er of the human midgets or vultures that circled about his
pathway.

One touch from the brush of his imagination on the rudest dramatic canvas
illuminated the murky scene and flashed on the eye of the beholder the
rainbow colors of his matchless genius.

Ben Jonson, Greene, Marlowe, Fletcher and Burbage gazed with astonishment
at the versatility of his poetic and dramatic creations, and while pangs of
jealousy shot athwart their envious souls, they knew that the Divine Bard
was soaring above the alpine crags of thought, leaving them at the
foothills of dramatic venture.

He played the role of policy before peasant, lord and king, and used the
applause and brain of each for his personal advancement, and yet he never
sacrificed principle for pelf or bedraggled the skirts of virtue in the
gutter of vice.

The Divine William knew more about everything than any other man knew about
anything! He had a carnivorous and omnivorous mind, with a judicial soul,
and controlled his temper with the same inflexible rule that Nature uses
when murmuring in zephyrs or shrieking in storms, receding or advancing in
dramatic thought, as peace or passion demanded.

He seemed at times to be a medley of contradictions, and while playing
virtue against vice, the reader and beholder are often left in doubt as to
the guilt or glory of the contending actors. He puts words of wisdom in the
mouth of a fool, and foolish phrases in the mouth of the wise, and
shuttlecocked integrity in the loom of imagination.

William was the only poet who ever had any money sense, and understood the
real value of copper, silver, gold, jewels and land. His early trials and
poverty at Stratford, with the example of his bankrupt father was always in
view, convincing him early in life that ready money was all-powerful,
purchasing rank, comfort and even so-called love.

Yet he only valued riches as a means of doing good, puncturing the bladder
of bloated wealth with this pin of thought:

_"If thou art rich, thou art poor;
For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey,
And Death unloads thee!"_

He noticed wherever he traveled that successful stupidity, although
secretly despised, was often the master of the people, while a genius with
the wisdom of the ages, starved at the castle gate, and like Mozart and
Otway, found rest in the Potter's field.

No Indian juggler could mystify the ear and eye and mind