Meres confers upon Shakspere most enthusiastic but just praise:--
'As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras: so the sweete, wittie soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and hony-tongued Shakespeare; witness his 'Venus and Adonis;' his 'Lucrece;' his sugred 'Sonnets' among his private friends.... 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:--
... No, sir, nor devour Soft prodigals. You shall have some will swallow A melting heir as glibly as your Dutch Will pills of butter, and ne'er purge for it; [10] Tear forth the fathers of poor families Out of their beds, and coffin them alive In some kind clasping prison, where their bones May be forthcoming, when the flesh is rotten: But your sweet nature doth abhor these courses; You lothe the widow's or the orphan's tears Should wash your pavements, or their piteous cries Ring in the roofs, and beat the air for vengeance.