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  • Title: Prefatory Materials (Folio 1, 1663)

    • Copyright Internet Shakespeare Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-proift purposes; for all other uses contact the Coordinating Editor.
    Author: Ben Jonson
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Prefatory Materials (Folio 1, 1663)







    Vpon the Lines and Life of the Famous
    205Scenicke Poet, Master WILLIAM
    SHAKESPEARE.

    THose hands, which you so clapt, go now, and wring
    You Britaines braue; for done are Shakespeares dayes:
    His dayes are done, that made the dainty Playes,
    210Which made the Globe of heau'n and earth to ring.
    Dry'de is that veine, dry'd is the Thespian Spring,
    Turn'd all to teares, and Phoebus clouds his rayes:
    That corp's, that coffin now besticke those bayes,
    Which crown'd him Poet first, then Poets King.
    215If Tragedies might any Prologue haue,
    All those he made, would scarse make one to this:
    Where Fame, now that he gone is to the graue
    (Deaths publique tyring-house) the Nuncius is.
    For though his line of life went soone about,
    220 The life yet of his lines shall neuer out.



    HVGH HOLLAND.
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