4 ST NICOTINE 



It is hard to say what plagues Drayton refers to, but it 

 does seem unkind of EUzabethan scholars to have so 

 neglected Sir John Beaumont, the purity and simplicity of 

 whose life and elevated tone of work place him in marked 

 contrast to his more versatile and distinguished brother, 

 Francis. 



Leaving the domain of the poet let us turn our gaze for 

 a moment towards the heavens. Night's sable mantle 

 shrouds a sleeping world, and all is repose save the spirit 

 of our dreams. Freed from control the ever active one 

 flits at will in the realms of fairy-land, overleaping all 

 difficulties, revelling in phantasms new and wonderful till 

 day dawns, when she returns to her abode in man's heavy 

 brain to lighten the labour of his daily toil, and to store up 

 memories of a world closed to mortal eyes. 



A distant murmur as of an approaching storm disturbs 

 the stillness of the night, from gathering clouds serpent- 

 tongued lightning flashes across the sky; the furies rage, 

 the curtains of the heavens open and lo ! Jupiter appears 

 glowing with unwonted fire. He vows he will suffer no 

 longer the flouting scorn of imperious Juno, and with anger- 

 distended nostrils he sniffs the ethereal air. But what is 

 this that steals over his heated senses ? Subduing, sooth- 

 ing, consoling more sweetly than incense from Aphrodite's 

 favoured altars. It ascends in cloudy wavelets from the 

 abodes of mortals. He determines to hold a council of 

 the gods and summons thereto the heroes of Earth famed 

 throughout Elysium for their knowledge of the odic essence 

 whose spirit has entered his own and quelled the rising of 

 a conjugal storm. 



Silently there glides into view a host of genial witnesses 

 to St Nicotine's balmy influence over the troubled spirits 

 of mortals. Leading the spectral throng are Ben Jonson 



