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 impreffion took;
Then thou, our fancy of itself 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,
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 fhades, by this eternal green,
About whofe 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 firft the ftage:
And if I drain'd no Greek or Latin ftore,
'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
Shakespeare, who (taught by none) did first 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 digest:
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 Tempeft.
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;
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 itself a law,
Could men in every height of nature draw.
Rowe's Prologue to the Ambitious Stepmother.
Shakespeare (whom you and every play-house 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 Epistle to Auguftus.
Shakespeare, the genius of our ifle, whofe mind (The univerfal mirror of mankind)
Exprefs'd all images, enrich'd the ftage,
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 ratlinefs, venerable fhade!
May fpring with purple flow'is 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 Southeine, 1711.
An Infeription 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 of sport and pleasure: O thou wretch
That weep'ft for jealous love, or the fore wounds
Of conscious guilt, or death's rapacious hand
Which left thee void of hope: O ye who roam
In exile; ye who through the embattled field
Seek bright renown; or who for nobler palms
Contend, the leaders of a public caufe;
Approach: behold this marble. Know ye not
The features? Hath not oft his faithful tongue
Told you the fashion of your own eftate,
The fecrets of your bofom? Here then, round
His monument with reverence while you ftand,
Say to each other: "This was Shakespeare's form;
"Who walk'd in every path of human life,
"Felt every paffion; and to all mankind
"Doth now, will ever that experience yield
"Which his own genius only could acquire."
From the fame Author's Pleasures of Imagination, Book 3.
The arch of heaven, and thunders rock the ground,
When furious whirlwinds rend the howling air,
And ocean, groaning from his loweft bed,
Heaves his tempeftuous billows to the sky;
Amid the general uproar, while below
The nations tremble, Shakespeare looks abroad
From fome high cliff, fuperior, and enjoys
The elemental war.
Creative fancy, and inspection keen
Through the deep windings of the human heart,
Is not wild Shakespeare thine and nature's boaft?
When learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous focs
First rear'd the stage, immortal Shakespeare rofe;
Each change of many-colour'd life he drew,
Exhaufted worlds, and then imagin'd new:
(P 31
Fxistence faw him fpurn her bounded reign,
And panting time toil'd after him in vain:
His pow'rful ftrokes prefiding truth imprefs'd,
And unrefifted paflion ftorm'd the breast.
Prologue at the opening of Drury-Lane Theatre in 1747-
By Dr. Samuel Johnson.
What are the lays of artful Addison,
Coldly correct, to Shakespeare's warblings wild?
Whom on the winding Avon's willow'd banks
Fair Fancy found, and bore the smiling babe
To a clofe cavern: (ftill the fhepherds fhew
The facred place, whence with religious awe
They hear, returning from the field at eve,
Strange whifp'ring of fweet mufick thro' the air)
Here, as with honey gathered from the rock,
She fed the little prattler, and with fongs
Oft footh'd his wond'ring ears, with deep delight
On her foft lap he fat, and caught the founds.
The Enthufiaft, or the Lover of Nature, a Poem, by the
From the Rev. Thomas Warton's Addrefs to the Queen on her Marriage.
Here, boldly mark'd with every living hue,
Nature's unbounded portrait Shakespeare drew:
But chief, the dreadful groupe of human woes
The daring artift's tragic pencil chose;
Explor'd the pangs that rend the royal breaft,
Thofe wounds that lurk beneath the tiffued veft.
Monody, written near Stratford upon Avon.
Avon, thy rural views, thy paftures wild,
The willows that o'erhang thy twilight edge,
Their boughs entangling with th' embattled fedge;
Thy brink with watery foliage quaintly fring'd,
Thy furface with reflected verdure ting'd;
jooth me with many a pensive pleasure mild.
But while I mufe, that here the Bard Divine
Whose facred duft yon high-arch'd ifles inclofe,
Where the tall windows rife in ftately rows,
Above th' embowering fhade,
Here first, at Fancy's fairy-circled shrine,
Of daifies pied his infant offering made;
Here playful yet, in ftripling years unripe,
Fram'd of thy reeds a fhrill and artless pipe:
Sudden thy beauties, Avon, all are fled,
As at the waving of fome magic wand;
An holy trance my charmed spirit wings,
And aweful fhapes of leaders and of kings,
People the bufy mead,
Like spectres fwarming to the wifard's hall;
And flowly pace, and point with trembling hand
The wounds ill-cover'd by the purple pall.
Before me Pity seems to stand
A weeping mourner, fmote with anguish fore,
To fee Misfortune rend in frantic mood
His robe, with regal woes embroider'd o'er.
Pale Terror leads the vifionary band,
And sternly shakes his fceptre, dropping blood.
Far from the fun and summer gale,
In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid,
What time, where lucid Avon ftray'd,
To him the mighty mother did unveil
Her awful face: The dauntless child
Stretch'd forth his little armis, and fmil'd.
This pencil take (fhe faid) whofe colours clear
Richly paint the vernal year:
Thine too thefe golden keys, immortal boy!
This can unlock the gates of joy;
Of horror that, and thrilling fears,
Or ope the facred fource of fympathetic tears.
Gray's Ode on the Progrefs of Pocfy.
Next Shakespeare fat, irregularly great,
And in his hand a magick rod did hold,
Which vifionary beings did create,
And turn the fouleft drofs to pureft gold:
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