mb on the 9th of September, 1608.

I first met Will Shakspere on the 23d of April, 1571, at the old log and
board schoolhouse at the head of Henley street, Stratford, on the river
Avon. It was a bright, sunny day, and Mr. Walter Roche, the Latin master,
was the autocrat of the scholastic institution, afterwards succeeded by
Thomas Hunt.

Will Shakspere and myself happened to be born on the same day, and our
first entrance at the temple of knowledge marked exactly the seventh
milestone of our fleeting years.

Will was a very lusty, rollicking boy and was as full of innocent mischief
as a pomegranate is of seeds. He was handsome and bright, wearing a thick
suit of auburn curls, that rippled over his shoulders like a waterfall in
the sunshine. His eyes were very large, a light hazel hue, that glinted
into blue when his soul was stirred by passion. His forehead was broad and
high, even as a boy, rounding off into that "dome of thought" that in later
years, when a six-foot specimen of splendid manhood caused him to conjure
up such a universal group of immortal characters.

His nose was long and high, but symmetrical, and his distended nostrils,
when excited at play, would remind you of a Kentucky racehorse in motion.
His voice was sonorous and musical, and when stirred by passion or pleasure
it rose and fell like the sound of waves upon a stormy or summer sea. His
lips were red and full, marked by Nature, with the "bow of beauty," and
when his luminous countenance was flushed with celestial light, he shot the
arrows of love-lit glances around the schoolroom and fairly magnetized the
boys, and particularly the girls, with the radiant influence of his
unconscious genius.

Will was a constant source of anxiety and wonder to the teacher, who often
marked him as the scapegoat to carry off the surface sins of sneaking and
cowardly pupils. Corporal punishment was part of school discipline, and
William and myself got our share of the rule and rod.

Through all the centuries, in youth and age, private and public, the
scapegoat has been the real hero in all troubles and misfortunes. He seems
to be a necessary mortal, but while persecution relentlessly pursues him,
he almost invariably triumphs over his enemies, and when even devoted to
the prison, the stake or the scaffold, as a martyr, he triumphs over the
grave and is monumented in the memory of mankind for his bravery and
silent self-sacrifice!

For seven school years Will a