im on to emulate
if not surpass Kyd, Lodge, Greene and Marlowe.

During the time Shakspere had been a strolling player through the middle
towns of England he had studied the works of Ovid and Petrarch, and read
with pleasure the sonnets and Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney.

While playing at Kenilworth, the Lady Anne Manners, young and beautiful
cousin to the Earl of Leicester, honored the young actor with great praise
for his part in playing the Lover in "Love's Conquest." She presented the
Bard with a bunch of immortelles, that even when withered, he always kept
in an inside pocket, and at various times composed sonnets to his absent
admirer, playing Petrarch to another Laura.

The languishing, luscious, lascivious poem of "Venus and Adonis" was really
inspired by the remembrance of Miss Manners, and imagination pictured
himself and the lady as the principals in the sensuous situation!

William, like Dame Nature, was full of life-sap, that circled through his
body and brain with constant motion and sought an outlet for the surplus
volume of ideal knowledge, in theatrical action, teaching lessons of right
and wrong, with vice and virtue struggling forever for the mastery of
mankind.

The Bard worked night and day in his duties as theatrical drudge for the
Blackfriars, and made himself valuable and solid with old Burbage, who saw
in the young actor a marvelous development of new thought and force, that
had never before been seen on the British stage.

In a few weeks Bull Billings was discharged for tyranny and drunkenness,
and my friend William was given the place of chief property man and
prompter.

Various plays were put on and off the Blackfriars stage, through the hisses
or cheers of the motley audience, the autocrats of the "pit" seeming to be
the real umpires of the cessation or continuance of the most noted plays.

The last week in October, 1586, was a mournful time for London, as the
greatest favorite of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Philip Sidney, was to receive a
State funeral at Saint Paul's.

All England went in mourning for the handsome cavalier and poet, who lost
his life at the siege of Axel, in the Netherlands, while serving as chief
of cavalry under his uncle, the Earl of Leicester.

All business closed in honor of the young hero, and the celebrated military
organization, the "Ancient and Honorable Artillery," led more than thirty
thousand of the "train bands," who followed in the great procession to
Sain