X. AN EPITAPH ON MASTER VINCENT CORBET." HAVE my piety too, which, could Would say as much as both have done For I both lost a friend and father, A life that knew nor noise, nor strife; ▲ An epitaph on Master Vincent Corbet.] He was the father of bishop Corbet, and lived at Twickenham, where he followed the business of a gardener, and was famous for his nurseries and plantations of trees. We find an allusion both to the genius of his son, and his own eminence in his trade, in the following verses. WHAL. This beautiful epitaph, as it is justly termed by Mr. Gilchrist, in his late edition of the Bishop's poems, was written in 1619, the year in which this good old man died. It seems intended as a kind of sequel to his son's elegy, which is simple and affecting, though occasionally tinctured with the peculiar humour of the writer, while Ben's poem is solemn, affectionate, and pathetic throughout. Who the "friend" was that preceded our poet in his tribute of regard to the worth of Vincent Corbet, I know not: so excellent a character found many, perhaps, to weep upon his grave. 5 Who so long Had wrestled, &c.] Thus his son: "Years he liv'd well nigh fourscore, But was, by sweetning so his will, His mind as pure, and neatly kept, And pray who shall my sorrows read, I feel, I'm rather dead than he! Reader, whose life and name did e'er become Nor wants it here through penury or sloth, Who makes the one, so it be first, makes both. XI.* ON THE PORTRAIT OF SHAKSPEARE. TO THE READER. HIS figure that thou here seest put, "I have thought it best to interrupt the arrangement of the old folio, in this place, for the sake of inserting such scattered pieces of Jonson, as have not hitherto found a place in his works, together with such as Whalley had improperly subjoined to his Epigrams, which being published under the author's own care, should naturally terminate where he chose to stop short himself. ↑ These verses are printed with Jonson's name under the portrait of Shakspeare, prefixed as a frontispiece to the first edition of his works in folio, 1623. "This print (engraved by Martin Droeshout) gives us a truer representation of Shakspeare, than several more pompous memorials of him; if the testimony of Ben Jonson may be credited, to whom he was personally known. Unless we suppose that poet to have sacrificed his veracity to the turn of thought in his epigram, which is very improbable, as he might have been easily contradicted by several that must have remembered so celebrated a person." Granger's Biog. Hist. of Eng. 8vo. 1775, vol. ii. p. 6. XII. TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, AND WHAT HE HATH LEFT US. O draw no envy, Shakspeare, on thy name, 'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right; 8 My Shakspeare rise! I will not lodge thee by A little further off, to make thee room.] These verses allude to an Elegy on Shakspeare, written by W. Basse, which is here subjoined: "Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh To learned Chaucer; and, rare Beaumont, lie And art alive still, while thy book doth live A little nearer Spenser, to make room For Shakespear in your threefold, fourfold tomb. For whom your curtains need be drawn again. A fourth place in your sacred sepulchre, Sleep, rare tragedian, Shakespeare, sleep alone : 9 And tell how far thou didst our Lily outshine, WHAL. Or sporting Kyd, or Marlow's mighty line.] These were in possession of the theatre when Shakspeare first appeared, and enjoyed a high degree of popularity. Of Kyd little is known, except that he was the author of the Spanish Tragedy; though he must undoubtedly have had many other pieces on the stage. Lily was a pedantic and affected writer, with considerable talents, not indeed for the drama, but for the rude, verbose romance of those days, and which had a striking influence not only on our colloquial, but written language. Marlow's mighty line is not introduced at random. Marlow has many lines which have not hitherto been surpassed. His two parts of Tamburlaine, though simple in plot and naked in artifice, have yet some rude attempts at consistency of character, and many passages of masculine vigour and lofty poetry. Even the bombast lines which Shakspeare has put into the mouth of Pistol, are followed by others, in the same scene, and even in the same speech, which the great poet himself might have fathered without disgrace to his superior powers. Marlow had the sublimity of Milton, without the taste and in |