LIST OF ACTORS IN THE FOLIO OF 1623.

The Names of the principal Actors in all these Plays.

To the memory of my beloved, the author, Master 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 :
'Tis 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,
Th' 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 room:
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still, while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,—
I mean, with great but disproportion'd Muses;
For if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line:

And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee I would not seek

'An allusion to the following lines by William Basse, which are found in Mss. with several variations: they appear to have been first printed in 1633 among the poems of Donne, to whom they were wrongly attributed;

"Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh

To learned Chaucer; and, rare Beaumont, lie
A little nearer Spenser; to make room
For Shakespeare in your threefold fourfold tomb:
To lodge all four in one bed make a shift
Until doomsday; for hardly will a fifth,
Betwixt this day and that, by fate be slain,
For whom your curtains may be drawn again.
But if precedency in death doth bar

A fourth place in your sacred sepulchre,
Under this carvèd marble of thine own,

Sleep, rare tragedian, Shakespeare, sleep alone:

Thy unmolested peace, unshared cave,
Possess as lord, not tenant, of thy grave;

That unto us and others it may be

Honour hereafter to be laid by thee."

a

For names; but call forth thundering schylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova, dead,

To life again, to hear thy buskin tread

And shake a stage; or when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone for the comparison

Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain! thou hast one to show,
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.

He was not of an age, but for all time;

And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm.
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joy'd to wear the dressing of his lines;
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
As since she will vouchsafe no other wit:
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
But antiquated and deserted lie,

As they were not of Nature's family.
Yet must I not give Nature all; thy art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part:
For though the poet's matter nature be,
His art doth give the fashion; and that he
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,-
Such as thine are,—and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same,

And himself with it, that he thinks to frame;

Or, for the laurel, he may gain a scorn,—

For a good poet's made, as well as born:

And such wert thou. Look how the father's face

Lives in his issue; even so the race

Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines

In his well-tornèd and true-filèd lines;

In each of which he seems to shake a lance,

As brandish'd at the eyes of ignorance.

Sweet Swan of Avon, what a sight it were

To see thee in our waters yet appear,

And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
That so did take Eliza and our James!

But stay; I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanc'd, and made a constellation there:

Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage

Or influence chide or cheer the drooping stage;

Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourn'd like night,
And despairs day, but for thy volume's light.

BEN: JONSON.

To the memory of the deceased author, Master W. Shakespeare.

Shakespeare, at length thy pious fellows give

The world thy works; thy works, by which out-live
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 bankrout 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 :

Till these, till any of thy volume's rest,

Shall with more fire, more feeling be express'd,
Be sure, our Shakespeare, thou canst never die,
But, crown'd with laurel, live eternally.

LEONARD] DIGGES.2

* LEONARD DIGGES.] Born in London, was educated at University College, Oxford; to which college, after travelling "into several countries," he

To the memory of Master W. Shakespeare.

We wonder'd, Shakespeare, 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.3

Upon the lines and life of the famous scenic poet, Master William

Shakespeare.

Those hands which you so clapp'd, go now and wring,
You Britons brave; for done are Shakespeare's days;
His days are done that made the dainty plays,
Which made the Globe of heaven and earth to ring:
Dried is that vein, dried is the Thespian spring,

retired; and died there in 1635. Though a very poor poet, he was a person of considerable accomplishments, as is shown by his translation of Claudian's Rape of Proserpine, and of Gonçalo de Cespides's Gerardo, the unfortunate Spaniard. He has another and much longer eulogy on Shakespeare, prefixed to the edition of our author's Poems, 1640. See Wood's Athenæ Oxon., vol. ii. p. 592, ed. Bliss. As Digges contributed lines to Mabbe's translation of Guzman de Alfarache (vide the next note), he perhaps composed the present verses at the desire of Blount.

3 I. M.] That these are the initials of James Mabbe has been proved almost to demonstration by Mr. Bolton Corney in Notes and Queries, Sec. Series, vol. xi. p. 3.-Mabbe, a native of Surrey, and fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, is described by Wood as "a learned man, good orator, and a facetious conceited wit." Ath. Oxon., vol. iii. p. 54, ed. Bliss. Having been taken into the service of Sir John Digby, afterwards Earl of Bristol, he accompanied him as secretary in one of his embassies to Spain, where he remained with him several years. He was in holy orders, became prebendary of Wells, and died at Abbotsbury, Dorset, about 1642. Of the translations from the Spanish, which he put forth under the pseudonym of Don Diego Puede-ser,-i. e. Mr. James May-be or Mabbe,-the best known is The Rogue, or the life of Guzman de Alfarache, by Mateo Aleman. This version (which originally appeared in 1623, folio) was not only published, but also edited by Edward Blount, one of the four stationers at whose charges the first folio of Shakespeare was printed; and in all probability, as Mr. Bolton Corney suggests, the above verses were written by Mabbe at Blount's request, "in return for his editorial services on Guzman."