and the light upon the silent stream, when
hope, renewed after years of sorrow and sadness, flatters once again the
aims and objects of youth, gilding the landscape of life with wondrous
alchemy, shedding rays of happy sunshine on the vague, mysterious
yearnings of the soul of man towards the hidden destinies of the
boundless future.

It was not long, however, before Shakespeare bade the fair Jessica
good-night and retired to his sleeping apartment; for a run of such
uncommon excellence as he had enjoyed that day was calculated to produce
the tired, though not unpleasant, sensation which even now sends the
hunting man sleepy, though happy, to bed.

So, lulled by the strains of the minstrel's harp did William Shakespeare
seek his couch and sleep the sleep of the just But even while the body
was wrapped in slumber, the highly wrought, powerful mind, though yet
unconscious of its awful destiny, was hard at work, "moving about in
worlds not realised." Yonder on the turret of that grey Gothic castle,
whose pinnacles point ever upwards to the skies, they stand and wait, a
glorious throng; and as they stand they wave him onwards. Dante, Homer,
Virgil, Chaucer, Plutarch, Montaigne, and many another hero of old is
waiting there. See the sharp-pointed features of the Italian bard, and
Homer no longer blind! The two are holding animated converse, and ever
beckoning him on. And a voice seemed to speak out loud and clear amid
the solemn silence of eternity:

"Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd
But to fine issues." [32]

[Footnote 32: _Measure for Measure_, I. i.]

Can he linger? Away with blank misgivings, fears, and doubts! He will
climb the rugged, steep ascent, and follow even unto the end.

The following morning a little before sunrise saw a party of five
assembled for a hawking expedition on the downs. Besides the squire and
William Shakespeare, the parson had turned up, whilst Bill Peregrine
(ancestor of all the Peregrines, including, no doubt, the famous
Peregrine Pickle) brought one of his brothers from the farm to "help him
out" with the hawks. It was somewhat of a peculiar dawn--one of those
dull grey mornings which often bodes a fine day. The bard was much
interested in the glowing eastern sky, and as the sun began to appear he
turned