Contemporary Notices of Shakespeare.

203

with Drummond about all things and sundry, made the following allusions to his dead friend Shakespeare.

'That Shakspeer wanted arte.

'Sheakspear, in a play, brought in a number of men saying they had suffered shipwrack in Bohemia, where there is no sea near by some 100 miles.'

105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, and 111. In 1623 was published the famous first folio collection of Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, edited by Heminge and Condell, and printed by Isaac Jaggard and Ed. Blount.' It included all the sixteen plays which had already appeared separately during the author's lifetime, with the exception of Troilus and Cressida, and Pericles, Prince of Tyre; it contained also Othello, which had been published separately in 1622; and, besides these, it included the following twenty plays, published for the first time:-The Tempest, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Measure for Measure, The Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, All is Well that Ends Well, Twelfth Night, or What You Will, The Winter's Tale, The Life and Death of King John, the First Part of King Henry the Sixth, the Second Part of King Henry the Sixth, the Third Part of King Henry the Sixth, Henry the Eighth, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, Julius Cæsar, Macbeth, Anthony and Cleopatra, and Cymbeline. To the edition of the poet's dramatic works thus offered as complete, the editors prefixed two interesting documents in their own names-the one a dedication of the volume to the most noble and incomparable paire of brethren,' William, Earl of Pembroke, and Philip, Earl of Montgomery; the other, an address to the great variety of readers.' In the dedication to the two noblemen, the editors, among other things, say

( Since your L. L. have beene pleas'd to think these trifles something, heretofore; and have prosequuted both them, and their author living, with so much favour: we hope, that (they out-living him, and he not having the fate, common with some, to be exequutor to his owne writings) you will use the like indulgence toward them, you have done unto their parent. There is a great difference whether any Booke choose his patrones, or finde them: this hath done both. For so much were your L. L. likings of the several parts, when they were acted, as before they were published the Volume ask'd to be yours. We have but collected them and done an office to the dead to procure his orphanes guardians, without ambition either of self-profit or fame: only to keepe the memory of so worthy a Friend and Fellow alive as was our Shakespeare, by humble offer of his playes to your most noble patronage. . . . We most humbly consecrate to your H. H. these

remaines of your servant Shakespeare: that what delight is in them may be ever your L. L., the reputation his, and the faults ours, if any be committed, by a payre so careful to shew their gratitude both to the living and the dead as is, your Lordshippes most bounden,

'JOHN HEMINGE,
'HENRY CONDELL.'

The following is the address of the Editors to the great variety of Readers."

'From the most able, to him that can but spell: there you are number'd. We had rather you were weighd. Especially, when the fate of all Bookes depends upon your capacities: and not of your heads alone, but of your purses. Well! It is now publique, and you will stand for your priviledges wee know: to read, and censure. Do so, but buy it first. That doth best commend a Book, the Stationer saies. Then, how odde soever your braines be, or your wisedomes, make your licence the same, and spare not. Judge your sixepen'orth, your shillings worth, your five shillings worth at a time, or higher, so as you rise to the just rates, and welcome. But, whatever you do, Buy. Censure will not drive a trade, or make the Jacke go. And though you be a magistrate of wit, and sit on the stage at BlackFriers, or the Cock-pit, to arraigne playes dailie, know, these playes have had their triale alreadie, and stood out all appeales; and do now come forth quitted rather by a Decree of Court, then any purchas'd Letters of commendation.

:

'It had bene a thing, we confesse, worthie to have been wished, that the Author himself had liv'd to have set forth, and overseen his own writings. But since it hath bin ordain'd otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you doe not envie his Friends the office of their care, and paine, to have collected and publish'd them; and so to have publish'd them, as where (before) you were abus'd with divers stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of injurious impostors, that expos'd them: even those are now offer'd to your view cur'd, and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceived them who, as he was a happie imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together; and what he thought he uttered with that easinesse, that we have scarse received from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our province, who onely gather his works and give them you, to praise him. It is yours that reade him. And there we hope, to your divers capacities, you will finde enough, both to draw, and hold you: for his wit can no more lie hid, then it could be lost. Reade him, therefore; and againe, and againe: and if then you doe not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger not to understand him. And so we leave you to other of his Friends, whom if you need, can bee your guides: if you need them not, you can leade yourselves, and others. And such Readers we wish him.

'JOHN HEMINGE,
'HENRIE CONDELL.'

Contemporary Notices of Shakespeare.

205

Besides these two notices of Shakespeare by the editors, there are in the same folio five distinct poetical notices of him by contemporaries, prefixed as laudatory copies of verses according to the custom of the time. The first of these is by Ben Jonson; it is the certificate placed opposite Martin Droeshout's engraving on the poet's portrait, to vouch for its likeness:

To the Reader.

:

"This Figure, that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the graver had a strife

With Nature, to out-doo the life:
O, could he but have draune his wit
As well in brasse, as he hath hit
His face, the Print would then surpasse
All that was ever writ in brasse.
But, since he cannot, Reader, looke

Not on his picture, but his booke.

'B. J.'

The next of the five is also by Ben Jonson; it is his famous poetical eulogy on Shakespeare, lines from which are so often quoted.

To the Memory of my beloved, the Author, Mr. 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 seeliest 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 infamous 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,
The 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 furthur, to make thee a room;
Thou art a monument without a tomb;

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 disproportioned muses :
For if I thought my judgement 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 Eschylus,
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-torned and true filed lines;

In each of which he seems to shake a lance,

As brandish'd at the eyes of ignorance:

Contemporary Notices of Shakespeare.

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
Advanc'd, and made a constellation there:

Shine forth, thou star of poets; and with rage,

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

207

Which since thy flight from hence hath mourned like night,
And despairs day, but for thy volume's light!'

BEN JONSON.

The next is a sonnet (apparently written shortly after Shakespeare's death) by another poetical contemporary, Hugh Holland:

Upon the Lines and Life of the Famous Scenicke Poet,
Master William Shakespeare.

"Those hands which you so clapt go now and wring,
You Britaines brave; for done are Shakespeare's dayes;
His dayes are done that made the dainty Playes,
Which made the globe of heav'n and earth to ring.
Dry'de is that veine, dry'd is the Thespian spring,
Turn'd all to teares, and Phoebus clouds his rayes :
That corps, that coffin now besticke those bayes
Which crown'd him Poet ferst, then Foet'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,
(Deathe's publique tyring-house) the Nuncius is;
For though his line of life went soone about,
The life yet of his lines shall never out.

'HUGH HOLLAND.'

The next is by L. Digges, another minor poet of the day :

To the Memorie of the deceased Authour,

Maister W. Shakespeare..

'Shake-speare, at length thy pious fellows give
The world thy works; thy works, by which outlive
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 Shake-speare's, every line, each verse,
Here shall revive, redeem thee from thy herse: