have been removed. I have since been to Stratford, and find
that they use the new font, and have put the old one in a corner of the
nave.

An odd thing happened to me in the church, where at the vestry I had
just signed my name as other visitors did. An American, utterly unknown
to me as I to him, came eagerly up to me as I was inspecting that
unsatisfactory bust and inscription about Shakespeare, and said, "Come
and see what I've found,--Martin Tupper's autograph,--he must be
somewhere near, for he has just signed: do tell, is he here?" I rather
thought he might be. "I've wished to see him ever since I was a small
boy. Do you know him, sir?" Well, yes, a little. "Show him to me, sir,
won't you? I'd give ten dollars for his autograph." After a word or two
more, my good nature gave him the precious signature without the
dollars,--and I shan't easily forget his frantic joy, showing the
document to all around him, whilst I escaped.

Besides a Pindaric Ode to Shakespeare, to be found in my Miscellaneous
Poems, wherein many of his characters are touched upon, I wrote the
following sonnet, now out of print:--

_The Stratford Jubilee._

"Went not thy spirit gladly with us then,
Most genial Shakespeare!--wast thou not with us
Who throng'd to honour thee and love thee thus,
A few among thy subject fellow-men?
Yea,--let me truly think it; for thy heart
(Though now long since the free-made citizen
Of brighter cities where we trust thou art)
Was one, in its great whole and every part,
With human sympathies: we seem to die,
But verily live; we grow, improve, expand,
When Death transplants us to that Happier Land;
Therefore, sweet Shakespeare, came thy spirit nigh,
Cordial with Man, and grateful to High Heaven
For all our love to thy dear memory given."

CHAPTER XIX.

TRANSLATIONS AND PAMPHLETS.

The best of my unpublished MSS. of any size or consequence is perhaps my
translation of Book Alpha of the Iliad, quite literal and in its
original metre of hexameters: hitherto I have failed to find a publisher
kind enough to lose by it; for there are already at least twelve English
versions of Homer unread, perhaps unreadable. Still, some day I don't
despair to gain an enterprising Sosius; for my literal and hexametrical
translation is almost what Carthusians used to call "a crib," and
perhaps some day the School Board or their organ, Mr. Joseph Hughes's