the world.
By Memnon,
in The Mad Lover (2.1.159-64),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 12
&c. p. 7
They make time old to tend them & experience an ass they
alter so. They grow. & goodly ere we can turn our thoughts, like drops of
water, they fall into the main, & are know no more. This is the love
of this world.
By Memnon,
in The Mad Lover (#2.1.167-71),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 12
Thou may wear him next thy heart, & yet not warm him. His mind ( poor man's) of the
law, how to live after, & not on lewdness. On my conscience he knows not how to
look upon a woman more than by reading what sex she is.
By Bartolus,
in The Spanish Curate (2.4.14-9),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 18
1. Enter a mask of beasts.
This lion was a man of war that died As thou wouldst do,
to gild his lady's pride. This dog a fool that hung himself for
love. This ape with daily hugging of a glove forgot to eat
& died. This goodly tree An usher that still grew before his
Lady witherd at root. This, for he could not woo, a grumbling
Lawyer. This pied bird a page, that melted out because he
wanted age.
By Orpheus,
in The Mad Lover (78-86),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 21
– 3
your presents. courtship, that s too good a
name, your sllave-like services your morning music, your walking
three hours in the rain at midnight To see her at her window,
sometimes laugh'd at, sometimes admitted, & vouchsafed to
kiss her glove, her skirt, nay I have heard her slippers. How then
you triumph'd?
By Cleremont,
in The Little French Lawyer (1.1.101-7),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 21
I dare tell you to your new cerused face, what I have spoke freely behind your back, what I think of you You are the proudest thing & have the least reason to be so, that I ever read of. In stature
you are a giantess, & your tailor takes measure of you with a
Jacobs staff, or he can never reach you. this, by the way For your large size. Now, in a word or two, To treat of your complexion were decorum, you
are so far from fair, I doubt your mother was too familiar
with the Moore that serve her. Y our limbs, & features I pass briefly
over, as things not worth description, & come roundly to your soul
if you have any. for ‘tis doubtful.
By Don Jamie,
in The Spanish Curate (4.1.32-46),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 23
-- join farm to farm, suffer no Lordship that in a clear day Falls
in the prospect of your covetous eye to be anothers. forget you are a grandee take use
upon use, & cut the throats of heirs with cozening Mortgages
rack your poor tenants, till they look like so many skeletons
for want of food: And when that widows' curses the ruins of ancient
families, tears of Orphans Have hurried you to the devil, ever remember all was raked up for me, your thankful brother, that will dance merrily upon your grave, perhaps give a double
pistolet to some poor needy friar to say a mass to keep
y our ghost from walking.
By Don Jamie,
in The Spanish Curate (1.1.197-211),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 27
If you can find a loophole though in hell, o look on my behaviour,you shallseeme him ransack y our iron chests. & once again
Pluto’s flamecoloured daughter shall be free to domineer in
Taverns, masks, & revels, as she was used before she was
y our captive.
By Don Jamie,
in The Spanish Curate (1.1.214-19),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 27
--at home he lived like a chameleon, suck'd the air of misery, & grew
fat by the brewis of an eggshell. would smell a cook's shop, & go
home, & surfeit, & be a month in fasting out that fever.
By Lopez,
in The Spanish Curate (4.5.19-23),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 27
2
– So jealous as if you would parallel Old Argus to him you
must multiply his eyes a hundred times. of these none sleep.
He that would charm the heaviest lid must hire a better
Mercury than Jove made use of.
By Don Jamie,
in The Spanish Curate (1.1.283-87),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 28
– My Amaranta
a retired sweet life, Private, & close, & still, & housewifely
becomes a wife, sets off the grace of woman. At home to be
believed both young. & handsome, As lilies that are cased in crystal glasses, Makes up the wonder: shew it abroad, ‘tis stale. &
still the more eyes cheapen it, ‘tis more slubberd. And what need
windows open to inviting? or evening terraces to take opinions when the most wholesome air my wife blows inwards, when good thoughts
are the noblest companions, & old chaste stories wife the best discourses. --
By Bartolus,
in The Spanish Curate (2.2.1-12),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 28
2
Can you with one hand prop a falling tower or with the
other stop the raging main when it breaks in on the usurped
shore, or any thing ] that is impossible? and then conclude that there is some
way left to move him to compassion ----
By Octavio,
in The Spanish Curate (1.2.6-11),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 29
– they eat nothing but herbs &
get nothing but green sauce. there are Some poor labourers that perhaps
once in seven years with helping one another produce some
few pined butter prints, that scarce hold the christening neither.
By Diego,
in The Spanish Curate (2.1.66-70),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 31
It would be requisite I should deck my Language with tropes, & figures, & all flourishes that grace a Rhetorician. 'tis confess'd Adulterate metals need the goldsmith's art to set em off. what in itself is perfect contemns a borrowed gloss.
By Bartolus,
in The Spanish Curate (3.3.70-75),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 34
a lawyer that entangles all
mens honesties. & lives like a spider in a cobweb lurking, &
catching at all flies that pass his pit-falls. puts powder to
all states to make ‘em caper.
By Lopez,
in The Spanish Curate (4.5.166-70),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 35
3
that daring vice for which the whole age suffers. The blood our bold
youth that heretofore was spent in honourable action Or to defend or
to enlarge the kingdom. For the honour of our country and our prince Pours itself out with Odd p abbreviation: check MUFI prodigal expense upon our
mothers lap the earth, that bred us, for every trifle.
By Cleremont,
in The Little French Lawyer (1.1.12-15),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 37
And I have heard
that some of our late Kings For the lie wearing of a mistress' favours, a cheat at cards, or dice Have lost as many gallant gentle
men, as might have met the great Turk in the field, with confidence
of a glorious Victory.
By Cleremont,
in The Little French Lawyer (1.1.29-35),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 37
– let me first fall
Before y our feet & on them pay the duty I owe your goodness. next all blessings to younext, all blessings to you, And Heaven restore the joys I have bereft you, With full increase hereafter!living be the goddess styled of
hospitality.
By Rutilo,
in The Custom of the Country (2.4.114-119),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 41
4.
He's a name only. & all good in him He must derive from
his great grandsires ashes. For had not their victorious acts be-
queath’d His titles to him, & wrote on his forehead This is a
Lord, he had lived unobserved By any man of mark, & died as
one Among the common rout.
By Duarte,
in The Custom of the Country (2.1.94-104),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 45
--Then we live indeed, when we can go to rest with out alarum Given every mintue to a guilt-sick conscience. To keep
us waking, & rise in the morning secure in being innocent; but
when in the remembrance of our worser actions we ever bear about us whips,
& furies To make the day a night of sorrow to us Even life’s a
burden .----
By Doctor,
in The Custom of the Country (4.1.6-14),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 48
– a fleshed
ruffian, who hath so often taken the strappado, that tis to him but
as a lofty trick Is to a tumbler. he hath perus’d too all
dungeons in the kingdomPortugual. thrice seven years row’d in the gallies
for three several murders. Though I presume that he has done a hundred, and scap'd unpunish'd.
By Zabulon,
in The Custom of the Country (4.2.6-13),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 49
So wise, as if you had eaten nothing but brains & marrow
of Machiavelli: you tip your speeches with Italian motti; spanish
refraines & English Quoth-Hees. Believe me, there's not a
a proverb salts your tongue, but plants whole colonies
of white Hairs.
By Sulpitia,
in The Custom of the Country (TLN2282-2287),
Francis Beaumont
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 71
Bid my sub-sizar carry my hackney to the buttery; / and give him his beaver Book says "bever," but then refers to beast. You may want to check -SH; it is a civil / and
sober beast, and will drink moderately, and that done turn him into the quadrangle.
By Charles,
in The Elder Brother (1.2.88-91),
Francis Beaumont
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 85v
Good brother Brisac, does your young courtier, that wears the fine clothes, and is the excellent gentleman, the traveller, the soldier, as you think too, understand any other power than his tailor? Or knows what motion is, more than an horse-race? / what the moon
means, but to light him home from taverns? / or the comfort of the sun is, but to wear slash'd
clothes in. / and must this piece of ignorance be popped up, because it can kiss the hand, and cry sweet lady?
By Miramont,
in The Elder Brother (2.1.68-72),
Francis Beaumont
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 85v
Thou monstrous piece of ignorance in office! / thou that hast no more knowledge than thy clerk infuses;/ thy dapper clerk, larded with ends of Latin, / and he no more than custom of offences; /
Thou unreprievable dunce! that thy formal bandstrings, / thy ring nor pomander can expiate for. / I'll
pose thy worship / in thine own library an almanac.
By Miramont,
in The Elder Brother (2.1.102-109),
Francis Beaumont
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 85v
Ask 'em any thing | out of [the] element of their understanding ,| and they stand gaping like a roasted pig. | Do they know any thing but a tired hackney?| And they 'Absurd!' as the horse understand 'em
By Cowsy,
in The Elder Brother (2.2.16-22),
Francis Beaumont
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 86r
Beauty clear and fair ;| where [the] air | rather like a sfume dwells; | where [the] violet and [the] rose| their blue veins in blush disclose | and come to honour nothing else. | Where to live near ,| and planted there,| is to live and still live new;| where to gain a favour is | more than life, perpetual bliss, | make me live by serving you.|| Dear, again back re- call, | to this light, | A Stronger to himself and all: | both [the] wonder and [the] story | shall be yours, and eke [the] glory | I am your servant and [your] thrall.
By Charles,
in The Elder Brother (3.5.77-94),
Francis Beaumont
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 86r
We'll live together like two wanton vines,| circling or souls and loves in one another; | We'll spring together, and We'll bear one fruit,| one joy shall make us smile, and one grief mourn, | one age go [with] us, and one hour of death| shall shut our eyes, and one grave make us happy.
By Charles,
in The Elder Brother (3.5.171-176),
Francis Beaumont
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 86r
you have no souls, no mettle in your bloods, no heat to stir ye when ye have occasion ,| frozen dull things [that] must be / turned [with] levers, | Are you the courtiers, and the travell'd gallants, The sprightly fellows, that the people talk of? Ye have no more spirit than three sleepy sops
By Brisac,
in The Elder Brother (4.1.4-9),
Francis Beaumont
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 86r
Ne'er stare, nor put on wonder: for you must / endure me and you shall. This earth you
tread upon, / (a dowry as you hope with this fair princess, / whose memory I bow to) was
not left / by my dead father (oh, I had a father whose memory I bow to!) was not left to your inheritance and I up and living./
having myself about me and my sword, / the souls of all my name, and memories, / these
arms and some few friends, beside the the gods, / to part so calmly with it and sit still, /
and say I might have been. I tell thee Pharamond / when thou are King
look I be dead and rotten / and my name ashes.
By Philaster,
in Philaster (1.1.186-198),
Francis Beaumont
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 93v
My lord, And none knows whether I shall live to do more service for you take this little prayer. Heaven bless your loves, your fights, all your designs! May sick men, if they have your wish, be well: / and heaven
hate those you curse though I be one.
By Bellario,
in Philaster (2.1.52-56),
Francis Beaumont
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 94r
they are two twinn'd cherries dyed in blushes, / which those fair suns above with their bright
beams / reflect upon and ripen: sweetest beauty, / bow down those branches, that the longing taste, / of the faint looker on, may meet those blessings, / and taste and live.
By Pharamond,
in Philaster (2.2.82-87),
Francis Beaumont
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 94r
xx
Thou piece / made by a painter, and a Pothecary: / thou troubled sea
of lust. thou wilderness, / inhabited by wild thoughts: thou swollen cloud / of infection.
By King,
in Philaster (2.4.139-143),
Francis Beaumont
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 94r
the winds that are let loose, / from the four several corners of the earth, / and spread themselves all over sea and
land, / And spread themselves all over sea and land kiss not a chaste one
By Philaster,
in Philaster (3.1.119-122),
Francis Beaumont
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 94r
'Tis less than to be born less than to be born, a lasting sleep, A quiet resting from all jealousy, A thing we all pursue I
know besides, it is but giving over of a game, [that] must be lost.
By Bellario,
in Philaster (3.1.256-260),
Francis Beaumont
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 94v
They feed upon opinions, errors, dreams, And make 'em truths; they draw a nourishment Out of defamings grow upon disgraces; And, when they see a virtue fortified Strongly above the battery of their tongues, Oh, how they cast to sink it! and, defeated, (Soul-sick with poison) strike the monuments Where noble names lie sleeping, till they sweat, And the cold marble melt.
By Arethusa,
in Philaster (3.2.37-45),
Francis Beaumont
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 94v