1

Upon the Lines, and Life, of the famous Scenic Poet, Master W. Shakespeare.

Those hands which you so clapp'd, go now and wring,
You Britons brave; for done are Shake-speare's days:
His days are done that made the dainty plays,

Which made the Globe of heaven and earth to ring.
Dried is that vein, dried is the Thespian spring,
Turn'd all to tears, and Phoebus clouds his rays;
That corpse, that coffin, now bestick those bays,
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 Nuntius is:
For, though his line of life went soon about,
The life yet of his lines shall never out.

HUGH HOLLAND.

[The following are Ben Jonson's lines on the Portrait of Shakespeare, precisely as they stand on a separate leaf opposite to the title-page of the edition of 1623, and which are reprinted in the same place, with some trifling variation of typography, in the folio of 1632.

A CATALOGUE

OF ALL THE COMEDIES, HISTORIES, AND TRAGEDIES CONTAINED

Char. Had Yorke and Somerfet brought refcue in,
We fhould have found a bloody day of this.

Baft. How the yong whelpe of Talbots, raging wood,
Did flesh his puny-fword in Frenchmens blood.
Pue. Once I encountred him,and thus I faid:
Thou Maiden youth,be vanquisht by a Maide.
But with a provd Majefticall high fcorne So rushing in
Heanfwer'd thus: Yong Talbot was not borne Coll
of the French
To be the pillage of a Giglot Wench,
He left me proudly, as unworthy fight.

Bur. Doubtleffe he would have made a noble Knight:

See where he lyes inherced in the armes

Of the most bloody Nurffer of his harmes. fill blooding
Baft. Hew them to peeces, hack their bones affunder,
Whofe life was Englands glory, Gallia's wonder.
Char. Oh no forbeare: For that which we have fled
During the life, let us not Wrong it dead.

Enter Lucy, and Geranto
Lu.Herald,conduct me to the Dolphins Tent,
To know who hath obtaind the glory of the day.
Char. On what fubmiffive meflageart thou fent?
Lucy. Submiffion Dolphin? Tis a meere French word:
We English Warriours wot not what it meanes.
I come to know what Prifoners thou haft tane,
And to furvey the bodies of the dead.

Char. For prifoners askft thou? Hell our prifon is.

briefly But tell me whom thou feek'

Luc. But where's the great Alcides of the field,
Valiant Lord Talbot Earle of Shrewsbury?
Created for his rare fucceffe in Armes,
Great Earle of wafbford, Waterford, and Valense,
Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Vrchinfield,

Lord Strange of Blackmere, Lord Verdon of Alton,

Lord Cromwell of Wingefield, Lord Furnivall of Sheffeild,
The thrice victorious Lord of Falconbridge,

Knight of the Noble Order of S. George,
Worthy S. Michael,and the Golden Fleece,
Great Marshall to our King Henry the fixt,

Of all his Warres within the Realme of France.