e over the field or meadow, give the
correct number of animals in sight.

He was a wonder to the yeomanry of Warwickshire and the surrounding
counties, and when he had occasion to rest for the night at farm houses or
taverns, he was the prime favorite of the rural flames or bouncing,
beaming barmaid. The girls went wild about him. The physical development of
Shakspere was as noticeable as his mental superiority. Often when he
ploughed the placid waters of the Avon, or buffeted the breakers of the
moaning sea, have I gazed in rapture at his manly, Adonis form, standing on
the sands, like a Grecian wrestler, waiting for the laurel crown of the
Olympic games.

_Great Shakspere was endowed with heavenly light;
He read the book of Nature day and night,
And delving through the strata of mankind
Divined the thoughts that thrilled the mystic mind,
And felt the pulse of all the human race,
While from their beating heart could surely trace
The various passions that inspire the soul
Around this breathing world from pole to pole!_

My family and the Hathaway household were on familiar terms, for my father
at times worked an adjoining estate at the edge of the village of Shottery,
a straggling community of farmers and tradesmen, with the usual
wheelwright, blacksmith shop, corn and meat store and alehouse attachments.

William, in his rural perambulations, often put up for the night at our
cottage, and as there was generally some fun going on in the neighborhood
after dark, I led him into many frolics with the boys and girls; and I can
assure you he was a rusher with the fair sex, capturing the plums that fell
from the tree of beauty and passion.

On a certain moonlight night, in the month of May, 1581, a large concourse
of rural belles and beaux assembled at the home of John Dryden, washed by
the waters of the Avon, and thrilled by the songs of the nightingales,
thrushes and larks lending enchantment to the flitting hours.

Stratford, Snitterfield, Wilmcote and Shottery sent their contingent of
roistering boys and girls to enjoy the moonlight lawn dance and rural feast
set out under flowery bowers by the generous Dryden.

It would have done your heart good to see the variegated dresses, antics
and faces of the happy rural belles. I see them as plain as ever in the
looking-glass of memory. There is Laura Combs, plump and intelligent, Mary
Scott, willowy and keen, Jennie Field, sedate and sterl