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X.

AN EPITAPH

ON MASTER VINCENT CORBET."

HAVE my piety too, which, could
It vent itself but as it would,

Would say as much as both have done
Before me here, the friend and son :

For I both lost a friend and father,
Of him whose bones this grave doth gather,
Dear Vincent Corbet, who so long
Had wrestled with diseases strong,
That though they did possess each limb,
Yet he broke them, ere they could him,
With the just canon of his life,

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 count his virtues, he liv'd more:
And number him by doing good,
He liv'd their age beyond the flood."

But was, by sweetning so his will,
All order and disposure still.

His mind as pure, and neatly kept,
As were his nurseries, and swept
So of uncleanness, or offence,
That never came ill odour thence!
And add his actions unto these,
They were as specious as his trees.
'Tis true, he could not reprehend-
His very manners taught t' amend,
They were so even, grave and holy;
No stubbornness so stiff, nor folly
To license ever was so light,
As twice to trespass in his sight:
His looks would so correct it, when
It chid the vice, yet not the men.
Much from him, I profess I won,
And more, and more, I should have done,
But that I understood him scant,
Now I conceive him by my want;

And pray who shall my sorrows read,
That they for me their tears will shed;
For truly, since he left to be,

I feel, I'm rather dead than he!

Reader, whose life and name did e'er become
An Epitaph, deserv'd a Tomb :

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,
It was for gentle Shakspeare cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With nature, to out-do the life:
O could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass, as he has hit
His face; the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass:
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his picture, but his book."

"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.

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XII.

TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED

MASTER WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE,

AND WHAT HE HATH LEFT US.

O draw no envy, Shakspeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such,
As neither man, nor Muse, can praise too
much.

'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For silliest ignorance on these may light,

Which, when it sounds at best, 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 praise,
And think to ruin, where it seem'd to raise.
These are, as some infámous bawd, or whore,
Should praise a matron; what could hurt her more?
But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin: Soul of the age!
The applause! delight! the wonder of our stage!
My Shakspeare rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further off, to make thee room :
Thou art a monument without a tomb,

8 My Shakspeare rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie

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
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,
I mean with great, but disproportion'd Muses:
For if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou didst our Lily outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlow's mighty line.

A little nearer Spenser, to make room

For Shakespear in your threefold, fourfold tomb.
To lodge all four in one bed make a shift,
For, until doomsday hardly will a fifth,
Betwixt this day and that, by fates be slain,

For whom your curtains need be drawn again.
But if precedency in death doth bar

A fourth place in your sacred sepulchre,
Under this sable marble of thine own,

Sleep, rare tragedian, Shakespeare, sleep alone :
Thy unmolested peace, in an unshared cave,
Possess as lord, not tenant of thy grave.
That unto us, and others, it may be
Honour hereafter to be laid by thee."

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

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