SHAKESPEARE (whom you and every playhouse bill
Style the divine, the matchless, what you will)
For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight,
And grew immortal in his own despite.

ALEXANDER POPE (1688-1744). Imitations of Horace.
Bk. II. ch. i. 11. 69-72.

1737.

THRICE happy! could we catch great Shakespeare's art,

To trace the deep recesses of the heart;

His simple plain sublime, to which is given

To strike the soul with darted flame from heaven.

JAMES THOMSON (1700-1748). Prologue to Tancred and Sigismundâ. 1745. Sig. A4.

LET others seek a monumental fame,
And leave for one short age a pompous name;
Thou dost not e'en this little tomb require,
Shakespeare can only with the world expire.
Epitaph on a Tombstone of Shakespeare.
man's Magazine. June 1767, vol. xxvii. p. 324.

Gentle

SHAKESPEARE came out of Nature's hand like Pallas out of Jove's head, at full growth and mature.

George Colman (1733–1794), before 1767.

George Colman, who advocated the theory that Shakespeare had some classic learning, commenting in the Appendix to the second edition of his translation of the comedies of Terence (1768) on Richard Farmer's Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare (1767), which maintains that Shakespeare got his knowledge of the ancients from translations, says: "Mr. Farmer closes these general testimonies of Shakespeare's having been only indebted to Nature, by saying, 'He came out of her hand, as some one else expresses it, like Pallas out of Jove's head, at full growth and mature.' It is whimsical enough, that this some one else, whose expression is here quoted to countenance the general notion of Shakespeare's want of literature, should be no other than myself. Mr. Farmer does not choose to mention where he met with this expression of some one else; and some one else does not choose to mention where he dropped it." Colman's "Appendix” was printed in the “Variorum" editions of Shakespeare, and that of 1785 gave an anonymous note, stating that Young "in his Conjectures on Original Composition (vol. v. p. 100, ed. 1773) has the following sentence: 'An adult genius comes out of Nature's hands, as Pallas out of Jove's head, at full growth and mature.' Shakespeare's genius was of this kind." Young's Conjectures appeared in 1759, so perhaps Colman borrowed, though, as he says (Prose on Several Occasions, 1787, ii. p. 186), "The thought is obvious, and might, without improbability, occur to different writers." At any rate, his form of the thought is better than Young's, so he has here been given the credit for it.

To mark her Shakespeare's worth, and Britain's love,
Let Pope design, and Burlington approve :
Superfluous care! when distant times shall view
This tomb grown old-his works shall still be new.
RICHARD GRAVES (1715-1804). "On erecting a

Monument to Shakespeare under the direction
of Mr. Pope and Lord Burlington." Euphro-
syne, 1776.

This refers to the monument erected by public subscription in Westminster Abbey in 1741. The design was by William Kent, and the statue of Shakespeare, which was part of it, was executed by Peter Scheemachers.