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with divers stolen, and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors, that exposed them; even those, are now offered to your view cured, and perfect of their limbs, and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceived them. Who, as he was a happy imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together; and what he thought, he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our province, who only gather his works, and give them you, to praise him. It is yours that read him. And there we hope, to your divers capacities, you will find enough, both to draw, and hold you; for his wit can no more lie hid, than it could be lost. Read him, therefore; and again, and again: and if then you do not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger, not to understand him. And so we leave you to other of his friends, who, if you need, can be your guides: if you need them not, you can lead yourselves, and others. And such readers we wish him.

JOHN HEMINGE.
HENRY CONDELL.

COMMENDATORY VERSES.

Upon the Effigies of my worthy Friend, the Author, Master William Shakespeare, and his Works. Spectator, this life's shadow is :-to see

The truer image, and a livelier he,

Turn reader. But observe his comic vein,
Laugh; and proceed next to a tragic strain,
Then weep: so,-when thou find'st two contraries,
Two different passions from thy wrapt soul rise,-
Say, (who alone effect such wonders could)
Rare Shake-speare to the life thou dost behold.

An Epitaph on the admirable Dramatic Poet, W. Shakespeare.'

What need my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones, The labour of an age in piled stones;

Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid

Under a star-ypointing pyramid?

Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,

What need'st thou such dull witness of thy name?
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,

Hast built thyself a lasting monument:

For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easy numbers flow; and that each part
Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued book,

We

1 An Epitaph on the admirable Dramatic Poet, W. Shakespeare.] These lines, like the preceding, have no name appended to them in the folio, 1632, but the authorship is ascertained by the publication of them as Milton's, in the edition of his Poems in 1645. Svo. give them as they stand there, because it is evident that they were then printed from a copy corrected by the author: the variations are interesting, and Malone pointed out only one, and that certainly the least important. Instead of "weak witness" in line 6, the folio 1632 has "dull witness :" instead of "live-long monument," in line 8, the folio has "lasting monument:" instead of "heart," in line 10, the folio has "part," an evident misprint: and instead of itself bereaving," in line 13, the folio has "herself bereaving." The last is the difference mentioned by Malone, who also places " John Milton" at the end, as if the name were found in the folio of 1632.

VOL. I.-A

Those Delphic lines with deep impression took;
Then thou, our fancy of herself bereaving,
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And, so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

To the Memory of the deceased Author, Master W. Shakespeare.

Shake-speare, at length thy pious fellows give
The world thy works; thy works, by which outlive
Thy tomb thy name must: when that stone is rent,
And time dissolves thy Stratford monument,
Here we alive shall view thee still this book,
When brass and marble fade, shall make thee look
Fresh to all ages; when posterity

Shall loathe what's new, think all is prodigy
That is not Shakespeare's, every line, each verse,
Here shall revive, redeem thee from thy hearse.
Nor fire, nor cankering age, as Naso said

Of his, thy wit-fraught book shall once invade :
Nor shall I e'er believe or think thee dead,
(Though miss'd) until our bankrupt stage be sped
(Impossible) with some new strain t' out-do
Passions of Juliet, and her Romeo;

Or till I hear a scene more nobly take,

Than when thy half-sword parleying Romans spake :'

1 Than when thy half-sword parleying Romans spake :] Leonard Digges prefixed a long copy of verses to the edition of Shakespeare's Poems in 1640, 8vo, in which he makes this passage, referring to "Julius Cæsar," more distinct; he also there speaks of the audiences Shakespeare's plays at that time drew, in comparison with Ben. Jonson's. This is the only part of his production worth,adding in a note. "So have I seen, when Cæsar would appear,

And on the stage at half-sword parley were
Brutus and Cassius, O, how the audience

Were ravish'd! with what wonder they went thence!
When, some new day, they would not brook a line

Of tedious, though well-labour'd, Cataline;

Sejanus too, was irksome: they priz'd more

'Honest' Iago, or the jealous Moor.

And though the Fox and subtil Alchymist,

Long intermitted, could not quite be mist,

Though these have sham'd all th' ancients, and might raise
Their author's merit with a crown of bays,

Yet these sometimes, even at a friend's desire,

Acted, have scarce defray'd the sea-coal fire,

And door-keepers: when, let but Falstaff come,

Hal, Poins, the rest,-you scarce shall have a room,

All is so pester'd let but Beatrice

And Benedick be seen, lo! in a trice

The cock-pit, galleries, boxes, all are full,

To hear Malvolio, that cross-garter'd gull.

Brief, there is nothing in his wit-fraught book,

Whose sound we would not hear, on whose worth look," &c.

Till these, till any of thy volume's rest,
Shall with more fire, more feeling, be express'd,
Be sure, (our Shake-speare,) thou canst never die,
But, crown'd with laurel, live eternally.

L. DIGGES.

To the Memory of M. W. Shake-speare.

We wonder'd (Shake-speare) that thou went'st so soon
From the world's stage to the grave's tiring-room :
We thought thee dead; but this thy printed worth
Tells thy spectators, that thou went'st but forth
To enter with applause. An actor's art

Can die, and live to act a second part:
That's but an exit of mortality,

This a re-entrance to a plaudite.

I. M.1

To the Memory of my beloved, the Author, Mr. William
Shakespeare, and what he hath left us.

To draw no envy (Shakespeare) on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book, and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such,

As neither man, nor muse, can praise too much;
"T is true, and all men's suffrage; but these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise:
For seeliest ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;
Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;
Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin, where it seem'd to raise :
These are, as some infamous bawd, or whore,
Should praise a matron; what could hurt her more?
But thou art proof against them; and, indeed,
Above th' ill fortune of them, or the need.
I, therefore, will begin :-Soul of the age,
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage,
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser; or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room2:
Thou art a monument without a tomb;
And art alive still, while thy book doth live,

1 Perhaps the initials of John Marston.

2 Referring to lines by William Basse, then circulating in MS., and not printed (as far as is now known) until 1633, when they were falsely imputed to Dr. Donne, in the edition of his poems in that year. All the MSS. of the lines, now extant, differ in minute particulars.

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