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 tickled; by a crablike way
Time past made pastime, and in ugly sort
Disgorging up his ravaine 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 th' affections; and by heavenly fire
Mould us anew. Stol'n from ourselves—
This, and much more which cannot be express'd,
But by himself, his tongue and his own breast,
Was Shakespeare's freehold, which his cunning brain
Improv'd by favour of the ninefold train.
The buskin'd Muse, the Comic 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.
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,
Nor clouds nor thunder, but were living drawn,
Not 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,
Shakespeare shall breath 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,
Prefixed to the Second Folio Edition of
Shakespeare's Works. 1632.
Conjectures as to the authorship of this poem have been numerous. Coleridge in his Lectures on Shakespeare says: "This poem is subscribed I. M. S., meaning, as some have explained, the initials "John Milton, Student": the internal evidence seems to us decisive; for there was, I think, no other man, of that particular day, capable of writing anything so characteristic of Shakespeare, so justly thought, and so happily expressed."
IN a conversation between Sir John Suckling, Sir William D'Avenant, Endymion Porter, Mr. Hales of Eton, and Ben Jonson, Sir John Suckling, who was a professed admirer of Shakespeare, had undertaken his defence against Ben Jonson with some warmth. Mr. Hales, who had sat still for some time, hearing Ben frequently reproaching him with the want of learning, and ignorance of the ancients, told him at last, "That if Mr. Shakespeare had not read the ancients, he had likewise not stolen anything from 'em [a fault the other made no conscience of]; and that if he would produce any one topic finely treated by any of them, he would undertake to show something upon the same subject at least as well written by Shakespeare."
Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shake
speare, prefixed to the edition of his Works by Nicholas Rowe, 1709, vol. i. p. xiv.
SIR WILLIAM D'AVENANT, 1637
"Ode. In Remembrance of Master William Shakespeare."
BEWARE (delighted Poets!) when you sing
To welcome Nature in the early Spring;
Your num'rous feet not tread
The Banks of Avon; for each flower
(As it ne'er knew a sun or shower)
Hangs there the pensive head.
Each tree whose thick and spreading growth hath
Rather a night beneath the boughs, than shade
(Unwilling now to grow),
Looks like the plume a captive wears
Whose rifled falls are steept i' th' tears
Which from his last rage flow.
The piteous river wept itself away
Long since (alas !) to such a swift decay;
That reach the map; and look
If you a river there can spy;
And for a river your mock'd eye
Will find a shallow brook.
Madagascar, with other Poems.
Printed 1637-
"An Elegie on the Death of that famous Writer and Actor, Mr. William Shakspeare."
I DARE not do thy memory that wrong,
Unto our larger griefs to give a tongue;
I'll only sigh in earnest, and let fall
My solemn tears at thy great funeral;
For every eye that rains a show'r for thee,
Laments thy loss in a sad elegy.
Nor is it fit each humble Muse should have
Thy worth his subject, now th' art laid in grave;
No, it's a flight beyond the pitch of those,
Whose worthless pamphlets are not sense in prose.
Let learned Jonson sing a Dirge for thee,
And fill our Orb with mournful harmony:
But we need no remembrancer; thy fame
Shall still accompany thy honoured name
To all posterity; and make us be
Sensible of what we lost in losing thee:
Being the age's wonder, whose smooth rhymes
Did more reform than lash the looser times.
Nature herself did her own self admire,
As oft as thou wert pleased to attire
Her in her native lustre, and confess
Thy dressing was her chiefest comliness.
How can we then forget thee, when the age
Her chiefest tutor, and the widowed stage
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