As chaste as unsunn'd snow."
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liis is a most amiable picture of conjugal delicacy, but it may be justlyobjected that it draws tlic curtains of the marriage-bed, and exposes it tothe view of the world ; and if the reader turns to the speech of which it isa part, he will find much grosser expressions in the sequel. But thesewere so far from offending the ears ot our ancestors, that Beaumont andFletcher, though so often ffuilty of them, are perpetually celebrated by thewriters of their own and of the following age, as the great reformers of thedrama from bazs>dry and ribaldry. Thus when Fletcher's charming Pas-toral, The Faithful Shepherdess, had been damned by its first night'saudience, Jonson says that they damned it for want of the vicious andbawdy scenes which they had been accustomed to, and then breaks out ina rapture worthy of Jonson, worthy of Fletcher: ** I that am glad thy innocence was thy guilt.And wish that all the mutes blood was spiltIn such a martyrdom, to vex their evesDo crown thy murder'd poem, ^c, * Y6t even this pattern of chastity is not free frojai expressions which wouldnow be justly deemed too gross for the stage. Sir John Berkenhead,speaking of Fletcher's Works in general, says. «< And as thy thoughts were clear, so innocent, ThYfancy gave do unswept language vent,
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