The churlish-throated hounds then holding him at bay,
And, as their cruel fangs on his harsh skin they lay,
With his sharp-pointed head he dealeth deadly wounds.
The hunter, coming in to help his wearied hounds,
He desperately assails: until, oppressed by force,
He, who the mourner is to his own dying corse,
Upon the ruthless earth his precious tears lets fall.

This is vigorous writing, but it is very poor compared with what Shakspere puts into the mouth of one of the lords in As You Like It (act ii. scene 1), where the scene is in the same Warwickshire Forest of Arden :

Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood;
To the which place a poor sequestered stag
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish; and, indeed, my lord,
The wretched animal heaved forth such groans
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
'Cours'd one another down his innocent nose

In piteous chase; and thus, the hairy fool,
Much marked of by the melancholy Jaques,

Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.

Mark here how the speaker turns away from the chase itself and the excitement of the sport, to the poor animal, wounded and dying, and weeping almost human tears; and notice too how Jaques invests the whole with a human sympathy, explaining and interpreting by it human affairs:

:

First, for his weeping in the needless stream,
Poor deer, quoth he, thou mak'st a testament
As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more

To that which had too much. Then being alone,
Left and abandoned of his velvet friends:

'Tis right, quoth he; thus misery doth part
The flux of company. Anon, a careless herd,
Full of the pasture, jumps along by him,
And never stays to greet him. Ay, quoth Jaques,
Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens,

'Tis just the fashion. Wherefore do you look
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?

This is true poetry, looking upon all things with love and pity, that can see nothing suffering pain without profound sorrow, and which, too, exalts Nature by making her the interpreter of human life and human griefs.

But we must leave the old park, and go out again into the road; and, passing the new church of Charlecote, where still remains the white marble effigy of the old Justice in full armour, and then on through Hampton Lucy, we reach the right bank of the river, and wander on towards Hatton Rock. Very beautiful indeed is Hatton Rock, with its wood sloping down to the Avon. It is full of all the spring flowers-orchisses, and oxlips, and primroses, as if April had stolen some from her sister May. There are white and pink wind-flowers still blossoming, and the bluest and sweetest violets, whilst the leaves of the bluebell cover the ground with their grass. And all the

birds of spring have come here, and loud above them all, even in the middle of the day, the nightingale is singing; but the oaks and the ash show not a single bud, as if not quite certain that the warm weather had really set in.

But we must continue our walk under Rheon Hill, and so on, still by the bank of the river. The wheat in the corn-fields is now about as high as grass at midsummer, but of a darker, richer green than ever grass is; whilst the meadows are golden with buttercups. And so, at last, we reach the Warwick road, and find ourselves at Stratford, and see the flags flying, and hear the bells ringing, in honour of the day.

It is something to ponder on, that men should keep this day, and that they should come year after year to the annual dinner at Stratford. It may not be a very æsthetic mode of celebrating a poet's birthday; yet men are but men, and ordinary mortals but ordinary mortals. It is something as it is; we will not ask for more: it is heroworship in the best way that men at present know. But it is something more to rejoice at, that on this night a festival in honour of the poet is held some three thousand miles away at New York; and the thought arises, as our Saxon language spreads, where will Shakspere's influence stop? Already is our tongue lisped in backwoods and

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY

desert places; and there, surely, too, will Shakspere some day help to conquer the material world: with the Bible and with Shakspere we can never go back.

Thomas Evey

Autograph and Seal of Sir Thomas Lucy.

WHILST it is still spring-still "proud-pied April,” as Shakspere beautifully calls his natal month-we will wander to some more of the places connected with his name. You can go nowhere round Stratford that is not associated with him. It is to me always a most enjoyable feeling, to know