We know not how our play may pass this stage,

But by the best of poets in that age

THE MALTA-JEW had being and was made;

And he then by the best of actors play'd:

In HERO AND LEANDER one did gain

A lasting memory; in Tamburlaine,

This Jew, with others many, th' other wan

The attribute of peerless, being a man

Whom we may rank with (doing no one wrong)

Proteus for shapes, and Roscius for a tongue,-

So could he speak, so vary; nor is't hate

To merit in him who doth personate

Our Jew this day; nor is it his ambition

To exceed or equal, being of condition

More modest: this is all that he intends,

(And that too at the urgence of some friends,)

To prove his best, and, if none here gainsay it,

The part he hath studied, and intends to play it.