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The few facts that we get of Shakspeare's life at Stratford are very homely, and one or two of his footprints there are very earthy; but they tell us it was the foot of a sturdy, upright, thrifty, matter-of-fact Englishman, such as will find a firm standing-place even in the dirt, and it corresponds to the bust in the Church at Stratford. Both represent, though coarsely, that yeoman side of his nature which would be most visible in his everyday dealings. For example, we learn that in August, 1608, he brought an action against John Addenbroke for the recovery of a debt. The verdict was in his favour, but the defendant had no effects. Shakspeare then proceeded against Thomas Horneby, who had been bail for Addenbroke. We cannot judge of the humanity of the case. The law says the Poet was right. But, by this we may infer that Shakspeare had learned to look on the world in too practical a way to stand any nonsense. He would be abused, no doubt, for making anybody cash up that owed him money. There would be people who had come to argue that a player had no prescriptive or natural right to be prudent and thrifty, or exact in money transactions. Shakspeare thought differently. He had to deal with many coarse and pitiful facts of human life; and this he had learned to do in a strong, effectual way. There would be a good deal of coarse, honest prose even in Shakspeare, but no sham poetry of false sentimentality.

The Epitaph said to have been written by himself was evidently composed by some pious friend of Susannah's, from a Scriptural text taken from the Second Book of Kings (ch. xxiii.). When Josiah was desecrating the sepulchres and removing the bones of the dead to burn them, he came to "the sepulchre of the Man of God," and Josiah spared his bones and said, "Let him alone! Let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone."

Ben Jonson, in his tribute to Shakspeare, his " Book and his fame," uttered the very one word once for all, when he said-" Thou wert not of an age, but for all time." He has nothing merely Elizabethan or Archaic in his work; his language never gets obsolete; in spirit he is modern up to the latest minute; other writers may be outgrown by their readers, as they ripen with age, or lose the glory of their youth, but not Shakspeare; at every age he is still mature, and still ahead of his readers, just as he always overtops his actors; here also he is not of an age, but abides for all time.

Shakspeare not only does not recede, he is for ever dawning into view. We never do come up with him. He is always ahead of us. Whatsoever new

thought is proclaimed in the human domain, whether it be the doctrine of Evolution, or the laws of Heredity, we find Shakspeare still abreast and in line with the latest demonstration of a natural fact or scientific truth!

There is a tradition that our gentle Willie died after a grand merry-making and a bout of drinking. It is said that Ben Jonson and some other of his poet playfellows called on Shakspeare, who was ill in bed, and that he rose and joined them in their jovial endeavours to make a night of it, and that his death was the sad result. This story may illustrate his warm heart and generous hospitality, but I think it is not a true account of his end. I do not for ene moment believe that he died of hard drinking. We shall find no touch of delirium tremens in his last signature. Nothing in his life corroborates such a death.

I have no doubt that he would be unselfish enough to get out of bed when ill, to give a greeting to his old friends if they called. He must have had the very

soul of hospitality. He kept open house and open heart for troops of friends, and loved to enfranchise and set flying the "dear prisoned spirits of the impassioned grape;" many a time was his broad silver and gilt bowl set steaming; his smile of welcome beamed like the sun through mist; his large heart welled with humanity, and overflowed with good fellowship; his talk brightened the social circle with ripple after ripple of radiant humour as he presided at his own board, Good Will in visible presence and in very person.

We learn from his last Will and Testament that he was in sound health a month before his death; and his sudden decease after so recent a record of his "perfect health" is quite in keeping with our idea of the man Shakspeare, who was the image of life incarnate. Such a death best re-embodies such a life! It leaves us an image of him in the mortal sphere almost as consummate and imperishable as is the shape of immortality he wears forever in the world of

mind!

Measured by years and the wealth of work crowded into them, his time was brief; "Small time, but in that small most greatly lived this star of England!" He went before the fall of leaf, and escaped our winter and the snows of age. We see him in the picture of his life and the season of his maturity just as

“Smiling down the distance, Autumn stands,

The ripened fruitage glowing in his hands,"

with no signs of weakness that make us sigh for the waning vitality. He passed on with his powers full-summed, his faculties in their fullest flower, his fires unquenched, his sympathies unsubdued. There was no returning tide of an ebbing manhood, but the great ocean of his life-which had gathered its wealth from a myriad springs-rose to the perfect height, touched the complete circle, and in its spacious fulness stood divinely still.

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Our Prince of Peace in glory hath gone
With no Spear Shaken, no Sword drawn,
No Cannon fired, no Flag unfurled,
To make his conquest of the World.

For him no Martyr-fires have blazed,
No limbs been racked, no scaffolds raised;
For him no life was ever shed

To make the Victor's pathway red.

And for all time he wears the Crown
Of lasting, limitless renown:
He reigns, whatever Monarchs fall;
His Throne is at the heart of all.

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