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 Shakspere, 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 a 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

Of Shakspere's mind, and manners, brightly shines

In his well-toned 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
Advanc'd, 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 by thy volume's light!

BEN JONSON*.

Upon

extinctus amabitur idem.,

This observation of Horace was never more completely verified than by the posthumous applause which Ben Jonson has bestowed on Shakspere:

the gracious Duncan

Was pitied of Macbeth :-marry, he was dead.

Let us now compare the present eulogium of old Ben with such of his other sentiments as have reached posterity.

In 1748, when the Lover's Melancholy, by Ford (a friend and contemporary of Shakspere), was revived for a benefit, the following letter appeared in the General, now the Public, Advertiser, April 23:

Upon the Lines, and Life, of the famous Scenick Poet,
Master WILLIAM SHAKSPERE.

Those hands, which you so clapt, go now and wring,
You Britons brave; for done are Shakspere's days;
His days are done, that made the dainty plays,

--

Which

It is hoped that the following gleaning of theatrical history will readily obtain a place in your paper. It is

taken from a pamphlet written in the reign of Charles I. with this quaint title, "Old Ben's Light Heart made heavy by Young John's Melancholy Lover;" and, as it contains some historical anecdotes and altercations concerning Ben Jonson, Ford, Shakspere, and the Lover's Melancholy, it is imagined that a few extracts from it at this juncture will not be unentertaining to the public.

Those who have any knowledge of the theatre in the reigns of James and Charles the First, must know, that Ben Jonson, from great critical language, which was then the portion of but very few, his merit as a poet, and his constant association with men of letters, did, for a considerable time, give laws to the stage.

Ben was by nature splenetic and sour; with a share of envy (for every anxious genius has some), more than was warrantable in society. By education rather critically than politely learned; which swell'd his mind into an ostentatious pride of his own works, and an overbearing inexorable judgment of his contemporaries.

Which made the globe of heaven and earth to ring: Dry'd is that vein, dry'd is the Thespian spring, Turn'd all to tears, and Phoebus clouds his rays;

That

This raised him many enemies, who, towards the close of his life, endeavoured to dethrone this tyrant, as the pamphlet stiles him, out of the dominion of the theatre. And what greatly contributed to their design, was the slights and malignances which the rigid Ben too frequently threw out against the lowly Shakspere, whose fame since his death, as appears by the pamphlet, was grown too great for Ben's envy either to bear with or wound.

It would greatly exceed the limits of your paper to set down all the contempts and invectives which were uttered and written by Ben, and are collected and produced in this pamphlet, as unanswerable and shaming evidences to prove his ill-nature and ingratitude to Shakspere, who first introduced him to the theatre and fame.

'But, though the whole of these invectives cannot be set down at present, some few of the heads may not be disa greeable, which are as follow:

"That the man had imagination and wit none could deny, but that they were ever guided by true judgment in the rules and conduct of a piece, none could with justice assert, both being ever servile to raise the laughter of fools and the wonder of the ignorant.

That he was a good poet

only in part being ignorant of all dramatick laws-had little Latin-less Greek-and speaking of plays, &c.

"To make a child new swaddled, to proceed
"Man, and then shoot up, in one beard and weed,

That corpse, that coffin, now bestick those bays,
Which crown'd him poet first, then poets' king.

If

"Past threescore years: or, with three rusty swords,
"And help of some few foot and half-foot words,
"Fight, over York and Lancaster's long jars,
"And in the tyring-house bring wounds to scars.
"He rather prays you will be pleas'd to see
"One such to-day, as other plays should be ;

"Where neither chorus wafts you o'er the seas, &c."

Thus, and such like behaviour, brought Ben at last from being the lawgiver of the theatre to be the ridicule of it, being personally introduced there in several pieces, to the satisfaction of the public, who are ever fond of encouraging personal ridicule, when the follies and vices of the object are supposed to deserve it.

'But what wounded his pride and fame most sensibly, was the preference which the public, and most of his contemporary wits, gave to Ford's LOVER'S MELANCHOLY, before his NEW INN or LIGHT HEART. They were both brought on in the same week and on the same stage; where Ben's was damn'd, and Ford's received with uneommon applause: and what made this circumstance still more galling was, that Ford was at the head of the partisans who supported Shakspere's fame against Ben Jonson's invectives.

This so incensed old Ben, that, as an everlasting stigma upon his audience, he prefixed this title to his play"The New Inn or Light Heart. A comedy, as it was never acted, but most negligently play'd by some, the King's idle servants; and more squeamishly beheld and censured by

others,