One of the earliest of the elegies was a sonnet by William Basse, who
gave picturesque expression to the conviction that Shakespeare would
enjoy for all time an unique reverence on the part of his countrymen.
In the opening lines of his poem Basse apostrophised Chaucer, Spenser,
and the dramatist Francis Beaumont, three poets who had already
received the recognition of burial in Westminster Abbey--Beaumont, the
youngest of them, only five weeks before Shakespeare died. To this
honoured trio Basse made appeal to "lie a thought more nigh" one
another, so as to make room for the newly-dead Shakespeare within
their "sacred sepulchre." Then, in the second half of his sonnet, the
poet, developing a new thought, argued that Shakespeare, in right of
his pre-eminence, merited a burial-place apart from all his fellows.
With a glance at Shakespeare's distant grave in the chancel of
Stratford-on-Avon Church, the writer exclaimed:--
Under this carved marble of thine own
Sleep, brave tragedian, Shakespeare, sleep _alone_.
The fine sentiment found many a splendid echo. It resounded in Ben
Jonson's lines of 1623:--
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further to make thee a room.
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