* This poem has sometimes, but without much reason, been For names; but call forth thundering Eschylus,

attributed to Shakespeare.

Euripides, and Sophocles to us,

† The engraving by Martin Droeshout.

And stock reserved of every living kind,
So, in the compass of the single mind,

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To live again, to hear thy buskin tread,
And shake a stage or when thy socks were on, The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie,
That make all worlds. Great poet, 't was thy

art

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 joyed 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 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 brandished at the eyes of ignorance.
Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our water 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 mourned
like night,

And despairs day, but for thy volume's light!

BEN JONSON.

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 uplifted high,
O'er the drowned hills, the human family,

To know thyself, and in thyself to be
Whate'er love, hate, ambition, destiny,
Or the firm fatal purpose of the heart
Can make of man. Yet thou wert still the

same,

Serene of thought, unhurt by thy own flame.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

AN EPITAPH ON THE ADMIRABLE
DRAMATIC POET, W. SHAKESPEARE.

WHAT needs my Shakespeare for his honored. bones,

The labor of an age in pilèd stones?

Or that his hallowed relics should be hid
Under a star-y-pointing 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 livelong monument.
For whilst to the shame of slow-endeavoring 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 conceiv-

ing;

And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

MILTON.

TO THE MEMORY OF BEN JONSON.
THE Muse's fairest light in no dark time,
The wonder of a learned age; the line
Which none can pass! the most proportioned
wit,

To nature, the best judge of what was fit;
The deepest, plainest, highest, clearest pen;
The voice most echoed by consenting men ;
The soul which answered best to all well said
By others, and which most requital made;
Tuned to the highest key of ancient Rome,
Returning all her music with his own;
In whom, with nature, study claimed a part,
And yet who to himself owed all his art:
Here lies Ben Jonson! every age will look
With sorrow here, with wonder on his book.
JOHN CLEVELAND.

ODE TO BEN JONSON.

Aн Ben!

Say how or when

Shall we, thy guests,

Meet at those lyric feasts,
Made at the Sun,

The Dog, the Triple Tun ;
Where we such clusters had

As made us nobly wild, not mad; And yet each verse of thine Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.

My Ben!

Or come again,

Or send to us Thy wit's great overplus ; But teach us yet Wisely to husband it,

Lest we that talent spend :

And having once brought to an end

BEN JONSON'S COMMONPLACE BOOK.

His learning such, no author, old or new,
Escaped his reading that deserved his view;
And such his judgment, so exact his taste,
Of what was best in books, or what books best,
That had he joined those notes his labors took
From each most praised and praise-deserving
book,

And could the world of that choice treasure boast,
It need not care though all the rest were lost.
LUCIUS CARY (LORD FALKLAND).

EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF
PEMBROKE.

PREFIXED TO “PARADISE LOST."

That precious stock, the store

THREE Poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.

Of such a wit, the world should have no more. The first in loftiness of thought surpassed;

ROBERT HERRICK.

The next in majesty; in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third, she joined the former two.

JOHN DRYDEN.

TO MILTON.
"LONDON, 1802."

MILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men ;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart :
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

THE SONNET.

SCORN not the sonnet; critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honors; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camoëns soothed an exile's grief;
The sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf

He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
JOHN DRYDEN.

On Moscow's walls till Gothic standards fly,
And all be mine beneath the polar sky."
The march begins in military state,
And nations on his eye suspended wait;
Stern famine guards the solitary coast,
And winter barricades the realms of frost.
He comes, nor want nor cold his course delay;
Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa's day!
The vanquished hero leaves his broken bands,

ZIMRI.

[GEORGE VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, 1682.] And shows his miseries in distant lands;

FROM ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL," PART I'

SOME of their chiefs were princes of the land;
In the first rank of these did Zimri stand;
A man so various, that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome:
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong ;
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Blest madman, who could every hour employ,
With something new to wish or to enjoy!
Railing and praising were his usual themes;
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes :
So over-violent or over-civil,

That every man with him was god or devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;
Nothing went unrewarded but desert.
Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late :
He had his jest, and they had his estate.
He laughed himself from court, then sought relief
By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief;
For, spite of him, the weight of business fell
On Absalom, and wise Achitophel.
Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left no faction, but of that was left.

JOHN DRYDEN.

CHARLES XII.

FROM "VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES."

ON what foundations stands the warrior's pride, How just his hopes, let Swedish Charles decide: A frame of adamant, a soul of fire,

;

No dangers fright him, and no labors tire
O'er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain,
Unconquered lord of pleasure and of pain.
No joys to him pacific sceptres yield,

War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field;
Behold surrounding kings their power combine,
And one capitulate, and one resign ;
Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in

vain ;
"Think nothing gained," he cries, "till naught
remain,

Condemned a needy supplicant to wait,
While ladies intcrpose and slaves debate.
But did not chance at length her error mend
Did no subverted empire mark his end?
Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound,
Or hostile millions press him to the ground?
His fall was destined to a barren strand,
A petty fortress, and a dubious hand;
He left the name, at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral or adorn a tale.

DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

TO THE LORD-GENERAL CROMWELL. CROMWELL, our chief of men, who through a cloud,

Not of war only, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude,
To peace and truth thy glorious way hast
ploughed,

And on the neck of crownèd fortune proud
Hast reared God's trophies, and his work pur-
sued,

While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots im-
bued,

And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud,
And Worcester's laureate wreath. Yet much re-
mains

To conquer still; Peace hath her victories
No less renowned than War: new foes arise,
Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains:
Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw.

MILTON.

SPORUS.
[LORD HERVEY.

FROM THE “PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES."

LET Sporus tremble.-A.* What? that thing
of silk,

Sporus, that mere white curd of asses' milk'
Satire of sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

*Arbuthnot.