river, he became a shareholder in that also. The theatre at Blackfriars was engaged in winter; the Globe, which had no roof, was used in summer; and the company alternated from one to the other. The poet appears to have produced a play about once in six months, and among his earlier productions were: the three parts of Henry VI., Love's Labour Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Comedy of Errors, Taming of the Shrew, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Romeo and Juliet, and the first draft of Hamlet: this draft was afterwards re-written and enlarged. Several of these plays were presented at Court, and won a smile from the stately Elizabeth. Shakespeare was also honoured by the patronage and friendship of the munificent Lord Southampton, who, it is said on one occasion, made him a present of £1000 to enable him to complete a purchase he wished to make. The purchase was probably the "Great House," afterwards called "New Place," which the poet bought at Stratford.

In the midst of his prosperity, the poet was saddened by the loss of his son Hamnet, who died August, 1596. He was between eleven and twelve years of age, and his loss seems to have been felt very keenly. As it was in this year that King John was written, the touching words put into the mouth of Lady Constance when she heard that Prince Arthur was taken prisoner, may have expressed Shakespeare's own feelings with respect to his son's death:

"Const. And, father Cardinal, I have heard you say,
That we shall see and know our friends in heaven:
If that be true, I shall see my boy again;

For, since the birth of Cain, the first male child,
To him that did but yesterday suspire,

There was not such a gracious creature born.

But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,
And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
And he will look as hollow as a ghost;
As dim and meagre as an ague's fit;
And so he'll die; and, rising so again,
When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
I shall not know him: therefore never, never
Must I behold my pretty Arthur more,

Pand. You hold too heinous a respect of grief.
Const. He talks to me that never had a son.

K. Phil. You are as fond of grief as of your child.
Const. Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me;
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief.
Fare you well: had you such a loss as I,
I could give better comfort than you do."

In the year 1598, our dramatist seems to have become acquainted with Ben Jonson. We are told that Jonson, who at this time was almost unknown as a writer, had offered one of his plays to the company, and the persons into whose hands it first fell, having looked through it carelessly and somewhat superciliously, were upon the point of returning it, with the remark that it was unsuitable, when Shakespeare, happening to cast his eye upon it, found something that induced him to read it through carefully, and afterwards to recommend its acceptance. The play in question was Every Man in his Humour. The scene was originally laid in Italy; Jonson afterwards changed the scene to London, and gave the characters English names. Thus altered, it was brought out at the Blackfriars theatre in 1598, and Shakespeare appears in the list of actors."

At this time Sir Walter Raleigh had established a literary club, which met at the Mermaid Tavern in Bread Street. Shakespeare became a member of this assembly, and here he met and talked with Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Cotton, Donne, and a host of kindred spirits. Thomas Fuller, a quaint writer, who lived in the following century, compares the sallies of wit and repartee which passed between Shakespeare and Jonson to the skirmishes which took place between the small English vessels and the huge war-ships of the Armada : "I beheld them like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war. Master Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learning, solid, but slow in his

performances; Shakespeare, like the latter, less in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds by the quickness of his wit and invention.'

add

To the list of dramas already mentioned we may the following, as having been completed before the end of the century:-Merchant of Venice; King John; RichardII.; Henry IV., parts I. and II.; Henry V.; Richard III.; Merry Wives of Windsor; As You Like It; Much Ado About Nothing; and All's Well that Ends Well.

Shakespeare was a great favourite with James I. Between November, 1604, and March, in the following year, six of his dramas were played before the king at Whitehall, and to express his admiration of their author, James is said to have written a letter to him with his

own hand. In what year Shakespeare finally withdrew from the stage is not known, but the last appearance of his name as an actor is in a printed list of the characters of Ben Jonson's Sejanus, which was played at the Globe in 1603, and speedily withdrawn. Shortly after this event, the great poet appears to have retired to Stratford, to spend the remainder of his days among the quiet scenes of his youth. It is probable, however, that he still continued to write, and it is to this period of his life, no doubt, that we are to attribute some of his greatest works, Lear, Othello, Macbeth, and The Tempest; there is a tradition that The Tempest was the last drama which he wrote.

In the summer of 1613, the Globe theatre was burnt down during the performance of Henry VIII. Whether Shakespeare was a pecuniary sufferer by the disaster is not known; it is thought, as he makes no mention of theatrical property in his will, that he disposed of his interest in the theatres when he finally retired from the metropolis. There is little more to add. On the 25th March, 1616, he executed his will, by which he left the bulk of his property to his favourite daughter Susanna. The will commences by declaring that the testator is in perfect health and memory, and concludes with com

mending his soul into the hands of the Almighty, "hoping and assuredly believing, through the merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour, to be made partaker of life-everlasting." A few weeks later, April 23rd, the poet died, having just completed his fifty-second year.

Shakespeare wrote a number of sonnets, and several minor poems, but his fame rests upon his dramas, in which he shows an insight into human nature, an originality of thought, and a power of poetic expression, which have never been equalled. In the large number of characters he has depicted, there is an endless variety; no two are alike, yet all are true to nature. We have types of the greatest purity and of the greatest villany; the personages are grave or gay, witty and reflective, or dull and shallowin fact, we have almost every conceivable type of human nature, yet the sentiments put into the mouth of each are always appropriate. The dramas contain passages of the greatest sublimity, of the most profound philosophy, of light and airy fancy, of shrewd practical wisdom, of the deepest pathos, and the most lively humour. At the time of his death the poet had scarcely passed his prime, and his mental powers showed not the least signs of decay. What he might have done, had his life been prolonged for a few more years, it is in vain to conjecture; as it is, he is the greatest poet the world has seen.

LORD BACON.-1561-1626.

FRANCIS BACON, the youngest son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, lord-keeper of the Great Seal, was born at York house, London, in 1561. In his childhood he showed an intelligence and quickness beyond his years; and his behaviour was so sedate that Queen Elizabeth was wont to call him her young lord-keeper. At the age of thirteen, he was sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied with diligence and success; but he left at the age of sixteen without taking a degree. As he was too

young to enter upon a profession, he was sent abroad, according to the custom of those times, to complete his education, by studying the manners and institutions of other countries. He went accordingly to Paris in the suite of the English ambassador, and in his twentieth year he wrote a work of considerable merit on the State of Europe.

The death of his father, in 1579, recalled him to England. Returning to London, he found himself almost totally unprovided for, as most of his father's fortune had gone with the title to his eldest brother. Bacon expected that his uncle, Lord Burleigh, would provide him with some political appointment, but Burleigh had his own son, Robert, to provide for; and Bacon, much against his inclination, was obliged to take up the study of the law.

In 1582, he was called to the bar, and rose rapidly in the profession. He entered Parliament in 1585, and soon distinguished himself in debate. Ben Jonson, speaking of his power as an orator, says, "No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, or less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him, was lest he should make an end.” On the promotion of Sir Edward Coke to be attorneygeneral, in 1594, Bacon became a candidate for the post of solicitor-general, but another person was appointed. The Earl of Essex had interested himself in Bacon's favour, and when baffled by the influence of the Cecils, he generously made his friend a present of Twickenham Park, worth two thousand pounds. It was in this quiet and beautiful retreat that Bacon finished his Essays, which were shortly afterwards published.

Bacon is sometimes accused of having shown the basest ingratitude to his friend and benefactor. When Essex