TO THE MEMORE OF THE DECEASED AUTHOUR MAISTER W. SHAKESPEARE.
HAKE-SPEARE, at length thy pious fellows gine
The world thy Workes: thy Workes, by which outline
Thy Tombe, thy nam name must, when that stone is rent And Time dissolues thy Stratford Moniment,
Here we aline shall view thee still. This Booke When Brasse and Marble fade, shall make thee looke Fresh to all Ages: when Posteritie
Shall loath what's new, thinke all is prodegie
That is not Shake-speares; eu'ry Line, each Verse
Here shall reuiue, redeeme thee from thy Herse.
Nor Fire, nor cank'ring Age, as Naso said,
Of his, thy wit-fraught Booke shall once inuade
Nor shall I e're beleeue, or thinke thee dead
(Though mist) until our bankrout Stage be sped
(Impossible) with some new straine t'out-do
Passions of Juliet and her Romeo ;
Or till I heare a Scene more nobly take
Then when thy half-Sword parlying Romans spake.
Till these, till any of thy Volumes rest
Shall with more fire, more feeling be exprest,
Be sure our Shake-speare, thou canst neuer dye,
But crown'd with Laurell, liue eternally.
TO THE MEMORIE OF
M. W. SHAKE-SPEARE.
E wondred (Shake-speare) that thou went'st so
From the World's-Stage, to the Graues-Tyring
Wee thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth,
Tels thy Spectators, that thou went'st but forth
To enter with applause. An Actors Art
Can dye, and liue to acte a second part.
That's but an Exit of Mortalitie;
This, a Re-entrance to a Plaudite.
VPON THE LINES AND LIFE OF THE FAMOUS SCENICKE POET
MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
HOSE hands, which you so clapt, go now, and wring
You Britaines braue; for done are Shake
His dayes are done, that made the dainty Playes,
Which made the Globe of heau'n and earth to ring
Dry'de is that veine, dry'd is the Thespian Spring,
Turn'd all to teares, and Phoebus clouds his rayes:
That corps, that coffin now besticke those bayes,
Which crown'd him Poet first, then Poets King.
If Tragedies might any Prologue haue,
All those he made, would scarse make one to this:
Where Fame, now that he gone is to the graue
(Deaths publique tyring-house) the Nuncius is.
For though his line of life went soone about
The life yet of his lines shall neuer out.
HVGH HOLLAND.
2 These lines are probably by John Marston.
FROM THE SECOND FOLIO EDITION OF 1632.
ON WORTHY MASTER SHAKESPEARE
AND HIS POEMS.
MIND reflecting ages past, whose clear
And equal surface can make things appear
Distant a thousand years, and represent
Them in their lively colours' just extent.
To out-run hasty time, retrieve the fates,
Roll back the heavens, blow ope the iron gates
Of death and Lethe, where confused lie
Great heaps of ruinous mortality.
In that deep dusky dungeon to discern
A royal ghost from churl's; by art to learn
The physiognomy of shades, and give
Them sudden birth, wond'ring how oft they live,
What story coldly tells, what poets feign,
At second hand, and picture without brain,
Senseless and soulless shows: To give a stage
(Ample and true with life) voice, action, age,
As Plato's year and new scene of the world
Them unto us, or us to them had hurl'd.
To raise our antient sovereigns from their herse,
Make kings his subjects, by exchanging verse,
Enlive their pale trunks, that the present age
Joys in their joy, and trembles at their rage:
Yet so to temper passion, that our ears
Take pleasure in their pain; and eyes in tears
Both weep and smile; fearful at plots so sad,
Then laughing at our fear; abus'd and glad
To be abus'd; affected with that truth
Which we perceive is false; pleas'd in that ruth
At which we start; and by elaborate play
Tortur'd and tickled; by a crab-like way
Time past made pastime, and in ugly sort
Disgorging up his ravine for our sport:
-While the plebeian imp, from lofty throne,
Creates and rules a world, and works upon
Mankind by secret engines; now to move
A chilling pity, then a rigorous love:
To strike up and stroke down both joy and ire;
To steer th' affections, and by heavenly fire
Mould us anew. Stol'n from ourselves-
This and much more which cannot be exprest
But by himself, his tongue, and his own breast,
Was Shakespeare's freehold; which his cunning brain
Improv'd by favour of the ninefold train :
The buskin'd Muse; the comic Queen; the grand
And louder tone of Clio; nimble hand
And nimbler foot of the melodious pair;
The silver-voiced lady; the most fair
Calliope, whose speaking silence daunts;
And she whose praise the heavenly body chaunts:
These jointly woo'd him, envying one another
(Obey'd by all as spouse, but lov'd as brother)
And wrought a curious robe of sable grave,
Fresh green, and pleasant yellow, red most brave,
And constant blue, rich purple, guiltless white,
The lowly russet, and the scarlet bright;
Branch'd and embroider'd like the painted Spring;
Each leaf match'd with a flower, and each string
Of golden wire, each line of silk; there run
Italian works whose thread the sisters spun;
And there did sing or seem to sing, the choice
Birds of a foreign note and various voice:
Here hangs a mossy rock, there plays a fair
But chiding fountain, purled: Not the air,
Nor clouds, nor thunder, but were living drawn
Not out of common tiffany or lawn,
But fine materials which the Muses know,
And only know the countries where they grow.
Now when they could no longer him enjoy
In mortal garments pent ;—death may destroy
They say his body, but his verse shall live,
And more than nature takes, our hands shall give:
In a less volume, but more strongly bound,
Shakespeare shall breathe and speak; with laurel crown'd
Which never fades: Fed with Ambrosian meat,
In a well-lined vesture rich and neat.
So with this robe they clothe him, bid him wear it, For time shall never stain, nor envy tear it.
The friendly admirer of his Endowments,
* These admirable verses were prefixed to the second folio printed in 1632; they are a noble tribute from a contemporary to the genius of our immortal Poet. Conjecture had been vainly employed upon the initials I. M. S. affixed, until Mr. Hunter having occasion to refer to the Iter Lancastrense, a poem by Richard James, Fellow of Christ's College, Oxford, an eminent зcholar and antiquary, the friend of Selden and Sir Robert Cotton, was struck with the similarity of style, the same unexpected and abrupt breaks in the middle of the lines, and the same dispcsition to view every thing under its antiquarian aspect, which we find in these verses, and therefore suggested the great probability that by I. M. S. we must understand IaMeS.
Without being at all aware of Mr. Hunter's suggestion, my excellent friend Mr. Lloyd had come to the same conclusion, from having seen some lines by James, printed in Mr. Halliwell's Essay on the Character of Falstaff. The coincident opinion of two independent and able authorities would be in itself conclusive, and for my own part, I have no doubt that it is to Richard James these highly poetical lines to the memory of the Poet must be attributed.
That Jasper Mayne could not have written them is quite evident, from his pedestrian verses to the Memory of Ben Jonson ; and that they are not by Milton, and have no traces of his hand, is equally evident, although Mr. Collier feels " morally certain that they are by him!" The late Mr. Boaden thought they were from the pen of George Chapman; and it must be confessed that the structure of the verse would countenance the supposition; but whoever will compare the poems printed with the Iter Lancastrense by Mr. Corser, will need no further evidence that these verses are by the same hand.
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