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Until doomfday; for hardly will a fift3
Betwixt this day and that by fate be flain,
For whom your curtains may be drawn again.
But if precedency in death doth bar
A fourth place in your facred fepulchre,
Under this carved marble of thine own,
Sleep, rare tragedian, Shakspeare, fleep alone.
Thy unmolefted peace, unfhared cave,
Poffefs, as lord, not tenant, of thy grave;
That unto us and others it may be
Honour hereafter to be laid by thee.

WILLIAM BASSE.

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 I 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 praife a matron; what could hurt her more? But thou art proof againft them; and, indeed, Above the ill fortune of them, or the need:

3 Fifth was formerly corruptly written and pronounced fift. I have adhered to the old fpelling on account of the rhyme. This corrupt pronunciation yet prevails in Scotland, and in many parts of England. MALONE,

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:
Thou art a monument, without a tomb;
And art alive ftill, while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praife to give,
That I not mix thee fo, my brain excufes;
I mean, with great but difproportion'd muses:
For, if I thought my judgment were of years,
I fhould commit thee furely with thy peers;
And tell how far thou didft our Lyly outfhine,
Or fporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.7

to make thee a room :] See the preceding verfes by Baffe.

MALONE.

our Lyly outfhine,] Lyly 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 in the Moon, C. To the pedantry of this author perhaps we are indebted for the first attempt to polifh and reform our language. See his Euphues and his England. STEEVENS.

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 his 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 Maus in 1602. in the 56th year of his age. STEEVENS.

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

Chriftopher Marlowe was born probably about the year 1566. as

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

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordoua dead,
To life again, to hear thy buskin tread.
And fhake 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 afhes come.
Triumph, my Britain! thou haft one to fhow,
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 herfelf was proud of his defigns,
And joy'd to wear the dreffing of his lines;
Which were fo richly fpun, and woven fo 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,

he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Cambridge, in 1583. I do not believe that he ever was an ador, nor can I find any authority for it higher than the Theatrum Poetarum of Philips, in 1674. which is inaccurate in many circumstances. Beard, who four years after Marlowe's death gave a particular account of him, does not fpeak of him as an actor. "He was," fays that writer," by profeffion a fcholler, brought up from his youth in the universitie of Cambridge, but by practice a play-maker and a poet of fcurrilitie." Neither Drayton, nor Decker, nor Nahe, nor the author of The Return from Parnaffus, 1606. nor Heywood in his prologue to The Jew of Malta, give the flighteft 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.

As they were not of Nature's family.
Yet muft I not give nature all; thy art,
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 fweat,
(Such as thine are) and ftrike the fecond heat
Upon the mufes' anvil; turn the same,
(And himself with it) that he thinks to frame;
Or, for the laurel, he may gain a fcorn, --
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; "

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thy art,

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My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part:] Yet this writer in his. conversation with Mr. Drummond of Hawthornden in 1619. faid, that Shakspeare "wanted art, and fometimes fenfe." MALONE. 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 speak Latin, fo I fay that the Mufes would fpeak with Shakspeare's fine filed phrase, if they would fpeak English." Wit's Treafury, by Francis Meres, 1598.

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 author of Theatrum Poetarum, 1674. "all the laws of tragedy, were exactly observed, yet fill this tour entrejantė, this poetick energie, if I may fo call it, would be required to give life to all the reft; which fhines through the rougheft, most unpolish'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 poetick 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.

In his well-torned and true-filed lines ;] Jonfon is here translating the claffick phrases tornati & limati verfus. Does not the poet in the next line by the expreffion shake a lance intend to play on the name of Shakspeare? So, in Two Bookes of Epigrammes and Epitaphs, by Thomas Bancroft, Lond. 1639. 4to.

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In each of which he feems to shake a lance,
As brandifh'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 those flights upon the banks of Thames,
That fo did take Eliza, and our James!
But ftay; I fee thee in the hemifphere
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.

Dryden in the D'edication to his Tranflation of Juvenal terms these verfes by Jonfon an infolent, Sparing, and invidious panegyrick.

extinctus amabitur idem.

HOLT WHITE.

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

the gracious Duncan

"Was pitied of Macbeth :

marry, he was dead."

Let us now compare the prefent eulogium 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 hiftory 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 it contains fome hiftorical anecdotes and altercations concerning Ben Johnson, 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 Firft, muft know, that Ben Jonson, from great critical language, which was then the portion but of very few,