jurious impostors, that expos'd them; even those are now offer'd to your view cur'd, and perfect of their limbs; and all the rest absolute in their numbers, as he conceived them: Who, as he was a happy imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together; and what he thought, he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our province, who only gather his works, and give them you, to praise him: it is yours that read him. And there we hope, to your divers capacities you will find enough both to draw, and hold you: for his wit can no more lie hid, than it could be lost. Read him, therefore; and again, and again: and if then you do not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger not to understand him. And so we leave you to other of his Friends, whom if you need, can be your guides: if you need them not, you can lead yourselves and others. And such Readers we wish him.

JOHN HEMINGE.

HENRIE CONDELL

COMMENDATORY VERSES.

Prefixed to the folio of 1623.

To the Memory of my beloved, the Author, Mr. 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 silliest 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 the ill fortune of them, or the need. I, therefore, will begin :- Soul of the age, The 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, or 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 Marlowe's mighty line:

And though thou hadst small Latin, and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee, I would not seek
For names; but call forth thundering 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:
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-turned 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
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
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

Shakespeare, at length thy pious fellows give
The world thy works; thy works, by which outlive
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' outdo 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.

L. DIGGES.

To the Memory of MR. 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.'

Upon the Lines and Life of the famous Scenic Pot, 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,

The sense of this line is more clearly expressed in some verses by the same author, prefixed to an edition of Shakespeare's Po ems in 1640.

"So have I seen, when Cæsar would appear, And on the stage at half-sword parley were Brutus and Cassius, O, how the audience

Were ravish'd! with what wonder they went thence!"

Supposed to be the initials of John Marston.

H.

B.