And such wert thou. Look, how the father's face Lives in his issue; even so the race

Of Shakspeare's mind, and manners, brightly shines
In his well-torned and true-filed lines;9

In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
As brandish'd at the eyes of ignorance.
Sweet swan of Avon, what a fight it were,
To fee thee in our waters yet appear;

9

- true-filed lines ;) The same praise is given to Shakspeare by a preceding writer. "As Epius Stolo said that the Muses would speak with Plautus his tongue, if they would speak Latin, so I say that the Muses would speak with Shakspeare's fine filed phrase, if they would speak Englith." Wit's Treasury, by. Francis Meres, 1598.

It is fomewhat fingular that at a subsequent period Shakspeare was censured for the want of that elegance which is here juftly attributed to him. Though all the laws of Heroick Poem," fays the author of Theatrum Poetarum, 1674, "all the laws of tragedy, were exactly observed, yet still this tour entrejanté, this poetick energie, if I may fo call it, would be required to give life to all the rest; which shines through the roughest, most unpolish'd and antiquated language, and may haply be wanting in the most polite and reformed. Let us obferve Spenser, with all his ruftick obsolete words, with all his rough-hewn clouterly phrases, yet take him throughout, and we shall find in him a graceful and poetick majestie: in like manner Shakspeare, in spite of all his unfiled expressions, his rambling and indigefted fancies, the laughter of the critical, yet must be confefs'd a poet above many that go beyond him in literature some degrees."

MALONE.

In his well-torned and true-filed lines ;) Jonson is here tranf lating the classick phrases tornati & limati verfus. Does not the poet in the next line, by the expression Shake a lances intend to play on the name of Shakspeare? So, in Two Bookes of Epigrammes and Epitaphs, by Thomas Bancroft, Lond. 1639, 4to:

"TO SHAKSPEARE.

"Thou hast so used thy pen, (or shooke thy fpeare,)
"That poets startle, nor thy wit come near."

Dryden, in his Dedication to his Translation of Juvenal, terms these verses by Jonson an infolent, Sparing, and inviduous panegyrick. HOLT WHITE.

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, fince thy flight from hence, hath mourn'd

like night,

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

BEN JONSON.

•

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

"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 pofterity.

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

- 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 fome historical anecdotes and altercations concerning Ben Jonson, Ford, Shakspeare, and The Lover's Melancholy, it is imagined that a few extracts from it at this juncture, will not be unentertaining to the publick."

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 but of 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 four; with a share of envy, (for every anxious genius has fome) more than was warrantable in fociety. By education rather critically than politely learned; which swell'd his mind into an oftentatious pride of his oωή

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

Those hands which you so clapp'd, go now and wring,

You Britains brave; for done are Shakspeare's days; His days are done that made the dainty plays,

Which made the globe of heaven and earth to ring:

works, and an overbearing inexorable judgment of his contemporaries.'

• 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 flights and malignances which the rigid Ben too frequently threw out against the lowly Shakespeare, whose fame fince 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 fet 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 Shakspeare, 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 disagreeable, 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 fwaddled, to proceed
• Man, and then shoot up, in one beard and weed,

Past threefcore years: or, with three rufty swords,

And help of fome few foot-and-half-foot words,

Dry'd is that vein, dry'd is the Thespian spring, Turn'd all to tears, and Phœbus clouds his rays; That corpse, that coffin, now bestick those bays, Which crown'd him poet first, then poets' king.

• Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars,
• And in the tiring-houfe bring wounds to scars.
'He rather prays you will be pleas'd to fee
One fuch to-day, as other plays should be;

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

This and such like behaviour, brought Ben at last from being the lawgiver of the theatre to be the ridicule of it, being perfonally introduced there in several pieces, to the fatisfaction of the publick, who are ever fond of encouraging perfonal ridicule, when the follies and vices of the object are supposed to deferve it.

But what wounded his pride and fame most sensibly, was the preference which the publick 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 fame stage; where Ben's was damn'd, and Ford's received with uncommon applause: and what made this circumstance still more galling, was, that Ford was at the head of the partisans who supported Shakespeare'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 fome, the King's idle fervants; and more squeamishly beheld and cenfur'd by others, the King's foolift Subjects." This title is followed by an abusive preface upon the audience and reader.'

6

Immediately upon this, he wrote his memorable ode againft the publick, beginning

Come, leave the loathed stage,

"And the more loathsome age," &c.

The revenge he took against Ford, was to write an epigram on him as a plagiary.

Playwright, by chance, hearing toys I had writ,

Cry'd to my face-they were th' elixir of wit.

"And I must now believe him, for to-day

"Five of my jests, then stoln, pass'd him a play."

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 publick tiring-house) the Nuntius is:

• The next charge against Ford was, that The Lover's Melancholy was not his own, but purloined from Shakspeare's papers, by the connivance of Heminge and Condel, who in conjunction with Ford, had the revisal of them.'

• The malice of this charge is gravely refuted, and afterwards laughed at in many verses and epigrams, the best of which are those that follow, with which I shall close this theatrical extract:'

"To my worthy friend, John Ford.

"'Tis said, from Shakspeare's mine your play you drew :
"What need?-when Shakspeare still survives in you;
"But grant it were from his vast treasury reft,
"That plund'rer Ben ne'er made fo rich a theft."

Thomas May.

"Upon Ben Jonfon, and his Zany, Tom Randolph.
"Quoth Ben to Tom, the Lover's stole,
""Tis Shakspeare's every word;
"Indeed, says Tom, upon the whole,
"'Tis much too good for Ford.

"Thus Ben and Tom, the dead still praise,
"The living to decry;

"For none must dare to wear the bays,
"Till Ben and Tom both die.

"Even Avon's fwan could not efcape
"These letter-tyrant elves;

" This truth will all acknowledge,-
Shakspeare and Ford from heaven were fent,
"But Ben and Tom from college."

Endymion Porter.

Mr. Macklin the comedian was the author of this letter; but the pamphlet which furnished his materials, was lost in its pafsage from Ireland.

The following stanza, from a copy of verses by Shirley, pre