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Full text of "Tributes to
Shakespeare"UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
Deceived WAR 15 1893 , , 8 g .
Tributes to
SHAKESPEARE
COLLECTED AND ARRANGED
BY MARY R. SILSBY
NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS
PRINTERS 6- PUBLISHERS MDCCCXCII
Copyright, 1892, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
All rights reserved.
S3
TO
WILLIAM J. ROLFE, LiTT.D.
IN RECOGNITION OF HIS SERVICES TO
STUDENTS OF SHAKESPEARE
THIS VOLUME IS
Gratefully
It is really curious . . . that almost all the poets who have
touched Shakespeare seem to become inspired above themselves. The
poem that Ben Jonson wrote in his memory has a splendor of movement
about it that is uncommon with him, a sort of rapture ; and Dryden
wrote nothing finer than what he wrote of the greatest of poets.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
(Shakespeare's Richard the Third).
PREFACE.
FOR several years, while engaged in the study of Shakespeare in
connection with a Shakespeare Society, the editor preserved in her
note-books every poem addressed to the dramatist, or inspired by
his genius or personality, which fell under her notice. These
ranged in date from 1595 to 1891, and filled many pages. It was
merely a labor of love, with an interest in observing the variety
of styles in which the great theme was treated, and she entertained
no idea of ever making any further use of the material thus
gathered. But the suggestion was made by friends that if these
poems were issued in a volume it would form an interesting
collection.
Vlll PREFACE.
tion, and such she trusts it will prove to the lovers of
Shakespeare.
As no single volume could include all the poetical tributes to the
great dramatist, an effort has been made to select the best that
have been printed during three centuries.
The contemporary poems have been chronologically arranged in the
opening pages of the book, and with the modern poems an effort at
chronological arrangement has also been attempted. Where it has not
been possible to obtain the exact date of a poem, the date of the
publication of the volume in which it appeared has been used.
Brief explanatory notes have been added to the poems when deemed
necessary.
The collection of " Brief Tributes," at the end of the volume, was
not intended to be exhaustive, but merely to include short
references to the poet that came under the editor's eye while
gathering the longer pieces.
The editor cannot too strongly express her obligations to those who
have kindly aided
her in making the volume complete. Every
PREFACE. IX
publisher and author to whom she appealed for permission to use
copyrighted poems most
graciously assented; and the interest they evinced in the plan, and
the encouragement
she has thus received, have made the undertaking a pleasure rather
than a task.
The editor also desires to express her obligations to Messrs.
Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
by whose kind permission she was allowed to incorporate the poems
by Holmes, Longfellow, Emerson, Bayard Taylor, and Mrs. Piatt, and
to draw from the pages of the Atlantic ;
to the Century Company, who added their consent to that of the
authors for the poems
quoted from the Century; to the publishers of the Literary World ;
to Mr. William Winter
and his publishers, the Messrs. Macmillan & Co.; to
Messrs. Stoddard, Gilder, Aldrich,
C. C. Buel, and the many other American poets whose poems enrich
the pages of her book.
Dr. William J. Rolfe, to whom the editor has the pleasure of
dedicating the volume,
writes as follows of its plan :
X PREFACE.
CAMBRIDGE, Jan. 5, 1892.
DEAR MRS. SILSBY, Many thanks for the proofsheets of your book, the
plan of which you kindly ex-
plained to me some months ago. It was a happy thought to gather up
these tributes to Shakespeare, and it is remarkable that it was not
done by some lover of the poet long ere this. In Dr. Ingleby's "
Centurie of Prayse " (which you tell me you had not seen until I
called your attention to it when your book was just going to press,
and which, as you say, would have saved
you much labor in verifying the text of certain pieces), the
allusions to the dramatist, whether in prose or in verse, in print
or in manuscript, between 1591 and 1693, have been collected ; but
there are comparatively few of these which would properly come
within the scope of your volume. Many of them merely mention the
name of Shakespeare or refer to him in a casual way, and many
others are in no sense "tributes" to his genius or his memory. The
present century has been far richer in these tributes than the one
to which Dr. Ingleby restricted himself. The intervening century,
the earlier half of it in particular, as might be expected,
furnishes few poems for your list. The chronology of the poems is,
indeed, very interesting and suggestive to the student
of Shakespeare and of literature.
Allow one such student to congratulate you heartily on both the
plan and the execution of your book, and to subscribe himself
Most gratefully and cordially yours,
W. J. ROLFE.
CONTENTS.
Author. Page
Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare . . . John Weever. i
To Shakespeare Richard Barnefield. 3
Shakespeare Wm. Barkstead. 4
To Our English Terence, Mr. Will Shakespeare . 5
John Davies of Hereford.
To Master William Shakespeare . Thomas Freeman. 6
To Shakespeare .... Christopher Brooke. 8
Inscription over Shakespeare's Grave 9
Inscription under Shakespeare's Bust 10
On Mr. William Shakespeare . . William Basse, n
Lines on the Portrait of Shakespeare. Ben Jonson. 12
To the Memory of My Beloved . . Ben Jonson. 13
Upon the Lines and Life of the Famous Scenicke Poet, Master William
Shakespeare .... 17
Hugh Holland.
To the Memorie of the Deceased Authour Maister W. Shakespeare ....
L. Digges. 19
To the Memorie of M. W. Shakespeare . I. M. 21
Epitaph upon Mr. William Shakespeare .... 22
Shakespeare. . . . . . . Michael Drayton. 22
Xll CONTENTS.
Author. Page
On Worthy Master Shakespeare and His Poems . 23
I. M. S.
Upon the Effigies of my Worthy Friend . . . . 29
Anonymous.
An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramaticke Poet,
W. Shakespeare ..... John Milton. 30
Extract from ' ' The Hierarchic of the Blessed Angells" Thomas Hey
wood. 31
In Remembrance of Master William Shakespere . 33
Sir William Davenant. Extract from ' ' Jonsonus Virbius ". Owen
Feltham. 35
To Shakespeare 36
To the Same Thomas Bancroft. 36
To Mr. William Shakespeare. . . Anonymous. 37
Upon Master William Shakespeare 37
Leonard Digges. An Elegy, on the Death of that Famous Writer
and
Actor, Mr. William Shakespeare. Anonymous. 42
To Shakespeare. .... Samuel Sheppard. 44
Elegiac Verses on Shakespeare. Samuel Sheppard. 44
To Mr. Clement Fisher of Wincott 47
Sir Aston Cokaine.
Shakespeare ........ John Dryden. 48
Shakespeare John Dryden. 50
Shakespeare Sir Carr Scrope. 52
Shakespeare John Dryden. 53
Shakespeare Thomas Otway. 54
To Shakespeare J. Crown. 56
Shakespeare John Sheffield. 57
Shakespeare Nahum Tate. 58
CONTENTS. xili
Author. Page
Shakespeare John Dryden. 59
Shakespeare John Dryden. 59
Shakespeare's Mulberry Tree . . David Garrick. 60
Warwickshire A Song. . . . David Garrick. 65
Ode to Shakespeare David Garrick. 69
Sweet Willy O David Garrick. 71
The Birth of Shakspeare J. Ogden. 72
From "The Rosciad" . . . Charles Churchill. 76
Shakespeare Robert Lloyd. 78
Shakespeare Anonymous. 79
Sonnet Anonymous. 80
The Tomb of Shakespeare. John Gilbert Cooper. 81
To Shakespeare Thomas Gray. 92
Monody Thomas Warton. 92
Shakespeare's Monument .... Anonymous. 94
Inscription for a Monument to Shakespeare ... 95
Mark Akenside.
An Epistle Addressed to Sir Thomas Hanmer, on his Edition of
Shakespeare's Works .... 97
William Collins.
Shakespeare < Alexander Pope. 102
To the Idol of my Eye, and Delight of my Heart, Ann Hathaway
103
The Bust of Shakespeare 105
Written in the Visitors' Book at Stratford . . . 106
Prince Lucien Bonaparte.
Written before Re-reading " King Lear " . . . 107
John Keats.
Written in the Visitors' Book at Stratford . . . 108
Washington Irving.
XIV CONTENTS.
Author. Page
Shakespeare Ode Charles Sprague. 109
To Shakespeare . . . Walter Savage Landor. 120
Written in a Volume of Shakespeare 121
Thomas Hood.
Shakespeare Hartley Coleridge. 122
Stratford-upon-Avon Henry Alford. 123
Shakespeare John Sterling. 124
To Shakespeare . . . Frances Anne Kemble. 126
To Shakespeare. . . . Frances Anne Kemble. 127
Written in the Visitors' Book at Stratford . . .128
Daniel Maclise.
Shakespeare Matthew Arnold. 129
On Mrs. Kemble's Readings from Shakespeare . .130
H. W. Longfellow.
Stratford-on-Avon Robert Leighton. 131
Poetry Immortal . . . Henry T. Tuckerman. 132
Shakespeare in Italy W. S. Landor. 133
William Shakespeare . . . . R. H. Stoddard. 134
Shakespeare 140
Shakespeare O. W. Holmes. 142
Ode on Shakespeare's Birthday. J. H. Sheppard. 146
Shakespeare Henry Ames Blood. 150
The Stratford Jubilee . . . Martin F. Tupper. 155
The Two Poets. . 156
Shakespeare R. W. Emerson. 157
Shakespeare R. W. Emerson. 157
In the Old Churchyard at Fredericksburg . . .158
Frederick Wadsworth Loring.
Shakespeare Simeon Tucker Clark. 161
Shakespeare's Statue .... Bayard Taylor. 162
CONTENTS. XV
Author. Page
Shakespeare John Brougham. 168
Anne Hathaway 169
Scott's Shakespeare 17
Shakespeare . . . Mary H. Welles Pumpelly. 171
Shakespeare H. W. Longfellow. 176
William Shakespeare 177
Algernon Charles Swinburne.
Sonnet. To England . . Algernon C. Swinburne. 178
To Edmund Clarence Stedman 179
Richard Henry Stoddard.
With " Shakespeare's Sonnets" 180
Richard Henry Stoddard.
Written on a Fly- Leaf of "Shakespeare's Son-
nets" Richard Watson Gilder. 181
At Stratford-upon-Avon . Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 182
Shakespeare J. M. Rogers. 183
Hiram Hayes in Stratford 184
Shakespeare Charlotte Fiske Bates. 185
To the Avon H. W. Longfellow. 186
A Word for Shakespeare . . Benj. F. Leggett. 187
Shakespeare .... Kate Brownlee Sherwood. 191
Shakespeare Minna Irving. 192
Poet and Actress . . . Clarence Clough Buel. 193
Shakespeare William Leighton. 194
Mankind's Highest . . . Wm. Roscoe Thayer. 195
The Poet's Month .... William Leighton. 196
Shakespeare .... James Newton Matthews. 200
A Vision of Loss M. L. Henry. 202
Shakespeare .... Alice Williams Brotherton. 204
The Dead Lion William Leighton. 205
XVI CONTENTS,
Author. Page
The Names Robert Browning. 206
The Modern Rhymer . Richard Watson Gilder. 208
To Modjeska as Rosalind . . Oscar Fay Adams. 210
Epigram William Watson. 21 1
Shakespeare's Sonnets . . Charlotte Fiske Bates. 212
With a Copy of Shakespeare 212
Charles Goodrich Whiting.
The Sermon of a Statue . . . S. M. B. Piatt. 213
Written in a Volume of Shakespeare 216
Charles H. Crandall.
After Reading Shakespeare . . C. E. Markham. 217
The Childs Fountain at Stratford-on-Avon . . .218
Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Hamlet at the Boston . . . Julia Ward Howe. 223
Since Cleopatra Died 227
Thomas Went worth Higginson.
Across the Fields to Anne . Richard E. Burton. 228
Ashes William Winter. 231
Guilielmus Rex .... Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 232
The Passing Bell at Stratford . William Winter. 233
A Bar to Originality . . John Kendrick Bangs. 235
After Reading " Tamburlaine the Great " . . . 235
William Watson.
The Twenty-third of April . . . R. W. Gilder. 236
The Thought of Shakespeare 237
Richard Edwin Day.
BRIEF TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE 238
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
AD GULIELMUM SHAKESPEARE.
Honie-tongued Shakespeare, when I saw thine issue,
I swore Apollo got them, and none other ;
Their rosie-tinted features clothed in tissue,
Some heaven -borne goddesse said to be their mother ;
Rose-cheekt Adonis with his amber tresses ;
Faire fire-hot Venus charming him to love her;
Chaste Lucretia, virgine-like her dresses ;
Proud lust-stung Tarquine seeking still to prove her ;
2 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Romeo ; Richard ; more whose names I know not,
Their sugred tongues, and power-attractive beauty,
Say they are saints, although that saints they show not ;
For thousand vowes to them subjective dutie.
They burn in love, thy children, Shakespeare. Let them ;
Go woo thy Muse ! More nymphish brood beget them !
JOHN WEEVER (1576-1632).
[Weaver composed his book, entitled " Epi-
grammes in the oldest cut and newest Fashion,"
in 1595, when he was nineteen years old. This
is the 22d Epigram of the Fourth Weeke, and
is valuable as an early contemporary reference
to Shakespeare.]
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
TO SHAKESPEARE.
And Shakespeare, thou whose hony- flowing Vaine,
(Pleasing the World), thy Praises doth obtaine,
Whose Venus and whose Lucrece (sweete and chaste),
Thy Name in Fame's immortall Booke have plac't,
Live ever you ; at least, in Fame live ever !
Well may the Bodye die, but Fame dies never.
RICHARD BARNEFIELD (1574-1605).
[These lines form the fourth stanza in a poem entitled "A
Remembrance of Some English
Poets," in Barnefield's " Poems in Divers Humors," published in
1598. The first stanza is on
Spenser, the second on Daniell, and the third on Drayton.
Barnefield's " Ode to the Nightingale,"
" As it fell upon a day," etc., had the honor of being attributed
to Shakespeare.]
4 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
SHAKESPEARE.
But stay my muse ! in thine owne confines keepe,
& wage not warre with so deere lov'd a
neighbor.
But having sung thy day song rest and sleepe
preserve thy small fame and his greater favor ;
His song was worthie merrit (Shakespeare hee)
sung the faire blossome, thou the withered tree.
Laurell is due to him, his art and wit
hath purchast it, Cypress thy brow will fit.
WM. BARKSTEAD (1607).
[From " Myrrha, the Mother of Adonis, or Lust's Prodigies, a Poem,"
1607. William Bark-
stead was an actor and dramatist in the reign of James I.]
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 5
TO OUR ENGLISH TERENCE, MR. WILL SHAKESPEARE.
Some say, good Will, which I in sport do sing,
Hadst thou not plaid some kingly parts in sport,
Thou hadst bin a companion for a king ;
And bin a king among the meaner sort.
Some others raile ; but, raile as they thinke fit,
Thou hast no railing, but a reigning wit,
And honesty, thou sow'st which they do reape,
So to increase their stocke, which they do keepe.
JOHN DAVIES of Hereford.
("Scourge of Folly," 1607.)
[John Davies, the epigrammatist, the author of the above, was a
native of Hereford, and was
educated at Oxford ; he was famous as a poet and writing-master,
and became one of the in-
structors of Prince Henry at the Court of James I. He was not
related to Sir John Davies. " The
6 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Scourge of Folly " consisted of " Epigrams and others in her many
noble and worthy Persons of
our Land." The book is now very rare and costly ; the verses
scarcely rise above doggerel. Davies
lived among great scholars and wits : with Beaumont, Fletcher,
Jonson, Marston, Bacon, Dray-
ton, Sidney, Sir Thomas Lucy, and, greatest of all, Shakespeare ;
to all of whom he addressed
epigrams. This one to Shakespeare implies a singular, and otherwise
unknown, circumstance
of Shakespeare's life, and leads us to suppose that he had given
offence to King James by
performing the character of a king, and that this stood in the way
of his rising in favor at court.
We cannot term the comparison of Shakespeare to Terence an
especially felicitous one.]
TO MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
Shakespeare, that nimble Mercury, thy braine,
Lulls many hundred Argus'- eyes asleepe ;
So fit for all thou fashionest thy vein,
At th' horse -foot fountain thou hast drunk full deepe,
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 7
Virtue's or vice's theme to thee all one is ;
Who loves chaste life, there's Lucreece for a teacher;
Who lists read lust, there's Venus and Adonis,
True model of a most lascivious lecher;
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 owne works thine owne worth upraise,
And help f adorn thee with deserved Baies.
THOMAS FREEMAN.
(" Rub and a Great Cast," 1614.)
[The book from which this tribute to Shake-
speare is taken is now extremely rare ; only two
or three copies are known to be extant. It con-
tained two hundred epigrams, and was published
in 1614, when the author was about twenty-three
years of age. It is said that he was the friend
of Shakespeare, Donne, Chapman, and Heywood,
to some of whose judgments he submitted his
epigrams.]
8 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
TO SHAKESPEARE.
To him that impt my fame with Clio's quill,
Whose magick rais'd me from Oblivion's den ;
That writ my story on the Muses' hill,
And with my actions dignified his pen ;
He that from Helicon sends many a rill,
Whose nectar'd veins are drunk by thirsty men,
Crown'd be his style with fame, his head with baies,
And none detract, but gratulate his praise.
Yet if his scenes have not engrost all grace,
The much famed actor could extend on stage,
If Time or Memory have left a place
For me to fill t' enform this ignorant age ;
In that intent I show my horrid face,
Imprest with fear and characters of rage,
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 9
Nor acts nor chronicles could e'er contain
The hell-deep reaches of my soundless brain.
C. B. (Christopher Brooke).
("The Ghost of Richard the Third," 1614.)
[These lines are from Christopher Brooke's poems, published in 1614
with the following title :
" The Ghost of Richard the Third, Expressing himself in these three
Parts: i. His Character.
2. His Legend. 3. His Tragedie. Containing more of him than hath
been heretofore shewed ;
either in Chronicles, Playes or Poems." It is interesting not only
from its reference to Shake-
speare's " Richard the Third," but that it contains also several
lines quoted from Shakespeare's
play.]
INSCRIPTION
ON THE TABLET OVER SHAKESPEARE'S GRAVE.
APRIL 25. 1616.
Good frend for Jesus sake forbeare,
To digg the dust encloased heare :
Bleste be y e man y* spares these stones,
And curst be he y* moves my bones.
10 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
INSCRIPTION
UPON THE TABLET UNDER SHAKESPEARE'S BUST.
In the Chancel North Wall of Stratford Church.
Ivdicio Pylivm, genio Socratem, arte Maronem,
Terra tegit, popvlys maeret, Olympvs habet.
Stay Passenger, why goest thou by so fast ?
Read if thou canst, whom envious Death hath plast,
With in this monvment Shakspeare with whome
Qvick Nature dide : whose name doth deck y s Tombe
Far more then cost : sieh all, y* He hath writt,
Leaves living art, bvt page, to serve his Witt.
Obiit Ano Do' 1616.
JEtatis, 53, Die 23 Ap.
(1617-1622.)
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. II
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 Domes day, for hardly will a fifth
Betwixt this day and that, by fate bee slaine,
For whom the curtains shal bee drawne againe.
But if Precedencie in death doe barre,
A fourth place in your sacred Sepulcher ;
In this uncarved marble of thy owne,
Sleep, brave Tragedian, Shakespeare ! sleepe
alone ;
Thy unmolested rest, thy unshared cave,
Possess as lord, not tenant, to thy grave,
That unto others, it may counted bee
Honour hereafter to bee layed by thee.
WILLIAM BASSE, 1622.
12 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
[There are many versions of this epitaph,
which was written in 1622, and attributed to
William Basse; it is claimed to be the first writ-
ten on Shakespeare. There are six manuscript
copies of it known to be extant, in which the
form is altered, as it is also in the printed
versions in Donne's Poems, and appended to
Shakespeare's Poems.]
LINES ON THE PORTRAIT OF
SHAKESPEARE.
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 drawne 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 at his Picture, but his Booke.
BEN JONSON.
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 13
[These lines "To the Reader" face the
Droeshout portrait of Shakespeare, prefixed to
the first folio edition of his Works (1623), and
are also found in the second (1632), third (1664),
and fourth (1685) folios.]
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 Booke and Fame ;
While I confesse thy writings to be such,
As neither Man, nor Muse, can praise too
much.
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. . . .
Soule 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 lye
A little further to make thee a roome ;
Thou art a Moniment, without a tombe,
14 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
And art alive still, while thy Booke 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^ muses :
For, if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell, how farre 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 ys-
chylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova 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.
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 15
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 warme
Our ears, or like a Mercury to charme !
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joy'd to weare 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
1 6 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
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-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 appeare
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 Starre of Poets, and with rage,
Or influence, chide, or cheere the drooping
Stage ;
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 17
Which, since thy flight fro' hence, hath
mourn'd like night,
And despaires day, but for thy Volume's light.
BEN JONSON.
[This eulogy was prefixed to the first folio,
1623.]
UPON THE LINES AND LIFE OF THE
FAMOUS SCENICKE POET,
MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
Those hands, which you so clapt, go now, and
wring
You Britaine's brave; for done are Shake-
speare'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,
1 8 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Turn'd all to teares, and Phoebus cloudes his
rayes ;
That corp's, that coffin now besticke those
bayes,
Which crown'd him Poet first, then Poets'
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 publique tyring-house) the Nuncius is.
For though his line of life went soon about,
The life yet of his lines shall never out.
HUGH HOLLAND.
[Prefixed to the first folio edition of Shake-
speare's works, 1623.]
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 19
TO THE MEMORIE OF THE DECEASED
AUTHOUR MAISTER W.
SHAKESPEARE.
Shake-speare, at length thy pious followes
give
The world thy Workes ; thy Workes, by which,
outlive
Thy Tombe thy name must ; when that stone
is rent,
And Time dissolves thy Stratford Moni-
ment,
Here we alive shall view thee still. This
Booke,
When Brasse and Marble fade, shall make
thee looke
Fresh to all Ages : when Posterite
Shall loath what's new, thinke all is prodigie
That is not Shake-speare's : ev'ry Line, each
Verse
Here shall revive, redeeme thee from thy
Herse.
20 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Nor Fire, nor cankring Age, as Naso said,
Of his, thy wit-fraught Booke shall once in-
vade.
Nor shall I e're beleeve, or thinke thee dead
(Though mist) untill our bankrout Stage be
sped
(Impossible) with some new straine t' out-do
Passions of Juliet and her Romeo ;
Or till I heare 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 exprest,
Be sure, our Shake-speare, thou canst never
dye,
But crown'd with Lawrell, live eternally.
L. DIGGES.
[Prolegomena to the folio of 1623.]
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 21
TO THE MEMORIE OF M. W. SHAKE-
SPEARE.
Wee wondred (Shake-speare) that thou went'st
so soone,
From the Worlds- Stage, to the Graves-Tyr-
ing-roome.
Wee thought thee dead, but this thy printed
worth,
Tels thy Spectators, that thou went'st but forth
To enter with applause. An Actor's Art,
Can dye, and live to acte a second part.
That's but an Exit of Mortalitie;
This, a Re-entrance to a Plaudite.
I. M. (1623).
[Prolegomena to the first folio of 1623. The
lines have been attributed to John Marston, Jas-
per Mayne, and James Mabbe.]
22 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
EPITAPH UPON MR. WILLIAM SHAKE-
SPEARE.
Loord Shakespeare lyes whom none but death
could shake
And heere shall ly till judgement all awake,
When the last trumpet doth unclose his eyes
The wittiest poet in the world shall rise.
[This epitaph, together with slightly altered ver-
sions of the two inscriptions on the tablets over
the grave and under the bust, was on a fly-leaf
at the end of a copy of Shakespeare's plays, first
folio edition of 1623, and written in a handwrit-
ing of the time. The book was offered for sale
by the Messrs. Christie, in England, in 1888.]
SHAKESPEARE.
Shakespeare thou hadst as smooth a Comicke
vaine,
Fitting the socke, and in thy natural braine,
As strong conception, and as Cleere a rage,
As any one that trafiqu'd with the stage.
MICHAEL DRAYTON (1627).
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 23
[From " Elegies appended to the Battle of
Agincourt." 1627.]
ON WORTHY MASTER SHAKESPEARE
AND HIS POEMS.
A mind reflecting ages past, whose cleere
And equall surface can make things appeare
Distant a Thousand years, and represent
Them in their lively colours, just extent.
To outrun hasty time, retrieve the fates,
Rowle backe the heavens, blow ope the iron
gates
Of death and Lethe, where (confused) lye
Great heapes of ruinous mortalitie
In that deepe duskie dungeon to discerne
A royall Ghost from Churles : By Art to learne
The Physiognomie of shades, and give
Them suddaine birth, wondring how oft they
live.
What story coldly tells, what Poets faine
At second hand, and picture without braine
24 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Senseless and souleless showes. To give a
Stage
(Ample and true with life) voyce, action, age,
As Plato's yeare and new Scene of the world
Them unto us, or us to them had hurld.
To raise our auncient Soveraignes from their
herse,
Make Kings his subjects, by exchanging
Verse
Enlive their pale trunkes, that the present age
Joys in their joy, and trembles at their rage :
Yet so to temper passion, that our eares
Take pleasure in their paine ; And eyes in
teares
Both weepe and smile ; fearefull at plots so
sad,
Then laughing at our feare ; 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 crab-like way,
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 25
Time past iflade pastime, and in ugly sort
Disgorging up his ravaine for our sport
while the Plebeian Impe from lofty throne,
Creates and rules a world, and workes upon
Mankind by secret engines ; Now to move
A chilling pitty, then a rigorous love ;
To strike up and stroake down, both joy and
ire,
To steere th' affections ; and by heavenly fire
Mould us anew. Stolne from ourselves
This and much more which cannot bee ex-
prest,
But by himself, his tongue and his owne
brest,
Was Shakespeare's freehold, which his cun-
ning braine
Improv'd by favour of the nine fold traine.
The buskind Muse, the Commicke Queene, the
graund
And lowder tone of Clio ; nimble hand,
And nimbler foote of the melodious paire,
The Silver voyced Lady ; the most faire
26 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Calliope, whose speaking silence daunts.
And she whose prayse the heavenly body
chants.
These joyntly woo'd him, envying one an-
other
(Obey'd by all as Spouse, but lov'd as brother)
And wrought a curious robe of sable grave
Fresh greene, and pleasant yellow, red most
brave,
And constant blew, rich purple, guiltless
white,
The lowly Russet, and the Scarlet bright;
Branch'd and embroydred like the painted
Spring
Each leafe match'd with a flower, and each
string
Of golden wire, each line of silke ; there
run
Italian workes whose thred the Sisters spun ;
And there did sing, or seeme to sing, the
choyce
Birdes of a forraine note and various voyce.
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 27
Here hangs a mossey rocke ; there plays a
faire
But chiding foimtaine purled : Not the ayre
Nor cloudes nor thunder, but were living
drawne
Not out of common Tiffany or Lawne.
But fine materialls, which the Muses know
And onely know the countries where they
grow.
Now, when they could no longer him en-
joy
In mortall garments pent ; death may de-
stroy
They say his body, but his verse shall live
And more than nature takes, our hands shall
give.
In a lesse volumne, but more strongly bound
Shakespeare shall breathe and speake, with
Laurell crown'd
Which never fades. Fed with Ambrosian
meate
In a well-lyned vesture rich and neate.
28 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
So with this robe they cloath him, bid him
weare it
For time shall never staine, nor envy teare it.
The friendly admirer of his Endowments.
I. M. S. (1632).
[Shakespearian editors and scholars have usual-
ly treated the letters I. M. S. as the initials of
the author's name, and many have been the con-
jectures in regard to the identity of the " friend-
ly admirer." The poem has been attributed to
Jasper Mayne (Student), John Marston (Student,
or Satirist), John Milton (Senior, or Student),
John Chapman, and Dr. John Donne ; and each
has had able advocates to support his claims.
Dr. Clement M. Ingleby advanced a most plausi-
ble theory : that the letters I. M. S. signify " In
Memoriam Scriptoris (decessi) ;" and that this
fine poem, prefixed to the second folio (1632), is
a kind of rival to Ben Jonson's, which adorned
the first folio (1623), and which Jonson declared
to be " In Memory of the (deceased) Author,"
etc. In Dr. Ingleby 's opinion, the author was a
very great poet, a distinguished rival of Shake-
speare's, who bore him no envy.]
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 29
UPON THE EFFIGIES OF MY WORTHY
FRIEND, THE AUTHOR,
MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
AND HIS WORKES.
Spectator, this Life's shaddow is ; To see
The truer image and a livelier he
Turne Reader. But, observe his Comicke
vaine,
Laugh, and proceed next to a Tragicke
straine,
Then weepe ; So when thou find'st two con-
traries,
Two different passions from thy rapt soul
rise,
Say, (who alone effect such wonders could)
Rare Shake-speare to the life thou dost be-
hold.
(Anonymous.)
[Prefixed to the second folio edition, 1632.]
30 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
AN EPITAPH ON THE ADMIRABLE
DRAMATICKE POET, W.
SHAKESPEARE.
What neede my Shakespeare for his honour'd
bones,
The labour of an Age, in piled stones ?
Or that his hallow'd Reliques should be hid
Under a starre-y-pointing Pyramid ?
Deare Sonne of Memory, great Heire of
Fame,
What needst thou such dull witnesse of thy
Name ?
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,
Hast built thy selfe a lasting Monument :
For whil'st to th' shame of slow-endevouring
Art
Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued
Booke,
Those Delphicke Lines with deepe Impres-
sion tooke;
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 31
Then thou, our fancy of her selfe bereaving,
Dost make us Marble, with too much con-
ceiving ;
And so sepulcher'd, in such pompe dost lie,
That kings, for a such a Tombe, would wish to
die.
JOHN MILTON.
[This epitaph of sixteen lines was prefixed to
the second Shakespeare folio (1632), according
to a custom then prevailing. It was printed
anonymously, and is our first specimen of Mil-
ton's poetry; and was written by him in 1630, at
the age of twenty-two.]
EXTRACT FROM "THE HIERARCHIE
OF THE BLESSED ANGELLS."
Our moderne Poets to that passe are driven,
Those names are curtal'd which they first had
given ;
And, as we wisht to have their memories
drown'd,
We scarcely can afford them halfe their sound.
32 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Greene, who had in both Academies t'ane
Degree of Master, yet could never gaine
To be calPd more than Robin ; who had he
Profest aught save the Muse, Serv'd, and been
Free
After a seven yeares Prentiseship ; might
have
(With credit too) gone Robert to his grave.
Mario, renown'd for his rare art and wit,
Could ne're attaine beyond the name of Kit ;
Although his Hero and Leander did
Merit addition rather. Famous Kid
Was call'd but Tom, Tom Watson, though he
wrote
Able to make Apollo's selfe to dote
Upon his Muse ; for all that he could strive,
Yet never could to his full name arrive.
Tom Nash (in his time of no small esteeme)
Could not a second syllable redeeme.
Excellent Bewmont, in the foremost ranke
Of the rar'st Wits, was never more than
Franck.
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 33
Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose inchanting
Quill
Commanded Mirth or Passion, was but Will.
And famous Jonson, though his learned
Pen
Be dipt in Castaly, is still but Ben.
Fletcher and Webster, of that learned packe
None of the mean'st, yet neither was but
Jacke.
Deckers but Tom ; nor May, nor Middleton.
And hee's now but Jacke Foord, that once was
John.
THOMAS HEYWOOD (1635).
IN REMEMBRANCE OF
MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPERE.
ODE.
i.
Beware (delighted poets !) when you sing,
To welcome Nature in the early Spring ;
3
34 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Your numerous feet not tread
The banks of Avon ; for each flowre
(As it nere knew a Sun or showre)
Hangs there, the pensive head.
n.
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 captain weares,
Whose rifled falls are steep't i' th' teares
Which from his last rage flow.
in.
The pitious river wept it self away,
Long since (alas !) to such a swift decay,
That reach the map, and look
If you a river there can spie :
And for a river your mock'd eye
Will finde a shallow brooke.
SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT (1638).
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 35
[Sir William Davenant (1605-1668), Shake-
speare's reputed godson, claims our grateful ac-
knowledgment for his untiring efforts to restore
Shakespeare to the English stage. While not a
great poet, this dirge on Shakespeare, says Prof.
Saintsbury, "is of the best stamp of the older
school." He succeeded Ben Jonson as poet-
laureate in 1637, and was knighted by Charles
I. in 1643. His career was a most romantic
one.]
EXTRACT FROM "JONSONUS VIRBIUS."
So in our Halcyon dayes, we have had now
Wits, to which, all that after come, must
bow.
And should the Stage compose her self a
Crowne
Of all those wits, which hitherto sh'as knowne ;
Though there be many that about her brow
Like sparkling stones, might a quick lustre
throw ;
Yet Shakespeare, Beaumont, Jonson, these
three shall
Make up the Jem in the point verticall.
36 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
And now since Jonsons gone, we well may
say,
The Stage hath seene her glory and decay.
OWEN FELTHAM (1638).
[" Jonsonus Virbius" (Jonson Revived) a col-
lection of verses in praise of Ben Jonson, pub-
lished the year after his death.]
TO SHAKESPEARE.
Thy Muses sugred dainties seeme to us
Like the fam'd Apples of old Tantalus :
For we (admiring) see and heare thy straines,
But none I see or heare, those sweets attaines.
TO THE SAME.
Thou hast so us'd thy Pen (or shooke thy
Spear e)
That Poets startle, nor thy wit come neare.
THOMAS BANCROFT (1639).
[From " Two Bookes of Epigrammes and
Epitaphs" (1639). "Shooke thy Speare " is an
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 37
allusion to Shakespeare's crest, which was a fal-
con supporting a spear.]
TO MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
Shakespeare, we must be silent in thy praise,
'Cause our encomion's will but blast thy Bayes,
Which envy could not, that thou didst so well;
Let thine own histories prove thy Chronicle.
(Anonymous, 1640.)
["Witts Recreations Selected from the finest
Fancies of Moderne Muses. With a Thousand
outlandish Proverbs." Epigram 25.]
UPON
MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
THE DECEASED AUTHOUR, AND HIS POEMS.
Poets are borne not made, when I would prove
This truth, the glad rememberance I must love
Of never dying Shakespeare, who alone,
Is argument enough to make that one.
First, that he was a Poet none would doubt
That heard th' applause of what he sees set out
38 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Imprinted ; where thou hast (I will not say
Reader his Workes, for to contrive a Play ;
For him twas none) the patterne of all wit,
Art without Art unparaleld as yet.
Next Nature onely heipt him, for looke thorow
This whole Booke, thou shalt find he doth
not borrow,
One phrase from Greekes, nor Latines imitate
Nor once from vulgar Languages Translate,
Nor Plagiari-like from others gleane,
Nor begges he from each witty friend a Scene
To piece his Acts with, all that he doth write
Is pure his owne plot, language exquisite,
But oh ! what praise more powerfull can we give
The dead, then that by him the Kings men live,
His Players, which should they but have
shar'd the Fate,
All else expir'd within the short Termes date ;
How could the Globe have prospered, since
through want
Of change, the Plaies and Poems have growne
scant,
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 39
But happy verse thou shalt be sung and heard,
When hungry quills shall be such honour barr'd.
Then vanish upstart Writers to each Stage,
You need Poetasters of this Age,
Where Shakespeare liv'd or spake, Vermine
forbeare,
Least with your froth you spot them, come
not neere ;
But if you needs must write, if poverty
So pinch, that otherwise you starve and die,
On Gods name may the Bull or Cockpit have
Your lame blancke Verse, to k-eepe you from
the grave :
Or let new Fortunes younger brethren see,
What they can picke from your leane industry.
I doe not wonder when you offer at
Blacke-Friers, that you suffer : tis the fate
Of richer veines, prime judgments that have
far'd
The worse, with this deceased man compar'd.
So have I seene, when Cesar would appeare,
And on the Stage at half-sword parley were,
40 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Brutus and Cassius : oh how the Audience
Were ravish'd, with what wonder they went
thence,
When some new day they would not brooke a
line,
Of tedious (though well laboured) Catiline ;
Sejanus too was irksome, they priz'de more
Honest lago, or the jealous Moore.
And though the Fox and subtill Alchimist,
Long intermitted could not quite be mist,
Though these have sham'd all the Ancients,
and might raise,
Their Authours merit with a crowne of Bayes.
Yet these sometimes, even at a friends de-
sire
Acted, have scarce defrai'd the Seacole fire
And doore-keepers : when let but Falstaffe
come,
Hall, Poines, the rest you scarce shall have a
roome
All is so pester'd : let but Beatrice
And Benedicke be seene, loe in a trice
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 41
The Cockpit Galleries, Boxes, all are full
To hear Malvoglio, that crosse garter'd Gull.
Briefe, there is nothing in his wit fraught
Booke,
Whose sound we would not heare, on whose
worth looke
Like old coynd gold, whose lines in every page,
Shall passe true currant to succeeding age :
But why doe I dead Shakespeare's praise
recite,
Some second Shakespeare, must of Shake-
speare write ;
For me tis needlesse, since an host of men,
Will pay to clap his praise, to free my Pen.
LEONARD DIGGES (1640).
[Prefixed to Shakespeare's Poems, 1640.]
42 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
AN ELEGY, ON THE DEATH OF THAT
FAMOUS WRITER AND ACTOR,
MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
I dare not doe thy Memory that wrong,
Unto our larger grief es to give a tongue ;
He onely sigh in earnest, and let fall
My solemne teares at thy great Funerall ;
For every eye that raines a showre for thee,
Laments thy losse in a sad Elegie.
Nor is it fit each humble Muse should have,
Thy worth his subject, now th' art laid in
grave ;
No its a flight beyond the pitch of those,
Whose worthless Pamphlets are not sence in
Prose.
Let learned Jonson sing a Dirge for thee,
And fill our Orbe with mournefull harmony ;
But we neede 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 ;
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 43
Being the Ages wonder whose smooth Rhimes,
Did more reforme than lash the looser Times.
Nature her selfe did her owne selfe admire,
As oft as thou wert pleased to attire
Her in her native lusture, and confesse,
Thy dressing was her chiefest comelinesse.
How can we then forget thee, when the age
Her chiefest Tutor, and the widdowed Stage
Her onely favorite in thee hath lost,
And Natures selfe, what she did bragge of
most.
Sleepe then rich soule of numbers, whilst poor
we,
Enjoy the profits of thy Legacie ;
And thinke it happinesse enough we have,
So much of thee redeemed from the grave,
As may suffice to enlighten future times,
With the bright lustre of thy matchlesse
Rhimes.
(Anonymous.)
[Appended to Shakespeare's Poems, 1640.]
44 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
TO SHAKESPEARE.
See him whose Tragic scenes Euripides
Doth equal, and with Sophocles we may
Compare great Shakespeare Aristophanes
Never like him, his Fancy could display ;
Witness the Prince of Tyre, his Pericles,
His sweet and his to be admired lay
He wrote of lustful Tarquins rape, shews he
Did understand the depth of Poesie.
SAMUEL SHEPPARD.
[" The Times Displayed in Six Sestyads," 1646.]
ELEGIAC VERSES ON SHAKESPEARE.
In Memory of our Famous Shakespeare.
Sacred Spirit, while thy Lyre
Ecchoed o're the Arcadian Plaines,
Even Apollo did admire,
Orpheus wondered at thy straines.
Plautus sigh'd, Sophocles wept
Teares of anger, for to heare
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 45
After they so long had slept
So bright a Genius should appeare ;
Who wrote his Lines with a Sunne-beame
More durable than Time or Fate,
Others boldly do blaspheme,
Like those that seeme to Preach, but prate.
Thou wert truely Priest-elect,
Chosen darling to the Nine,
Such a Trophy to erect
(By thy wit and skill Divine).
That were all their other Glories
(Thine excepted) torn away
By thy admirable Stories,
Their garments ever shall be gay.
Where thy honoured bones do lie
(As Statius once to Maro's urne)
Thither every year will I
Slowly tread, and sadly mourn.
SAMUEL SHEPPARD.
[The preceding verses are in an exceedingly
rare volume entitled "Epigrams, Theological,
46 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Philosophical, and Romantick, Six Bookes ; with
some Select Poems, by S. Sheppard," printed by
G. D., and are to be sold by Thomas Bucknall,
at the Golden Lion, in Duck Lane, 1651 ; these
verses are on page 150. In the Third Pastoral,
at p. 249, he again speaks of Shakespeare, after
a eulogy on Ben Jonson, thus :
" With him contemporary then
(As Naso, and fam'd Maro, when
Our sole Redeemer took his birth)
Shakespeare trod on English earth,
His Muse doth merit more rewards
Than all the Greek, or Latine Bards,
What flow'd from him was purely rare,
As born to blesse the Theater,
He first refin'd the Commick Lyre
His wit all do, and shall admire
The chiefest glory of the Stage,
Or when he sung of War and strage
Melpomene soon viewed the Globe,
Invelop'd in her sanguine Robe,
He that his worth would truely sing,
Must quaffe the whole Pierian spring."
In this rare book Spenser, Sidney, Beaumont
and Fletcher, and Suckling are mentioned in the
Third Pastoral. The twenty-eighth epigram in
the Fourth Book is in high praise of Edmund
Spenser.]
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 47
TO
MR. CLEMENT FISHER OF WINCOTT.
Shakespeare your Wincot Ale hath much re-
nownd,
That fox'd a Beggar so (by chance was found
Sleeping) that there needed not many a word
To make him to believe he was a Lord :
But you affirm (and in it seem most eager)
'Twill make a Lord as drunk as any Beggar.
Bid Norton brew such Ale as Shakespeare
fancies
Did put Kit Sly into such Lordly trances :
And let us meet there (for a fit of Gladness)
And drink ourselves merry in sober sadness.
SIR ASTON COKAINE.
(" Small Poems of Divers Sorts," 1658.)
[Cokaine's allusion, of course, is to Shake-
speare's " Taming of the Shrew ;" and for Kit
Sly's reference to Wincot and its famous ale, see
" Induction Taming of the Shrew," scene ii.,
lines 16-23, Rolfe's edition.]
48 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
SHAKESPEARE.
As, when a tree's cut down, the secret root
Lives under ground, and thence new branches
shoot ;
So, from old Shakespeare's honoured dust, this
day
Springs up and buds a new reviving play.
Shakespeare, who (taught by none) did first
impart
To Fletcher wit, to laboring Jonson art,
He, monarch-like, gave those, his subjects,
law;
And is that Nature that they paint and draw.
Fletcher reached that which on his heights did
grow,
While Jonson crept, and gathered all below.
This did his love, and this his mirth digest ;
One imitates him most, the other best.
If they have since out-writ all other men,
'Tis with the drops that fall from Shakespeare's
pen.
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 49
The storm which vanish'd on the neighb'ring
shore,
Was taught by Shakespeare's Tempest first to
roar.
That innocence and beauty, which did smile
In Fletcher, grew on this enchanted isle.
But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be ;
Within that circle, none durst walk but he.
I must confess 'twas bold, nor would you now
That liberty to vulgar wits allow,
Which works by magic supernatural things ;
But Shakespeare's power is sacred as a king's.
Those legends from old priesthood were re-
ceiv'd,
And he then writ, as people then believ'd.
JOHN DRYDEN.
(Prologue to "The Tempest, or The Enchanted
Island," 1669.)
[The plays of Shakespeare could not please
the corrupt taste of the time of Charles II., and
had to be remodelled by such men as Dryden,
Davenant, Tate, Ravenscroft, and others. " The
Tempest " was chosen for the first Shakespearian
4
50 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
revival, having been altered by Davenant and
Dryden ; and this is Dryden's prologue to it.]
SHAKESPEARE.
In country beauties as we often see
Something that takes in their simplicity,
Yet while they charm they know not they are
fair,
And take without their spreading of the
snare
Such artless beauty lies in Shakespear's wit ;
'Twas well in spite of him whate'er he writ.
His excellencies came, and were not sought,
His words like casual atoms made a thought ;
Drew up themselves in rank and file, and writ,
He wondering how the devil it were, such
wit.
Thus, like the drunken tinker in his play,
He grew a prince, and never knew which way.
He did not know what trope or figure meant,
But to persuade is to be eloquent ;
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 51
So in this Caesar which this day you see,
Tully ne'er spoke as he makes Anthony.
Those then that tax his learning are to
blame,
He knew the thing, but did not know its
name;
Great Jonson did that ignorance adore,
And though he envied much, admir'd him
more.
The faultless Jonson equally writ well ;
Shakespear made faults but then did more
excel.
One close at guard like some old fencer lay,
T'other more open, but he shew'd more
play.
In imitation Jonson's wit was shown,
Heaven made his men, but Shakespear made
his own.
Wise Jonson's talent in observing lay,
But others' follies still made up his play.
He drew the like in each elaborate line,
But Shakespear like a master did design.
52 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Jonson with skill dissected human kind,
And shew'd their faults, that they their faults
might find ;
But then as all anatomists must do,
He to the meanest of mankind did go,
And took from gibbets such as he would
show.
Both are so great, that he must boldly dare
Who both of them does judge, and both com-
pare;
If amongst poets one more bold there be,
The man that dare attempt in either way, is
he.
JOHN DRYDEN.
[Prologue to " Julius Csesar," by John Dryden
and Sir William D'Avenant "Covent Garden
drolery." 1672.]
SHAKESPEARE.
When Shakespeare, Jonson, Fletcher, ruled
the stage,
They took so bold a freedom with the age,
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 53
That there was scarce a knave or fool in town
Of any note, but had his portrait shown.
SIR CARR SCROPE.
[" In Defense of Satyr." (Quoted by the Earl
of Rochester in " An Allusion to the Tenth Satyr
of the First Book of Horace," 1678.) Sir Carr
Scrope was the last baronet of the name, and
author of translations from Ovid and Horace.]
SHAKESPEARE.
See my lov'd Britons, see your Shakespeare
rise,
An awful ghost confessed to human eyes !
Unnam'd, methinks, distinguish^ I had been
From other shades, by this eternal green,
Above whose wreaths the vulgar poets strive,
And with a touch their wither'd bays re-
vive.
Untaught, unpractis'd, in a barbarous age,
I found not, but created first, the stage.
And if I drain'd no Greek or Latin store,
'Twas that my own abundance gave me more.
54 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
On foreign trade I needed not rely,
Like fruitful Britain, rich without supply.
In this my rough-drawn play you shall behold
Some master-strokes, so manly and so bold,
That he, who meant to alter, found 'em such,
He shook ; and thought it sacrilege to touch.
Now, where are the successors to my name ?
What bring they to fill out a poet's fame ?
Weak, short-liv'd issues of a feeble age ;
Scarce living to be christen'd on the stage.
JOHN DRYDEN.
[Prologue to "Troilus and Cressida or Truth
found too late," by John Dryden, 1679. Spoken
by Betterton as the Ghost of Shakespeare.]
SHAKESPEARE.
Our Shakespeare wrote, too, in an age as
blest,
The happiest poet of his time, and best ;
A gracious prince's favour cheer'd his muse,
A constant favour he ne'er feared to lose,
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 55
Therefore he wrote with fancy unconfm'd,
And thoughts that were immortal as his mind.
And from the crop of his luxuriant pen
E'er since succeeding poets humbly glean.
Though much the most unworthy of the
throng,
Our this day's poet fears he's done him wrong.
Like greedy beggars that steal sheaves away,
You'll find he's rifled him of half a play.
Amidst his baser dross you'll see it shine
Most beautiful, amazing, and divine.
Whilst we both wit's and Caesar's absence
mourn
Oh ! when will he and poetry return ?
When shall we there again behold him sit,
Midst shining boxes and a courtly pit,
The lord of hearts and president of wit ?
THOMAS OTWAY.
[Prologue to "Caius Mafius'' (altered from
" Romeo and Juliet "), 1680.]
56 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
TO SHAKESPEARE.
To day we bring old gather'd Herbs, 'tis
true,
But such as in sweet Shakspear's Garden
grew.
And all his Plants' immortal you esteem,
Your Mouthes are never out of taste with
him.
How're to make your Appetites more keen,
Not only oily words are sprinkled in ;
But what to please you gives us better hope,
A little Vineger against the Pope.
For by his feeble Skill 'tis built alone,
The Divine Shakespeare did not lay one
stone.
J. CROWN.
[Prologues to " Henry the Sixth," by J. Crown,
Parts I. and II., 1681. Crown was the author
of many successful plays, and was in great favor
at the court of Charles II.]
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 57
SHAKESPEARE.
Plato and Lucian are the best Remains
Of all the wonders which this art contains;
Yet to ourselves we Justice must allow,
Shakespear and Fletcher are the wonders
now;
Consider them, and read them o're and o're,
Go see them play'd, then read them as be-
fore.
For though in many things they grossly fail,
Over our Passions still they so prevail,
That our own grief by theirs is rockt asleep,
The dull are forced to feel, the wise to weep.
Their Beauties Imitate, avoid their faults. . . .
JOHN SHEFFIELD,
Earl of Musgrave.
[Extract from "An Essay upon Poetry," 1682.]
58 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
SHAKESPEARE.
He hopes since in rich Shakespeare's soil it
grew
'Twill relish yet, with those whose tastes are
true,
And his Ambition is to please a Few.
If then this Heap of Flow'rs shall chance to
wear
Fresh beauty in the Order they now bear,
E'en this is Shakespeare's praise ; each rus-
tick knows
'Mongst plenteous Flow'rs a Garland to Com-
pose
Which strung by this Coarse Hand may fairer
show,
But 'twas a Power Divine first made 'em
grow.
NAHUM TATE.
[Prologue to the " History of King Lear," by
Nahum Tate, 1689.]
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 59
SHAKESPEARE.
How's this, you cry ? an actor write ? we know
it;
But Shakespeare was an actor and a poet.
Has not great Jonson's learning often fail'd ?
While Shakespeare's greater genius still pre-
vail'd.
JOHN DRYDEN.
[Prologue to "The Mistakes," by Joseph Har-
ris, 1690.]
SHAKESPEARE.
Shakespeare, thy gift, I place before my
sight ;
With awe I ask his blessing ere I write ;
With reverence look on his majestic face,
Proud to be less, but of his godlike race.
His soul inspires me, while thy praise I
write,
And I, like Teucer under Ajax, fight ;
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Bids thee, through me, be bold ; with dauntless
breast
Contemn the bad and emulate the best
Like his, thy critics in th' attempt are
lost,
When most they rail, know then, they envy
most.
JOHN DRYDEN.
(" Epistle to Sir Godfrey Kneller," 1693.)
[On the death of Sir William Davenant, the
Chandos portrait of Shakespeare, which he
owned, was sold to Betterton, the actor, and
while in his possession Sir Godfrey Kneller
made a copy of it, which he presented to Dry-
den. In return, Dryden sent the great painter
these verses.]
SHAKESPEARE'S MULBERRY TREE.
Behold this fair goblet ! 'Twas carved from
the tree
Which, O my sweet Shakespeare, was planted
by thee !
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 6 1
As a relic I kiss it, and bow at thy
shrine,
What comes from thy hand must be ever
divine.
All shall yield to the mulberry tree,
Bend to thee, blest mulberry ;
Matchless was he who planted thee,
And thou, like him, immortal shalt be.
Ye trees of the forest so rampant and
high,
Who spread wide your branches, whose heads
sweep the sky,
Ye curious exotics, whom taste has brought
here,
To root out the natives, at prices so dear.
All shall yield to the mulberry tree, etc.
The oak so held royal is Britain's great
boast,
Preserved once our king, and will always our
coast,
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But of fir we make ships, we have thousands
that fight,
While one, only one, like our Shakespeare can
write.
All shall yield to the mulberry tree, etc.
Let Venus delight in gay myrtle bowers,
Pomona in fruit trees, and Flora in flowers ;
The garden of Shakespeare all fancies will
suit,
With the sweetest of flowers, and the finest of
fruit.
All shall yield to the mulberry tree, etc.
With learning and knowledge the well-lettered
birch
Supplies law and physic and grace for the
church,
But law and the Gospel in Shakespeare we find,
And he gives the best physic for body and
mind.
All shall yield to the mulberry tree, etc.
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 63
The fame of the patron gives fame to the tree,
From him and his merits this takes a degree ;
Let Phoebus and Bacchus their glories resign,
Our tree shall surpass both the laurel and
vine.
All shall yield to the mulberry tree, etc.
The genius of Shakespeare outshines one
bright day,
More rapture than wine to the heart can
convey,
So the tree that he planted by making his own
Has the laurel and bays and the vine all in
one.
All shall yield to the mulberry tree, etc.
Then each take a relic of this hallow'd tree,
From folly and fashion a charm let it be ;
Fill, fill to the planter the cup to the brim,
To honor the country, do honor to him.
All shall yield to the mulberry tree, etc.
DAVID GARRICK.
64 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
[James L, hoping that in the raising and man-
ufacture of silk England might become indepen-
dent of France, began the importation of mul-
berry trees, and directed all persons who had
means and facilities to experiment in their cult-
ure. In 1609, Shakespeare planted the mul-
berry tree of which Garrick thus enthusiasti-
cally sings, in the garden of New Place ; having
brought the tree from London, buying it from a
supply ordered by the king. In 17 56,. the Rev.
Francis Gastrell became owner of New Place,
and soon after, being annoyed by pilgrims who
came to see the tree which Shakespeare had
planted with his own hands, he had it hewn
down, and sold the wood to Sharpe, the turner.
The Stratford people were proud of the tree, and
were aroused to open violence : a mob collected
before New Place and smashed the windows.
Finally, to escape the payment of taxes (a house
valued or leased at more than forty shillings a
year had to be taxed to support the parish),
Dr. Gastrell pulled down New Place, and for
this crowning act of vandalism he left Stratford,
"amid the execrations of its inhabitants." At
the first Stratford Jubilee, in 1769, a goblet made
from the precious wood was presented to Gar-
rick ; it was filled with mulberry wine, of which
he drank, and then recited these lines, which he
had composed for the occasion. The freedom
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 65
of the Warwickshire borough, enclosed in a
handsome casket made out of the trunk of the
tree, was also presented to the great tragedian,
in acknowledgment of his efforts in behalf of
the festival.]
WARWICKSHIRE-A SONG.
Ye Warwickshire lads and ye lasses,
See what at our Jubilee passes ;
Come ! revel away ; rejoice and be glad,
For the lad of all lads was a Warwickshire
Lad-
Warwickshire Lad,
All be glad !
For the lad of all lads was a Warwickshire lad.
Be proud of the charms of your county,
Where Nature has lavished her bounty,
Where much she has given, and some to be
spared ;
For the bard of all bards was a Warwickshire
Bard,
5
66 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Warwickshire Bard,
Never paired,
For the bard of all bards was a Warwickshire
Bard.
Each shire has its different pleasures,
Each shire has its different treasures ;
But to rare Warwickshire all must sub-
mit,
For the wit of all wits was a Warwickshire
Wit-
Warwickshire Wit,
How he writ !
For the wit of all wits was a Warwickshire
Wit.
Old Ben, Thomas Otway, John Dryden,
And half a score more we take pride in,
Of famous Will Congreve, we boast, too, the
skill ;
But the Will of all Wills was Warwickshire
Will,
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 67
Warwickshire Will,
Matchless still,
For the Will of all Wills was Warwickshire
Will.
Our Shakespeare compared is to no man,
Nor Frenchman, nor Grecian, nor Roman -,
Their swans are all geese to the Avon's Sweet
Swan,
And the man of all men was a Warwickshire
Man.
Warwickshire Man,
Avon's Swan !
And the man of all men was a Warwickshire
Man.
As Ven'son is very inviting,
To steal it our Bard took delight in ;
To make his friends merry he never was
lag,
For the wag of all wags was a Warwickshire
Wag,
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Warwickshire Wag,
Ever brag !
For the wag of all wags was a Warwickshire
Wag.
There never was seen such a creature
Of all he was worth he robbed Nature ;
He took all her smiles, and he took all her
grief,
And the thief of all thieves was a Warwick-
shire Thief,
Warwickshire Thief,
He's the Chief !
For the thief of all thieves was a Warwickshire
Thief.
DAVID GARRICK.
[This was one of the songs written by Gar-
rick for the first great Stratford Jubilee, in 1769,
and was sung at the principal banquet, and often
during the festival, to music composed by Arne.
We may question Garrick's good taste in refer-
ring to the venison legend, but cannot omit the
sjtanza, as it introduces so well the final one.]
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 69
ODE TO SHAKESPEARE.
Thou, soft-flowing Avon, by thy silver stream,
Of things more than mortal sweet Shakespeare
would dream,
The fairies by moonlight dance round his
green bed,
For hallow'd the turf is which pillow'd his
head.
The love - stricken maiden, the soft -sighing
swain,
Here rove without danger and sigh without
pain,
The sweet bud of beauty no blight shall e'er
dread,
For hallow'd the turf is which pillow'd his
head.
Here youth shall be fam'd for their love and
their truth,
And cheerful old age feel the spirit of youth ;
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For the raptures of fancy there poets shall
tread,
For hallow'd the turf is which pillow'd his
head.
Flow on, silver Avon, in song ever flow,
Be the swans on thy waters whiter than snow,
Ever full be thy stream, like his name may it
spread,
And the turf ever-hallow'd which pillow'd his
head.
DAVID GARRICK.
[This song is from the long " Ode " by Garrick,
on the occasion of dedicating a building and
erecting a statue to Shakespeare at Stratford
during the Jubilee (1769) : it is the best of the
Ode.]
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 71
SWEET WILLY O.
The pride of all Nature was sweet Willy O,
The first of all swains,
He gladdened the plains,
None ever was like to sweet Willy O.
He sung it so rarely, did sweet Willy O,
He melted each maid,
So skillful he play'd,
No Shepherd e'er pip'd like the sweet Willy O.
All Nature obey'd him, this sweet Willy O,
Wherever he came,
Whate'er had a name,
Whenever he sung followed sweet Willy O.
He would be a soldier,* this sweet Willy O,
When arm'd in the field
With sword and with shield,
The laurel was won by the sweet Willy O.
* " A soldier " meaning " writer of tragedy."
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He charm'd em when living, the sweet Willy O,
And when Willy dy'd,
'Twas Nature that sigh'd,
To part with her all in her sweet W 7 illy O.
DAVID GARRICK (1769).
THE BIRTH OF SHAKSPEARE.
(Air" Thro' Erin's Isle.")
In Bess's days,
(Which glory's rays
Forever shall environ,)
The gods made men
Much better then,
Of mingled gold and iron ;
A nobler race
No records trace,
To handle pen, or break spear.
" To perfect man,"
Said Jove's great clan,
" Suppose we try a Shakspeare ?"
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 73
Oh, sweet Shakspeare!
Immortal Willy Shakspeare !
Ev'n the gods
Allowed it odds,
They couldn't make a Shakspeare.
Cried Phoebus, " Pray
Give me the clay,
I'll breathe in 't fire poetical,
Which thro' the mass
Shall instant pass
Exhaustless and prophetical ;"
Quoth Mars, " Egad,
Well said, dear lad,
Or never may I break spear ;
For any part
I'll inspire his heart ;
But still we haven't Shakspeare "
Oh, sweet Shakspeare, etc.
With looks that strike,
In her we like,
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Bespoke then gentle Venus,
" His heart, dear Mars,
My gracious stars !
We must have that between us,
My darlings all
Have courage tall,
I can't deny its meetness !
But here, my friend,
I'll with it blend
E'en female love and sweetness."
Oh, sweet Shakspeare, etc.
Then Wisdom's maid,
(Of aspect staid,
But ever fresh and charming,)
Prepared the brain
With wondrous pain
And energy alarming ;
That so in debt
None else should get,
Protesting as she shut it in,
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 75
Unless he brought
(Preposterous thought !)
As fine a head to put it in.
Oh, sweet Shakspeare, etc.
The god of Wit
Imparted it,
To dissipate spleen's tumour,
Mnemosyne
Gave Memory,
And Momus added Humour ;
Jove shook his head,
And smiling said,
" Superior power is needing ;
My gift tho' last,
Has all surpast,
I've doubled each preceding."
Oh, sweet Shakspeare !
Immortal Willy Shakspeare !
Thus the Gods,
In spite of odds,
Contrived to make a Shakspeare.
J. OGDEN.
76 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
[From " Shakspere's Garland," dedicated to the
Shakespearian Club established at the Falcon
Inn, the ancient resort of the Bard himself, at
Stratford.]
FROM "THE ROSCIAD."
May not some great extensive genius raise
The name of Britain 'bove Athenian praise ;
And, whilst brave thirst of fame his bosom
warms,
Make England great in letters as in arms ?
There may there hath and Shakespeare's
muse aspires
Beyond the reach of Greece ; with native fires
Mounting aloft, he wings his daring flight,
Whilst Sophocles below stands trembling at
his height.
Why should we then abroad for judges roam
When abler judges we may find at home ?
Happy in tragic and in comic powers,
Have we not Shakespeare ? is not Jonson
ours ?
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 77
For them, your natural judges, Britons vote,
They'll judge like Britons, who like Britons
wrote.
He said, and conquer'd. Sense resumed her
sway
And disappointed pedants stalk'd away,
Shakespeare and Jonson, with deserved ap-
plause,
Joint judges were ordain'd to try the cause.
# * * #
In the first seat, in robe of various dyes,
A noble wildness flashing from his eyes,
Sat Shakespeare; in one hand a wand he
bore,
For mighty wonders famed in days of yore;
The other held a globe, which to his will
Obedient turn'd, and own'd the master's skill.
Things of the noblest kind his genius drew,
And look'd through Nature at a single view.
A loose he gave to his unbounded soul,
And taught new lands to rise, new seas to
roll,
78 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Called into being scenes unknown before,
And passing nature's bounds, was something
more.
CHARLES CHURCHILL.
[Charles Churchill wrote the " Rosciad " (1761)
to satirize the players of the time, of whose
merits he called Shakespeare and Jonson to be
judges.]
SHAKESPEARE.
AN EPISTLE TO MR. GARRICK.
When Shakespeare leads the mind a dance,
From France to England, hence to France,
Talk not to me of time and place ;
I own I'm happy in the chase.
Whether the drama's here or there,
'Tis Nature, Shakespeare, everywhere.
# * # #
Oh, where's the bard, who at one view
Could look the whole creation through,
Who travers'd all the human heart,
Without recourse to Grecian art ?
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 79
He scorned the modes of imitation,
Of altering, pilfering, and translation,
Nor painted horror, grief, or rage,
From models of a former age ;
The bright original he took,
And tore the leaf from Nature's book.
'Tis Shakespeare thus, who stands alone
But why repeat what you have shown ?
How true, how perfect, and how well
The feelings of our hearts must tell.
ROBERT LLOYD.
[In Lloyd's Poetical Works is found " Shake-
speare An Epistle to Mr. Garrick, with an Ode
to Genius" (1760), from which this extract is
taken.]
SHAKESPEARE.
Centuries have rolled on centuries, years on
years,
The never-ceasing progress of decay
Has swept the mighty and the mean away,
Monarchs and multitudes ! but there appears,
8o TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Towering above all tempests and all time,
A pyramid more glorious and sublime
Than those the imperishable x Memphis rears
Over her sandy wilderness ; for theirs
Are but unspeaking stories, where lies en-
shrined
Eternal silence. But peerless Shakespeare
pours
Forth still from his exhaustless stores of
mind,
All truth all passion and all poetry ;
Mounting, with tireless wings, on every wind,
And filling earth with sweetest minstrelsy.
(Anonymous.)
SONNET.
(Written at the tomb of Shakespeare, Stratford-on-Avon.)
A humble votary of the tuneful nine,
To Shakespeare's tomb a pilgrim I repair,
To yield the mind's deep adoration there,
And bow the knee at wisdom's proudest shrine !
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 8 1
Lo ! where hath lingered, lost in wonder's maze,
The ken of princes, and the glance of peers
Lo ! where have paused, in reverential gaze,
The good and great of other climes and
years
Bend I, great shade ! submissively to pay
The unfeigned homage of one grateful heart,
To whom thy magic pages do portray,
The boundless realms of nature and of art !
Allow this lowly tribute to the fame
Which shall to every age transmit thy honored
name.
(Anonymous.)
THE -TOMB OF SHAKESPEARE.
A VISION (1755).
What time the jocund rosy-bosom'd hours
Led forth the train of Phoebus and the spring,
And Zephyr mild profusely scatter'd flowers
On earth's green mantle from his musky
wing;
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The morn unbarr'd the ambrosial gates of light,
Westward the raven-pinion'd darkness flew,
The landscape smiled in vernal beauty bright,
And to their graves the sullen ghosts with-
drew.
The nightingale no longer swell'd her throat
With love-lorn plainings, tremulous and
slow;
And on the wings of silence ceased to float
The gurgling notes of her melodious woe ;
The god of sleep, mysterious visions led
In gay procession 'fore the mental eye,
And my freed soul awhile her mansion fled,
To try her plumes for immortality.
Through fields of air methought I took my
flight,
Through every clime, o'er every region pass'd,
No paradise or ruin 'scaped my sight,
Hesperian garden or Cimmerian waste.
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 83
On Avon's banks I lit, whose streams appear
To wind with eddies fond round Shake-
speare's tomb,
The year's first feathery songsters warble near,
And violets breathe, and earliest roses bloom.
Here Fancy sat (her dewy fingers cold
Decking with flowerets fresh the unsullied
sod),
And bathed with tears the sad sepulchral
mould,
Her favorite offspring's long and last abode.
" Ah ! what avails (she cried) a poet's name ?
Ah ! what avails the immortalizing breath
To snatch from dumb oblivion others' fame ?
My darling child here lies a prey to death !
" Let gentle Otway, white robed Pity's priest,
From grief domestic teach the tears to flow ;
Or Southern captivate the impassion'd breast,
With heartfelt sighs and sympathy of woe.
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" For not to these his genius was confined,
Nature and I each tuneful power had given,
Poetic transports of the maddening mind,
And the wing'd words that waft the soul to
heaven.
" The fiery glance of the intellectual eye,
Piercing all objects of creation's store,
Which on this world's extended surface lie ;
And plastic thought that still created more."
" O grant (with eager rapture I replied),
Grant me, great goddess of the changeful
eye!
To view each being in poetic pride,
To whom thy son gave immortality."
Sweet Fancy smiled and waved her mystic rod,
When straight these visions felt her power-
ful arm,
And one by one succeeded at her nod,
As vassal sprites obey the wizard's charm.
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 85
First a celestial fornr* (of azure hue,
Whose mantle bound with bride ethereal,
flow'd
To each soft breeze its balmy breath that drew)
Swift down the sunbeams of the noontide
rode.
Obedient to the necromantic sway
Of an old sage, to solitude resigned,
With fenny vapours he obscured the day,
Launch'd the long lightning, and let loose
the wind.
He whirl'd the tempest through the howling air,
Rattled the dreadful thunder clap on high,
And raised a roaring elemental war
Betwixt the sea green waves and azure sky ;
Then like Heaven's mild ambassador of love
To man repentant, bade the turmoil cease ;
Smooth'd the blue bosom of the realms above,
And hush'd the rebel elements to peace.
* Ariel, in " The Tempest."
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Unlike to this, in spirit or in mien,
Another form * succeeded to my view ;
A two-legg'd brute, which nature made in
spleen,
Or from the loathing womb unfinish'd drew.
Scarce could he syllable the curse he thought,
Prone were his eyes to earth, his mind to
evil,
A carnal fiend to imperfection wrought,
The mongrel offspring of a witch and devil.
Next bloom'd, upon an ancient forest's bound,
The flowery margin f of a silent stream,
O'erarched by oaks with ivy mantled round,
And gilt by silver Cynthia's maiden beam.
On the green carpet of the unbended grass,
A dapper train of female fairies play'd,
And eyed their gambols in the watery glass,
That smoothly stole along the shadowy glade.
* Caliban, in " The Tempest."
f Fairy-land, from " Midsummer-Night's Dream."
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 87
Through these the queen, Titania, pass'd
adored,
Mounted aloft in her imperial car,
Journeying to see great Oberon her lord
Wage the mock battles of a sportive war.
Arm'd cap-k-pie, forth march'd the fairy king,
A stouter warrior never took the field,
His threatening lance a hornet's horrid sting,
The sharded beetle's scale his sable shield.
Around their chief the elfin host appear'd,
Each little helmet sparkling like a star,
And their sharp spears a pierceless phalanx
rear'd, *
A grove of thistles glistening in the air.
The scene then changed from this romantic
land,
To a bleak waste by boundary unconfined,
Where three swart sisters^ of the weird band,
Were muttering curses to the troublous wind.
* The Witches in " Macbeth."
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Pale want had wither'd every furrowed face,
Bowed was each carcass with the weight of
years,
And each sunk eyeball from its hollow case,
DistilPd cold rheum's involuntary tears.
Horsed on three staves, they posted to the
bourn
Of a drear island, where the pendent brow
Of a rough rock, shagg'd horribly with thorn,
Frown 'd on the boisterous waves, which
raged below.
Deep in a gloomy grot, remote from day,
Where smiling comfort never showed her
face,
Where light n'er entered, save one rueful ray
Discovering all the terrors of the place,
They held damn'd mysteries with infernal state,
Whilst ghastly goblins glided slowly by,
The screech owl scream'd the dying call of fate,
And ravens croak'd their horrid augury.
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 89
No human footstep cheer'd the dread abode,
Nor sign of living creature could be seen,
Save where the reptile snake, or sullen toad,
The murky floor had soil'd with venom green.
Sudden I heard the whirlwind's hollow sound,
Each weird sister vanished into smoke ;
Now a dire yell of spirits * under ground
Through troubled earth's wide yawning sur-
face broke.
When lo ! each injured apparition rose ;
Aghast the murderer started from his bed ;
Guilt's trembling breath his heart's real current
froze,
And horror's dewdrops bathed his frantic
head.
More had I seen but now the god of day
O'er earth's broad breast, his flood of light
had spread,
When Morpheus call'd his fickle train away,
And on their wings each bright illusion fled.
* Ghosts in " Macbeth," "Richard the Third," etc.
90 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Yet still the dear enchantress of the brain,
My wakeful eyes with wishful wanderings
sought,
Whose magic will controls the ideal train,
The ever restless progeny of thought.
" Sweet power ! (said I) for others gild the ray
Of wealth, or honour's folly-feather'd crown ;
Or lead the madding multitude astray,
To grasp at air blown bubbles of renown ;
"Me (humbler lot!) let blameless bliss en-
gage,
Free from the noble mob's ambitious strife,
Free from the muckworm miser's lucrous rage,
In calm contentment's cottaged vale of life.
" If frailties there (for who from them is free ?)
Through error's maze, my devious footsteps
lead,
Let them be frailties of humanity,
And my heart plead the pardon of my head.
TRIBUTES 10 SHAKESPEARE. 91
" Let not my reason impiously require,
What Heaven has placed beyond its narrow
span;
But teach me to subdue each fierce desire,
Which wars within this little empire, man.
" Teach me, what all believe, but few possess,
That life's best science is ourselves to know ;
The first of human blessings is to bless ;
And happiest he who feels another's woe.
" Thus cheaply wise and innocently great,
While time's smooth sand shall regularly pass,
Each destined atom's quiet course, I'll wait,
Nor rashly break nor wish to stop the glass
" And when in death my peaceful ashes lie,
If e'er some tongue congenial speaks my
name,
Friendship shall never blush to breathe a sigh,
And great ones envy such an honest fame."
JOHN GILBERT COOPER (1755).
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TO SHAKESPEARE.
Far from the sun and summer gale,
In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid,
What time, where lucid Avon stray 'd,
To him the mighty mother did unveil
Her awful face ; the dauntless child
Stretch'd forth his little arms and smiled.
" This pencil take " (she said) " whose colours
clear
Richly paint the vernal year;
Thine, too, these golden keys, immortal boy !
This can unlock the gates of joy,
Of horror that, and thrilling fears,
Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears."
THOMAS GRAY.
("The Progress of Poesy," 1755.)
MONODY.
(Written near Stratford-upon-Avon.)
Avon, thy rural views, thy pastures wild,
The willows that o'erhang thy twilight edge,
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 93
Their boughs entangling with the embattled
sedge ;
Thy bank with watery foliage quaintly fringed,
Thy surface with reflected verdure tinged,
Soothe me with many a pensive pleasure
mild.
But while I muse, that here the bard divine,
Whose sacred dust yon high-arch'd aisles
enclose,
Where the tall windows rise in stately rows,
Above the embowering shade,
Here first, at Fancy's fairy-circled shrine,
Of daisies pied, his infant offering made ;
Here playful yet, in stripling years unripe,
Framed of thy reeds a shrill and artless
pipe,
Sudden thy beauties, Avon, all are fled !
As at the waving of some magic wand ;
An holy trance my charmed spirit wings,
And awful shapes of warriors and of kings
People the busy mead,
Like spectres swarming to the wizard's hall ;
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And slowly pace, and point with trembling
hand
The wounds ill-covered by the purple pall.
Before me Pity seems to stand
A weeping mourner, smote with anguish
sore,
To see Misfortune rend in frantic mood
His robe with regal woes embroidered o'er.
Pale Terror leads the visionary band,
And sternly shakes his sceptre, dropping
blood.
THOMAS WARTON (1750).
SHAKESPEARE'S MONUMENT AT
STRATFORD-ON-AVON.
Great Homer's birth seven rival cities claim,
Too mighty such monopoly of fame ;
Yet not to birth alone did Homer owe
His wondrous worth ; what Egypt could bestow,
With all the schools of Greece and Asia joined,
Enlarged the immense expansion of his mind.
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 95
Nor yet unrivalled the Maconian strain,
The British Eagle, and the Mantuan Swan
Tower equal heights. But happier, Stratford,
thou
With uncontested laurels deck thy brow ;
Thy Bard was thine unschooled, and from thee
brought
More than all Egypt, Greece, or Asia taught.
Not Homer's self such matchless honors won ;
The Greek has rivals, but thy Shakespeare none.
(Anonymous.)
INSCRIPTION FOR A MONUMENT TO
SHAKESPEARE.
" O youths and virgins : O declining eld :
O pale misfortune's slaves : O ye who dwell
Unknown with humble quiet : ye who wait
In courts, or fill the golden seats of kings :
O sons of sport and pleasure : O thou wretch
That weep'st for jealous love, or the sore
wounds
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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 cause,
Approach : behold this marble. Know ye not
The features ? Hath not oft his faithful tongue
Told you the fashion of your own estate,
The secrets of your bosom ? Here, then, round
His monument with reverence while ye stand,
Say to each other, 'This was Shakespeare's
form;
Who walked in every path of human life,
Felt every passion ; and to all mankind
Doth now, will ever, that experience yield,
Which his own genius only could acquire.' "
MARK AKENSIDE (1721-1770),
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 97
AN EPISTLE ADDRESSED TO
SIR THOMAS HANMER, ON HIS EDITION
OF SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS.
Sir-
While born to bring the Muse's happier days,
A patriot's hand protects a poet's lays,
While nursed by you she sees her myrtles bloom,
Green and unwithered o'er his honored tomb ;
Excuse her doubts, if yet she fears to tell
What secret transports in her bosom swell ;
With conscious awe she hears the critic's fame,
And blushing hides her wreath at Shakespeare's
name.
Hard was the lot those injured strains endured,
Unowned by Science, and by years obscured ;
Fair Fancy wept ; and echoing sighs confessed
A fixed despair in every tuneful breast.
# * # #
But Heaven, still various in its works, decreed
The perfect boast of time should last succeed.
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The beauteous union must appear at length,
Of Tuscan fancy and Athenian strength ;
One greater Muse Eliza's reign adorn,
And even a Shakespeare to her fame be born !
Yet, ah ! so bright her morning's opening ray,
In vain our Britain hoped an equal day !
No second growth the western isle could bear,
At once exhausted with too rich a year.
Too nicely Jonson knew the critic's part ;
Nature in him was almost lost in art.
Of softer mould the gentle Fletcher came,
The next in order, as the next in name ;
With pleased attention, midst his scenes we find,
Each glowing thought that warms the female
mind ;
Each melting sigh, and every tender tear ;
The lover's wishes, and the virgin's fear.
His every strain the Smiles and Graces own ;
But stronger Shakespeare felt for man alone ;
Drawn by his pen, our ruder passions stand,
The unrivalled picture of his early hand.
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 99
With gradual steps and slow, exacter France
Saw Art's fair Empire o'er her shores advance :
By length of toil a bright perfection knew,
Correctly bold, and just in all she drew ;
Till late Corneille, with Lucan's spirit fired,
Breathed the free strain, as Rome and he
inspired ;
And classic judgment gained to sweet Racine,
The temperate strength of Maro's chaster line.
But wilder far the British laurel spread,
And wreaths less artful crown our poet's head.
Yet he alone to every scene could give
The historian's truth, and bid the manners
live.
Waked at his call, I view with glad surprise
Majestic forms of mighty monarchs rise.
There Henry's trumpets spread their loud
alarms,
And laurelled Conquest waits her hero's arms.
Here gentler Edward claims a pitying sigh,
Scarce born to honors, and so soon to die !
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Yet shall thy theme, unhappy infant, bring
No beam of comfort to the guilty king ;
The time shall come when Gloster's heart shall
bleed,
In life's last hours, with horror of the deed ;
When dreary visions shall at last present
Thy vengeful image in the midnight tent ;
Thy hand unseen the secret death shall bear,
Blunt the weak sword, and break the oppressive
spear.
Where'er we turn, by Fancy charmed, we find
Some sweet illusion of the cheated mind.
Oft, wild of wing, she calls the soul to rove
With humbler nature in the rural grove ;
Where swains contented own the quiet scene,
And twilight fairies tread the circled green ;
Dressed by her hand, the woods and valleys
smile,
And Spring diffusive decks the enchanted isle.
O, more than all in powerful genius blest,
Come, take thine empire o'er the willing breast !
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. IOI
'Whate'er the wounds this youthful heart shall
feel,
Thy songs support me, and thy morals heal !
There every thought the poet's warmth may
raise,
There native music dwells in all the lays.
O might some verse with happiest skill per-
suade
Expressive Picture to adopt thine aid !
What wondrous draughts might rise from every
page!
What other Raphaels charm a distant age !
# # * *
WILLIAM COLLINS (1744).
[Sir Thomas Hanmer (1677-1746) was a mem-
ber of an old English family, an Oxford scholar,
and a man of wealth and importance. In 1744
he published an edition of Shakespeare, in six
quarto volumes, which involved him in a serious
quarrel with Warburton, who intended to issue
an edition of Shakespeare himself ; and though
Hanmer had been for several years at the work,
yet Warburton, enraged at his issuing his first,
102 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
charged him with having stolen his notes. Han-
mer's edition was highly esteemed by Johnson
and the critics of the day, and was soon sold at
an exorbitant price. Collins addressed this Epistle
to him on its publication, and Gay and other
writers addressed him in flattering terms.]
SHAKESPEARE.
Shakespeare (whom you and every play-house
bill
Style the divine, the matchless, what you will)
For gain, not glory, winged his roving flight,
And grew immortal in his own despite.
* * # *
Not but the tragic spirit was our own,
And full in Shakespeare, fair in Otway shone;
But Otway failed to polish or refine,
And fluent Shakespeare scarce effaced a line.
ALEXANDER POPE (1732).
(Extract from " The Satires in Imitation of
Horace.")
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 103
TO THE IDOL OF MY EYE, AND DE-
LIGHT OF MY HEART, ANN
HATHAWAY.
Would ye be taught, ye feathered throng,
With love's sweet notes to grace your song,
To pierce the heart with thrilling lay,
Listen to mine Ann Hathaway !
She hath a way to sing so clear,
Phoebus might wondering stoop to hear;
To melt the sad, make blithe the gay,
And Nature charm, Ann hath a way ;
She hath a way,
Ann Hathaway ;
To breathe delight Ann hath a way.
When Envy's breath and rancorous tooth,
Do soil and bite fair worth and truth,
And merit to distress betray,
To soothe the heart Ann hath a way ;
She hath a way to chase despair,
To heal all grief, to cure all care,
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Turn foulest night to fairest day,
Thou know'st, fond heart, Ann hath a way ;
She hath a way,
Ann Hathaway ;
To make grief bliss Ann hath a way,
Talk not of gems, the orient list,
The diamond, topaz, amethyst,
The emerald mild, the ruby gay ;
Talk of my gem, Ann Hathaway !
She hath a way, with her bright eye,
Their various lustre to defy ;
The jewels she, and the foil they,
So sweet to look Ann hath a way ;
She hath a way,
Ann Hathaway;
To shame bright gems, Ann hath a way,
But were it to my fancy given
To rate her charms, I'd call them heaven ;
For, though a mortal made of clay,
Angels must love Ann Hathaway ;
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 105
She hath a way so to control,
To rapture the imprisoned soul,
And sweetest heaven on earth display,
That to be heaven Ann hath a way ;
She hath a way,
Ann Hathaway;
To be heaven's self Ann hath a way.
[This ballad was written by Charles Dibdin
(1745-1814), though it has been ascribed to
Shakespeare. " It may be found set to music
in the edition of Dibdin's Songs published by
Davidson (London, 1848), vol. ii., p. 127 " (Rolfe).]
THE BUST OF SHAKESPEARE.
Stranger, to whom this monument is shown,
Invoke the poet's curses on Malone,
Whose meddling zeal his barb'rous taste dis-
plays,
And daubs his tombstone as he marred his
plays.
(Album at Stratford Trinity Church.)
Io6 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
[The Stratford Bust, to which these lines refer,
is in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church at Strat-
ford-on-Avon. It is considered the best authen-
ticated of all the representations which we have
of Shakespeare. It was originally painted in col-
ors to resemble life; the hair and beard were
auburn, the eyes of a light hazel, and the doub-
let was scarlet. By order of Malone in 1793, and
to satisfy his classical taste, it was painted a uni-
form white. About a quarter of a century ago,
Mr. Collins, of London, removed the white paint,
and restored this interesting relic to its original
colors. The head of the Ward statue in Central
Park, New York, is modelled from the Stratford
Bust. The allusion to Malone's edition of Shake-
speare is hardly just, as he was a most painstaking
editor.]
WRITTEN IN THE VISITORS' BOOK
AT STRATFORD.
The eyes of Genius glisten to admire
How Mem'ry hails the sound of Shakespeare's
lyre.
One tear I'll shed, to form a crystal shrine
For all that's great, immortal, and divine.
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 107
Let princes o'er their subject kingdoms rule,
'Tis Shakespeare's province to command the
soul !
To add one leaf, oh, Shakespeare ! to thy bays,
How vain the effort, and how mean my lays !
Immortal Shakespeare! o'er thy hallow'd page,
Age becomes taught, and youth is e'en made
sage.
PRINCE LUCIEN BONAPARTE (1810).
[Lucien was not the only member of the Bona-
parte family who was a pilgrim to the shrine of
Shakespeare : Napoleon III. spent his last day in
England there before being proclaimed Emperor
of the French (1852).]
WRITTEN BEFORE RE-READING "KING
LEAR."
O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute !
Fair plumed Syren ! Queen ! if far away !
Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden volume, and be mute.
I08 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Adieu ! for once again the fierce dispute,
Betwixt Hell torment and impassion'd clay
Must I burn through ; once more assay
The bitter sweet of this Shakespearian fruit.
Chief Poet ! and ye clouds of Albion,
Begetters of our deep eternal theme,
When I am through the old oak forest gone
Let me not wander in a barren dream,
But when I am consumed with the Fire,
Give me new Phoenix-wings to fly at my desire.
JOHN KEATS (1818).
WRITTEN IN THE VISITORS' BOOK
AT STRATFORD.
Of mighty Shakespeare's birth the room we see,
That where he died in vain do try.
Useless the search, for all immortal, he,
And those who are immortal never die.
WASHINGTON IRVING (1818).
[This brief poetical tribute to Shakespeare in-
adequately expresses Irving's admiration. It was
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 109
he, in his " Stratford-on-Avon " (1818), who first
described in his incomparable prose the emotion
which a visit to Shakespeare's native town ex-
cites in the heart of the " literary pilgrim of every
nation ;" and cold and dull must he be who can-
not say with Irving, "Ten thousand honors and
blessings on the bard who has gilded the dull re-
alities of life with innocent illusions !"]
SHAKESPEARE ODE.
God of the glorious Lyre
Whose notes of old on lofty Pindus rang,
While Jove's exulting choir
Caught the glad echoes and responsive sang,
Come ! bless the service and the shrine
We consecrate to thee and thine.
Fierce from the frozen North,
When Havoc led his legions forth
O'er Learning's sunny groves the dark de-
stroyers spread ;
In dust the sacred statue slept,
Fair Science round her altars wept,
And Wisdom cowl'd his head.
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At length, Olympian lord of morn,
The raven veil of night was torn,
When through the golden clouds descending,
Thou didst hold thy radiant flight,
O'er Nature's lovely pageant bending,
Till Avon roll'd all sparkling to thy sight !
There, on its bank, beneath the mulberry's
shade,
Wrapp'd in young dreams, a wild-eyed minstrel
stray'd.
Lighting there and lingering long,
Thou didst teach the bard his song ;
Thy fingers strung his sleeping shell,
And round his brows a garland curl'd ;
On his lips thy spirit fell,
And bade him wake and warm the world.
Then Shakespeare rose !
Across the trembling strings
His daring hand he flings,
And lo! a new creation glows !
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. Ill
There, clustering round, submissive to his will,
Fate's vassal train his high commands fulfil.
Madness, with his frightful scream,
Vengeance, leaning on his lance,
Avarice, with his blade and beam,
Hatred, blasting with a glance,
Remorse that weeps, and Rage that roars,
And Jealousy that dotes, but dooms and mur-
ders, yet adores.
Mirth, his face with sunbeams lit,
Waking laughter's merry swell,
Arm in arm with fresh-eyed Wit,
That waves his tingling lash, while Folly shakes
his bell.
Despair, that haunts the gurgling stream,
Kiss'd by the virgin moon's cold beam,
Where some lost maid wild chaplets
wreathes,
And swan -like, thus her own dirge
breathes,
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Then, broken-hearted, sinks to rest,
Beneath the bubbling wave that shrouds her
maniac breast.
Young Love, with eye of tender gloom,
Now drooping o'er the hallow'd tomb
Where his plighted victims lie,
Where they met, but met to die ;
And now when crimson buds are sleep-
ing,
Through the dewy arbor peeping,
Where Beauty's child, the frowning world for-
got,
To Youth's devoted tale is listening,
Rapture on her dark lash glistening,
While fairies leave their cowslip cells and guard
the happy spot.
Thus rise the phantom throng,
Obedient to their Master's song,
And lead in willing chains the wondering soul
along,
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 113
For other worlds war's Great One sigh'd
in vain,
O'er other worlds see Shakespeare rove
and reign !
The rapt magician of his own wild lay,
Earth and her tribes his mystic wand obey.
Old Ocean trembles, Thunder cracks the
skies,
Air teems with shapes, and tell-tale spec-
tres rise ;
.
Night's paltering hags their fearful orgies
keep,
And faithless Guilt unseals the lip of
Sleep ;
Time yields his trophies up, and Death re-
stores
The moulder'd victims of his voiceless
shores ;
The fireside legend and the faded page,
The crime that cursed, the deed that
bless'd an age,
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All, all come forth, the good to charm
and cheer,
To scourge bold Vice, and start the gen-
erous tear ;
With pictured Folly, gazing fools to shame,
And guide young Glory's foot along the path
of fame.
~Lo^ hand in hand,
Hell's juggling sisters stand,
To greet their victim from the fight ;
Group'd on the blasted heath,
They tempt him to the work of death,
Then melt in air and mock his wondering
sight.
In midnight's hallow'd hour,
He seeks the fatal tower
Where the lone raven, perch'd on high,
Pours to the sullen gale
Her hoarse, prophetic wail,
And croaks the dreadful moment nigh.
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 115
See by the phantom dagger led,
Pale, guilty thing !
Slowly he steals, with silent tread,
And grasps his coward steel to smite his sleep-
ing King !
Hark ! 'tis the signal bell,
Struck by that bold and unsex'd one
Whose milk is gall, whose heart is stone ;
His ear hath caught the knell,
'Tis done ! 'tis done !
Behold him from the chamber rushing,
Where his dead monarch's blood is gushing!
Look where he trembling stands,
Sad gazing there,
Life's smoking crimson on his hands,
And in his felon heart, the worm of wild despair !
Mark the sceptred traitor slumbering !
There flit the slaves of conscience round,
With boding tongue foul murders number-
ing;
Sleep's leaden portals catch the sound.
Il6 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
In his dream of blood for mercy quaking,
At his own dull scream behold him waking !
Soon that dream to fate shall turn ;
For him the living furies burn ;
For him the vulture sits on yonder misty peak,
And chides the lagging night, and whets his
hungry beak.
Hark ! the trumpet's warning breath
Echoes round the vale of death.
Unhorsed, unhelm'd, disdaining shield,
The panting tyrant scours the field.
Vengeance ! he meets thy dooming blade !
The scourge of earth, the scorn of Heaven,
He falls ! unwept and unforgiven,
And all his guilty glories fade.
Like a crush'd reptile in the dust he lies,
And Hate's last lightning quivers from his eyes!
Behold yon crownless king,
Yon white-lock'd, weeping sire,
Where heaven's unpillar'd chambers ring,
And burst their stream of flood and fire !
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 117
He gave them all, the daughters of his love ;
That recreant pair ! they drive him forth to rove
In such a night of woe,
The cubless regent of the wood
Forgets to bathe her fangs in blood,
And caverns with her foe !
Yet one was ever kind ;
Why lingers she behind ?
Oh pity! view him by her dead form kneel-
ing,
Even in wild frenzy holy nature feeling.
His aching eyeballs strain
To see those curtain'd orbs unfold,
That beauteous bosom heave again ;
But all is dark and cold.
In agony the father shakes ;
Grief's choking note
Swells in his throat,
Each wither'd heartstring tugs and breaks !
Round her pale neck his dying arms he wreathes,
And on her marble lips his last, his death-kiss
breathes.
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Down, trembling wing ! shall insect weakness
keep
The sun-defying eagle's sweep ?
A mortal strike celestial strings,
And feebly echo what a seraph sings ?
Who now shall grace the glowing throne
Where, all unrivalPd, all alone,
Bold Shakespeare sat, .and look'd creation
through,
The minstrel monarch of the worlds he drew ?
That throne is cold that lyre in death unstrung,
On whose proud note delighted wonder hung.
Yet Old Oblivion, as in wrath he sweeps,
One spot shall spare, the grave where Shake-
speare sleeps.
Rulers and ruled in common gloom may lie,
But Nature's laureate bards shall never die.
Art's chisell'd boast and Glory's trophied shore
Must live in numbers, or can live no more.
While sculptured Jove some nameless waste
may claim,
Still rolls the Olympic car in Pindar's fame ;
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 119
Troy's doubtful walls in ashes pass'd away,
Yet frown on Greece in Homer's deathless lay;
Rome, slowly sinking in her crumbling fanes,
Stands, all immortal in her Maro's strains ;
So, too, yon giant empress of the isles,
On whose broad sway the sun forever smiles,
To Time's unsparing rage one day must bend,
And all her triumphs in her Shakespeare end !
O Thou ! to whose creative power
We dedicate the festal hour,
While Grace and Goodness round the altar
stand,
Learning's anointed train, and Beauty's rose-
lipp'd band
Realms yet unborn in accents now unknown,
Thy song shall learn, and bless it for their own.
Deep in the West, as Independence roves,
His banners planting round the land he loves,
Where Nature sleeps in Eden's infant grace,
In Time's full hour shall spring a glorious race.
120 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Thy name, thy verse, thy language, shall they
bear,
And deck for thee the vaulted temple there.
Our Roman-hearted fathers broke
Thy parent empire's galling yoke ;
But thou, harmonious master of the mind,
Around their sons a gentler chain shalt bind ;
Once more in thee shall Albion's sceptre wave,
And what her monarch lost, her monarch Bard
shall save.
CHARLES SPRAGUE (1823).
[This ode, a prize poem, was read at the Bos-
ton Theatre in 1823.]
TO SHAKESPEARE.
He lighted with his golden lamp on high,
The unknown regions of the human heart,
Showed its bright fountains, showed its rueful
wastes,
Its shoals and headlands; and a tower he
raised
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 121
Refulgent, where eternal breakers roll,
For all to see, but no man to approach.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR (1824).
[" Imaginary Conversations : ' The Abbe De-
lille and Walter S. Landor.' "]
WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF SHAKE-
SPEARE.
How bravely Autumn paints upon the sky
The gorgeous fame of Summer which is
fled!
Hues of all flowers that in their ashes lie,
Tropbied in that fair light whereon they
fed,
Tulip, and hyacinth, and sweet rose red,
Like exhalations from the leafy mould,
Look here how honor glorifies the dead,
And warms their scutcheons with a glance of
gold!
Such is the memory of poets old,
Who on Parnassus' hill have bloomed elate ;
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Now they are laid under their marbles cold,
And turned to clay, whereof they were
create ;
But god Apollo hath them all enrolled,
And blazoned on the very clouds of fate !
THOMAS HOOD (1828).
SHAKESPEARE.
The soul of man is larger than the sky,
Deeper than ocean, or the abysmal dark
Of the unfathomed centre. Like that ark,
Which in its sacred hold uplighted high,
O'er the drowned hills, the human family,
And stock reserved of every living kind,
So, in the compass of the single mind,
The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie,
That make all worlds. Great poet, 'twas thy
art,
To know thyself, and in thyself to be
Whate'er love, hate, ambition, destiny,
Or the firm fatal purpose of the heart,
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 123
Can make of man. Yet thou wert still the same,
Serene of thought, unhurt by thy own flame.
HARTLEY COLERIDGE (1833).
STRATFORD-UPON-AVON.
(JANUARY, 1837.)
We stood upon the tomb of him whose praise
Time, nor oblivion's thrift, nor envy chill,
Nor War, nor ocean with her severing space,
Shall hinder from the peopled world to fill ;
And thus, in fulness of our heart, we cried ;
God's works are wonderful, the circling sky,
The rivers that with noiseless footing glide,
Man's firm-built strength, and woman's liquid
eye;
But the high spirit that sleepeth here below,
More than all beautiful and stately things,
Glory to God, the mighty Maker, brings ;
To whom alone 'twas given the bounds to know
Of human action, and the secret springs
Whence the deep streams of joy and sorrow flow.
HENRY ALFORD,
Dean of Canterbury (1810-1871),
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SHAKESPEARE.
How little fades from earth when sink to rest
The hours and cares that move a great man's
breast !
Though naught of all we saw the grave may
spare,
His life pervades the world's impregnate air ;
Though Shakespeare's dust beneath our foot-
steps lies,
His spirit breathes amid his native skies.
With meaning won from him forever glows
Each air that England feels, and star it
knows ;
His whispered words from many a mother's
voice
Can make her sleeping child in dreams re-
joice ;
And gleams from spheres he first conjoined to
earth
Are blest with rays of each new morning's
birth.
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 125
Amid the sights and tales of common things,
Leaf, flower, and bird, and wars, and deaths of
kings
Of shore and sea, and Nature's daily round,
Of life that tills, and tombs that load the
ground,
His visions mingle, swell, command, pace by,
And haunt with living presence, heart and eye.
And tones from him by other bosoms caught
Awaken flush and stir of mounting thought ;
And the long sigh, and deep, impassioned thrill
Rouse custom's trance, and spur the faltering
will.
Above the goodly land, more his than ours,
He sits supreme, enthroned in skyey towers,
And sees the heroic brood of his creation
Teach larger life to his ennobled nation.
O shaping brain ! O flashing fancy's hues !
O boundless heart kept fresh by pity's dews !
C) wit humane and blithe ! O sense sublime !
For each dim oracle of mantled time !
126 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Transcendent form of man ! in whom we read
Mankind's whole tale of impulse, thought, and
deed!
Amid the expanse of years, beholding thee,
We know how vast our world of life may be,
Wherein, perchance, with aims as pure as
thine,
Small tasks and strengths may be no less di-
vine.
JOHN STERLING (1839).
TO SHAKESPEARE.
If from the height of that celestial sphere,
Where now thou dwellest, spirit powerful" and
sweet !
Thou yet canst love the race that sojourn
here,
How must thou joy, with pleasure not unmeet
For thy exalted state, to know how dear
Thy memory is held throughout the earth
Beyond the favored land that gave thee birth.
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 127
E'en in thy seat in heaven thoit mayest receive
Thanks, praise, and love, and wonder ever new,
From human hearts, who in thy verse perceive
All that humanity calls good and true ;
Nor dost thou for each mortal blemish grieve
They from thy glorious works have fallen away,
As from thy soul its outward form of clay.
FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE (1844).
TO SHAKESPEARE.
Oft when my lips I open to rehearse
Thy wondrous spells of wisdom, and of
power,
And that my voice, and thy immortal verse
On listening ears and hearts I mingled pour,
I shrink dismayed, and awful doth appear
The vain presumption of my own weak deed ,
Thy glorious spirit seems to mine so near,
That suddenly I tremble as' I read !
Thee an invisible auditor I fear.
O, if it might be so, my master dear !
128 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
With what beseeching would I pray to thee,
To make me equal to my noble task !
Succor from thee how humbly would I ask,
Thy worthiest works to utter worthily !
FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE (1844).
WRITTEN IN THE VISITORS' BOOK
AT STRATFORD.
Stratford-on-Avon ! Well, I think I must
See Shakespeare's house his tomb and bust
I've seen, and just maligned Malone
For daubing Shakespeare's bust of stone,
And could not let his works alone.
Just now I'm rather in a pet,
I've sketched his house, and got quite wet.
And now I sit, turn o'er and look
The countless names writ in this book.
And try to think with all my might,
That I've also a right to write.
But hold, I fear to increase my crime,
To give as reason, doggerel rhyme.
DANIEL MACLISE (1811-1870).
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 129
SHAKESPEARE.
Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask. Thou smilest, and art still,
Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,
Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,
Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,
Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-
place,
Spares but the cloudy border of his base
To the foiled searching of mortality ;
And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams
know,
Self-schooled, self-scanned, self-honored, self-
secure,
Didst tread on earth unguessed at. Better so !
All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness which impairs, all griefs which
bow,
Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.
MATTHEW ARNOLD.
130 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
ON MRS. KEMBLE'S READINGS FROM
SHAKESPEARE.
O precious evenings ! all too swiftly sped !
Leaving us heirs to amplest heritages
Of all the best thoughts of the greatest sages,
And giving tongues unto the silent dead !
How our hearts glowed and trembled as she
read,
Interpreting by tones the wondrous pages
Of the great poet who foreruns the ages,
Anticipating all that shall be said !
O happy Reader ! having for thy text
The magic book, whose Sibylline leaves have
caught
The rarest essence of all human thought !
O happy Poet ! by no critic vext !
How must thy listening spirit now rejoice,
To be interpreted by such a voice !
H. W. LONGFELLOW (1850).
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 131
STRATFORD-ON-AVON.
To Stratford-on-the-Avon And we passed
Thro' aisles and avenues of the princeliest trees
That ever eyes beheld. None such with us
Here in the bleaker North. And as we went
Through Lucy's park, the red day dropt i' the
west ;
A crimson glow, like blood in lovers' cheeks,
Spread up the soft green sky and passed away ;
The mazy twilight came down on the lawns,
And all those huge trees seemed to fall asleep ;
The deer went past like shadows. All the park
Lay round us like a dream ; and one fine
thought
Hung over us, and hallowed all. Yea, he,
The pride of England, glistened like a star,
And beckoned us to Stratford.
ROBERT LEIGHTON (1822-1869).
132 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
POETRY IMMORTAL.
The sacred beings of poetic birth
Immortal live to consecrate the earth.
San Marco's pavement boasts no doge's tread,
And all its ancient pageantry has fled ;
Yet, as we muse beneath some dim arcade,
The mind's true kindred glide from ruin's shade ;
In every passing eye that sternly beams
We start to meet the Shylock of our dreams ;
Each maiden form, where virgin grace is seen,
Crosses our path with Portia's noble mien ;
While Desdemona, beauteous as of yore,
Yields us the smile that once entranced the
Moor.
# # # =*
Long ere brave Nelson shook the Baltic shore,
The bard of Avon hallow'd Elsinore ;
Perchance when moor'd the fleet, awaiting day,
To fix the battle's terrible array,
Some pensive hero, musing o'er the deep,
So soon to fold him in its dreamless sleep,
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 133
Heard the Dane's sad and self-communing
tone
Blend with the water's melancholy moan,
Recall'd, with prayer and awe -suspended
breath,
His wild and solemn questionings of death,
Or caught from land Ophelia's dying song,
Swept by the night-breeze plaintively along !
HENRY T. TUCKERMAN (1813-1871).
SHAKESPEARE IN ITALY.
Beyond our shores, beyond the Apennines,
Shakespeare, from heaven came thy creative
breath !
'Mid citron grove and overarching vines
Thy genius wept at Desdemona's death ;
In the proud sire thou badest anger cease,
And Juliet by her Romeo sleeps in peace.
Then rose thy voice above the stormy sea,
And Ariel flew from Prospero to thee.
W. S. LANDOR (July, 1860).
134 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
In poetry, there is but one supreme,
Though there are many angels round his
throne,
Mighty and beauteous, while his face is hid.
LANDOR.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
(APRIL 23, 1864.)
She sat in her eternal house,
The sovereign mother of mankind ;
Before her was the peopled world,
The hollow night behind.
" Below my feet the thunders break,
Above my head the stars rejoice ;
But man, although he babbles much,
Has never found a voice.
"Ten thousand years have come and gone,
And not an hour of any day,
But he has dumbly looked to me,
The things he could not say.
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 135
" It shall be so no more," she said,
And then revolving in her mind,
She thought : " I will create a child
Shall speak for all his kind."
It was the spring-time of the year,
And lo, where Avon's waters flow,
The child, her darling, came on earth,
Three hundred years ago.
There was no portent in the sky,
No cry, like Pan's, along the seas,
Nor hovered round his baby mouth
The swarm of classic bees.
What other children were, he was,
If more, 'twas not to mortal ken ;
The being likest to mankind,
Made him the man of men.
They gossiped, after he was dead,
An idle tale of stealing deer ;
One thinks he was a lawyer's clerk;
But nothing now is clear.
136 TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE.
Save that he married, in his youth,
A maid, his elder ; went to town ;
Wrote plays ; made money ; and at last
Came back, and settled down,
A prosperous man, among his kin,
In Stratford, where his bones repose.
And this what can be less ? is all
The world of Shakespeare knows.
It irks us that we know no more,
For where we love, we would know all ;
What would be small in common men,
In great is never small.
Their daily habits, how they looked,
The color of their eyes and hair,
Their prayers, their oaths, the wine they drank,
The clothes they used to wear,
Trifles like these declare the men
And should survive them nay, they must ;
We'll find them somewhere ; if it needs,
We'll rake among their dust !
TRIBUTES TO SHAKESPEARE. 1.37
Not Shakespeare's ! He has left his curse
On him disturbs it ; let it rest,
The mightiest that ever Death
Laid in the earth's dark breast.
Not to himself did he belong
Nor does his life belong to us ;
Enough, he was ; give up the search
If he were thus, or thus.
Before he came his like was not,
Nor left he heirs to share his powers ;
The mighty Mother sent him here,
To be his voice and ours.
To be her oracle to man,
To be what man may be to her ;
Between the Maker and the made,
The best interpreter.
The hearts of all men beat in his,
Alike in pleasure and in pain ;
And he contained their myriad minds,
Mankind in heart and brain.
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