*

A little further, to make thee a room :
Thou art a monument, without a tomb;
And art alive ftill, while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mix thee fo, my brain excufes;
I mean, with great but difproportion'd muses;
For, if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee furely with thy peers;
And tell-how far thou didst our Lilly + outshine,
Or sporting Kyd ‡, or Marlow's mighty line §.

And

* This and the next lines have reference to the following epitaph on Shakespeare, written by Dr. Donne, and printed among his poems:

"Renowned Spenfer, 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 lie all four in one bed make a shift,
"Until doomfday; for hardly will a fifth

Betwixt this day and that, by fates be flain,
For whom your curtains need be drawn again,
"But if precedency in death doth bar
"A fourth place in your facred fepulchre,
Under this curled marble of thine own,
Sleep, rare tragedian; Shakespeare, fleep alone!
Thy unmolested peace, in an unfhar'd cave,
Poffefs as lord, not tenant of thy grave;
"That, unto us, and others it may be
"Honour, hereafter to be laid by thee!"

STEEVENS.

Lylly wrote nine plays during the reign of Q. Eliz. viz. Alexander and Campafpe, T. C; Endymion, C; Galatea, C; Love bis Metamorphofis, Dram. Paft; Maid her Metamorphofis, C; Mother Bombie, C; Mydas, C; Sapho and Phao, C; and Woman in the Moon, C. To the pedantry of this author perhaps we are indebted for the first attempt to polish and reform our language. See his Euphues and bis England. STEEVENS.

or porting Kyd. It appears from Heywood's Actor's Vindication that Thomas Kyd was the author of the Spanish Tragedy. The late Mr. Hawkins was of opinion that Soliman and Perfeda was by the fame hand. The only piece however, which has defcended to us, even with the initial letters of his name affixed to it, is Pompey the Great his fair Cornelia's Tragedy, which was first published in 1594, and, with fome alteration in the title-page, again in 1595. This is no more than a tranflation from Robert Garnier, a French poet, who diftinguished himself during the

And though thou hadst fmall Latin, and lefs Greek,→
From thence to honour thee, I would not feek
For names; but call forth thundring
Euripides, and Sophocles, to us,

fchylus,

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead;
To live again, to hear thy bufkin tread

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

Of all, that infolent Greece, or haughty Rome,
Sent forth, or fince did from their athes come.
Triumph, my Britain! thou haft one to show,
To whom all fcenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time;
And all the mufes ftill 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 defigns,
And joy'd to wear the dreffing of his lines;
Which were fo richly fpun, and woven fo fit,
As, fince, fhe will vouchfafe no other wit:
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not pleafe;
But antiquated and deserted lie,

As they were not of Nature's family.
Yet muft I not give nature all; thy art,
My gentle Shakespeare, muft enjoy a part:-
For, though the poet's matter nature be,
His art doth give the fashion: and that he,
Who cafts to write a living line, must sweat,
(Such as thine are) and ftrike a second heat
Upon the Mufes' anvil; turn the fame,
(And himself with it) that he thinks to frame;
Or, for the laurel, he may gain a fcorn,-
For a good poet's made, as well as born:

reigns of Charles IX. Henry III. and Henry IV. and died at Mans in 1602, in the 56th year of his age.

STEEVENS.

S or Marlow's mighty line.] Marlow was a performer as well as an author. His contemporary Heywood calls him the best of poets. He wrote fix tragedies, viz. Dr. Fauftus's Tragical Hiftory; K. Edward II; Jew of Malta; Luft's Dominion; Majfacre of Paris; and Tamburlaine the Great, in two parts. He likewife joined with Nah in writing Dido Queen of Carthage, and had begun a tranflation of Mufæus's Hero and Leander, which was finished by Chapman, and published in 1606. STEEVENS.

And

And fuch wert thou: Look, how the father's face
Lives in his iffue; even fo the race

Of Shakespeare's mind, and manners, brightly fhines
In his well-torned and true-filed lines;

In each of which he seems to shake a lance,

As brandifh'd at the eyes of ignorance.

Sweet fwan of Avon, what a fight it were,

To fee thee in our waters yet appear;

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

But ftay; I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanc'd, and made a conftellation there:-
Shine forth, thou ftar of poets; and with rage,

Or influence, chide, or cheer, the drooping stage;

Which, fince thy flight from hence, hath mourn'd like night, And defpairs day, but by thy volume's light!

BEN JONSON.

Upon

This observation of Horace was never more completely verified than by the pofthumous applaufe which Ben Jonson has bestowed on Shakespeare:

the gracious Duncan

Was pitied of Macbeth:-marry, he was dead.

Let us now compare the prefent elogium of old Ben with such of his other fentiments as have reached pofterity.

In April 1748, when the Lover's Melancholy by Ford, (a friend and contemporary of Shakespeare) was revived for a benefit, the following letter appeared in the General, now the Public, Advertifer.

-It is hoped that the following gleaning of theatrical biftory will readily obtain a place in your paper. It is taken from a pamphlet written in the reign of Charles I. with this quaint title, Old Ben's Light Heart made heavy by Young John's Melancholy Lover;" and as it contains fome hiftorical anecdotes and altercations concerning Ben Jonson, Ford, Shakespeare, and the Lover's Melancholy, it is imagined that a few extracts from it at this juncture, will not be unentertaining to the public.'

Thofe who have any knowledge of the theatre in the reigns of Fames and Charles the Firft, muit know, that Ben Jonfon, from great critical language, which was then the portion but of very few, his merit as a poet, and his conftant affociation with men of letters, did, for a confiderable time, give laws to the ftage.'

Ben was by nature fplenetic and four; with a fhare of envy, (for every anxious genius has fome) more than was warrantable in fociety. By education rather critically than politely learned; which

fwell'd

Upon the Lines, and Life, of the famous

Scenick Poet, Mafter WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

Thofe hands, which you fo clapt, go now and wring, You Britains brave; for done are Shakefpeare's days; His days are done, that made the dainty plays,

Which made the globe of heaven and earth to ring:

Dry'd fwell'd his mind into an oftentatious pride of his own works, and an overbearing inexorable judgment of his contemporaries.

This railed him many enemies, who towards the close of his life endeavoured to dethrone this tyrant, as the pamphlet ftiles him, out of the dominion of the theatre. And what greatly contributed to their defign, was the fights and malignances which the rigid Ben too frequently threw out against the lowly Shakespeare, whofe fame fince his death, as appears by the pamphlet, was grown too great for Ben's envy either to bear with or wound.'

It would greatly exceed the limits of your paper to fet down all the contempts and invectives which were uttered and written by Ben, and are collected and produced in this pamphlet, as unanfwerable and fhaming evidences to prove his ill-nature and ingratitude to Shakespeare, who first introduced him to the theatre and fame.

But though the whole of these invectives cannot be fet down at prefent, fome few of the heads may not be difagreeable, which are as follow.'

"That the man had imagination and wit none could deny, but that they were ever guided by true judgment in the rules and conduc of a piece, none could with juftice affert, both being ever fervile to raise the laughter of fools and the wonder of the ignorant. That he was a good poet only in part-being ignorant of all dramatic laws,-had little Latin-lefs Greek -and fpeaking of plays, &c, To make a child new fwaddled, to proceed

Man, and then shoot up, in one beard and weed,
Past threefcore years: or, with three ruity fwords,
And help of fome few foot and half-foot words,
Fight over York and Lancafier's long jars,
And in the tyring-houfe bring wounds to fears.
He rather prays you will be pleas'd to fee
One fuch to-day, as other plays fould be;

Where neither chorus wafts you o'er the feas, &c."

• This, and fuch like behaviour, brought Ben at last from being the lawgiver of the theatre to be the ridicule of it, being perfonally introduced there in feveral picces, to the fatisfaction of the public,

whe

Dry'd is that vein, dry'd is the Thefpian spring, Turn'd all to tears, and Phoebus clouds his rays; That corpfe, that coffin, now bestick those bays, Which crown'd him poet first, then poets' king.

If

who are ever fond of encouraging perfonal ridicule, when the follies and vices of the object are fuppofed to deferve it.'

• But what wounded his pride and fame moft fenfibly, was the preference which the public and moft of his contemporary wits, gave to Ford's LOVER'S MELANCHOLY, before his NEW INN OR LIGHT HEART. They were both brought on in the same week and on the fame ftage; where Ben's was damn'd, and Ford's received with uncommon applaufe: and what made this circumstance ftill more galling, was, that Ford was at the head of the partifans who fupported Shakespeare's fame against Ben Jonfon's invectives.

This fo incenfed old Ben, that as an everlasting ftigma upon his audience, he prefixed this title to his play "The New

Inn or Light Heart. A comedy, as it was never acted, but most negligently play'd by fome, the King's idle fervants; and more fqueamishly beheld and cenfur'd by others, the King's foolish subjects." This title is followed by an abufive preface upon the audience and reader.'

Immediately upon this, he wrote his memorable ode against the public, beginning

"Come leave the loathed ftage,

"And the more loathfome

age, &c."

The revenge he took against Ford, was to write an epigram on him as a plagiary.

"Playwright, by chance, hearing toys I had writ,
"Cry'd to my face-they were th' elixir of wit.
"And I must now believe him, for to-day

"Five of my jefts, then foln, pafs'd him a play."

Alluding to a character in the Ladies Trial, which Bex fays Ford ftole from him.'

The next charge against Ford was, that the Lover's Melancholy was not his own, but purloined from Shakespeare's papers, by the connivance of Hemings and Condel, who in conjunction with Ford, had the revifal of them.'

The malice of this charge is gravely refuted, and afterwards laughed at in many verfes and epigrams, the beft of which are thofe that follow, with which I thall ciofe this theatrical extract.'

"To my worthy friend, John Ford.

""Tis faid, from Shakespeare's mine, your play you drew,
"What need?--when Shakespeare itill furvives in you:
"But grant it were from his vaft treasury reft,
"That plund'rer Ben ne'er made fo rich a theft."

Thomas May.

Upan