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 torned, and true-filed 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
Advanced, 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.
From Underwoods, folio 1640
Lord Bacon's birthday, 1621
Hail, happy Genius of this ancient pile!
How comes it all things so about thee smile?
The fire, the wine, the men; and in the midst
Thou stand'st as if some mystery thou didst.
Pardon, I read it in thy face, the day
For whose returns, and many, all these pray;
And so do I. This is the sixtieth year,
Since BACON, and thy lord, was born, and here;
Son to the grave wise Keeper of the Seal,
Fame and foundation of the English Weal.
What then his father was, that since is he,
Now with a title more to the degree;
England's high Chancellor the destin'd heir,
In his soft cradle, to his father's chair:
Whose even thread the fates spin round and full,
Out of their choicest and their whitest wool.
'Tis a brave cause of joy, let it be known,
For 'twere a narrow gladness, kept thine own.
Give me a deep-crowned bowl, that I may sing,
In raising him, the wisdom of my king.
To Henry Reynolds, Of Poets and Poesy
That noble Chaucer in those former times,
The first enriched our English with his rhymes,
And was the first of ours that ever brake
Into the Muses' treasure, and first spake
In weighty numbers, delving in the mine
Of perfect knowledge, which he could refine
And coin for current, and as much as then
The English language could express to men
He made it do, and by his wondrous skill
Gave us much light from his abundant quill.
And honest Gower, who in respect of him
Had only sipped at Aganippe's brim,
And though in years this last was him before,
Yet fell he far short of the other's store.
When after those, four ages very near,
They with the Muses which conversed were
That princely Surrey, early in the time
Of the Eight Henry, who was then the prime
Of England's noble youth; with him there came
Wyat, with reverence whom we still do name;
Amongst our poets Brian had a share
With the two former, which accompted are
That time's best makers and the authors were
Of those small poems which the title bear
Of songs and sonnets, wherein oft they hit
On many dainty passages of wit.
Gascoigne and Churchyard after them again,
In the beginning of Eliza's reign,
Accounted were great meterers many a day,
But not inspired with brave fire; had they
Lived but a little longer, they had seen
Their works before them to have buried been.
Grave moral Spenser after these came on,
Than whom I am persuaded there was none,
Since the blind bard his Iliads up did make,
Fitter a task like that to undertake;
To set down boldly, bravely to invent,
In all high knowledge surely excellent.
The noble Sidney with this last arose,
That heroe for numbers and for prose,
That throughly paced our language, as to show
The plenteous English hand in hand might go
With Greek and Latin, and did first reduce
Our tongue from Lyly's writing then in use;
Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies,
Playing with words and idle similes;
As the English, apes and very zanies be
Of everything that they do hear and see,
So imitating his ridiculous tricks,
They spake and writ all like mere lunatics.
Then Warner, though his lines were not so trimmed,
Nor yet his poem so exactly limned
And neatly jointed, but the critic may
Easily reprove him, yet thus let me say
For my old friend, some passages there be
In him which I protest have taken me
With almost wonder, so fine, clear, and new,
As yet they have been equalled by few.
Next Marlowe, bathed in the Thespian springs,
Had in him those brave translunary things
That the first poets had; his raptures were
All air and fire, which made his verses clear;
For that fine madness still he did retain
Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.
And surely Nashe, though he a proser were,
A branch of laurel yet deserves to bear,
Sharply satiric was he, and that way
He went, since that his being to this day
Few have attempted, and I surely think
Those words shall hardly be set down with ink
Shall scorch and blast so as his could, where he
Would inflict vengeance; and be it said of thee,
Shakespeare, thou hadst as smooth a comic vein,
Fitting the sock, and in thy natural brain.
As strong conception and as clear a rage,
As any one that trafficked with the stage.
Amongst these Samuel Daniel, whom if I
May speak of, but to censure do deny,
Only have heard some wise men him rehearse
To be too much historian in verse;
His rhymes were smooth, his metres well did close,
But yet his manner better fitted prose.
Next these, learn'd Jonson in this list I bring,
Who had drunk deep of the Pierian spring,
Whose knowledge did him worthily prefer,
And long was lord here of the theatre;
Who in opinion made our learn'dst to stick
Whether in poems rightly dramatic,
Strong Seneca or Plautus, he or they
Should bear the buskin or the sock away.
Others again here lived in my days,
That have of us deserved no less praise
For their translations, than the daintiest wit
That on Parnassus thinks he high'st doth sit,
And for a chair may 'mongst the Muses call,
As the most curious maker of them all;
As reverent Chapman, who hath brought to us
Musæus, Homer, and Hesiodus
Out of the Greek; and by his skill hath reared
Them to that height, and to our tongue endeared,
That were those poets at this day alive,
To see their books thus with us to survive,
They would think, having neglected them so long,
They had been written in the English tongue.
From Tottel's Songs and Sonnets, 1557
Of the Courtier's Life
To join the mean with each extremity,
With nearest virtue aye to clothe the vice;
And, as to purpose likewise it shall fall,
To press the virtue that it may not rise.
As drunkenness good fellowship to call;
The friendly foe, with his fair double face,
Say he is gentle, and courteous therewithal;
Affirm that favel hath a goodly grace
In eloquence; and cruelty to name
Zeal of justice; and change in time and place.
And he that suffereth offence without blame,
Call him pitiful; and him true and plain,
That raileth rechless unto each man's shame.
Say he is rude, that cannot lie and feign;
The lecher a lover; and tyranny
To be the right of a prince's reign:
I cannot, I; no, no! it will not be.
This is the cause that I could never yet
Hang on their sleeves that weigh, as thou mayst see,
A chip of chance more than a pound of wit.
This maketh me at home to hunt and hawk,
And in foul weather at my book to sit;
In frost and snow, then with my bow to stalk
No man doth mark whereso I ride or go;
In lusty leas at liberty I walk.
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