nd drinking to the memory of friends and days that are
no more!

[Illustration]

Three days before the death of the great luminary of dramatic and poetic
letters, he called me into his bedroom. He was resting in a reclining chair
by an oaken desk, looking out on his garden, while the birds of spring were
chirping, singing and courting among the blooming bushes and trees of his
beautiful home.

Addressing me in the old familiar way, he said: "Jack, my throat and head
give me great pain. I long to rest beneath the walls of Old Trinity Church,
never again to gaze upon its glinting spire through sunrise or sunset
beams.

"You know I feel a horror at the thought of having my poor old bones
tumbled out of their grave in future years by vulgar sextons, and to
prevent disturbance I scribbled off a few weeks ago these poetic lines,
that I wish you would place above my remains. Promise me this last request,
and I'll die in the hope of Immortality!"

Gazing intently on the melancholy, dying man, my eyes filled with tears, I
made the sacred promise, and more than that, I here give the manuscript
imprint of the original epitaph:

_STRATFORD, APRIL 1st, 1616._

_For Jesus' sake, good friends, pass by,
While here in peace I lowly lie;
Disturb not these cold, tongueless stones
That shield my bleaching, crumbling bones,
In life I took Dame Nature's part
Exemplifying soul and heart,
And all my plays were heaven sent
To be my lasting monument!_

On the morning of the 23d of April, at six o'clock, Judith came rushing
into my room, and said that her father was dying. I jumped into my clothes
and quickly knelt by his bedside, where I found Dr. Hall, Susannah, Mr.
Quincy, Mrs. Hart, Ben Jonson, and Michael Drayton.

I grasped his hand as he made dying lurches, and asked him how he felt, and
then opening his great bluish gray eyes for the last time on earth, I could
hear only his death gurgle expression: "God, Truth and Country!"

Thus passed away the noblest and greatest man that ever graced this earthly
globe.

The news of his death spread like a prairie fire among the people of
Stratford and the surrounding villages, and on to Oxford and London, where
the melancholy wail of his obsequies resounded in the halls of the highest
court circles, and found the deepest sorrow and regret in the heart of King
James.

At twelve o'clock on the 25th of April the remains of the Bard were
followed to