XI.6

ON THE PORTRAIT OF SHAKSPEARE.

TO THE READER.

HIS figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakspeare cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With nature, to out-do the life:
O could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass, as he has hit

His face; the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass :
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his picture, but his book.'

6 I have thought it best to interrupt the arrangement of the old folio, in this place, for the sake of inserting such scattered pieces of Jonson, as have not hitherto found a place in his works, together with such as Whalley had improperly subjoined to his Epigrams, which being published under the author's own care, should naturally terminate where he chose to stop short himself.

7 These verses are printed with Jonson's name under the portrait of Shakspeare, prefixed as a frontispiece to the first edition of his works in folio, 1623.

"This print (engraved by Martin Droeshout) gives us a truer representation of Shakspeare, than several more pompous memorials of him; if the testimony of Ben Jonson may be credited, to whom he was personally known. Unless we suppose that poet to have sacrificed his veracity to the turn of thought in his epigram, which is very improbable, as he might have been easily contradicted by several that must have remembered so celebrated a person."

Granger's Biog. Hist. of Eng. 8vo. 1775, vol. ii. p. 6.

XII.

TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED

MASTER WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE,

AND WHAT HE HATH LEFT US.

O draw no envy, Shakspeare, 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 silliest 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 infámous bawd, or whore,
Should praise a matron; what could hurt her more?
But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin: Soul of the age!
The applause! delight! the wonder of our stage!
My Shakspeare rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further off, to make thee room:8
Thou art a monument without a tomb,

8 My Shakspeare rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie

A little further off, to make thee room.] These verses allude to an Elegy on Shakspeare, written by W. Basse, which is here subjoined:

"Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh

To learned Chaucer; and, rare Beaumont, lie

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 far thou didst our Lily outshine,9
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlow's mighty line.

A little nearer Spenser, to make room

For Shakespear in your threefold, fourfold tomb.
To lodge all four in one bed make a shift,
For, until doomsday hardly will a fifth,
Betwixt this day and that, by fates be slain,

For whom your curtains need be drawn again.
But if precedency in death doth bar

A fourth place in your sacred sepulchre,
Under this sable marble of thine own,

Sleep, rare tragedian, Shakespeare, sleep alone :
Thy unmolested peace, in an unshared cave,
Possess as lord, not tenant of thy grave.
That unto us, and others, it may be
Honour hereafter to be laid by thee."

9 And tell how far thou didst our Lily outshine,

WHAL.

Or sporting Kyd, or Marlow's mighty line.] These were in possession of the theatre when Shakspeare first appeared, and enjoyed a high degree of popularity. Of Kyd little is known, except that he was the author of the Spanish Tragedy; though he must undoubtedly have had many other pieces on the stage. Lily was a pedantic and affected writer, with considerable talents, not indeed for the drama, but for the rude, verbose romance of those days, and which had a striking influence not only on our colloquial, but written language.

Marlow's mighty line is not introduced at random. Marlow has many lines which have not hitherto been surpassed. His two parts of Tamburlaine, though simple in plot and naked in artifice, have yet some rude attempts at consistency of character, and many passages of masculine vigour and lofty poetry. Even the bombast lines which Shakspeare has put into the mouth of Pistol, are followed by others, in the same scene, and even in the same speech, which the great poet himself might have fathered without disgrace to his superior powers.

Marlow had the sublimity of Milton, without the taste and in

And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee, I will not seek
For names but call forth thund'ring Eschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordoua dead,
To live 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!

spiration. It is not just to consign him to ridicule. He and his contemporary Peele, were produced just as the chaos of ignorance was breaking up: they were among the earliest to perceive the glimmering of sense and nature, and struggled to reach the light.

Marlow's end, like his career, was miserable. He fell (see vol. i. p. 98) in a brothel squabble; and the doating Aubrey, who implicitly swallows every idle story, and confounds every true one, tells us that he was killed by Ben Jonson !

Our author's attachment to Marlow was not unknown, nor were his praises of him singular. He (Cris. Marlow), says a writer of the last century, wrote besides plays, a poem called Hero and Leander, of whose "mighty lines" master Jonson, a man sensible enough of his own abilities, was often heard to say, that they were examples fitter for admiration than parallel." What! the "envious" Ben? Impossible.

Drayton thus characterises him:

"Next Marlow, bathed in the Thespian springs,
Had in him those brave translunary things
That the first poets had: his raptures were
All air and fire, which made his verses clear;
For that fine madness he did still retain,
Which rightly should possess a poet's brain."

f

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 Shakspeare,10 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 Shakspeare'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.

Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were

To see thee in our water 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,

10 My gentle Shakspeare.] The uncommon fondness of Jonson for Shakspeare is visible upon every mention of his name. This is the second time that he has applied the epithet of gentle to him, which is now become a part of his name. Just below, he calls him the Sweet Swan of Avon. It would have killed Mr. Malone's heart to acknowledge that the two most endearing appellations by which this great poet has been known and characterised for nearly two centuries, were first bestowed upon him by "old Ben, who persecuted his memory with clumsy sarcasm, and restless malignity."