ON SHAKESPEARE
(1630)

These lines first appeared, along with other commendatory verses by various authors, prefixed to the second folio edition of Shakespeare, published in 1632. They are, however, dated two years earlier in the 1645 edition of Milton's poems. The original title is, "An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatick Poet, W. Shakespeare."

WHAT needs my Shakespeare, for his honoured bones,

The labour of an age in pilèd stones?
Or that his hallowed relics should be hid
Under a star-ypointing pyramid?

Dear son of Memory, great heir of Fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?

Thou, in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thyself a livelong monument.

Thomas Hobson, the University carrier or expressman," was a well-known figure in Cambridge during Milton's undergraduateship. For more than half a century he had driven a coach between the university and the Bull Inn, in Bishopsgate Street, London,_ carrying letters, parcels, and passengers. In the spring of 1630 the plague, which was then raging in various parts of England, broke out in the colleges so violently that all academic exercises had to be suspended. As a precaution against the spread of the disease, the coach communication with London was stopped, and old Hobson, at the age of 86, found his occupation gone. When the colleges opened in November the plague had abated, but Hobson was unable to resume his journeys; he died on the 1st of January, 1631, killed, Milton humorously supposes, by the tedium of his enforced idleness. In connection with his coaching, Hobson kept a stable of horses, which he let out to the students and officers of the University. These he assigned by rotation, never allowing the personal preference of a customer to determine his mount; hence arose the phrase "Hobson's choice."

Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death,

And too much breathing put him out of breath;

Nor were it contradiction to affirm
Too long vacation hastened on his term.
Merely to drive the time away he sick-

ened,

Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quickened.

"Nay," quoth he, on his swooning bed outstretched,

"If I may n't carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetched,

The subject of this epitaph was Jane, wife of John Paulet, fifth Marquis of Winchester, and daughter of Thomas, Viscount Savage. She was noted for her beauty and intelligence; and her death in childbirth, at the age of twenty-three, evoked besides the present poem an elaborate tribute from the poet-laureate, Ben Jonson. What led Milton to write upon her death is unknown, as no record of any connection between him and the Marchioness has reached us. It is possible that the George and Nizell Rivers, addressed in the Vacation Exercise, were her relatives, since her mother was a daughter of the Earl of Rivers. If so, Milton's acquaintance with them would perhaps have afforded an adequate incentive.

THIS rich marble doth inter
The honoured wife of Winchester,
A viscount's daughter, an earl's heir,
Besides what her virtues fair
Added to her noble birth,

More than she could own from earth.
Summers three times eight save one
She had told; alas! too soon,
After so short time of breath,

To house with darkness and with death! 10

Yet, had the number of her days
Been as complete as was her praise,
Nature and Fate had had no strife
In giving limit to her life.
Her high birth and her graces sweet
Quickly found a lover meet;
The virgin quire for her request
The god that sits at marriage-feast;
He at their invoking came,

But with a scarce well-lighted flame;
And in his garland, as he stood,
Ye might discern a cypress-bud.
Once had the early Matrons run
To greet her of a lovely son,
And now with second hope she goes,
And calls Lucina to her throes;
But, whether by mischance or blame,
Atropos for Lucina came,

And with remorseless cruelty
Spoiled at once both fruit and tree.
The hapless babe before his birth
Had burial, yet not laid in earth;
And the languished mother's womb
Was not long a living tomb.
So have I seen some tender slip,
Saved with care from Winter's nip,
The pride of her carnation train,
Plucked up by some unheedy swain,
Who only thought to crop the flower
New shot up from vernal shower;
But the fair blossom hangs the head
Sideways, as on a dying bed,
And those pearls of dew she wears
Prove to be presaging tears
Which the sad morn had let fall
On her hastening funeral.
Gentle Lady, may thy grave
Peace and quiet ever have!
After this thy travail sore,
Sweet rest seize thee evermore,
That, to give the world encrease,
Shortened hast thy own life's lease!
Here, besides the sorrowing
That thy noble House doth bring,
Here be tears of perfect moan
Weept for thee in Helicon;
And some flowers and some bays
For thy hearse, to strew the ways,
Sent thee from the banks of Came,
Devoted to thy virtuous name;

Whilst thou, bright Saint, high sitt'st in glory,

Next her, much like to thee in story,
That fair Syrian Shepherdess,

Who, after years of barrenness,

19

notice of a certain belatedness in me, I am the bolder to send you some of my nightward thoughts some little while ago, because they come in not altogether unfitly, made up in a Petrarchian stanza."

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,

Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year!

My hasting days fly on with full ca

reer,

But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.

Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,

That I to manhood am arrived so near, And inward ripeness doth much less ap

pear,

That some more timely-happy spirits indu'th.

Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,

It shall be still in strictest measure even To that same lot, however mean or high, Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven.

All is, if I have grace to use it so,

As ever in my great Task-master's eye.