If tragedies might any prologue have,

All those he made would scarce make one to this;

Where

others, the King's foolish subjects." This title is followed by an abusive preface upon the audience and reader.

Immediately upon this, he wrote his memorable ode against the public, beginning

"Come, leave the loathed stage,

"And the more loathsome age, &c."

The revenge he took against Ford, was to write an epigram on him as a plagiary.

Playwright, by chance, hearing toys I had writ, "Cry'd to my face-they were th' elixir of wit. "And I must now believe him, for to-day

"Five of my jests, then stoln, pass'd him a play."

Alluding to a character in the Ladies Trial, which Ben says Ford stole from him.

The next charge against Ford was, that the Lover's Melancholy was not his own, but purloined from Shakspere's papers by the connivance of Heminge and Condell, who, in conjunction with Ford, had the revisal of them.'

The malice of this charge is gravely refuted, and afterwards laughed at in many verses and epigrams, the best of which are those that follow, with which I shall close this theatrical extract;

"To my worthy friend, John Ford.

'Tis said, from Shakspere's mine, your play you drew, "What need?-when Shakspere still survives in you:

Where fame, now that he gone is to the grave,
(Death's publick tyring-house) the Nuntius is:

For,

"But grant it were from his vast treasury reft,
"That plund'rer Ben ne'er made so rich a theft."

Thomas May.

Upon Ben Jonson, and his Zany, Tom Randolph.

"Quoth Ben to Tom, the Lover's stole,

""Tis Shakspere's every word;
"Indeed, says Tom, upon the whole,
"'Tis much too good for Ford.

"Thus Ben and Tom the dead still praise,
"The living to decry;

"For none must dare to wear the bays,
"Till Ben and Tom both die.

"Even Avon's swan could not escape

"These letter-tyrant elves;
"They on his fame contriv'd a rape,
"To raise their pedant selves.

"But after-times, with full consent,

་་

"This truth will all acknowledge

Shakspere and Ford from heaven were sent,
"But Ben and Tom from college.

Endymion Porter."

Mr. Macklin the comédian was the author of this letter; but the pamphlet which furnished his materials was lost in its passage from Ireland.

The

For, though his line of life went soon about,
The life yet of his lines shall never out.

HUGH HOLLAND *

To the Memory of the deceased Author, Master WILLIAM SHAKSPERE.

Shakspere, at length thy pious fellows give
The world thy works; thy works, by which outlive
Thy tomb, thy name must: when that stone is rent,
And time dissolves thy Stratford monument,

Here we alive shall view thee still, this book,
When brass and marble fade, shall make thee look
Fresh to all ages; when posterity

Shall loath what's new, think all is prodigy
That is not Shakspere's, every line, each verse,
Here shall revive, redeem thee from thy herse.
Nor fire, nor cank'ring age—as Naso said
Of his-thy wit-fraught book shall once invade :

The following stanza, from a copy of verses by Shirley, prefixed to Ford's Love's Sacrifice, 1633, alludes to the same dispute, and is apparently addressed to Ben Jonson.

"Look here thou that hast malice to the stage,

"And impudence enough for the whole age;

"To read this tragedy, and thy owne be next."

STEEVENS.

*See Wood's Athenæ Oxon. edit. 1721, vol. i. p. 583.

Nor

Nor shall I e'er believe or think thee dead,

Though mist, until our bankrout stage be sped
(Impossible) with some new strain to out-do
Passions of Juliet, and her Romeo;
Or till I hear a scene more nobly take,

Than when thy half-sword parlying Romans spake:
Till these, till any of thy volumes rest,
Shall with more fire more feeling be express'd,
Be sure, our Shakspere, thou canst never die,
But, crown'd with laurel, live eternally.

L. DIGGES*.

To the Memory of Master WILLIAM SHAKSPERE.

We wonder'd, Shakspere, that thou went'st so soon
From the world's stage to the grave's tyring-room :
We thought thee dead; but this thy printed worth
Tells thy spectators, that thou went'st but forth
To enter with applause: an actor's art

Can die, and live to act a second part;
That's but an exit of mortality,

This a re-entrance to a plaudite.

J. Mt.

* See Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, vol. i. p. 599, and 600, edit. 1721. His translation of Claudian's Rape of Proserpine was entered on the Stationers' books, Oct. 4, 1617.

Perhaps John Marston.

On

On worthy Master SHAKSPERE, and his Poems. A mind reflecting ages past, whose clear And equal surface can make things appear, Distant a thousand years, and represent Them in their lively colours, just extent: To out-run hasty 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 discern

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

Them sudden birth, wond'ring how oft they live;
What story coldly tells, what poets feign

At second-hand, and picture without brain,
Senseless and soul-less shews: To give a stage-
Ample, and true with life-voice, action, age,
As Plato's year, and new scene of the world,
Them unto us, or us to them had hurl'd;
To raise our ancient sovereigns from their herse,
Make kings his subjects; by exchanging verse
Enlive their pale trunks, that the present age
Joys in their joy, and trembles at their rage:
Yet so to temper passion, that our ears
Take pleasure in their pain, and eyes in tears
Both smile and weep; fearful at plots so sad,
Then laughing at our fear; abus'd, and glad
To be abus'd; affected with that truth
Which we perceive is false, pleased in that ruth

At