negligence or wilfulness.

elm," a parish boundary mark, which we know by parish documents was standing in Shakspere's time. But it has been destroyed. We really seem in these days to have lost all reverence for the past. Herne's oak at Windsor was cut down, either through And now this old elm is gone. It might have been spared as long as it would stand, to have yearly put forth its few green leaves, and that the passer-by might have said, "Shakspere saw this tree."

Ir there be one place more interesting than another in connection with Shakspere, it is the little hamlet of Shottery, for here he found his wife. It lies but a few fields' length from Stratford-one of the prettiest of English villages. Very lovely is it always in April-in “the winter of the blackthorn," as the Warwickshire country

people call the season. It consists of but a few cottages and farm-houses, straggling here and there, with their gardens full of flowers. The white snowdrops, and the crocuses that had fringed the beds with a border of flame, are all gone, though a few daffodils still remain; but the oxlips, and the primroses, and the jonquil on its slender rush, are shining bright, whilst the turk's-cap lilies, and the tulips, and the columbines, are all springing up, covering the earth with their green leaves, and the apple-trees are just opening their pink rose-buds, and the pears and the cherry-trees are covered with their white May blossoms.

At the far end of the village, down in a little valley, where runs the village brooklet, stands Anne Hathaway's cottage. An old, long, timbered house is it, its front chequered with squares, where the vine now stretches its cane-coloured naked arms, its stones crusted with moss, and its thatch, too, green with tufts and clumps of moss. Inside it is nothing more than a simple English cottage, with its high mantel-shelf ornamented with a bright row of candlesticks and earthenware, and its clean floor of Binton stone, sunk and cracked in places. And its garden is simply an English cottage garden, such as you may see thousands of in Warwickshire, but still none the less beautiful, with its well and its wallflowers, and its lavender-shrubs, and kitchen herbs. And behind stands

a small orchard, which, if it be an early season, will be a mass of pink blossom, whilst the meadows beyond are covered with cowslips.

All this was here in Shakspere's time. There was the same beauty in the old world as is now. Nothing can alter that. And, doubtless, to Shakspere this place and these fields were, above all others, the most beautiful, for he had seen them through the inspiration of love.

Upon Shakspere's house doubts have been thrown, but upon this no shade of suspicion rests. The traveller can believe with a full faith that here Shakspere, when a young man, came and won his wife. It is something to think of, that Shakspere's helpmate-the woman who above every one else influences a man's life for either extreme good or utter evil-here dwelt. I cannot enter into that barren controversy as to who she was, or what her father might be, but of this do I feel certain, that she influenced Shakspere's mind for good, and not for harm. There is, I know, that base theory, for I can call it nothing else, that Shakspere and his wife lived on bad terms. Verily the world is hard upon its greatest men. And what is the foundation for this belief? Simply because in his will Shakspere left her only his second best bed. Perhaps from husband to wife there was no more precious bequest: the bed whereon they had slept

for years, where their children had been born to them, and where they themselves might hope to die in peace and quietness. I would myself sooner believe in the creeds of South Sea Islanders than in such utter baseness of thought. If there is one thing Shakspere dwells upon more than another it is the duty and love of husband and wife, and of children to parents. To suppose that he was at variance with his wife, is to suppose that he must have ever been giving the lie to his own thoughts. The man who asked

What nearer debt in all humanity
Than wife to husband?

was the man who could best answer the question. There really does seem a sort of epidemic of base belief, among men, which loves to traduce the world's heroes. If one thing be certain, it is that Shakspere was a good manincluding under it a good husband. It is no paradox to say that a good poet must be a good man. The reason (Vernunft) can only flourish with moral truth. It is as true now as it was two thousand years ago, that ʼn apεTÒ ποιητοῦ συνέζευκται τῇ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, καὶ οὐκ οἷον τε ἀγαθόν γενέσθαι ποιητὴν μὴ πρότερον γενηθέντα ἄνδρα áyalóv. Not until the experiment of brambles bringing forth figs succeeds, will the still greater miracle of a bad