uit, flowers, vines and waving elms,
margined by the murmuring waters of the silver Avon, I asked him if he had
any special message before leaving life to communicate to the ages.

"Yes, my dear Jack, you, by nature's law must, like the Wandering Jew,
fulfill your destiny, and 'tramp' out your thousand years ere you join me
on the 'Island of Immortality.' These precepts I enjoin:

_The Love and Truth that in my plays abide
Shall teach the lesson of equal justice;
Nothing that's wrong can prosper on this earth,
And though your crime-secret be hid in mounts
Of adamant, kissing, loftiest sky,
The worm of detection and exposure
Shall gnaw its way through rugged, granite ribs
And blow your foul wickedness around the world.
Men, states and empires, rise and flash like bubbles
On the rolling ocean of existence,
And then like the false, shimmering vision
Of a dream, pass into nameless oblivion.
The hours, days, years and ages, lost and gone
Are only a moment from the ticking clock
Of eternity. And all future time,
Incalculable as drops of ocean
Or leaves of grass, come and go incessant,
Like the balmy airs; or whistling winds
That blow o'er tropic or arctic lands.
I know and feel that myriad spirits
People the vast, circumambient air,--
And as my soul within knocks at heart and lips
For exit from this crumbling house of corruption,
Methinks I see and hear a chorus of
Angel spirits beckoning my tired soul
Onward and upward to omnipotence.
Every blade of grass and flower beautiful;
Every star that twinkles in the moonlit sky;
Every white-crested billow of the sea;
Every child that dreams, laughs and sings in glee;
Every thought, pinioned with eternal Hope--
Guarantees assurance of Immortality!"_

On the 13th of April, 1616, ten days before the death of Shakspere,
Burbage, Jonson, Drayton, Florio, Field, Condell, Heming and Jo Taylor came
down from London by special invitation to enjoy the hospitality of the
Bard.

Judith made every preparation for their social entertainment, and the "New
Place" was ablaze with hospitality and dramatic glory for a week.

I shall not enter into the pleasant and eccentric details of these authors
and actors, but leave it to the imagination of the intelligent reader to
know what a crowd of brilliant bohemians might do in the evening of life
talking, laughing a