of wit, and sit on the stage at Black-friars or the Cock-pit, to arraign plays daily, know, these plays have had their trial already, and stood out all appeals, and do now come forth quitted rather by a decree of court than any purchased letters of commendation.

It had been a thing, we confess, worthy to have been wished, that the author himself had lived to have set forth and overseen his own writings. But, since it hath been ordained otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envy his friends the office of their care and pain, to have collected and published them; and so to have published them as, where before you were abused with divers stolen and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors that exposed them, even those are now offered to your view cured and perfect of their limbs, and all the rest absolute in their numbers as he conceived them; who, as he was a happy imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it: his mind and hand went together; and what he thought, he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our province, who only gather his works and give them you, to praise him. It is yours that read him: and there we hope, to your divers capacities, you will find enough both to draw and hold you; for his wit can no more lie hid than it could be lost. Read him, therefore; and again and again and if then you do not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger not to understand him. And so we leave you to other of his friends, who, if you need, can be your guides: if you need them not, you can lead yourselves and others. And such readers we wish him.

:

JOHN HEMINGE,
HENRY CONDELL.

COMMENDATORY VERSES PREFIXED TO THE FOLIO OF 1623.

To the Memory of my beloved, the Author, Master WILLIAM
SHAKESPEARE, and what he hath left us.

To draw no envy, Shakespeare, 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 th' ill fortune of them or the need.

I, therefore, will begin: Soul of the age,
Th' applause, delight, the wonder of our stage,
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie

A little further, to make thee a room: *
Thou art a monument without a tomb,

* An allusion to the following lines by William Basse, which are found in Mss. with several variations: they appear to have been first printed in 1633 among the poems of Donne, to whom they were wrongly attributed:

Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh

To learned Chaucer; and, rare Beaumont, lie

A little nearer Spenser; to make room
For Shakespeare in your threefold fourfold tomb:
To lodge all four in one bed make a shift

Until doomsday; for hardly will a fifth,

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 Lyly outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line :
And, though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee I would not seek
For names; but call forth thundering Æschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova, dead,

To life again, to hear thy buskin tread

And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone for the comparison

Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain! thou hast one to show,
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time;
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm.
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joy'd to wear the dressing of his lines;
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
As since she will vouchsafe no other wit:
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,

Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
But antiquated and deserted lie,

As they were not of Nature's family. —
Yet must I not give Nature all; thy art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part:
For, though the poet's matter Nature be,
His art doth give the fashion; and that he
Who casts to write a living line must sweat,
Such as thine are, -and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same,
And himself with it, that he thinks to frame;
Or, for the laurel, he may gain a scorn,

For a good poet's made, as well as born:
And such wert thou.

Look how the father's face

Lives in his issue; even so the race

Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines
In his well-turnèd and true-filèd lines;

In each of which he seems to shake a lance,

As brandish'd at the eyes of ignorance.

Sweet Swan of Avon, what a sight it were

To see thee in our waters yet appear,

And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
That so did take Eliza and our James!

But stay; I see thee in the hemisphere

Advanced, and made a constellation there :

Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage

Or influence chide or cheer the drooping stage;

Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourn'd like night, And despairs day, but for thy volume's light.*

BEN JONSON.

*Upon these superb lines Dyce makes the following just comment: "That a sincere friendship existed between Shakespeare and Jonson will never again be doubted after the excellent memoir of the latter by Gifford; and, indeed, it is surprising that the alleged enmity of Jonson towards Shakespeare should not have had an earlier refutation, especially as Jonson's writings exhibit the most unequivocal testimony of his affectionate admiration of Shakespeare. A more glowing eulogy than the verses 'To the Memory of MY BELOVED, the Author, MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,' was never penned."

To the Memory of the deceased Author, Master W.
SHAKESPEARE.

SHAKESPEARE, at length thy pious fellows give
The world thy works; thy works, by which out-live
Thy tomb thy name must: when that stone is rent,
And time dissolves thy Stratford monument,
Here we alive shall view thee still; this book,
When brass and marble fade, shall make thee look
Fresh to all ages; when posterity

Shall loathe what's new, think all is prodigy
That is not Shakespeare's, every line, each verse,
Here shall revive, redeem thee from thy hearse.
Nor fire, nor cankering age, as Naso said
Of his, — thy wit-fraught book shall once invade :
Nor shall I e'er believe or think thee dead,
Though miss'd, until our bankrupt stage be sped —
Impossible — with some new strain t' out-do
Passions of Juliet and her Romeo ;

Or till I hear a scene more nobly take

Than when thy half-sword-parleying Romans spake :
Till these, till any of thy volume's rest,
Shall with more fire, more feeling be express'd,
Be sure, our Shakespeare, thou canst never die,
But, crown'd with laurel, live eternally.

LEONARD DIGGES.*

* Leonard Digges, born in London, was educated at University College, Oxford; to which college, after travelling" into several countries," he retired; and died there in 1635. Though a very poor poet, he was a person of considerable accomplishments, as is shown by his translation of Claudian's Rape of Proserpine, and of Gonçalo de Cespides's Gerardo, the unfortunate Spaniard. He has another and much longer eulogy on Shakespeare, prefixed to the edition of our author's Poems, 1640.- DYCE.