-

Them fudden birth, wond'ring how oft they live;
What flory coldly tells, what poets feign
At fecond hand, and picture without brain,
Senfelefs and foul-lefs fhews: 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 ancient fovereigns from their herse,
Make kings his fubjects; by exchanging verfe
Enlive their pale trunks, that the prefent age
Joys in their joy, and trembles at their rage:
Yet fo to temper paffion, that our ears

Take pleafure in their pain, and eyes in tears
Both weep and fmile; fearful at plots fo fad,
Then laughing at our fear; abus'd, and glad
To be abus'd; affected with that truth
Which we perceive is falfe, pleas'd in that ruth
At which we ftart, and, by elaborate play,
Tortur'd and tickl'd; by a crab-like way
Time paft made paftime, and in ugly fort
Difgorging up his ravin for our sport:

While the plebeian imp, from lofty throne,
Creates and rules a world, and works upon
Mankind by fecret engines; now to move
A chilling pity, then a rigorous love;

To ftrike up and ftroke down, both joy and ire;
To fteer the affections; and by heavenly fire
Mold us anew, ftoln from ourselves:

This, and much more, which cannot be exprefs'd
But by himself, his tongue, and his own breast,
Was Shakspeare's freehold; which his cunning brain
Improv'd by favour of the nine-fold train; -

The bufkin'd mufe, the comick queen, the grand
And louder tone of Clio, nimble hand
And nimbler foot of the melodious pair,
The filver-voiced lady, the most fair.
Calliope, whofe fpeaking filence daunts,

And the whofe praife the heavenly body chants,
These jointly woo'd him, envying one another; →
VOL. II.

Cc

Obey'd by all as spouse, but lov'd as brother;
And wrought a curious robe, of fable grave,
Fresh green, and pleafant yellow, red moft brave,
And conftant blue, rich purple, guiltlefs white,
The lowly ruffet, and the fcarlet bright:
Branch'd and embroider'd like the painted fpring;
Each leaf match'd with a flower, and each string
Of golden wire, each line of filk: there run
Italian works, whofe thread the fifters fpun;
And there did fing, or seem to fing, the choice
Birds of a foreign note and various voice :
Here hangs a moffy rock; there plays a fair
But chiding fountain, purled: not the air,
Not clouds, nor thunder, but were living drawn;
Nor out of common tiffany or lawn,

But fine materials, which the mufes know,
And only know the countries where they grow,
Now, when they could no longer him enjoy,
In mortal garments pent, death may deftroy,
They fay, his body, but his verfe fhall live,
And more than nature takes our hands fhall give:
In a lefs volume, but more ftrongly bound,
Shakspeare fhall breathe and fpeak; with laurel crown'd
Which never fades; fed with ambrofian meat,

In a well-lined vefture, rich, and neat:

So with this robe they clothe him, bid him wear it s For time fhall never ftain, nor envy tear it.

The friendly Admirer of his Endowments,

J. M. S.7

Probably, Jafper Mayne, Student. He was born in the year 1504. and became a member of Chrift Church, in Oxford, in 1623. where he was foon afterwards elected a Student. In 1628 he took a bachelor's degree, and in June 1631. that of a Master of Arts. These verfes firft appeared in the folio, 1632. MALONE,

A Remembrance of fome English Poets. By Richard
Barnefield, 1598.

And Shakspeare thou, whofe honey-flowing vein
(Pleafing the world.) thy praifes doth contain,
Whofe Venus, and whofe Lucrece, Tweet and chaste,
Thy name in fame's immortal book hath plac'd,
Live ever you, at leaft in fame live ever!
Well may the body die, but fame die never.

England's Mourning Garment, &c. 1603.

Nor doth the filver-tongued Melicert
Drop from his honied mufe one sable tear,
To mourn her death that graced his defert,
And to his laies open'd her royal ear.
Shepherd, remember our Elizabeth,

And fing her Rape, done by that Tarquin, death.

To Mafter W. SHAKSPEARE.

Shakspeare, that nimble Mercury thy brain
Lulls many-hundred Argus' eyes afleep,
So fit for all thou fafhioneft thy vein,

At the horfe-foot fountaine thou haft drunk full'deep.. Virtue's or vice's theme to thee all one is:

1

Who loves chafte life, there's Lucrece for a teacher: Who lift read luft, there's Venus and Adonis,

True model of a moft lafcivious lecher. Befides, in plays thy wit winds like Meander, When needy new compofers borrow more Than Terence doth from Plautus or Menander: But to praife thee aright, I want thy ftore. Then let thine own works thine own worth upraife, And help to adorn thee with deferved bays.

Epigram 92. in an ancient collection, entitled Run and a great Caft, 4to. by Tho. Freeman, 1614.

Shakspeare, thou hadft as fmooth a comick vein,
Fitting the fock, and in thy natural brain.
As ftrong, conception, and as clear a rage,
As any one that traffick'd with the ftage.

An Epitaph on the

Admirable Dramatick Poet, W. SHAKSPEARE.

What needs my Shakspeare for his honour'd bones, The labour of an age in piled ftones;

Or that his hallow'd reliques fhould be hid

Under a flar-ypointing pyramid?

Dear fon of memory, great heir of fame,

What need'ft thou fuch weak witnefs of thy name?
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,
Haft built thyfelf a live-long monument:
For whilft, to the fhame of flow-endeavouring art,
Thy eafy numbers flow; and that each heart.
Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued book,
Thofe Delphick lines with deep impreffion took ;
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,"
Doft make us marble with too much conceiving;
And, fo fepulcher'd, in fuch pomp doft lie,
That kings, for fuch a tomb, would wish to die.
JOHN MILTON.2

8 This poem is one of thofe prefixed to the folio edition of our author's plays 1632. and therefore is the first of Milton's pieces that was published. It appeared, however, without even the initials of his name. STEEVENS.

9

of itself bereaving,] So, the copy in Milton's Poems, printed by Mofely in 1645. That in the fecond folio, 1632. has of herself bereaving. MALONE.

Not

Thefe verfes were written by Milton in the year 1630. withstanding this juft eulogium, and though the writer of it appears to have been a very diligent reader of the works of our poet, from

Upon Mafter WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE,

the deceafed Author.

Poets are born, not made. When I would prove
This truth, the glad remembrance I muft love
Of never-dying Shakspeare, who alone
Is argument enough to make that one.
First, that he was a poet, none would doubt
That heard the applaufe of what he fees fèt out
Imprinted; where thou haft (I will not fay,
Reader, his works, for, to contrive a play,
To him 'twas none,) the pattern of all wit,
Art without art, unparallel'd as yet.

Next Nature only help'd him, for look thorough
This whole book,3 thou fhall find he doth not borrow
One phrafe from Greeks, nor Latins imitate,
Nor once from vulgar languages tranflate;

Nor plagiary-like from others gleane,
Nor begs he from each witty friend a scene,
To piece his acts with all that he doth write
Is pure his own; plot, language, exquifite.
But O what praife more powerful can we give
The dead, than that, by him, the king's-men live,
His players; which fhould they but have fhar'd his fate,
(All elfe expir'd within the fhort term's date,)
How could The Globe have profper'd, fince through want
Of change, the plays and poems had grown fcant.
But, happy verfe, thou shalt be fung and heard,
When hungry quills fhall be fuch honour barr'd.
Then vanish, upftart writers to each stage,
You needy poetafters of this age!

whofe rich garden he has plucked many a flower, in the true fpirit of four puritanical fan&tity he cenfured King Charles I. for having made this 6. great heir of fame" the closet companion of his folitudes. See his Εικωνοκλαστες. ΜALONE.

3 The Fortune company, I find from Sir Henry Herbert's Manu fcript, removed to the Red Bull, and the Prince's Company to the Fortune, in the year 1640; thefe verses therefore could not have been written fo early as 1623. MALONE.