... As Plautus and Seneca are
accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy amongst the Latines: so
Shakspere among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for
the stage.'
He then mentions twelve of his plays, [9] and thus concludes his
eulogy:--
'As Epius Stolo said that the Muses would speake with Plautus tongue,
if they would speak Latin: so I say that the Muses would speak with
Shakespeare's fine filed phrases if they would speake English.'
The envious Jonson who pledges himself, in the Dedication to the two
Universities, to give back to Poesy its former majesty, may have
considered it necessary, before all, to deride, before a learned
audience, the enthusiastic praise conferred by Francis Meres upon
Shakspere, as well as Shakspere himself on account of the free
religious tendencies he had expressed in 'Hamlet' This is done, as
we said, in the Interlude prepared by Mosca for the entertainment
of his master. Volpone boasts of the clever manner with which he
gains riches:--
I use no trade, no venture;
I wound no earth with ploughshares, fat no beasts
To feed the shambles; have no mills for iron,
Oil, corn, or men, to grind them into powder:
... expose no ships
To threatenings of the furrow-faced sea;
I turn no monies in the public bank,
Nor usure private.
Mosca, in order to flatter his master, continues the speech of the latter
in the same strain:--
.
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