n the way
Where billions passed beneath the silent clay;
And, none have yet returned to tell us where
We'll bivouac beyond this world of care;
And these dumb mouths, with ghostly spirits near
Will not express a word into mine ear,
Or tell me when I leave this sinning sod
If I shall be transfigured with my God!_

In September, 1592, the second play of Shakspere, "Love's Labor's Lost,"
was given at the Blackfriars, to a fine audience.

He took the characters of the play from a French novel, based on an Italian
plot, and wove around the story a lot of glittering talk to please the
lords and ladies who listened to the silly gabble of their prototypes.

Ferdinand, King of Navarre, and his attendant lords are a set of silly
beaux who propose to retire from the world and leave women alone for the
space of three years.

The Princess of France and her ladies in waiting, with the assistance of a
gay lord named Boyet, made an incursion into the Kingdom of Navarre and
break into the solitude of the students.

Nathaniel, a parson, and Holofernes, a pedant schoolmaster, are introduced
into the play by William to illustrate the asinine pretensions of ministers
and pedagogues, who are constantly introducing Latin or French words in
their daily conversation, for the purpose of impressing common people with
their great learning, when, in fact, they only show ridiculous pretense and
expose themselves to the contempt of mankind.

There are very few noted philosophic sentiments in the play, and the
attempt at wit, of the clown, the constable and Holofernes, the
schoolmaster, fall very flat on the ear of an audience, while the rhymes
put in the mouth of the various characters are unworthy of a boy fourteen
years of age.

I remonstrated with William about injecting his alleged poetry into the
love letters sent by the lords and ladies, but he replied that young love
was such a fool that any kind of rhyme would suit passionate parties who
were playing "Jacks and straws" with each other.

Ferdinand, the King, opens up the play with a grand dash of thought:

_"Let fame that all hunt after in their lives,
Live registered upon our brazen tombs,
And then grace us in the disgrace of death,
When, spite of cormorant devouring time,
The endeavor of this present breach may buy
That honor, which shall bait his scythe's keen edge
To make us heirs of all eternity."_

Lord Biron, who imag