THE PRAISE OF SHAKESPEARE
Reading edition
AN ENGLISH ANTHOLOGY
COMPILED BY C. E. HUGHES
WITH A PREFACE BY SIDNEY LEE
METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON 1904
Death makes no conquest of this conqueror; For now he lives in fame, though not in life.
Richard III., III. i. 87.
Who is it that says most? which can say more Than this rich praise,—that you alone are you? In whose confine immured is the store Which should example where your equal grew. Lean penury within that pen doth dwell, That to his subject lends not some small glory; But he that writes of you, if he can tell That you are you, so dignifies his story; Let him but copy what in you is writ, Not making worse what nature made so clear, And such a counterpart shall fame his wit, Making his style admired everywhere.
Sonnet LXXXIV.