After this, Shakespere's connection with the theatre became fixed, and in 1593 we find him proprietor of the Globe Theatre. Here he was very successful, and in 1597, he purchased a house at Stratford. In 1601, Shakespere's father died, and about this period he began to think of retiring altogether from the stage, and settling in his native town, having been throughout his theatrical career very fortunate in money matters. In the early part of King James's reign, Shakespere settled at Stratford, and on the 23rd of April, 1616, he breathed his last, "universally respected by all why knew him." By this, it will be seen, that he died at the comparatively early age of 53, and Carlyle says, here the first world great thing that remains of English history-the literature of Shakespere-was ended." His body was interred among his ancestors, in the chancel of Stratford Church, and a monument is placed upon the wall above with a Latin and English inscription. The following lines constitute the epitaph upon the tomb-stone,—

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Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear

To digg the dust enclosed here;

Blest be the man that spares these stones,

But cursed be he that moves my bones.

To prove to you that the life of Shakespere is involved in much obscurity, I take the liberty of quoting Steevens, one of his editors on this subject, who says, "All that is known, with any degree of certainty, coucerning the life of Shakespere is, that he was born at Stratford-on-Avon, married, and had children; fled to London, commenced as an actor, wrote plays and poems. returned to Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried."

Shakespere wrote in all about 38 plays, viz.: 12 comedies, 12 tragedies, and 14 historical plays. Some of the plays, formerly attributed to him, have been of lat disputed; of this number, are "Titus and Andronicu and "Pericles, Prince of Tyre." Shakespere was n great actor himself, his principal character being the

"Ghost" in Hamlet. The great secret of Shakespere's genius was in his marvellous insight into the human heart, with this may be coupled, the marvellous language which he finds to carry out, and delineate his ideas. No matter what character, or in what station of life the person might be placed, nothing seemed to come amiss. In his plays all is so life like and truly drawn after nature's style, that were you to meet some of his characters off the stage you might almost recognise them. And to this power of drawing individual character, and the truth of the portraits, is the great fame of Shakespere to be ascribed. His great end was hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, and vice her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.' And that he has accomplished this must be evident to all who bestow but a few glances, even, at his writings. Other poets and authors have in vain struggled to attain the elevation he so justly merited; no pen but his could draw a picture of nature with such a degree of perfection. What truth-telling lines on "Repuare there in his Othello,

tation

"to

Who steals my purse, steals trash; tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name,

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.

What emblems of purity are his Desdemona and Ophelia, and how beautiful the former is made to express her fidelity to the Moor Othello,

Here I kneel:

If e'er my will did trespass against his love,
Either in discourse of thought, or actual deed;
Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense,
Delighted them in any other form;

Or that I do not yet, and ever did,

And ever will, though he do shake me off
To beggarly divorcement,-love him dearly,

Comfort forswear me! Unkindness may do much
And his unkindness may defeat my life,
But never taint my love.

In his sonnets Shakespere no less displays his genius. Emerson, in speaking of them, asks, "Who ever read the volume of sonnets without finding that the poet had there revealed, under masks that are no masks to the intelligent, the love of friendship and of love?” Time will only permit of my making one extract from these sonnets, which is addressed to some unknown; and although not perhaps of the most appropriate character, is still couched in the most beautiful language:

No longer mourn for me when I am dead,
Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled

From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell.

Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
That in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.

Oh if (I say) you look upon this verse,
When I, perhaps, compounded am with clay;
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love e'en with my life decay.

Shakespere's comic genius is no less a source of admiration. In his Henry IV., we find the following catechism of Falstaff's:

Well, tis no matter: honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? How then? Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then ? No. What is honour? A word. What is in that word ? Honour. What is that honour? Air. A trim reckoning. Who hath it? He that died on Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it:-therefere, I'll none of it: honour is a mere escutcheon, and so ends my catechism.

A very serious imputation has been urged against Shakespere, that there is not to be found in his writings any habitual reverence for the Supreme Being, or recognition of an all wise and beneficent Providence." One writer says, The fierce dissension which at that

period alienated the Protestants from the Roman Catholics, had brought religion itself into discredit, and rendered even that great observer insensible, in a certain degree, to the moral government of the world." Such blindness to Shakespere's universal recognition of the "moral government of the world,”- -as indicated in his reverential allusion to the "Divinity that shapes our ends," and hundreds of similar passages that might be quoted, can only exist with those who mistake irreverential cant for religion.

However, I feel that I have already trespassed too long upon my subject; I will therefore speedily bring it to a close with Shakespere's "Seven Ages:"

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;

And then, the whining school boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school; and then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel
Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth: and then, the justice,
In fair round belly, with good capon lined,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part; The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon!
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;
His youthful hose well served, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound: Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

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[A fragment of truth and good advice from an essay on "Illusions" by Ralph Waldo Emerson, published in the "Atlantic Monthly" for December, 1857.]

Our first mistake is the belief that the circumstance gives the joy which we give to the circumstance. People ascribe a certain pleasure to their employment which they themselves give it. * * In this kingdom of illusions we grope eagerly for stays and foundations. There is none but a strict and faithful dealing at home, and a severe barring out of all duplicity or illusion there. Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth. I look upon the simple and childish virtues of veracity and honesty as the root of all that is sublime in character. Speak as you think, be what you are, pay your debts of all kinds. I prefer to be owned as sound and solvent, and my word as good as my bond, and to be what cannot be skipped, or dissipated, or undermined, to all the éclat in the universe. A little integrity is better than any career. This reality is the foundation of friendship, religion, poetry, and art. At the top, or at the bottom, of all illusions I set the cheat which still leads us to work and live for appearances, in spite of our conviction, in all sane hours, that it is what we really are that avails with friends, with strangers, and with fate or fortune. The permanent interest of every man is never to be in a false position, but to have the weight of Nature to back him in all he does. * * It would be hard to put more mental and moral philosophy than the Persians have thrown into a sentence:

"Fooled thou must be, though wisest of the wise:
Then be the fool of virtue, not of vice.