Turn reader: but observe his comick vein,
Laugh; and proceed next to a tragick strain,
Then weep: so,-when thou find'st two contraries,
Two different passions from thy rapt soul rise,-
Say, (who alone effect such wonders could,)
Rare Shakspeare to the life thou dost behold."

On worthy Master SHAKSPEARE,
and his Poems..

A mind, reflecting ages past, whose clear
And equal surface can make things appear,
Distant a thousand years, and represent
Them in their lively colours, just extent:
To outrun hasty time, retrieve the fates,
Roll back the heavens, blow ope the iron gates
Of death and Lethe, where confused lie
Great heaps of ruinous mortality:

In that deep dusky dungeon, to discern
A royal ghost from churls; by art to learn
The physiognomy of shades, and give

Them sudden birth, wond'ring how oft they live;
What story coldly tells, what poets feign
At second hand, and picture without brain,
Senseless and soul-less shews: 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:

• These verses first appeared in the folio, 1632. There is no namé subscribed to them. MALONE.

6 Tɔ outrun hasty time,]

"And panting time toil'd after him in vain."
Dr. Johnson's Prologue.
STEEVENS.

To raise our ancient sovereigns from their herse,
Make kings his subjects; by exchanging verse
Enlive their pale trunks, that the present age
Joys in their joy, and trembles at their rage:
Yet so to temper passion, that our ears
Take pleasure in their pain, and eyes in tears
Both weep and smile; fearful at plots so sad,
Then laughing at our fear; abus'd, and glad
To be abus'd; affected with that truth
Which we perceive is false, pleas'd in that ruth
At which we start, and, by elaborate play,
Tortur'd and tickl'd; by a crab-like way
Time past made pastime, and in ugly sort
Disgorging up his ravin for our sport:-

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

To strike up and stroke down, both joy and ire;
To steer the affections; and by heavenly fire
Mold us anew, stoln from ourselves:-

This, and much more, which cannot be express'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 buskin'd muse, the comick queen, the grand
And louder tone of Clio, nimble hand
And nimbler foot of the melodious pair,
The silver-voiced lady, the most fair
Calliope, whose speaking silence' daunts,

And she whose praise the heavenly body chants,

7- speaking silence-]

"Silence that spoke, and eloquence of eyes." Pope's Hom.

2

STEEVENS,

These jointly woo'd him, envying one another;-
Obey'd by all as spouse, but lov'd as brother
And wrought a curious robe, of sable grave,
Fresh green, and pleasant yellow, red most brave,
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,
Not clouds, nor thunder, but were living drawn ;
Nor 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 clothe him, bid him wear it;
For time shall never stain, nor envy tear it.

The friendly Admirer of his Endowments,

J. M. S.

• Probably, Jasper Mayne, Student. He was born in the year 1604, and became a member of Christ Church, in Oxford, in 1623, where he was soon afterwards elected a Student. In 1628

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

And Shakspeare thou, whose honey-flowing vein, (Pleasing the world,) thy praises doth contain, Whose Venus, and whose Lucrece, sweet and chaste, Thy name in fame's immortal book hath plac'd, Live ever you, at least in fame live ever! Well may the body die, but,fame die never.

England's Mourning Garment, &c. 1603.

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

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

HENRY CHETTLE.

To Master W. SHAKSPEARE.

Shakspeare, that nimble Mercury thy brain
Lulls many-hundred Argus' eyes asleep,

So fit for all thou fashionest thy vein,

At the horse-foot fountain thou hast drunk full

deep.

he took a bachelor's degree, and in June, 1631, that of a Master of Arts. These verses first appeared in the folio, 1632.

MALONE.

Virtue's or vice's theme to thee all one is ;

Who loves chaste life, there's Lucrece for a teacher:

Who list read lust, there's Venus and Adonis
True model of a most lascivious lecher.
Besides, in plays thy wit winds like Meander,
When needy new composers borrow more
Than Terence doth from Plautus or Menander:
But to praise thee aright, I want thy store.
Then let thine own works thine own worth up-
raise,

And help to adorn thee with deserved bays.

Epigram92, in an ancient collection, entitled
Run and a great Cast, 4to. by Tho.Freeman,

1614.

Extract from Michael Drayton's " Elegy to Henry Reynolds, Esq. of Poets and Poesy."

Shakspeare, thou hadst as smooth a comick vein, Fitting the sock, and in thy natural brain As strong conception, and as clear a rage, As any one that traffick'd with the stage.

An Epitaph on the

Admirable Dramatick Poet, W. SHAKSPEARE.o

What needs my Shakspeare for his honour'd bones,

The labour of an age in piled stones;

9 This poem is one of those prefixed to the folio edition of our author's plays, 1632, and therefore is the first of Milton's pieces