viii TO THE GREAT VARIETY OF READERS. From the most able, to him that can but spell: there you are numbered. We had rather you were weighed. Especially, when the fate of all books depends upon your capacities; and not of your heads alone, but of your purses. Well, it is now public, and you will stand for your privileges we know: to read, and censure. Do so, but buy it first. That doth best commend a book, the stationer says. Then, how odd soever your brains be, or your wisdoms, make your licence the same, and spare not. Judge your sixpen'orth, your shilling's worth, your five shillings' worth at a time, or higher, so you rise to the just rates, and welcome. But, whatever you do, buy. Censure will not drive a trade, or make the jack go. And though you be a magistrate of wit, and sit on the stage at Blackfriars, or the Cock-pit, to arraign plays daily, know, these plays have had their trial already, and stood out all appeals; and do now come forth quitted rather by a decree of court, than any purchased letters of commendation. It had been a thing, we confess, worthy to have been wished, that the Author himself had lived to have set forth, and overseen his own writings; but since it hath been ordained otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envy his friends the office of their care, and pain, to have collected and published them; and so to have published them, as where (before) you were abused with divers stolen, and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors, that exposed them; even those, are now offered to your view cured, and perfect of their limbs, and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceived them. Who, as he was a happy imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together; and what he thought, he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our province, who only gather his works, and give them you, to praise him. It is yours that read him. And there we hope, to your divers capacities, you will find enough, both to draw, and hold you; for his wit can no more lie hid, than it could be lost. Read him, therefore; and again, and again: and if then you do not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger, not to understand him. And so we leave you to other of his friends, who, if you need, can be your guides: if you need them not, you can lead yourselves, and others. And such readers we wish him. JOHN HEMINGE. HENRY CONdell. ix COMMENDATORY VERSES. Upon the Effigies of my worthy Friend, the Author, Master William Shakespeare, and his Works. Spectator, this life's shadow is :-to see The truer image, and a livelier he, Turn reader. But observe his comic vein, An Epitaph on the admirable Dramatic Poet, W. Shakespeare. The labour of an age in piled stones; Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such dull witness of thy name? Hast built thyself a lasting monument : For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art, To the Memory of the deceased Author, Master W. Shakespeare. The world thy works; thy works, by which outlive Fresh to all ages; when posterity Shall loathe what's new, think all is prodigy Or till I hear a scene more nobly take, Than when thy half-sword parleying Romans spake : Shall with more fire, more feeling, be express'd, To the Memory of M. W. Shakespeare. L. DIGGES. To the Memory of my beloved, the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us. To draw no envy (Shakespeare) on thy name, As neither man, nor muse, can praise too much; I, therefore, will begin :-Soul of the age, And though thou hadst small Latin, and less Greek, Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead, To live again, to hear thy buskin tread And shake a stage: or, when thy socks were on, Of all that insolent Greece, or haughty Rome, As they were not of Nature's family. For a good poet's made, as well as born: And such wert thou. Look, how the father's face 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 brandish'd 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, But stay; I see thee in the hemisphere 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 for thy volume's light. BEN JONSON. |