To the Memory of my Beloved,
the Author, Mr. WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE,
and what he hath left us.

To draw no envy, Shakspeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book, and fame;
While I confefs thy writings to be fuch,

As neither man, nor mufe, can praise too much;
'Tis true, and all men's fuffrage: but thefe ways
Were not the paths 1 meant unto thy praise:
For feelieft ignorance on thefe may light,
Which, when it founds at beft, 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 praife,
And think to ruin, where it feem'd to raise :
These are, as fome infamous bawd, or whore,
Should praise a matron; what could hurt her more?
But thou art proof against them; and, indeed,
Above the ill fortune of them, or the need:
I, therefore, will begin :-Soul of the age,
The applaufe, delight, the wonder of our stage,
My Shakspeare, rife! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenfer; or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room 3:
Thou art a monument, without a tomb;
And art alive ftill, while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mix thee fo, my brain excufes;
I mean, with great but difproportion'd mufes:
For, if I thought my judgment were of years,
I fhould commit thee furely with thy peers;
And tell-how far thou didft our Lily outfhine4,
Or sporting Kyd3, or Marlowe's mighty line".

3- to make thee a room;] See the preceding verfes by Baffe.

And

MALONE.

4our Lily outfbine,] Lylly wrote nine plays during the reign of Q. Eliz. viz. Alexander and Campafpe, T. C; Endymion, C; Galatea, C; Loves Metamorphofis, Dram: Paft; Maids Metamorphofis, C Mother Bombie, C; Mydas, C; Sapho and Phao, C; and Woman

[N 4]

in

And though thou hadft fmall Latin, and lefs Greek,
From thence to honour thee, I would not feek
For names; but call forth thund'ring Æfchylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles, to us,

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To life again, to hear thy buskin tread

In the Moon, C. To the pedantry of this author perhaps we are indebted for the first attempt to polish and reform our language. See his Eupbues and bis England. STEEVENS.

5 or Sporting Kyd,] It appears from Heywood's Actor's Vindication that Thomas Kyd was the author of the Spanish Tragedy. The late Mr. Hawkins was of opinion that Soliman and Perfeda was by the fame hand. The only piece however, which has defcended to us, even with the initial letters of his name affixed to it, is Pompey the Great bis fair Cornelia's Tragedy, which was first published in 1594, and, with fome alteration in the title-page, again in 1595. This is no more than a tranflation from Robert Garnier, a French poet, who diftinguished himself during the reigns of Charles IX. Henry III. and Henry IV. and died at Mans in 1602, in the 56th year of his age. STEEVENS.

6 or Marlowe's mighty line.] Marlowe was a performer as well as an author. His contemporary Heywood calls him the best of poets. He wrote fix tragedies, viz. Dr. Fauftus's Tragical Hiftory; King Edward II; Jew of Malta; Luft's Dominion; Massacre of Paris and Tamburlaine the Great, in two parts. He likewife joined with Nah in writing Dido Queen of Carthage, and had begun a translation of Mufæus's Hero and Leander, which was finished by Chapman, and published in 1606. STEEVENS.

Christopher Marlowe was born probably about the year 1566, as he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Cambridge, in 1583. I do not believe that he ever was an actor, nor can I find any authority for it higher than the Theatrum Poetarum of Philips, in 1674, which is inaccurate in many circumftances. Beard, who four years after Marlowe's death gave a particular account of him, does not speak of him as an actor. "He was," fays that writer, by profeffion a fcholler, brought up from his youth in the univerfitie of Cambridge, but by practice a play-maker and a poet of fcurrilitie." Neither Drayton, nor Decker, nor Nafhe, nor the authour of the Return from Parnaffus, 1606, nor Heywood in his prologue to the few of Malta, give the flightest intimation of Marlowe's having trod the ftage. He was ftabbed in the street, and died of the wound, in 1593. His Hero and Leander was published in quarto, in 1598, by Edward Blount, as an imperfect work. The fragment ended with this line: "Dang'd down to hell her loathfome carriage." Chapman completed the poem, and published it as it now appears, in 1600. MALONE.

And

And shake a ftage: or, when thy focks were on,
Leave thee alone; for the comparison

Of all, that infolent Greece, or haughty Rome,
Sent forth, or fince did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain! thou haft one to show,
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time;
And all the mufes ftill 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 defigns,
And joy'd to wear the dreffing of his lines;
Which were fo richly fpun, and woven so fit,
As, fince, fhe will vouchfafe no other wit:
The merry Greek, tart Ariftophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
But antiquated and deferted lie,

As they were not of Nature's family.
Yet muft I not give nature all; thy art7,
My gentle Shakspeare, muft enjoy a part:-
For, though the poet's matter nature be,
His art doth give the fashion: and that he,
Who cafts to write a living line, muft sweat,
(Such as thine are) and ftrike the second heat
Upon the mufes' anvil; turn the fame,
(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 fuch wert thou. Look, how the father's face
Lives in his iffue; even fo the race

Of Shakspeare's mind, and manners, brightly fhines
In his well-torned and true-filed lines;

7 thy art,

In

My gentle Shakspeare, muft enjoy a part:-] Yet this writer in his converfation with Mr. Drummond of Hawthornden in 1619, faid, that Shakspeare "wanted art, and sometimes fenfe." MALONE.

8

-true-filed lines;] The fame praife is given to Shakspeare by a preceding writer. "As Epius Stolo faid that the Mufes would fpeak with Plautus his tongue, if they would fpeak Latin, fo I fay that the Mufes would fpeak with Shakspeare's fine filed phrafe, if they would speak English." Wit's Treafury, by Francis Meres, 1598.

In each of which he feems to shake a lance,
As brandish'd at the eyes of ignorance.
Sweet fwan of Avon, what a fight it were,
To fee thee in our waters yet appear;

And make thofe flights upon the banks of Thames,
That so did take Eliza, and our James!
But ftay; I fee thee in the hemisphere
Advanc'd, and made a conftellation there :-
Shine forth, thou ftar of poets; and with rage,

Or influence, chide, or cheer, the drooping ftage;
Which, fince thy flight from hence, hath mourn'd like

night,

And defpairs day, but for thy volume's light!

BEN. JONSON.

Upon

It is fomewhat fingular that at a fubfequent period Shakspeare was cenfured for the want of that elegance which is here justly attributed to him. "Though all the laws of Heroick Poem," fays the authour of Theatrum Poetarum, 1674, "all the laws of tragedy, were exactly obferved, yet still this tour entrejanté, this poetick energie, if I may fo call it, would be required to give life to all the reft; which shines through the rougheft, moft unpolifh'd and antiquated language, and may haply be wanting in the most polite and reformed. Let us obferve Spenfer, with all his ruftick obfolete words, with all his rough-hewn clouterly phrafes, yet take him throughout, and we shall find in him a graceful and poetic majeftie: in like manner Shakspeare, in spite of all his unfiled expreffions, his rambling and indigefted fancies, the laughter of the critical, yet must be confefs'd a poet above many that go beyond him in literature fome degrees." MALONE.

9

extin&tus amabitur idem.

This obfervation of Horace was never more completely verified than by the pofthumous applause which Ben Jonson has bestowed on SbakSpeare:

the gracious Duncan

Was pitied of Macbeth :-marry, be was dead.

L tus now compare the prefent elogium of old Ben with fuch of his other fentiments as have reached pofterity.

In April 1748, when the Lover's Melancholy by Ford, (a friend and contemporary of Shakspeare,) was revived for a benefit, the following letter appeared in the General, now the Public, Advertiser.

"It is hoped that the following gleaning of theatrical biftory will readily obtain a place in your paper. It is taken from a pamphlet written in the reign of Charles I. with this quaint title, "Old Ben's Light Heart made heavy by Young John's Melancholy Lover;" and

as

Upon the Lines, and Life, of the famous

Scenick Poet, Mafter WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

Thofe hands, which you fo clapp'd, go now and wring, You Britains brave; for done are Shakspeare's days; His days are done, that made the dainty plays,

Which made the globe of heaven and earth to ring:

Dry'd as it contains fome hiftorical anecdotes and altercations concerning Ben Jonson, Ford, Shakspeare, and the Lover's Melancholy, it is imagined that a few extracts from it at this juncture, will not be unentertaining to the publick.'

Those who have any knowledge of the theatre in the reigns of James and Charles the First, muft know, that Ben Jonson, from great critical language, which was then the portion but of very few, his merit as a poet, and his conftant affociation with men of letters, did, for a confiderable time, give laws to the ftage.'

Ben was by nature fplenetic and four; with a fhare of envy, (for every anxious genius has fome) more than was warrantable in fociety. By education rather critically than politely learned; which fwell'a his mind into an oftentatious pride of bis own works, and an overbearing inexorable judgment of his contemporaries."

This raised him many enemies, who towards the clofe of his life endeavoured to dethrone this tyrant, as the pamphlet ftiles him, out of the dominion of the theatre. And what greatly contributed to their defign, was the flights and malignances which the rigid Ben too frequently threw out against the lowly Shakspeare, whofe fame fince his death, as appears by the pamphlet, was grown too great for Ben's envy either to bear with or wound.'

It would greatly exceed the limits of your paper to fet down all the contempts and invectives which were uttered and written by Ben, and are collected and produced in this pamphlet, as unanswerable and fhaming evidences to prove his ill-nature and ingratitude to Shakspeare, who first introduced him to the theatre and fame.

But though the whole of thefe invectives cannot be fet down at prefent, fome few of the heads may not be disagreeable, which are as follow.'

That the man had imagination and wit none could deny, but that they were ever guided by true judgment in the rules and conduct of a piece, none could with juftice affert, both being ever fervile to raise the laughter of fools and the wonder of the ignorant. That he was a good poet only in part,-being ignorant of all dramatick laws,-had little Latin-lefs Greek-and fpeaking of plays, &c.

To make a child new fwaddled, to proceed

Man, and then fhoot up, in one beard and weed,

• Paft