RICHARD BARNFEILD, 1598
(1574-1627)

"A Remembrance of some English Poets."

AND Shakespeare thou, whose honey-flowing Vein
(Pleasing the World), thy Praises doth obtain.
Whose Venus, and whose Lucrece (sweet, and chaste)
Thy Name in Fame's immortal Book have placed.

Live ever you, at least in Fame live ever:

Well may the Body die, but Fame dies never.

JOHN WEEVER, 1599

(1576-1632)

"Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare."

HONEY-TONGUED Shakespeare, when I saw thine issue,
I swore Apollo got them and none other;
Their rosy-tinted features clothed in tissue,

Some heaven-born goddess said to be their mother:
Rose-cheeked Adonis, with his amber tresses,

Fair fire-hot Venus, charming him to love her, Chaste Lucretia, virgin-like her dresses,

Proud lust-stung Tarquin, seeking still to prove her: Romeo, Richard; more whose names I know not,

Their sugared tongues, and power attractive beauty Say they are saints, although that saints they show not, For thousands vow to them subjective duty:

They burn in love, thy children, Shakespeare het them. [heated
Go, woo thy Muse, more Nymphish brood beget them.

Epigrammes in the oldest Cut, and newest Fashion.
John Weever. 1599. Epig. 22.

Some bibliographers have assigned the first edition of Weever's Epigrammes to the year 1595, but no copy bearing that date is known.

Г

JOHN DAVIES, 1610
(1565 ?-1618)

"To our English Terence, Mr. Will. Shakespeare."

SOME say, good Will, which I in sport do sing,
Had'st thou not play'd some kingly parts in sport,

Thou had'st been a companion for a king,

And been a king among the meaner sort.
Some others rail; but rail as they think fit,
Thou hast no railing, but a reigning wit:

And honesty thou sow'st which they do reap;
So, to increase their stock which they do keep:

The Scourge of Folly, consisting of Satyricall
Epigramms and others.

1611.

THOMAS FREEMAN, 1614

(fl. 1614)

"To Master W. Shakespeare."

SHAKESPEARE, that nimble Mercury thy brain
Lulls many hundred Argus-eyes asleep,
So fit, for all thou fashionest thy rein,

At th' horse-foot fountain thou hast drank full deep, Vertues or vices theme to thee all one is :

Who loves chaste life, there's Lucrece for a Teacher: Who but read lust there's Venus and Adonis,

True model of a most lascivious leacher. Besides in plays thy wit winds like Meander:

Whence 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 upraise, And help t' adorn thee with deserved Bays.

Runne, and a Great Caste. The Second Bowle.

(Being the second part of a Rubbe, and a Great Cast, 1614.) Epigram 92, Sig. K2, back.

WILLIAM BASSE, 1622

(d. 1653?)

"On Mr. William Shakespeare."

RENOWNED Spenser lie a thought more nigh
To learned Beaumont, and rare Beaumont lie
A little nearer Chaucer, to make room

For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.
To lodge all four in one bed make a shift
Until Doom's day, for hardly will (a) fift
Betwixt this day and that by fate be slain,
For whom the curtains shall be drawn again.
For if precedency in death do bar

A fourth place in your sacred sepulchre,

In this uncarved marble of thy own,

Sleep, brave Tragedian, Shakespeare, sleep alone;
Thy unmolested rest, unshared cave,

Possess as lord, not tenant, to the grave,

That unto others it may counted be

Honour hereafter to be layed by thee.

Fennell's Shakespere Repository, 1853, p. 10.

Printed from a MS. temp. Charles I.