To the Memory of Master W. SHAKESPEARE.

WE Wonder'd, Shakespeare, that thou went'st so soon
From the world's stage to the grave's tiring-room:
We thought thee dead; but this thy printed worth
Tells thy spectators that thou went'st but forth
To enter with applause. An actor's art
Can die, and live to act a second part:
That's but an exit of mortality,

This a re-entrance to a plaudite.

J. M.*

Upon the Lines and Life of the Famous Scenic Poet, Master
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

THOSE hands which you so clapp'd, go now and wring,
You Britons brave; for done are Shakespeare's days;
His days are done that made the dainty plays,
Which made the Globe of heaven and earth to ring:
Dried is that vein, dried is the Thespian spring,
Turn'd all to tears, and Phoebus clouds his rays:
That corpse, that coffin, now bestick those bays
Which crown'd him poet first, then poet's king.
If tragedies might any prologue have,

All those he made would scarce make one to this;
Where Fame, now that he gone is to the grave —
Death's public tiring-house — the Nuntius is:

For, though his line of life went soon about,
The life yet of his lines shall never out.

HUGH HOLLAND.†

* Mr. Bolton Corney, in Notes and Queries, leaves hardly any doubt that these are the initials of James Mabbe, who is described by Wood as “a learned man, good orator, and a facetious conceited wit." He became prebendary of Wells, and died about the year 1642.

+ Hugh Holland was a Welshman, who became fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; travelled to Jerusalem, "to do his devotions to the holy sepulchre"; afterwards spent some years at Oxford "for the sake of the public library" there, and "died within the city of Westminster in 1633."— DYCE.

COMMENDATORY VERSES PREFIXED TO THE FOLIO OF 1632.*

Upon the Effigies of my worthy Friend, the Author, Master WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, and his Works.

SPECTATOR, this life's shadow is to see
This truer image and a livelier he,

Turn reader. But observe his comic vein,
Laugh; and proceed next to a tragic strain,
Then weep: so, when thou find'st two contrairies,
Two different passions from thy rapt soul rise,
Say - who alone effect such wonders could —
Rare Shakespeare to the life thou dost behold

An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatic Poet, W. SHAKESPEARE.

WHAT needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones
The labour of an age in pilèd stones,

Or that his hallow'd relics should be hid

Under a star-ypointing pyramid?

Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,

What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,

Hast built thyself a live-long monument:

For whilst, to th' shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easy numbers flow; and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book

Those Delphic lines with deep impression took;

* The second folio prints the following pieces in addition to those that precede.

Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And, so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,

That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.*

On worthy Master SHAKESPEARE and his Poems.

A MIND reflecting ages past, whose clear
And equal surface can make things appear,
Distant a thousand years, — and represent
Them in their lively colours, just extent:
To outrun hasty Time, retrieve the Fates,
Roll back the heavens, blow ope the iron gates
Of Death and Lethe, where confusèd lie
Great heaps of ruinous mortality:

In that deep dusky dungeon to discern

A royal ghost from churls; by art to learn
The physiognomy of shades, and give

Them sudden birth, wondering how oft they live;
What story coldly tells, what poets feign

At second hand, and picture without brain,
Senseless and soulless shows, to give a stage,
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 sovereigns from their hearse,
Make kings his subjects; by exchanging verse
Enlive their pale trunks, that the present age
Joys in their joy, and trembles at their rage:
Yet so to temper passion, that our ears
Take pleasure in their pain, and eyes in tears
Both weep and smile; fearful at plots so sad,
Then laughing at our fear; abused, and glad

* The authorship of these lines was ascertained by their appearing in an edition of Milton's Poems published in 1645.

To be abused; affected with that truth
Which we perceive is false, pleased in that ruth
At which we start, and by elaborate play
Tortured and tickled; by a crab-like way
Time past made pastime, and in ugly sort
Disgorging up his ravin 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 stir 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
Improved by favour of the nine-fold 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
Calliopé, 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 loved 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, purlèd; 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 breathe and speak; with laurel crown'd
Which never fades; fed with ambrosian meat,

In a well-linèd 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,

J. M. S.*

* The authorship of this most intelligent and appreciative strain of commendation has not been fully settled, and probably never will be. Malone conjectured the initials to stand for "Jasper Mayne, Student"; and Mr. Bolton Corney pointed out to Dyce some dozen pieces of occasional verse written by Mayne, which, though greatly inferior to this on Shakespeare, yet bear, he thinks, a sufficient resemblance to it in style to warrant a belief in Malone's conjecture. None of the signatures, however, to those pieces give any fair colour to the inference of the letter S being put for Student; nor do the pieces themselves show any indications of the power displayed in this instance. Singer notes upon the subject as follows: "Conjecture had been vainly employed upon the initials J. M. S., until Mr. Hunter, having occasion to refer to the Iter Lancastrense, a poem by Richard James, an eminent scholar and antiquary, the friend of Selden and Sir Robert Cotton, was struck with the similarity of style, the same unexpected and abrupt breaks in the middle of the lines, and the same disposition to view every thing under its antiquarian aspect, which we find in these verses; and therefore suggested the great probability that by J. M. S. we must understand JaMeS. Without being at all aware of Mr. Hunter's suggestion, my excellent friend Mr. Lloyd had come to the same conclusion, from having seen some lines by James, printed in Mr. Halliwell's Essay on the Character of Falstaff. The coincident opinion of two independent and able authorities would be in itself conclusive; and, for my own part, I have no doubt that it is to Richard James these highly poetical lines to the memory of the Poet

must be attributed."