mpound of three eminent poets"--Martial, "in the warlike sound of
his name"; Ovid, for the naturalness and wit of his poetry; and
Plautus, alike for the extent of his comic power and his lack of
scholarly training. He was, Fuller continued, an eminent instance of
the rule that a poet is born not made. "Though his genius," he warns
us, "generally was jocular and inclining him to festivity, yet he
could, when so disposed, be solemn and serious." His comedies, Fuller
adds, would rouse laughter even in the weeping philosopher Heraclitus,
while his tragedies would bring tears even to the eyes of the laughing
philosopher Democritus.

Of positive statements respecting Shakespeare's career Fuller is
economical. He commits himself to nothing more than may be gleaned
from the following sentences:--

Many were the wit-combats betwixt him and Ben Jonson; which
two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English
man-of-war: master Jonson (like the former) was built far
higher in learning; solid, but slow, in his performances.
Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk,
but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack
about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of
his wit and invention. He died _Anno Domini_ 1616, and was
buried at Stratford-upon-Avon, the town of his nativity.

Fuller's successors did their work better in some regards, because
they laboured in narrower fields. Many of them showed a welcome
appreciation of a main source of their country's permanent reputation
by confining their energies to the production of biographical
catalogues, not of all manners of heroes, but solely of those who had
distinguished themselves in poetry and the drama.[10] In 1675 a
biographical catalogue of poets was issued for the first time in
England, and the example once set was quickly followed. No less than
three more efforts of the like kind came to fruition before the end of
the century.

[Footnote 10: Such a compilation had been contemplated in 1614, two
years before the dramatist died, by one of Shakespeare's own
associates, Thomas Heywood. Twenty-one years later, in 1635, Heywood
spoke of "committing to the public view" his summary _Lives of the
Poets_, but nothing more was heard of that project.]

In all four biographical manuals Shakespeare was accorded more or less
imposing space. Although Fuller's eccentric compliments were usually
repeated, t