Upon the mufes' anvil; turn the fame,

(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 fuch wert thou :-Look, how the father's face
Lives in his iffue; even fo 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 fwan of Avon, what a fight it were,

To fee thee in our waters yet appear;

And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
That fo did take Eliza, and our James!
But ftay; I see thee in the hemifphere
Advanc'd, and made a conftellation there :-

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

Or influence, chide or cheer the drooping stage;
Which, fince thy flight from hence, hath mourn'd like night,
And defpairs day, but by thy volume's light!

Upon the Lines, and Life, of the famous fcenick Poet, Mafter WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

THOSE hands, which you so clapt, go now and wring,
You Britains brave; for done are Shakespeare's days;
His days are done, that made the dainty plays,
Which made the globe of heaven and earth to ring
Dry'd is that vein, dry'd is the Thespian fpring,
Turn'd all to tears, and Phebus clouds his rays;

'That corpfe, that coffin, now beftick those bays,
Which crown'd him poet first, then poets' king.
If tragedies might any prologue have,

All thofe he made would fcarce make one to this;
Where fame, now that he gone is to the grave,
(Death's publick tyring-house) the Nuntius is:
For, though his line of life went soon about,
The life yet of his lines fhall never out.

HUGH HOLLAND

To the Memory of the deceafed Author, Mafter W.
SHAKESPEARE.

SHAKESPEARE, at length thy pious fellows give
The world thy works; thy works, by which outlive
Thy tomb thy name muft: when that ftone is rent,
And time diffolves thy Stratford monument,
Here we alive fhall view thee ftill; this book,
When brafs and marble fail, fhall make thee look
Fresh to all ages; when pofterity

Shall loath what's new, think all is prodigy
That is not Shakespeare's, every line, each verse,
Here fhall revive, redeem thee from thy herse.
Nor fire, nor cank'ring age,-as Nafo faid
Of his, thy wit-fraught book fhall once invade :
Nor fhall I e'er believe or think thee dead,
Though mift, until our bankrout stage be sped
(Impoffible) with some new strain to out-do
Paffions of Juliet, and her Romeo;

Or till I hear a fcene more nobly take,

Than when thy half-fword parlying Romans fpake
Till these, till any of thy volumes reft,
Shall with more fire, more feeling be exprefs'd;

Be fure, our Shakespeare, thou canst never die,
But, crown'd with laurel, live eternally.

L. DIGGES.

To the Memory of Mafter W. SHAKESPEARE.

WE Wonder'd, Shakespeare, that thou went'st so soon From the world's ftage to the grave's tyring-room: We thought thee dead; but this thy printed worth Tells thy fpectators, that thou went'st but forth To enter with applause: An actor's art Can die, and live to act a fecond part; That's but an exit of mortality,

A MIND reflecting ages paft, whose clear
And equal furface can make things appear,
Distant a thousand years, and reprefent
Them in their lively colours, juft extent:
To outrun hafty time, retrieve the fates,
Rowl back the heavens, blow ope the iron gates
Of death and Lethe, where confused lie

Great heaps of ruinous mortality :

In that deep dusky dungeon, to difcern

A royal ghost from churls; by art to learn
The phyfiognomy of shades, and give

Them fudden birth, wond'ring how oft they live;
What ftory coldly tells, what poets feign
At fecond hand, and picture without pain,

Senfelefs and foul-lefs fhews: to give a stage,
Ample, and true with life,-voice, action, age,
As Plato's year, and new scene of the world,
Them unto us, or us to them had hurl'd:
To raise our ancient fovereigns from their herse,
Make kings his subjects; by exchanging verse
Enlive their pale trunks, that the prefent age
Joys in their joy, and trembles at their rage:
Yet fo to temper paffion, that our ears

Take pleasure in their pain, and eyes in tears
Both smile and weep; fearful at plots so fad,
Then laughing at our fear; abus'd, and glad
To be abus'd; affected with that truth
Which we perceive is falfe, pleas'd in that ruth
At which we start, and, by elaborate play,
Tortur'd and tickl'd; by a crab-like way
Time paft made pastime, and in ugly fort
Difgorging up his ravin for our sport :-

-While the plebeian imp, from lofty throne,
Creates and rules a world, and works upon
Mankind by fecret engines; now to move
A chilling pity, then a rigorous love;
To ftrike up and stroak down, both joy and irez
To fteer the affections; and by heavenly fire
Mold us anew, ftoln from ourselves :——————

This, and much more, which cannot be exprefs'd
But by himself, his tongue, and his own breast,-
Was Shakespeare's freehold, which his cunning brain
Improv'd, by favour of the nine-fold train ;-
The bufkin'd mufe, the comick queen, the grand
And louder tone of Clio, nimble hand
And nimbler foot of the melodious pair,

The filver-voiced lady, the most fair

Calliope, the whofe speaking filence daunts
And the whofe praise the heavenly lady chants.

Thefe jointly woo'd him, envying one another ;Obey'd by all as spouse, but lov'd as brother ;And wrought a curious robe of fable grave, Fresh green, and pleasant yellow, red most brave, And conftant blue, rich purple, guiltless white, The lowly ruffet, and the scarlet bright: Branch'd and embroider'd like the painted spring; Each leaf match'd with a flower, and each string Of golden wire, each line of filk: there run Italian works, whofe thread the fifters fpun; And there did fing, or feem to fing, the choice Birds of a foreign note and various voice: Here hangs a maffy rock; there plays a fair But chiding fountain, purled: not the air, Nor clouds, nor thunder, but were living drawn, Not out of common tiffany or lawn, But fine materials, which the mufes know, And only know the countries where they grow. Now, when they could no longer him enjoy, In mortal garments pent,-death may destroy, They fay, his body; but his verse shall live, And more than nature takes, our hands shall give: In a lefs volume, but more strongly bound, Shakespeare shall breathe and speak; with laurel crown'd, Which never fades; fed with ambrofial meat,

In a well-lined vefture, rich and neat:

So with this robe they cloath him, bid him wear it;
For time fhall never ftain, nor envy tear it.

The friendly admirer of his endowments,

J. M. S.