embraced him anew, and
repeated the offer of my services.

"He spurred his ass, and left me as ill inclined to prosecute my
journey as he was well disposed to go on his; he had, however,
supplied my pen with ample materials for pleasantry. But all times are
not the same. Perhaps the day may arrive when, taking up the thread
which I am now compelled to break, I may complete what is now wanting,
and what I would fain tell. But adieu to gayety; adieu to humor;
adieu, my pleasant friends! I must now die, and I wish for nothing
better than speedily to see you--well contented in another world."

Such was the calm, philosophical gayety with which this
long-suffering, heroic man and Christian contemplated his approaching
death; and, in the words of Sismondi, it may be safely asserted that
this unaffected fortitude was characteristic of the soldier who fought
so valiantly at Lepanto, and who so firmly supported his five years'
captivity in Algiers.

Cervantes died at Madrid in 1616. It is, perhaps, interesting to
reflect that he was a contemporary of Shakespeare, so that the two
greatest humorists the world has produced were living at the same
time.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE[1]

[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By SENATOR JOHN J. INGALLS

(1564-1616)

[Illustration: A house.]

In a small glazed cabinet near the north door of Holy Trinity Church
in the Warwickshire village of Stratford-upon-Avon, the long narrow
volume of the parish register lies open at the page on which is
inscribed in clear, clerkly hand the record of the christening of
William Shakespeare, April 26, 1564. Tradition, which delights in
coincidences, has selected as his birthday the anniversary of his
death, which occurred April 23, 1616, but the date is unknown. His
lineage was humble and his origin obscure, his ancestors having been
tenant farmers and small tradesmen in the same locality, without
wealth, education, estate, or public station. No other of the name has
reached special distinction before or since. His grandfather, Richard,
was a yeoman at the neighboring hamlet of Snitterfield. His father,
John, who appears, from the vague glimpses of his history discernible,
to have been of an ardent, careless, and improvident nature, removed
in early life from the farm at Snitterfield to Stratford, where he
kept a country store. He prospered in business for a while and was
active in local politics, rising through the succ