That throne is cold—that lyre in death unstrung, On whose proud note delighted Wonder hung. Yet old Oblivion, as in wrath he sweeps, One spot shall spare—the grave where Shakespeare sleeps. Rulers and ruled in common gloom may lie, But Nature’s laureate bards shall never die. Art’s chisell’d boast and glory’s trophied shore Must live in numbers or can live no more. While sculptured Jove some nameless waste may claim, Still roars the Olympic car in Pindar’s fame: Troy’s doubtful walls, in ashes pass’d away, Yet frown on Greece in Homer’s deathless lay; Rome, slowly sinking in her crumbling fanes, Stands all immortal in her Maro’s strains; So, too, yon giant empress of the isles, On whose broad sway the sun for ever smiles, To Time’s unsparing rage one day must bend, And all her triumphs in her Shakespeare end! O thou! to whose creative power We dedicate the festal hour, While Grace and Goodness round the altar stand, Learning’s anointed train, and Beauty’s rose-lipp’d band— Realms yet unborn, in accents now unknown, Thy song shall learn, and bless it for their own. Deep in the west, as Independence roves, His banners planting round the land he loves, Where Nature sleeps in Eden’s infant grace, In Time’s full hour shall spring a glorious race: Thy name, thy verse, thy language shall they bear, And deck for thee the vaulted temple there. Our Roman-hearted fathers broke Thy parent empire’s galling yoke, But thou, harmonious monarch of the mind, Around their sons a gentler chain shall bind; Still o’er our land shall Albion’s sceptre wave, And what her mighty Lion lost, her mightier Swan shall save. Prize Ode recited at the representation of the Shakespeare Jubilee, Boston, February 13, 1824. CHARLES LAMB, 1824 (1775-1834) In “sad civility” once Garrick sate To see a play, mangled in form and state; Plebeian Shakespeare must the words supply,— The actors all were fools—of Quality. The scenes—the dresses—were above rebuke;— Scarce a performer there below a Duke. He sate, and mused how in his Shakespeare’s mind The idea of old nobility enshrined Should thence a grace and a refinement have Which passed these living Nobles to conceive— Who with such apish, base gesticulation, Remnants of starts, and dregs of playhouse passion, So foul belied their great forefathers’ fashion! He saw—and true nobility confessed Less in the high-born blood, than lowly poet’s breast. “Epilogue to an amateur Performance of Richard II.,” ll. 10-24. _Works of Charles and Mary Lamb._ Ed. E. V. Lucas, 1903-4. Vol. v. p. 128. JULIUS CHARLES HARE, 1827 (1795-1855)