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Distant a thousand years, and reprefent
Them in their lively colours, just extent:
To outrun hafty time, retrieve the fates,
Rowl back the heavens, blow ope the iron gates
Of death and Lethe, where confused lie
Great heaps of ruinous mortality:

In that deep duíky dungeon, to difcern
A royal ghoft from churls; by art to learn
The phyfiognomy of fhades, and give
Them fudden birth, wond'ring how oft they live;
What story coldly tells, what poets feign
At fecond hand, and picture without brain,
Senfelefs and foul-lèfs fhews: To give a ftage,-
Ample, and true with life,- voice, action, age,
As Plato's year, and new scene of the world,
Them unto us, or us to them had hurl'd:
To raise our ancient fovereigns from their herse,
Make kings his fubjects; by exchanging verfe
Enlive their pale trunks, that the present age
Joys in their joy, and trembles at their rage:
Yet fo to temper paffion, that our ears

Take pleasure in their pain, and eyes in tears
Both smile and weep; fearful at plots fo fad,
Then laughing at our fear; abus'd, and glad
To be abus'd; affected with that truth
Which we perceive is falfe, pleas'd in that ruth
At which we start, and, by elaborate play,
Tortur'd and tickl'd; by a crab-like way
Time paft made paftime, and in ugly fort
Difgorging up his ravin for our sport:-
-While the plebeian imp, from lofty throne,
Creates and rules a world, and works upon
Mankind by fecret engines; now to move
A chilling pity, then a rigorous love;

To ftrike up and ftroak down, both joy and ire;
To fteer the affections; and by heavenly fire
Mold us anew, ftoln from ourselves:-

This, and much more, which cannot be exprefs'd
But by himfelf, his tongue, and his own breaft,-
Was Shakespear's freehold; which his cunning brain
Improv'd by favour of the nine-fold train;-
The bufkin'd mufe, the comick queen, the grand
And louder tone of Clio, nimble hand

And

And nimbler foot of the melodious pair,
The filver-voiced lady, the moit fair
Calliope, whofe speaking filence daunts,
And the whofe praise the heavenly body chants.
Thefe jointly woo'd him, envying one another;-
Obey'd by all as fpoufe, but lov'd as brother;-
And wrought a curious robe, of sable grave,
Fresh green, and pleafant yellow, red moft brave,
And conftant blue, rich purple, guiltless white,
The lowly rulet, and the fcarlet bright:
Branch'd and embroider'd like the painted fpring;
Each leaf match'd with a flower, and each ftring
Of golden wire, each line of filk: there run
Italian works, whofe thread the fifters fpun;
And there did fing, or feem to fing, the choice
Birds of a foreign note and various voice:
Here hangs a mofly 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 mufes know,
And only know the countries where they grow.
Now, when they could no longer him enjoy,
In mortal garments pent,death may deftroy,'
They fay, his body; but his verfe fhall live,
And more than nature takes our hands shall give:
In a lefs volume, but more ftrongly bound,
Shakespeare fhall breathe and speak; with laurel crown'd,
Which never fades; fed with ambrofial meat,

In a well-lined vefture, rich, and neat:

So with this robe they cloath him, bid him wear it;
For time fhall never ftain, nor envy tear it.

The friendly Admirer of his Endowments,

J. M. S.

Part of Shirley's Prologue to The Sifters.

And if you leave us too, we cannot thrive,
I'll promife neither play nor poet live

'Til ye come back; think what you do, you Wit audience we have, what company

fee

To hakespeare comes, whofe mirth did once beguile
Dull hours, and bufkin'd, made even forrow fmile:

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So

So lovely were the wounds, that men would say
They could endure the bleeding a whole day.

Extract from Michael Drayton's "Elegy to Henry Reynolds, Efq. of Poets and Poefy."

Shakefpear, thou hadst as smooth a comic vein,
Fitting the fock, and in thy natural brain
As ftrong conception, and as clear a rage
As any one that traffick'd with the ftage.

To Mafter W. SHAKESPEARE.

Shakespeare, that nimble Mercury thy braine
Lulls many hundred Argus-eyes afleepe,
So fit for all thou fafhioneft thy vaine,

At th' horse-foot fountaine thou haft drunk full deepe,
Vertue's or vice's theme to thee all one is;

Who loves chafte life, there's Lucrece for a teacher:
Who lift read luft, there's Venus and Adonis,

'The modell of a moft lafcivious leacher.
Befides, in plaies thy wit winds like Meander,
When needy new compofers borrow more
Than Terence doth from Plautus or Menander:
But to praise thee aright, I want thy ftore.
Then let thine owne works thine owne worth upraife,
And help t'adorne thee with deferved baies.

Epigram 92, in an ancient collection, entitled Run and a great Caf, 4to. by Tho. Freeman, 1614.

An Epitaph on the

admirable dramatick Poet, W. SHAKESPEARE,

What needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones, The labour of an age in piled ftones;

Or that his hallow'd reliques fhould be hid

Under a flar-ypointing pyramid?

Dear fon of memory, great heir of fame,

What need'ft thou fuch weak witnefs of thy name?

Thou, in our wonder and aftonishment,

Haft built thyfelf a live-long monument:

For

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For whilft, to the fhame of flow-endeavouring art,
Thy eafy numbers flow; and that each heart
Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalu'd book,
Thofe Delphick lines with deep impreflion took;
Then thou, our fancy of itfelf bereaving,
Doft make us marble with too much conceiving;
And, fo fepulcher'd, in fuch pomp doft lie,
That kings, for fuch a tomb, would wish to die.

JOHN MILTON.

See, my lov'd Britons, fee your Shakespeare rife,
An awful ghoft, confeff'd to human eyes!
Unnam'd, methinks, diftinguifh'd I had been
From other thades, by this eternal green,
About whose wreaths the vulgar poets ftrive,
And with a touch their wither'd bays revive.
Untaught, unpractis'd, in a barbarous age,
I found not, but created first the stage:
And if I drain'd no Greek or Latin store,
'Twas, that my own abundance gave me more:
On foreign trade I needed not rely,

Like fruitful Britain rich without fupply.

Dryden's Prologue to his alteration of Troilus and

Crellida.

Shakespeare, who (taught by none) did firft impart
To Fletcher wit, to labouring Jonfon art:
He, monarch-like, gave thofe his fubjects law,
And is that nature which they paint and draw.
Fletcher reach'd that which on his heights did grow,
Whilft Jonfon crept and gather'd all below.
This did his love, and this his mirth digeft:
One imitates him moft, the other beft.

If they have fince out-writ all other men,

"Tis with the drops that fell from Shakespeare's pen.

Dryden's Prologue to his Alteration of the Tempest.

Our Shakespeare wrote too in an age as bleft,
The happiest poet of his time, and beft;
A gracious prince's favour chear'd his muse,
A conftant favour he ne'er fear'd to lofe:

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Therefore he wrote with fancy unconfin'd,
And thoughts that were immortal as his mind.

Otway's Prologue to Caius Marius.

Shakespeare, whofe genius to itfelf a law,
Could men in every height of nature draw.

Rowe's Prologue to the Ambitious Stepmother.

Shakespeare (whom you and every play-houfe bill
Style the divine, the matchlefs, what you will)
For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight,
And grew immortal in his own defpight.

Pope's Imitation of Horace's Epiftle to Augustus.

Shakespeare, the genius of our ifle, whofe mind (The univerfal mirror of mankind)

Exprefs'd all images, enrich'd the stage,

But fometimes ftoop'd to please a barb'rous age.
When his immortal bays began to grow,
Rude was the language, and the humour low.
He, like the god of day, was always bright;
But rolling in its courfe, his orb of light
Was fully'd and obfcur'd, tho' foaring high,
With fpots contracted from the nether fky.
But whither is th' advent'rous mufe betray'd?
Forgive her rafinefs, venerable fhade!
May fpring with purple flow'rs perfume thy urn,
And Avon with his greens thy grave adorn:
Be all thy faults, whatever faults there be,

Imputed to the times, and not to thee!

Fenton's Epistle to Southerne, 1717.

An Infcription for a Monument of SHAKESPEARE.

O youths and virgins: O declining eld:
O pale misfortune's flaves: O ye who dwell
Unknown with humble quiet; ye who wait
In courts, or fill the golden feat of kings:

O fons

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