it one of our most popular songs, which constitutes one of its
stanzas:

"Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear,
Or like a fairy, trip upon the green,
Or like a nymph with long dishevell'd hair
Dance on the sands, and yet no footing seen."

His ready talent for composition was singular, and perhaps unparalleled;
his mind and hand ever went together, and it is reported he was never
known to blot a line. He was an actor occasionally in his own plays, but
it does not indeed appear that he excelled in this art.

Shakspeare never considered his works worthy of posterity, and was
little careful of popularity while he lived; having acquired a
competency by his labours, he retired to Stratford, and spent the
remainder of his life in ease and retirement, like a private gentleman.
His income was estimated at L200. The epitaph--not that on his monument,
but on the rude stone actually covering his remains is to the following
effect, and thus curiously written:

"Good friend, for Jesus SAKE forbeare
To digg T--E dust EncloAsed HERE
T
Blese be T--E man spares TEs stones
T y
And curst be hey moves my bones."

I conclude this rather desultory article with Lord Lyttleton's splendid
eulogy on him, which in a few words expresses more than the finest
Philippic to his memory--"If all human things were to perish except the
works of Shakspeare, it might still be known from them what sort of a
creature Man was!"

F.

* * * * *

SIR THOMAS FOWLER'S LODGE, ISLINGTON.

[Illustration: SIR THOMAS FOWLER'S LODGE, ISLINGTON.]

Few parishes in the environs of London are so rich in architectural
antiquities as the "considerable village" of Islington. Canonbury-house,
of which a solitary tower remains, is said to have been the
country-residence of the Priors of St. Bartholomew, and to have been
_re_built early in the 16th century. Highbury belonged also to the
Priory. The existing relics are chiefly of the Elizabethan age. The
lodge, represented in the cut, belonged to an old mansion; the property
of the Fowler family, built in 1595, which appears on a ceiling. The
house fronts Cross-street, and the lodge is at the extremity of the
garden, and adjoins Canonbury Fields. It is most probable that this was
built as a summer-house by Sir Thomas Fowler, the younger, whose arms
are placed in the wall, with the date 1655. It has been absurdly cal