Was Shakespeare’s freehold, which his cunning brain
Improved by favour of the ninefold train.
The buskined 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 wooed him, envying one another,
Obeyed by all as spouse, but loved 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,
Branched and embroidered like the painted spring,
Each leaf matched 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 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)