joined under one king on James coming to the throne; and he was taken by the hand by many leading men of the day. The Earl of Southampton was one of his best friends, and is said at one time to have given him a thousand, pounds (then a very much larger sum than it is thought in the present day), because he heard that Shakspeare wished to make a purchase of some extent. All men who had

a true taste for merit had a just value and esteem for him. His great candour and kindness of heart must have made him as much loved for his virtues, as did the high powers of his mind compel all to admire and respect him. His friendship with the poet Ben Jonson began with a piece of good nature. Jonson, who was then unknown to fame, had sent in a play he wished to have acted, and the men into whose hands it was placed, after having turned the leaves over with the contempt often felt for a young author, were about to send it back with the answer that it would be of no use to them, when Shakspeare, taking it up, found so much merit in it as to induce him not only to read it through, but to advise that this and other writings of Jonson's should be placed before the public.

Ben Jonson was a man of very sound learning, which Shakspeare was not. During a dispute between some persons as to the merits of these two

poets, two or three of them having made an attack on Shakspeare in favour of Jonson, Mr Hales, of Eton, a man of mark of that day, after being silent for a while, told them that "if Mr Shakspeare had not read the ancients, he had likewise not stolen anything from them; and that if they would produce any one topic finely treated by any one of them, he would show something upon the same subject at least as well written by Shakspeare." Few people now read the poems of Jonson, but the number of reprints of Shakspeare's works can hardly be counted.

It was said, to show the ease with which Shakspeare wrote, that he never struck out a line. Ben Jonson himself says of him that "he was indeed honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle words. His wit was in his own power." Mr Rowe thought it not easy to say what kind of writing was his best. There is a great deal of fun in his comic humours. Falstaff is a perfect piece of art, always well kept up, though drawn out through the length of three plays; and even the account of his death given by Mrs Quickly in the first act of Henry the Fifth, though not the least strained, is yet as good as any portion of his life.

Many of Shakspeare's other parts are also perfect,

each in its own way. It would not be easy for any one to surpass him in his seven ages of a man's life:

"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. 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,
Secking 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 slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side ;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shanks; 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 childhood, and mere oblivion;

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

As You Like It, Act II., Scene 7.

The image is indeed always drawn by Shakspeare in a manner so correct that the thing stands full

before us, and we see clearly each part of it. Witness his image of Patience. Speaking of a girl in love—he says,

"She never told her love,

But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined, in thought,
And sat like Patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief."

A sketch which it would be hard to equal.

Perhaps some of Shakspeare's best plays are The Tempest (which cannot have been written before the year 1610, for in this play the islands of Bermuda are spoken of, which were not known until 1609); The Merchant of Venice; Macbeth; Othello; and Hamlet; and in all his plays there are sure to be found some portions of merit far beyond any that have gone before or that have come after him.

Though Shakspeare went on writing till 1614, it is most likely that he ceased to appear as an actor long before, as his name is not found among the list of players after 1603; but he got leave from King James to open the Globe theatre for plays of all kinds, where he made a good deal of money. £300 a-year is stated by Gildon as the sum gained by him; and this would in those days be equal to £1000 or more in our day. It is thought that he

might have made as much as £200 a-year while on

the stage.

Shakspeare, being an actor, writing and acting for his living at a time when few of the people could read, and when the art of printing was new and much more costly than it now is, did not print any of his own works. His plays were sold one by one to the persons who wanted to make use of them, and who would of course try to keep the copy as secret as they could. Seven years after his death the first book of his plays was printed by two of his former fellow-actors, and in 41 years from that time only about a thousand copies were sold. Then the number of buyers of books was not by any means so great as it is now.

In 1709 a careful reprint of his works was made by Mr Rowe, and since that time a great many authors have brought out in their turn new and, as each thought, more correct versions of these plays.

It is not easy for a writer to get even a small book through the press without some mistakes. When, then, we see the great length of Shakspeare's works, often printed in 8, 10, or 12 good-sized volumes, we cannot wonder that there should be many blunders. Very many words which he who wrote the plays would not have owned as his, have crept in here and there. The wonder would have