Shakespeare shall breathe and speak, with laurel crowned,

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.,

in Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (1632)

Upon Master WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, the Deceased Author, and his POEMS

Poets are born, not made: when I would prove

This truth, the glad remembrance 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

Imprinted, where thou hast—I will not say,

Reader, his works, for to contrive a play

To him ‘twas none—the pattern of all wit,

Art without art unparalleled as yet.

Next, nature only helped him, for look thorough

This whole book, thou shalt find he doth not borrow

One phrase from Greeks, nor Latins imitate,

Nor once from vulgar languages translate,

Nor plagiary-like from others glean,

Nor begs he from each witty friend a scene

To piece his acts with. All that he doth write

Is pure his own—plot, language exquisite—

But O! what praise more powerful can we give

The dead than that by him the King’s men live,

His players, which should they but have shared the fate,

All else expired within the short term’s date,

How could the Globe have prospered, since through want

Of change the plays and poems had grown scant.

But, happy verse, thou shalt be sung and heard

When hungry quills shall be such honour barred.

Then vanish, upstart writers to each stage,

You needy poetasters of this age;

Where Shakespeare lived or spake, vermin, forbear;

Lest with your froth you spot them, come not near.

But if you needs must write, if poverty

So pinch that otherwise you starve and die,

On God’s name may the Bull or Cockpit have

Your lame blank verse, to keep you from the grave,

Or let new Fortune’s younger brethren see

What they can pick from your lean industry.

I do not wonder, when you offer at

Blackfriars, that you suffer; ‘tis the fate

Of richer veins, prime judgements that have fared

The worse with this deceased man compared.

So have I seen, when Caesar would appear,

And on the stage at half-sword parley were

Brutus and Cassius; O, how the audience

Were ravished, with what wonder they went thence,

When some new day they would not brook a line

Of tedious though well-laboured Catiline.

Sejanus too was irksome, they prized more

Honest Iago, or the jealous Moor.

And though the Fox and subtle Alchemist,

Long intermitted, could not quite be missed,

Though these have shamed all the ancients, and might

raise

Their author’s merit with a crown of bays,

Yet these, sometimes, even at a friend’s desire

Acted, have scarce defrayed the seacoal fire

And doorkeepers; when let but Falstaff come,

Hal, Poins, the rest, you scarce shall have a room,

All is so pestered. Let but Beatrice

And Benedick be seen, lo, in a trice

The Cockpit galleries, boxes, all are full

To hear Malvolio, that cross-gartered gull.

Brief, there is nothing in his wit-fraught book

Whose sound we would not hear, on whose worth look;

Like old-coined gold, whose lines in every page

Shall pass true current to succeeding age.

But why do I dead Shakespeare’s praise recite?

Some second Shakespeare must of Shakespeare write;

For me ‘tis needless, since an host of men

Will pay to clap his praise, to free my pen.

Leonard Digges (before 1636), in Shakespeare’s Poems (1640)

In remembrance of Master William Shakespeare.

ODE

I.

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 steeped 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 mocked eye

Will find a shallow brook.

Sir William Davenant, Madagascar, with other