Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,
(such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses' anvil: turn the same,

(And himself with it) that he thinks to frame, Or for the laurel, he may gain a scorn,

For a good Poet's made, as well as born.

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

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 brandished at the eyes of Ignorance.
Sweet Swan of Avon ! What a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appear

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

Advanced, and made a Constellation there! Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage,

Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping Stage; Which, since thy flight from hence had mourned like night, And despairus day, but for thy Volumes' light.

BEN JONSON.

UPON THE LINES AND LIFE OF THE FAMOUS
SCENIC POET,

MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

THOSE hands, which you so clapped, go now, and wring
You Britons brave; for done are Shakespeare'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,

rays:

Turned all to tears, and Phoebus clouds his
That corpse, that coffin now bestick those bays,
Which crowned him Poet first, then Poets' 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 Nuncius is.
For though his line of life went soon about.
yet of his lines shall never out.

The life

HUGH HOLLAND

TO THE MEMORIE

OF THE DECEASED AUTHOR MASTER

W. SHAKESPEARE.

SHAKESPEARE, at length thy pious fellows give

The world thy Works: thy Works, by which, out-live
Thy Tomb, thy name must when that stone is rent,
And Time dissolves thy Stratford Monument,
Here we alive shall view thee still. This Book,
When Brass and Marble fade, shall make thee look
Fresh to all Ages: when Posterity

Shall loath what's new, think all is prodigy
That is not Shakespeare's; every Line, each Verse
Here shall revive, redeem thee from thy Hearse.
Nor Fire, nor cankering Age, as Naso said,
Of his, thy wit-fraught Book shall once invade.
Nor shall I e'er believe, or think thee dead
(Though missed) until our bankrupt Stage be sped
(Impossible) with some new strain t'out-do
Passions of Juliet, and her Romeo ;

Or till I hear a Scene more nobly take,

Than when thy half-Sword parlying Romans spake.
Till these, till any of thy Volumes rest
Shall with more fire, more feeling be exprest,
Be sure, our Shakespeare, thou canst never die,
But crowned with Laurel, live eternally.

L. DIGGES

TO THE MEMORY OF M. W. SHAKESPEARE.

WE wondered (Shakespeare) that thou wents't so soon
From the World's Stage, to the Grave's tiring room.
We thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth,
Tells thy Spectators, that thou wents't but forth
To enter with applause. An Actor's Art,
Can die, and live, to act a second part.

That's but an Exit of Mortality,

This, a Re-entrance to a Plaudite.

J. M.

THE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
CONTAINING ALL HIS COMEDIES, HISTORIES AND
TRAGEDIES: TRULY SET FORTH, ACCORDING

TO THEIR FIRST ORIGINAL.

THE NAMES OF THE PRINCIPAL ACTORS
IN ALL THESE PLAYS.

Samuel Gilburne

Robert Armin.

William Ostler.

Nathan Field.

John Underwood.

Nicholas Tooley.
William Ecclestone.

Joseph Taylor.
Robert Benfield.
Robert Goughe
Richard Robinson.
John Shancke.
Joba Rice.

MATTER TO

FIRST FOLIO

CONTENTS TO

FIRST FOLIO OF THE SEVERAL COMEDIES, HISTORIES, AND TRAGEDIES

the Sixth

The Life and Death of King | The First Part of King Henry
John
The Life and Death of Richard The Second Part of King Henry
the Second
the Sixth

The First Part of King Henry The Third Part of King Henry
the Fourth.
the Sixtha
The Second Part of King Henry The Life and Death of Richard
the Fourthe
the Third

The Life of King Henry the The Life of King Henry the

Eighth

Fifth.

The Life and Death of Julius Anthony and Cleopatra.

Cesar

Cymbeline, King of Britain