TO THE GREAT VARIETY OF READERS,

ROM the most able, to him that can but spell: There you are number'd. We had rather you were weighd. Especially, when the fate of all Bookes depends upon your capacities: and not of your heads alone, but of your purses. Well! it is now publique, and you wil stand for your priviledges wee know. to read, and censure. Do so, but buy it first. That doth best commend a Booke, the Stationer saies. Then, how odde soever your braines be, or your wisedomes, make your licence the same, and spare not. Iudge your sixe-pen'orth, your shillings worth, your fiue shillings worth at a time, or higher, so you rise to the just rates, and welcome. But, what euer you do, Buy. Censure will not driue a Trade, or make the Iacke go. And though you be a Magistrate of wit, and sit on the Stage at Black-Friers, or the Cock-pit, to arraigne Playes dailie, know, these Playes haue had their triall alreadie, and stood out all Appeales; and do now come forth quitted rather by a Decree of Court, then any purchas'd Letters of commendation.

It had bene a thing, we confesse, worthie to have bene wished, that the Author himselfe had lived to haue set forth, and ouerseen his owne writings; But since it hath bin ordain'd otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you, doe not envie his Friends, the office of their care, and paine, to haue collected & publish'd them;

and so to have publish'd them, as where (before) you were abus'd with diuerse stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of injurious impostors, that expos'd them: euen those are now offer'd to your view cur'd, and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceived the Who, as he was a happie imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together and what he thought, he vttered with that easinesse, that wee have scarse receiued from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our prouince, who onely gather his works, and giue them you, to praise him. It is yours that reade him. And there we hope, to your diuers capacities, you will finde enough, both to draw, and hold you: for his wit can no more lie hid, then it could be lost. Reade him, therefore; and againe, and againe : And if then you doe not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger, not to vnderstand him. And so we leaue you to other of his Friends, whom if you need, can bee your guides: if you neede them not, you can leade your selves, and others. And such readers we wish him.

JOHN HEMINGE,
HENRIE CONDEIL.

MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: AND WHAT HE HATH LEFT US.

O 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 echo's 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 room9:
Thou art a monument without a tomb,

This refers to some lines by William Basse, beginning:-
Renowned Spenser lie a thought more nigh

To learned Chaucer; and rare Beaumont lie

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 Lily outshine,
Or sporting Kid, or Marlow's mighty line.

And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee, I will not seek
For names; but call forth thund'ring Eschylus,
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.

A little nearer Spenser, to make room

For Shakespeare in your threefold fourfold tomb.

oes not appear that they were printed before 1633, when they iven among Donnes's Poems, printed in quarto in that year. are also to be found in the edition of Francis Beaumont's given by Blaicklock in 1653, 8vo.

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 Muse's 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-torned, and true-filed lines:

In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
As brandisht 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 volumes light.

BEN JONSON1.

1 Ben Jonson also wrote the following lines, which are prefixed before the portrait of Shakespeare, by Droeshant, in the folio editions:

TO THE READER.

This Figure, that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the Graver had a strife
With Nature, to out-doo the life:
O, could he but have drawne his wit
As well in brasse, as he hath hit

His face; the Print would then surpasse
All, that was ever writ in brasse.
But since he cannot, Reader looke

Not on his Picture, but his Booke.

B. L.