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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,

Shakspeare 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 cloath him, bid him wear it;
For time shall never stain, nor envy tear it.

The friendly Admirer of his Endowments,

I. M. S.

These admirable verses were first prefixed to the second folio printed in 1632, they are here placed as a noble tribute from a contemporary to the genius of our immortal Poet. Conjecture has been vainly employed upon the initials I. M. S. affixed. entirely subscribe to Mr. Boaden's opinion that they are from the pen of GEORGE CHAPMAN; the structure of the verse and the phraseology bear marks of his hand, and the vein of poetry such as would do honour to his genius.

S. W. S.

106

THE PREFACE OF THE PLAYERS.

Prefixed to the First Folio Edition published in 1623.

TO THE GREAT VARIETY OF READERS,

FROM the most able, to him that can but spell: there you are number'd. We had rather you were weigh'd. Especially, when the fate of all Bookes depends upon your capacities: and not of your heads alone, but of your purses. Well! it is now publique, and you wil stand for your priviledges wee know: to read, and censure. Do so, but buy it first. That doth best commend a Booke, the Stationer saies. Then, how odde soever your braines be, or your wisedomes, make your licence the same, and spare not. Judge your sixe-pen'orth, your shillings worth, your five shillings worth at a time, or higher, so you rise to the just rates, and welcome. But, whatever you do, Buy. Censure will not drive a Trade, or make the Jacke go. And though you be a Magistrate of wit, and sit on the Stage at Black-Friers, or the Cockpit, to arraigne Playes dailie, know, these Playes have had their triall alreadie, and stood out all Appeales; and do now come forth quitted rather by a Decree of Court, than any purchas'd Letters of commendation.

It had bene a thing, we confesse, worthie to have bene wished, that the Author himselfe had lived to have set forth, and overseen his owne writings; But since it hath bin ordain'd otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you, doe not envie his Friends, the office of their care and paine, to have collected and publish'd them; and so to have publish'd them, as where (before) you were abus'd with divers stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of injurious impostors, that expos'd them: even those are now offer'd to your view cur'd, and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceived the: Who, as he was a happie imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together: and what he thought, he uttered with that easinesse, that wee have scarse received from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our province, who onely gather his works, and give them you, to praise him. It is yours that reade him. And there we hope, to your divers capacities, you will finde enough, both to draw, and hold you: for his wit can no more lie hid, then it could be lost. Reade him, therefore; and againe, and againe : And if then you doe 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 bee your guides: if you neede them not, you can leade yourselves, and others. And such readers we wish him.

JOHN HEMINGE,
HENRIE COndell.

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Tempest.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

"THE HE Tempest and the Midsummer Night's Dream (says Warburton) are the noblest efforts of that sublime and amazing imagination, peculiar to Shakspeare, which soars above the bounds of nature, without forsaking sense; or, more properly, carries nature along with him beyond her established limits."

No one has hitherto discovered the novel on which this play is founded; yet Collins the poet told Thomas Warton that the plot was taken from the romance of Aurelio and Isabella,' which was frequently printed during the sixteenth century, sometimes in three or four languages in the same volume. In the calamitous mental indisposition which visited poor Collins his memory failed him; and he most probably substituted the name of one novel for another; the fable of Aurelio and Isabella has no relation to the Tempest. Mr. Malone thought that no such tale or romance ever existed; yet a friend of the late Mr. James Boswell told him that he had some years ago actually perused an Italian novel which answered Collins's description; but his memory, unfortunately, did not enable him to recover it.

My friend, Mr. Douce, in his valuable Illustrations of Shakspeare,' published in 1807, had suggested that the outline of a considerable part of this play was borrowed from the account of Sir George Somer's voyage and shipwreck on the Bermudas in 1609; and had pointed out some passages which confirmed his suggestion. At the same time it appears that Mr. Malone was engaged in investigating the relations of this voyage: and he subsequently printed the results of his researches in a pamphlet, which he distributed among his friends; wherein he shows, that not only the title but many passages in the play were suggested to Shakspeare by the account of the tremendous Tempest which, in July, 1609, dispersed the fleet carrying supplies from England to the infant colony of Virginia, and wrecked the vessel in which Sir George Somers and the other principal commanders had sailed, on one of the Bermuda Islands.

Sir George Somers, Sir Thomas Gates, and Captain Newport, with nine ships and five hundred people, sailed from England in VOL. I.

B

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