Chapter V: Part I: “these Three Hundred Years” (1)

Any time these three hundred years.

_Merry Wives_, I. i. 13.

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

_Sonnet LV._

THE FIRST PERIOD

SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

FRANCIS MERES, 1596

(1565-1647)

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

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

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

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

RICHARD BARNFIELD, 1598

(1574-1627)

“_A Remembrance of some English Poets._”

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

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

JOHN WEEVER, 1599

(1576-1632)

“_Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare._”

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

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

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

JOHN DAVIES, 1610

(1565?-1618)

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

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

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

THOMAS FREEMAN, 1614

(_fl._ 1614)

“_To Master W. Shakespeare._”

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

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

WILLIAM BASSE, 1622

(_d._ 1653?)

“_On Mr. William Shakespeare._”

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

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

ANONYMOUS, 1623

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

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

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

BEN JONSON, 1623

(1573-1637)

“_To the memory of my beloved, the Author, Mr. William
Shakespeare: and what he hath left us._”

To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book, and fame:
While I confess thy writings to be such,
As neither Man, nor Muse, can praise too much.
’Tis true, and all men’s suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise:
For seeliest Ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;
Or blind Affection, which doth ne’er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;
Or crafty Malice, might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin, where it seem’d to raise . . .
But thou art proof against them, and in deed
Above th’ ill fortune of them, or the need.
I, therefore, will begin. Soul of the age!
The applause! delight! the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further to make thee a room:
Thou art a monument, without a tomb,
And art alive still, while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses;
I mean with great, but disproportion’d Muses:
For, if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how for thou didst our Lyly out-shine,
Or sporting Kid, or Marlowe’s mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latin, and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee, I would not seek
For names; but call forth thundering Æschilus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
Paccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To life again, to hear thy buskin tread,
And shake a stage: or, when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone, for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show,
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When like Apollo he came forth to warm
Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm!
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joy’d to wear the dressing of his lines!
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
But antiquated and deserted lie
As they were not of Nature’s family.
Yet must I not give Nature all: thy Art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the Poet’s matter, Nature be,
His Art doth give the fashion. And, that he,
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat
(Such as thine are), and strike the second heat
Upon the Muse’s anvil: turn the same
(And himself in it) that he thinks to frame;
Or for the laurel, he may gain a scorn,
For a good Poet’s made, as well as born.
And such wert thou. Look how the father’s face
Lives in his issue, even so, the race
Of Shakespeare’s mind and manners brightly shines
In his well turned and true-filed lines:
In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
As brandish’d at the eyes of Ignorance.
Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
That so did take Eliza, and our James!
But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanced, and made a constellation there!
Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage,
Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping Stage;
Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourn’d like night,
And despairs day, but for thy volume’s light.

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

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

See William Basse, p. 40.

HUGH HOLLAND, 1623

(_d._ 1633)

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

Those hands, which you so clapt, go now, and wring
You Britain’s brave; for done are Shakespeare’s days:
His days are done, that made the dainty Plays,
Which make the Globe of heav’n and earth to ring.
Dried is that vein, dried is the Thespian Spring,
Turn’d all to tears, and Phœbus clouds his rays:
That corpse, that coffin now bestick those bayes,
Which crown’d him Poet first, then Poet’s King.
If Tragedies might any Prologue have,
All those he made, would scarce make one to this:
Where Fame, now that he gone is to the grave
(Death’s public tiring-house), the Nuncius is.
For though his line of life went soon about,
The life yet of his lines shall never out.

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

JOHN HEMINGE, 1623

(_d._ 1630)

HENRIE CONDELL

(_d._ 1627)

“_To the great Variety of Readers._”

His mind and hand went together: and what he thought he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our province, who only gather his works, and give them you, to praise him. It is yours that read him. And there we hope, to your divers capacities, you will find enough, both to draw, and hold you: for his wit can no more lie hid, than it could be lost. Read him, therefore; and again, and again: and if then you do not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger, not to understand him. And so we leave you to other of his friends, whom, if you need, can be your guides: if you need them not, you can lead yourselves, and others. And such readers we wish him.

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

LEONARD DIGGES, 1623

(1588-1635)

“_To the Memorie of the deceased Author, Maister W. Shakespeare._”

Shakespeare, at length thy pious fellows give
The world thy Works: thy Works, by which, out-live
Thy Tomb, thy name must: when that stone is rent,
And Time dissolves thy Stratford Monument,
Here we alive shall view thee still. This Book,
When brass and marble fade, shall make thee look
Fresh to all ages: when posterity
Shall loath what’s new, thinke all is prodigy
That is not Shakespeare’s; ev’ry line, each verse,
Here shall revive, redeem thee from thy hearse.
Nor fire, nor cankering age, as Naso said,
Of his, thy wit-fraught Book, shall once invade.
Nor shall I e’er believe, or think thee dead
(Though missed), until our bankrout Stage be sped
(Impossible) with some new strain t’ out-do
Passions of Juliet, and her Romeo;
Or till I hear a scene more nobly take,
Then when thy half-sword parlying Romans spake,
Till these, till any of thy Volumes rest
Shall with more fire, more feeling be expressed,
Be sure, our Shakespeare, thou canst never die,
But crown’d with laurel, live eternally.

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

MICHAEL DRAYTON, 1627

(1563-1631)

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

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

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

JOHN MILTON, 1630

(1608-1674)

“_An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatic Poet, W. Shakespeare._”

What needs my Shakespeare for his honour’d bones,
The labour of an age in pilèd stones?
Or that his hallow’d relics should be hid
Under a star-ypointing pyramid?
Dear son of Memory, great heir of Fame,
What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,
Hast built thyself a life-long monument.
For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easy numbers flow; and that each heart
Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued book,
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took;
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And, so sepulchr’d, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings, for such a tomb should wish to die.

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

I. M. S., 1632

“_On worthy Master Shakespeare and his Poems._”

A mind reflecting ages past, whose clear
And equal surface can make things appear
Distant a thousand years, and represent
Them in their lively colours’ just extent.
To outrun hasty time, retrieve the fates,
Roll back the heavens, blow ope the iron gates
Of death and Lethe, where (confused) lie
Great heaps of ruinous mortality.
In that deep dusky dungeon to discern
A royal ghost from churls: by art to learn
The physiognomy of shades, and give
Them sudden birth, wond’ring how oft they live.
What story coldly tells, what poets feign
At second hand, and picture without brain
Senseless and soulless shows. To give a stage
(Ample and true with life) voice, action, age,
As Plato’s year and new scene of the world
Them unto us, or us to them had hurl’d.
To raise our ancient sovereigns from their herse,
Make kings his subjects, by exchanging verse
Enlive their pale trunks, that the present age
Joys in their joy, and trembles at their rage:
Yet so to temper passion, that our ears
Take pleasure in their pain; and eyes in tears
Both weep and smile; fearful at plots so sad,
Then, laughing at our fear; abus’d, and glad
To be abus’d, affected with that truth
Which we perceive is false; pleas’d in that ruth
At which we start; and by elaborate play
Tortur’d and tickled; by a crablike way
Time past made pastime, and in ugly sort
Disgorging up his ravaine for our sport—
—While the Plebeian Imp, from lofty throne,
Creates and rules a world, and works upon
Mankind by secret engines; now to move
A chilling pity, then a rigorous love:
To strike up and stroke down, both joy and ire;
To steer th’ affections; and by heavenly fire
Mould us anew. Stol’n from ourselves—
This, and much more which cannot be express’d,
But by himself, his tongue and his own breast,
Was Shakespeare’s freehold, which his cunning brain
Improv’d by favour of the ninefold train.
The buskin’d Muse, the Comic Queen, the grand
And louder tone of Clio; nimble hand,
And nimbler foot of the melodious pair,
The silver voiced Lady; the most fair
Calliope, whose speaking silence daunts,
And she whose praise the heavenly body chants.
These jointly woo’d him, envying one another
(Obey’d by all as spouse, but lov’d as brother),
And wrought a curious robe of sable grave,
Fresh green, and pleasant yellow, red most brave,
And constant blue, rich purple, guiltless white,
The lowly russet, and the scarlet bright;
Branch’d and embroider’d like the painted Spring,
Each leaf match’d with a flower, and each string
Of golden wire, each line of silk; there run
Italian works whose thread the Sisters spun;
And there did sing, or seem to sing, the choice
Birds of a foreign note and various voice.
Here hangs a mossy rock; there plays a fair
But chiding fountain purled; not the air,
Nor clouds nor thunder, but were living drawn,
Not out of common tiffany or lawn,
But fine materials, which the Muses know,
And only know the countries where they grow.
Now, when they could no longer him enjoy
In mortal garments pent, death may destroy,
They say, his body, but his verse shall live;
And more than nature takes, our hands shall give.
In a less volume, but more strongly bound,
Shakespeare shall breath and speak, with laurel crown’d
Which never fades. Fed with Ambrosian meat,
In a well-lined vesture rich and neat.
So with this robe they clothe him, bid him wear it;
For time shall never stain, nor envy tear it.

The friendly admirer of his Endowments, I. M. S.
Prefixed to the Second Folio Edition of
Shakespeare’s _Works_. 1632.

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

JOHN HALES, BEFORE 1633

(1584-1656)

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

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

SIR WILLIAM D’AVENANT, 1637

(1606-1668)

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

1

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

2

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

3

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

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

ANONYMOUS, ABOUT 1637

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

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

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

THOMAS BANCROFT, 1639

(_fl._ 1633-1658)

“_To Shakespeare._”

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

“_To the same._”

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

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

GEORGE DANIEL, 1647

(1616-1657)

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

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

SAMUEL SHEPPARD, 1651

(_fl. c._ 1606-1652)

“_In Memory of our Famous Shakespeare._”

1

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

2

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

3

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

4

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

5

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

6

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

_Epigrams Theological, Philosophical, and Romantick._
Six Books, etc., with other Select Poems. 1651.
Book vi. Epig. 17, pp. 150, 152, 154.

THOMAS FULLER, _c._ 1661

(1608-1661)

He was an eminent instance of the truth of that rule, _Poeta non fit sed nascitur_; one is not _made_, but _born_ a poet. Indeed, his learning was very little, so that, as Cornish diamonds are not polished by any lapidary, but are pointed and smoothed even as they are taken out of the earth, so nature itself was all the _art_ which was used upon him.

Many were the wit-combats betwixt him and Ben Jonson; which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man of war: Master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning; solid, but slow in his performances. Shakespeare, with the English man of war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention.

_The History of the Worthies of England:
Warwickshire._ 1662, p. 126.

SAMUEL PEPYS, 1662-1667

(1633-1703)

1661-1662. March 1st. My wife and I by coach, first to see my little picture that is a-drawing, and thence to the Opera, and there saw “Romeo and Juliet,” the first time it was ever acted, but it is a play of itself the worst that ever I heard, and the worst acts that ever I saw these people do, and I am resolved to go no more to see the first time of acting, for they were all of them out more or less.

1662. September 29th. To the King’s Theatre, where we saw “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which I had never seen before, nor ever shall again, for it is the most insipid, ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life.

1666. December 28th. To the Duke’s House, and there saw “Macbeth” most excellently acted, and a most excellent play for variety. I had sent my wife to meet me there, who did come: so I did go to White Hall, and got my Lord Bellassis to get me into the playhouse; and there, after all staying above an hour for the players, the King and all waiting, which was absurd, saw “Henry the Fifth” well done by the Duke’s people, and in most excellent habit, all new vests, being put on but this night. But I sat so high and far off, that I missed most of the words, and sat with a wind coming into my back and neck, which did much trouble me. The play continued till twelve at night; and then up, and a most horrid cold night it was, and frosty, and moonshine.

1666-67. January 7th. To the Duke’s House, and saw “Macbeth,” which, though I saw it lately, yet appears a most excellent play in all respects, but especially in divertisement, though it be a deep tragedy; which is a strange perfection in a tragedy, it being most proper here, and suitable.

1667. October 16th. To the Duke of York’s House; and I was vexed to see Young, who is but a bad actor at best, act Macbeth, in the room of Betterton, who, poor man! is sick: but, Lord! what a prejudice it wrought in me against the whole play, and everybody else agreed in disliking this fellow. Thence home, and there find my wife gone home; because of this fellow’s acting of the part, she went out of the house again.

_Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, with a
Life and Notes_, by Richard, Lord Braybrooke.
1888.

MARGARET CAVENDISH, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE, 1664

(1624?-1674)

I wonder how that person you mention in your letter could either have the conscience, or confidence to dispraise Shakespeare’s plays, as to say they were made up only with clowns, fools, watchmen, and the like; but to answer that person, though Shakespeare’s wit will answer for himself, I say, that it seems by his judging, or censuring, he understands not plays, or wit; for to express properly, rightly, usually, and naturally, a clown’s, or fool’s humour, expressions, phrases, garbs, manners, actions, words, and course of life, is as witty, wise, judicious, ingenious, and observing, as to write and express the expressions, phrases, garbs, manners, actions, words, and course of life, of kings and princes; and to express naturally, to the life, a mean country wench, as a great lady; a courtesan, as a chaste woman; a mad man, as a man in his right reason and senses; a drunkard, as a sober man; a knave, as an honest man; and so a clown, as a well-bred man; and a fool, as a wise man; nay, it expresses and declares a greater wit, to express, and deliver to posterity, the extravagances of madness, the subtlety of knaves, the ignorance of clowns, and the simplicity of naturals, or the craft of feigned fools, than to express regularities, plain honesty, courtly garbs, or sensible discourses, for ’tis harder to express nonsense than sense, and ordinary conversations, than that which is unusual; and ’tis harder, and requires more wit to express a jester, than a grave statesman; yet Shakespeare did not want wit to express to the life all sorts of persons, of what quality, profession, degree, breeding, or birth soever; nor did he want wit to express the divers and different humours, or natures or several passions in mankind; and so well he hath expressed in his plays all sorts of persons, as one would think he had been transformed into every one of those persons he hath described.... Who could not swear he had been a noble lover, that could woo so well? and there is not any person he had described in his book, but his readers might think they were well acquainted with them; indeed, Shakespeare had a clear judgment, a quick wit, a spreading fancy, a subtle observation, a deep apprehension, and a most eloquent elocution; truly he was a natural orator, as well as a natural poet, and he was not an orator to speak well only on some subjects, as lawyers, who can make eloquent orations at the bar, and plead subtly and wittily in law-cases, or divines, that can preach eloquent sermons, or dispute subtly and wittily in theology, but take them from that, and put them to other subjects, and they will be to seek; but Shakespeare’s wit and eloquence was general, for and upon all subjects, he rather wanted subjects for his wit and eloquence to work on, for which he was forced to take some of his plots out of history, where he only took the bare designs, the wit and language being all his own.

_CCXI Sociable Letters written by the Lady Marchioness
of Newcastle._ 1664. Letter CXXIII.

JOHN DRYDEN, 1667

(1631-1700)

As when a tree’s cut down, the secret root
Lives under ground, and thence new branches shoot;
So, from old Shakespeare’s honour’d dust, this day
Springs up and buds a new reviving play.
Shakespeare who, taught by none, did first impart
To Fletcher wit, to labouring Jonson art.
He, monarch-like, gave those his subjects law,
And is that Nature which they paint and draw.
Fletcher reach’d that which on his heights did grow,
Whilst Jonson crept and gather’d 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 which fell from Shakespeare’s pen.
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 magick could not copy’d 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 magick supernatural things:
But Shakespeare’s pow’r is sacred as a king’s.
Those legends from old priesthood were receiv’d,
And he then writ, as people then believed.

_Prologue to the Tempest or the Enchanted Island,
by Sir William D’Avenant and John Dryden._
1676.

See also Dryden’s _Prologue to Troilus and Cressida_, spoken by
Mr. Betterton representing the Ghost of Shakespeare.

1668

To begin, then, with Shakespeare; he was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is everywhere alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some great occasion is presented to him; no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets,

_Quantum lenta solent inter viberna cupressi._

_Of Dramatic Poesie, an Essay_, 1668, p. 47.

The following is from Dryden’s _Defence of the Epilogue_:—Let
any man who understands English read diligently the works of
Shakespeare and Fletcher, and I dare undertake that he will
find in every page either some solecism of speech, or some
notorious flaw in sense; and yet these men are reverenced, when
we are not forgiven. That their wit is great, and many times
their expressions noble, envy itself cannot deny.

——_Neque ego illis detrahere ausim
Hærentem capiti multa cum laude coronam._

But the times were ignorant in which they lived. Poetry was
then, if not in its infancy among us, at least not arrived to
its vigour and maturity. Witness the lameness of their plots;
many of which, especially those which they writ first (for even
that age refined itself in some measure), were made up of some
ridiculous incoherent story, which in one play many times took
up the business of an age. I suppose I need not name “Pericles,
Prince of Tyre,” nor the historical plays of Shakespeare;
besides many of the rest, as the “Winter’s Tale,” “Love’s
Labour’s Lost,” “Measure for Measure,” which were either
grounded on impossibilities, or at least so meanly written that
the comedy neither caused your mirth, nor the serious part your
concernment.

ANONYMOUS, 1672

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 Shakespeare’s wit,
’Twas well in spite of him what ere 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 wond’ring 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;
So in this Cæsar 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 the name:
Great Jonson did that ignorance adore,
And though he envied much, admir’d him more.
The faultless Jonson equally writ well:
Shakespeare made faults; but then did more excell.
One close at guard like some old fencer lay,
T’other more open, but he show’d more play.
In imitation Jonson’s wit was shown,
Heaven made his men but Shakespeare made his own.
Wise Jonson’s talent in observing lay,
But other’s follies still made up his play.
He drew the like in each elaborate line,
But Shakespeare, like a master, did design.
Jonson with skill dissected human kind,
And show’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 ’em does judge and both compare.
If amongst poets, one more bold there be,
The man that dare attempt in either way, is he.

_Covent Garden Drollery, or a Collection of all the
Choice Songs, Poems, Prologues, and Epilogues
(Sung and Spoken at Courts and Theaters),
never in Print before._ Written by the
refined’st Witts of the Age, and collected by
A. B. [? Alex. Brome]. 1672.

EDWARD PHILLIPS, 1675

(1630-1696?)

William Shakespeare, the glory of the English Stage; whose nativity at Stratford-upon-Avon is the highest honour that town can boast of: from an actor of tragedies and comedies, he became a maker; and such a maker, that though some others may perhaps pretend to a more exact decorum and economy, especially in tragedy, never any expressed a more lofty and tragic height, never any represented nature more purely to the life; and where the polishments of art are most wanting, as probably his learning was not extraordinary, he pleaseth with a certain wild and native elegance; and in all his writings hath an unvulgar style, as well in his _Venus and Adonis_, his _Rape of Lucrece_, and other various poems, as in his dramatics.

_Theatrum Poetarum._ 1675. Preface. _The Modern
Poets_, p. 194.

THOMAS OTWAY, 1680

(1652-1685)

In ages past (when will those times renew?),
When empires flourish’d, so did poets too.
When great Augustus the world’s empire held,
Horace and Ovid’s happy verse excell’d.
Ovid’s soft genius, and his tender arts
Of moving Nature, melted hardest hearts.
It did th’ imperial beauty, Julia, move
To listen to the language of his love.
Her father honour’d him: and on her breast
With ravish’d sense in her embraces prest,
He lay transported, fancy-full and blest.
Horace’s lofty genius boldlier rear’d
His manly head, and through all Nature steer’d;
Her richest pleasures in his verse refin’d,
And wrought ’em to the relish of the mind.
He lash’d with a true poet’s fearless rage,
The villanies and follies of the age;
Therefore Mecænas, that great fav’rite rais’d
Him high, and by him was he highly prais’d.
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 fear’d to lose.
Therefore he wrote with fancy unconfin’d,
And thoughts that were immortal as his mind;
And from the crop of his luxuriant pen
E’er since succeeding poets humbly glean.

_Prologue to the History and Fall of Caius Marius.
A Tragedy._ 1712.

“A PERSON OF HONOUR,” 1681

I can’t, without infinite ingratitude to the memory of those excellent persons, omit the first famous masters in’t, of our nation, venerable Shakespeare and the great Ben Jonson. I have had a particular kindness always for most of Shakespeare’s tragedies, and for many of his comedies, and I can’t but say that I can never enough admire his style (considering the time he writ in, and the great alteration that has been in the refining of our language since), for he has expressed himself so very well in’t that ’tis generally approved of still; and for maintaining of the characters of the persons design’d, I think none ever exceeded him.

“_An Essay on Dramatic Poetry_” appended to _Amaryllis
to Tityrus, Being the First Heroick Harangue of
the excellent pen of Monsieur Scudery. A Witty and
Pleasant Novel._ Englished by a Person of Honour,
1681, pp. 66-67.

SIR CHARLES SEDLEY, 1693

(1639?-1701)

But against old as well as new to rage,
Is the peculiar frenzy of this age.
Shakespeare must down, and you must praise no more
Soft Desdemona, nor the jealous Moor:
Shakespeare whose fruitful genius, happy wit
Was fram’d and finish’d at a lucky hit;
The pride of Nature, and the shame of schools,
Born to create, and not to learn from rules;
Must please no more, his bastards now deride,
Their father’s nakedness they ought to hide,
But when on spurs their Pegasus they force,
Their jaded Muse is distanc’d in the course.

_The Wary Widdow, or Sir Noisy Parrat. A Comedy._
By Henry Higden. Prologue by Sir Charles
Sydley. 1693.

THE SECOND PERIOD

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

SIR RICHARD STEELE, 1709

(1672-1729)

The play of “The London Cuckolds” was acted this evening before a suitable audience, who were extremely well diverted with that heap of vice and absurdity. The indignation which Eugenio, who is a gentleman of just taste, has, upon occasion of seeing human nature fall so low in their delights, made him, I thought, expatiate upon the mention of this play very agreeably. “Of all men living,” said he, “I pity players (who must be men of good understanding to be capable of being such) that they are obliged to repeat and assume proper gestures for representing things, of which their reason must be ashamed, and which they must disdain their audience for approving. The amendment of these low gratifications is only to be made by people of condition, by encouraging the presentation of the noble characters drawn by Shakespeare and others, from whence it is impossible to return without strong impressions of honour and humanity. On these occasions distress is laid before us with all its causes and consequences, and our resentment placed according to the merit of the persons afflicted. Were dramas of this nature more acceptable to the taste of the town, men who have genius would bend their studies to excel in them.”

_The Tatler_, No. 8, 28 April 1709.

_The London Cuckolds_, by Edward Ravenscroft, first produced
1682.

NICHOLAS ROWE, 1709

(1674-1718)

The delicacy of his taste, and the natural bent of his own genius (equal, if not superior, to some of the best of theirs [the ancients]), would certainly have led him to read and study them with so much pleasure, that some of their fine images would naturally have insinuated themselves into, and been mixed with his own writings; so that his not copying at least something from them, may be an argument of his never having read them. Whether his ignorance of the ancients were a disadvantage to him or no, may admit of a dispute: for though the knowledge of them might have made him more correct, yet it is not improbable but that the regularity and deference for them, which would have attended that correctness, might have restrained some of that fire, impetuosity, and even beautiful extravagance, which we admire in Shakespeare: and I believe we were better pleased with those thoughts, altogether new and uncommon, which his own imagination supplied him so abundantly with, than if he had given us the most beautiful passages out of the Greek and Latin poets, and that in the most agreeable manner that it was possible for a master of the English language to deliver them.

_Some Account of the Life, etc., of Mr. William
Shakespear_, p. iii. prefixed to _Works of
Shakespeare_, ed. N. Rowe. 1709.

Of this passage and the question of Shakespeare’s knowledge
of the ancients, Theobald, who favoured the view that his
acquaintance with classical writings was not inconsiderable,
remarks in his preface, “The result of the controversy must
certainly, either way, terminate to our author’s honour: how
happily he could imitate them, if that point be allowed; or how
gloriously he could think like them, without owing anything to
imitation.”

ELIJAH FENTON, 1711

(1683-1730)

Shakespeare, the genius of our isle, whose mind
(The universal mirror of mankind)
Express’d all images, enrich’d the stage,
But sometimes stoop’d to please a barbarous age.
When his immortal bays began to grow,
Rude was the language, and the humour low:
He, like the God of Day, was always bright,
But rolling in its course, his orb of light
Was sullied, and obscur’d, though soaring high,
With spots contracted from the nether sky.
But whither is th’ adventurous Muse betray’d?
Forgive her rashness, venerable shade!
May Spring with purple flowers perfume thy urn;
And Avon with his greens thy grave adorn:
Be all thy faults, whatever faults there be,
Imputed to the times, and not to thee.
Some scions shot from this immortal root,
Their tops much lower, and less fair the fruit,
Jonson the tribute of my verse might claim,
Had he not strove to blemish Shakespeare’s name.
But, like the radiant twins that gild the sphere,
Fletcher and Beaumont next in pomp appear:
The first a fruitful vine, in blooming pride,
Had been by superfluity destroy’d,
But that his friend, judiciously severe,
Prun’d the luxuriant boughs with artful care;
On various sounding harps the Muses play’d,
And sung, and quaff’d their nectar in the shade.
Few moderns in the lists with these may stand,
For in those days were giants in the land:
Suffice it now by lineal right to claim,
And bow with filial awe to Shakespeare’s fame;
The second honours are a glorious name.
Achilles dead, they found no equal lord
To wear his armour, and to wield his sword.

_An Epistle to Mr. Southerne, from Kent._
January 28, 1710-11.

JOHN DENNIS, 1712

(1657-1734)

Shakespeare was one of the greatest geniuses that the world e’er saw for the Tragic Stage. Though he lay under greater disadvantages than any of his successors, yet had he greater and more genuine beauties than the best and greatest of them. And what makes the brightest glory of his character, those beauties were entirely his own, and owing to the force of his own nature; whereas his faults were owing to his education, and to the age that he lived in. One may say of him as they did of Homer, that he had none to imitate, and is himself inimitable.

_An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shakespear:
with some Letters of Criticism to the
SPECTATOR._ 1712, pp. 1, 2.

EDWARD YOUNG, 1712

(1683-1765)

To claim attention, and the heart invade,
Shakespeare but _wrote_ the play th’ Almighty _made_.
Our neighbour’s stage art too bare-fac’d betrays,
’Tis great Corneille at every scene we praise;
On nature’s surer aid Britannia calls,
None think of Shakespeare till the curtain falls;
Then with a sigh returns our audience home,
From Venice, Egypt, Persia, Greece, or Rome.

. . . . . .

And yet in Shakespeare something still I find,
That makes me less esteem all humankind;
He made one nature and another found,
Both in his page with master-strokes abound;
His witches, fairies, and enchanted isle,
Bid us no longer at our nurses smile;
Of lost historians we almost complain,
Nor think it the creation of his brain.

_Epistle to the Right Honourable George, Lord
Lansdowne._ 1712, ll. 295-302 and 313-20.

JOSEPH ADDISON, 1714

(1672-1719)

Our critics do not seem sensible that there is more beauty in the works of a great genius who is ignorant of the rules of art, than in those of a little genius who knows and observes them. It is of these men of genius that Terence speaks in opposition to the little artificial cavillers of his time:

_Quorum æmulari exoptat negligentiam
Potius quam istorum obscuram diligentiam._

A critic may have the same consolation in the ill success of his play, as Dr. South tells us a physician has at the death of a patient, that he was killed _secundum artem_. Our inimitable Shakespeare is a stumbling-block to the whole tribe of these rigid critics. Who would not rather read one of his plays, where there is not a single rule of the stage observed, than any production of a modern critic, where there is not one of them violated? Shakespeare was indeed born with all the seeds of poetry, and may be compared to the stone in Pyrrhus’s ring, which, as Pliny tells us, had the figure of Apollo and the nine Muses in the veins of it, produced by the spontaneous hand of Nature, without any help from art.

_The Spectator_, No. 592, 10 Feb. 1714.

ALEXANDER POPE, 1725

(1688-1744)

If ever any author deserved the name of an _Original_, it was Shakespeare. Homer himself drew not his art so immediately from the fountains of Nature; it proceeded through Egyptian strainers and channels, and came to him not without some tincture of the learning, or some cast of the models, of those before him. The poetry of Shakespeare was inspiration indeed; he is not so much an imitator as an instrument of Nature: and it is not so just to say that he speaks from her, as that she speaks through him.

His _characters_ are so much Nature herself, that ’tis a sort of injury to call them by so distant a name as copies of her. Those of other poets have a constant resemblance, which shows that they received them from one another, and were but multipliers of the same image; each picture, like a mock rainbow, is but the reflection of a reflection. But every single character in Shakespeare is as much an individual as those in life itself; it is as impossible to find any two alike; as such as from their relation or affinity in any respect appear most to be twins, will upon comparison be found remarkably distinct. To this life and variety of character we must add the wonderful preservation of it, which is such throughout his Plays, that, had all the speeches been printed without the very names of the persons, I believe one might have applied them with certainty to every speaker.

The power over our passions was never possessed in a more eminent degree, or displayed in so different instances. Yet all along there is seen no labour, no pains to raise them; no preparation to guide our guess to the effect, or be perceiv’d to lead toward it; but the heart swells, and the tears burst out, just at the proper places. We are surprised the moment we weep; and yet upon reflection find the passion so just, that we should be surprised if we had not wept, and wept at that very moment.

How astonishing is it, again, that the passions directly opposite to these, laughter and spleen, are no less at his command! that he is not more a master of the _great_ than of the _ridiculous_ in human nature; of our noblest tendernesses, than of our vainest foibles; of our strongest emotions, than of our idlest sensations!

Nor does he only excel in the passions: in the coolness of reflection and reasoning he is full as admirable. His _sentiments_ are not only in general the most pertinent and judicious upon every subject; but by a talent very peculiar, something between penetration and felicity, he hits upon that particular point on which the bent of each argument turns, or the force of each motive depends. This is perfectly amazing, from a man of no education or experience in those great and public scenes of life which are usually the subject of his thoughts: so that he seems to have known the world by intuition, to have looked through human nature at one glance, and to be the only author that gives ground for a very new opinion: That the philosopher, and even the man of the world, may be _born_, as well as the poet.

It must be owned that with all these great excellencies, he has almost as great defects; and that as he has certainly written better, so he has perhaps written worse, than any other. But I think I can in some measure account for these defects, from several causes and accidents; without which it is hard to imagine that so large and so enlightened a mind could ever have been susceptible of them. That all these contingencies should unite to his disadvantage seems to me almost as singularly unlucky, as that so many various (nay contrary) talents should meet in one man, was happy and extraordinary.

. . . . . . .

I will conclude by saying of Shakespeare, that with all his faults, and with all the irregularity of his _drama_, one may look upon his works in comparison of those that are more finished and regular, as upon an ancient majestic piece of Gothic architecture compared with a neat modern building; the latter is more elegant and glaring, but the former is more strong and more solemn. It must be allowed, that in one of these there are materials enough to make many of the other. It has much the greater variety, and much the nobler apartments; though we are often conducted to them by dark, odd, and uncouth passages. Nor does the whole fail to strike us with greater reverence, though many of the parts are childish, ill-placed, and unequal to its grandeur.

Preface to _The Works of Shakespeare_. 1725.

De Quincey in his essay on Pope says of this preface: “For the
edition we have little to plead; but for the editor it is but
just to make three apologies. In the _first_ place he wrote a
brilliant preface, which, although (like other works of the
same class) too much occupied in displaying his own ability,
and too often, for the sake of an effective antithesis, doing
deep injustice to Shakespeare, yet undoubtedly, as a whole,
extended his fame, by giving the sanction and countersign of
a great wit to the national admiration. _Secondly_, as Dr.
Johnson admits, Pope’s failure pointed out the right road to
his successors. _Thirdly_, even in this failure it is but fair
to say, that in a graduated scale of merit, as distributed
amongst the long succession of editors through that century,
Pope holds a rank proportionable to his age. For the year 1720,
he is no otherwise below Theobald, Hanmer, Capell, Warburton,
or even Johnson, than as they are successively below each
other, and all of them as to accuracy below Steevens, as he
again was below Malone and Reed.”

JAMES THOMSON, 1727

(1700-1748)

Happy Britannia! where the Queen of Arts,
Inspiring vigour, Liberty abroad
Walks unconfined, even to thy farthest cots,
And scatters plenty with unsparing hand

. . . . . .

Thy sons of glory many! Alfred thine,
In whom the splendour of heroic war,
And more heroic peace, when govern’d well,
Combine; whose hallow’d name _the Virtues Saint_,
And his own Muses love; the best of kings!

. . . . . .