PART I

“THESE THREE HUNDRED YEARS”

Any time these three hundred years.

_Merry Wives_, I. i. 13.

When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory. ’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room, Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom.

_Sonnet LV._

THE FIRST PERIOD

SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

FRANCIS MERES, 1596

(1565-1647)

As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare, witness his “Venus and Adonis,” his “Lucrece,” his sugared sonnets among his private friends, etc.

As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the Latins, so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage; for Comedy, witness his “Gentlemen of Verona,” his “Errors,” his “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” his “Love’s Labour’s Wonne,” his “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and his “Merchant of Venice”; for Tragedy, his “Richard the 2,” “Richard the 3,” “Henry the 4,” “King John,” “Titus Andronicus,” and his “Romeo and Juliet.”

As Epius Stolo said that the Muses would speak with Plautus’ tongue, if they would speak Latin; so I say that the Muses would speak with Shakespeare’s fine filed phrase, if they would speak English.

_Palladis Tamia. Wits Treasury, Being the Second Part of Wits Commonwealth._ 1598.

RICHARD BARNFIELD, 1598

(1574-1627)

“_A Remembrance of some English Poets._”

And Shakespeare thou, whose honey-flowing Vein (Pleasing the World), thy Praises doth obtain. Whose _Venus_, and whose _Lucrece_ (sweet, and chaste) Thy Name in Fame’s immortal Book have placed. Live ever you, at least in Fame live ever: Well may the Body die, but Fame dies never.

_Poems in Divers humors._ 1598. Sig. E2, back.

JOHN WEEVER, 1599

(1576-1632)

“_Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare._”

Honey-tongued Shakespeare, when I saw thine issue, I swore Apollo got them and none other; Their rosy-tinted features clothed in tissue, Some heaven-born goddess said to be their mother: Rose-cheeked _Adonis_, with his amber tresses, Fair fire-hot _Venus_, charming him to love her, Chaste _Lucretia_, virgin-like her dresses, Proud lust-stung _Tarquin_, seeking still to prove her: Romeo, Richard; more whose names I know not, Their sugared tongues, and power attractive beauty Say they are saints, although that saints they show not, For thousands vow to them subjective duty: They burn in love, thy children, Shakespeare het them, [heated Go, woo thy Muse, more Nymphish brood beget them.

_Epigrammes in the oldest Cut, and newest Fashion._ John Weever. 1599. Epig. 22.

Some bibliographers have assigned the first edition of Weever’s _Epigrammes_ to the year 1595, but no copy bearing that date is known.

JOHN DAVIES, 1610

(1565?-1618)

“_To our English Terence, Mr. Will. Shakespeare._”

Some say, good Will, which I in sport do sing, Had’st thou not play’d some kingly parts in sport, Thou had’st been a companion for a king, And been a king among the meaner sort. Some others rail; but rail as they think fit, Thou hast no railing, but a reigning wit: And honesty thou sow’st which they do reap; So, to increase their stock which they do keep:

_The Scourge of Folly, consisting of Satyricall Epigramms and others._ 1611.

THOMAS FREEMAN, 1614

(_fl._ 1614)

“_To Master W. Shakespeare._”

Shakespeare, that nimble Mercury thy brain Lulls many hundred Argus-eyes asleep, So fit, for all thou fashionest thy rein, At th’ horse-foot fountain thou hast drank full deep, Vertues or vices theme to thee all one is: Who loves chaste life, there’s _Lucrece_ for a Teacher: Who but read lust there’s _Venus and Adonis_, True model of a most lascivious leacher. Besides in plays thy wit winds like Meander: Whence needy new-composers borrow more Than Terence doth from Plautus or Menander. But to praise thee aright I want thy store: Then let thine own works thine own worth upraise, And help t’ adorn thee with deserved Bays.

_Runne, and a Great Caste. The Second Bowle._ (_Being the second part of a Rubbe, and a Great Cast_, 1614.) Epigram 92, Sig. K2, back.

WILLIAM BASSE, 1622

(_d._ 1653?)

“_On Mr. William Shakespeare._”

Renowned Spenser lie a thought more nigh To learned Beaumont, and rare Beaumont lie A little nearer Chaucer, to make room For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb. To lodge all four in one bed make a shift Until Doom’s day, for hardly will (a) fift Betwixt this day and that by fate be slain, For whom the curtains shall be drawn again. For if precedency in death do bar A fourth place in your sacred sepulchre, In this uncarved marble of thy own, Sleep, brave Tragedian, Shakespeare, sleep alone; Thy unmolested rest, unshared cave, Possess as lord, not tenant, to the grave, That unto others it may counted be Honour hereafter to be layed by thee.

_Fennell’s Shakespere Repository_, 1853, p. 10. Printed from a MS. _temp._ Charles I.

ANONYMOUS, 1623

_Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem, Terra tegit, populus maeret, Olympus habet._

Stay, passenger, who goest thou by so fast? Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath placed Within this monument; Shakespeare with whom Quick nature died; whose name doth deck this tomb Far more than cost; sith all that he hath writ Leaves living art but page to serve his wit.

Inscription on the Monument erected to Shakespeare’s Memory in the Parish Church at Stratford-on-Avon. 1623.

BEN JONSON, 1623

(1573-1637)

“_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 . . . But thou art proof against them, and in deed 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 further 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 disproportion’d Muses: For, if I thought my judgment were of years, I should commit thee surely with thy peers, And tell how for thou didst our Lyly out-shine, Or sporting Kid, 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 Æschilus, Euripides, and Sophocles to us, Paccuvius, 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 Muse’s anvil: turn the same (And himself in 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 turned and true-filed 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.

Prefixed to the First Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_.

. . . “I will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie A little further to make thee a room.”

See William Basse, p. 40.

HUGH HOLLAND, 1623

(_d._ 1633)

“_Upon the Lines and Life of the famous Scenick Poet, Master William Shakespeare._”

Those hands, which you so clapt, go now, and wring You Britain’s brave; for done are Shakespeare’s days: His days are done, that made the dainty Plays, Which make the Globe of heav’n and earth to ring. Dried is that vein, dried is the Thespian Spring, Turn’d all to tears, and Phœbus clouds his rays: That corpse, that coffin now bestick those bayes, 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 Nuncius is. For though his line of life went soon about, The life yet of his lines shall never out.

Prefixed to the First Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_.

JOHN HEMINGE, 1623

(_d._ 1630)

HENRIE CONDELL

(_d._ 1627)

“_To the great Variety of Readers._”

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, whom, if you need, can be your guides: if you need them not, you can lead yourselves, and others. And such readers we wish him.

Address prefixed to the First Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_. 1623.

LEONARD DIGGES, 1623

(1588-1635)

“_To the Memorie of the deceased Author, Maister 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 loath what’s new, thinke all is prodigy That is not Shakespeare’s; ev’ry 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 missed), until our bankrout 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, Then when thy half-sword parlying Romans spake, Till these, till any of thy Volumes rest Shall with more fire, more feeling be expressed, Be sure, our Shakespeare, thou canst never die, But crown’d with laurel, live eternally.

Prefixed to the First Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_. 1623.

MICHAEL DRAYTON, 1627

(1563-1631)

“_To my most dearly-loved friend Henery Reynolds, Esquire, of Poets and Poesie._”

Shakespeare, thou hadst as smooth a comic vein, Fitting the sock, and in thy natural brain, As strong conception, and as clear a rage As any one that trafick’d with the stage.

Elegies at the end of _The Battaile of Agincourt_. 1627, p. 206.

JOHN MILTON, 1630

(1608-1674)

“_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 life-long monument. For whilst, to the 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; Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving, Dost make us marble with too much conceiving; And, so sepulchr’d, in such pomp dost lie, That kings, for such a tomb should wish to die.

Prefixed to Second Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_. 1632.

I. M. S., 1632

“_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 (confused) 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, wond’ring 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 herse, 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; abus’d, and glad To be abus’d, affected with that truth Which we perceive is false; pleas’d in that ruth At which we start; and by elaborate play Tortur’d and tickled; by a crablike way Time past made pastime, and in ugly sort Disgorging up his ravaine 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 steer 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 Improv’d by favour of the ninefold 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 Calliope, 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 lov’d 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 purled; 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 breath and speak, with laurel crown’d Which never fades. Fed with Ambrosian meat, In a well-lined 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, I. M. S. Prefixed to the Second Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_. 1632.

Conjectures as to the authorship of this poem have been numerous. Coleridge in his _Lectures on Shakespeare_ says: “This poem is subscribed I. M. S., meaning, as some have explained, the initials “John Milton, Student”: the internal evidence seems to us decisive; for there was, I think, no other man, of that particular day, capable of writing anything so characteristic of Shakespeare, so justly thought, and so happily expressed.”

JOHN HALES, BEFORE 1633

(1584-1656)

In a conversation between Sir John Suckling, Sir William D’Avenant, Endymion Porter, Mr. Hales of Eton, and Ben Jonson, Sir John Suckling, who was a professed admirer of Shakespeare, had undertaken his defence against Ben Jonson with some warmth. Mr. Hales, who had sat still for some time, hearing Ben frequently reproaching him with the want of learning, and ignorance of the ancients, told him at last, “That if Mr. Shakespeare had not read the ancients, he had likewise not stolen anything from ’em [a fault the other made no conscience of]; and that if he would produce any one topic finely treated by any of them, he would undertake to show something upon the same subject at least as well written by Shakespeare.”

Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespeare, prefixed to the edition of his _Works_ by Nicholas Rowe, 1709, vol. i. p. xiv.

SIR WILLIAM D’AVENANT, 1637

(1606-1668)

“_Ode. In Remembrance of Master William Shakespeare._”

1

Beware (delighted Poets!) when you sing To welcome Nature in the early Spring; Your num’rous feet not tread The Banks of Avon; for each flower (As it ne’er knew a sun or shower) Hangs there the pensive head.

2

Each tree whose thick and spreading growth hath made Rather a night beneath the boughs, than shade (Unwilling now to grow), Looks like the plume a captive wears Whose rifled falls are steept i’ th’ tears Which from his last rage flow.

3

The piteous river wept itself away Long since (alas!) to such a swift decay; That reach the map; and look If you a river there can spy; And for a river your mock’d eye Will find a shallow brook.

_Madagascar, with other Poems._ 1638, p. 37. Printed 1637.

ANONYMOUS, ABOUT 1637

“_An Elegie on the Death of that famous Writer and Actor, Mr. William Shakspeare._”

I dare not do thy memory that wrong, Unto our larger griefs to give a tongue; I’ll only sigh in earnest, and let fall My solemn tears at thy great funeral; For every eye that rains a show’r for thee, Laments thy loss in a sad elegy. Nor is it fit each humble Muse should have Thy worth his subject, now th’ art laid in grave; No, it’s a flight beyond the pitch of those, Whose worthless pamphlets are not sense in prose. Let learned Jonson sing a Dirge for thee, And fill our Orb with mournful harmony: But we need no remembrancer; thy fame Shall still accompany thy honoured name To all posterity; and make us be Sensible of what we lost in losing thee: Being the age’s wonder, whose smooth rhymes Did more reform than lash the looser times. Nature herself did her own self admire, As oft as thou wert pleased to attire Her in her native lustre, and confess Thy dressing was her chiefest comliness. How can we then forget thee, when the age Her chiefest tutor, and the widowed stage Her only favourite in thee hath lost, And Nature’s self what she did brag of most? Sleep then, rich soul of numbers, whilst poor we Enjoy the profits of thy legacy; And thinke it happiness enough we have So much of thee redeemèd from the grave, As may suffice to enlighten future times With the bright lustre of thy matchless rhymes.

Appended to Shakespeare’s _Poems_. 1640. Sig. L.

THOMAS BANCROFT, 1639

(_fl._ 1633-1658)

“_To Shakespeare._”

Thy Muse’s sugared dainties seem to us Like the fam’d apples of old Tantalus: For we, admiring, see and hear thy strains; But none I see or hear, those sweets attains.

“_To the same._”

Thou hast so us’d thy pen (or shook thy spear), That Poets startle, nor thy wit come near.

_Two Bookes of Epigrammes, and Epitaphs._ 1639. Nos. 118 and 119.

GEORGE DANIEL, 1647

(1616-1657)

The sweetest Swan of Avon, to ye fair And cruel Delia, passionately sings; Other men’s weaknesses and follies are Honour and wit to him; each accent brings A sprig to crown him Poet; and contrive A monument, in his own work, to live.

_Poems. Vindication of Poesie._ Add. MS. 19255, p. 17. (British Museum.) Privately printed by Dr. Grosart. 1878, 4 vols. Vol. i. pp. 28, 29.

SAMUEL SHEPPARD, 1651

(_fl. c._ 1606-1652)

“_In Memory of our Famous Shakespeare._”

1

Sacred spirit, whiles thy Lyre Echoed o’er the Arcadian Plains, Even Apollo did admire, Orpheus wondered at thy strains.

2

Plautus sigh’d, Sophocles wept Tears of anger, for to hear, After they so long had slept, So bright a genius should appear.

3

Who wrote his Lines with a sun-beam, More durable than Time or Fate; Others boldly do blaspheme, Like those that seem to preach, but prate.

4

Thou wert truly priest elect, Chosen darling to the Nine; Such a trophy to erect By thy wit and skill divine.

5

That were all their other glories (Thine excepted) torn away, By thy admirable stories, Their garments ever shall be gay.

6

Where thy honoured bones do lie (As Statius once to Maro’s urn), Thither every year will I Slowly tread, and sadly mourn.

_Epigrams Theological, Philosophical, and Romantick._ Six Books, etc., with other Select Poems. 1651.