Fourteen salutes from the royal artillery in honor of Frederick and Elizabeth and St. Valentine's Day, echoed from the heights of Whitehall, and carrier pigeons with love notes were sent flying over the temples, churches and towers of London to notify all loyal subjects that the throne of old Albion had been strengthened by an infusion of Germanic blood.

Promptly at seven o'clock St. Valentine's evening, Richard Burbage, Ben Jonson, Shakspere and myself drove up in our festooned carriage to the palace portals of Whitehall, and were ushered into the presence of the great assembly doing honor to the royal bride and groom, Frederick and Elizabeth.

The King sat on a throne chair at the head of the banquet board, with his daughter and son-in-law on his left, while the Queen sat on his right.

The other royal guests were seated according to their ancestral rank, while our dramatic quartette occupied a special table, William at the head on the right of the King and Queen, elevated as an improvised stage, with Shakspere, the most intellectual man of the world, "the observed of all observers !"

The play of knife and fork, laugh and jest, toast and talk lasted for two hours, and then as the foam on the brim of the beakers began to sparkle, the King, in his royal robes arose, and said:

"My loyal subjects, health and prosperity to Great Britain and Germany, and love and truth for Frederick and Elizabeth."

The three thousand guests standing responded with a storm of cheers, and then the King remarked:

"We are honored to-night by the presence of William Shakspere, our most loyal and intellectual subject, who will now address you in logic and philosophy from his own matchless plays."

(Lord Bacon looked as if he wanted to crawl under the table at the King's compliment to the Bard of Avon.)

Shakspere arose, dressed in a dark purple suit, knee breeches and short sword by his side, bowed majestically, and for two hours entranced the royal assembly with these eloquent pen pictures of humanity:

My good friends;

I'll skip across the fields of thought
And pluck for you the sweetest flowers,
That I have from Dame Nature caught
To cheer the lingering, leaden hours.
While vice and virtue side by side
Go hand in hand adown the years,
Virtue alone, remains the bride
To banish all our falling tears;
And here to-night like stars above
These flowers of beauty blush and bloom—
Commanding honest human love,-
Immortal o'er the voiceless tomb!

Othello thus defends himself against the charge of bewitching Desdemona:

"Most potent, grave and reverend signiors,
My very noble and approved good masters,
That I have taken away this old man's daughter,
It is most true; true, I have married her;

The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in speech,
And little blessed with the set phrase of speech;
For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used
Their dearest action in the tented field;
And little of this great world can I speak,
More than pertains to feats of broil and battle;
And therefore little shall I grace my cause
In speaking for myself; yet, by your gracious
patience

I will a round unvarnished tale deliver

Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,

What conjuration, and what mighty magic, (For such proceeding I am charged withal) I won his daughter with!"

"Her father loved me, oft invited me;
Still questioned me the story of my life,
From year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes
That I have passed.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it.
Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances
Of moving accidents, by flood and field;

Of hair-breadth 'scapes, the imminent deadly breach;

Of being taken by the insolent foe,

And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence
And demeanor in my travel's history;
Wherein of caverns vast and deserts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch

heaven,

It was my hint to speak, such was the process And of the cannibals that each other eat, anthropophagi, and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders. These things to hear

Would Desdemona seriously incline;

But still the house affairs would draw her thence;
Which ever as she could with haste despatch,
She'd come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse; which I observing
Took once a pliant hour; and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart,
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate
Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not intentively; I did consent;

And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffered. My story being done
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs;
She swore-in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing

strange;

'Twas pitiful; 'twas wondrous pitiful; She wished she had not heard it; yet she wished, That heaven had made her such a man, she thanked me,

And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story,
And that would woo her. Upon this hint, I
spake;

She loved me for the dangers I had passed;
And I loved her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used,
Here comes the lady, let her witness it!'

Timon of Athens, a wealthy, spendthrift lord, becomes bankrupt by his generous entertainment of friends, but maddened by their ingratitude, retires to a forest cave by the sea, giving this parting curse to the people of Athens, and later scattering gold among a band of thieves. Hear the self-ruined epicure:

"Let me look back upon thee, O thou wall

That girdlest in those wolves! Dive in the earth, And fence not Athens! Matrons turn inconti

nent!

Obedience fail in children! Slaves and fools, Pluck the grave, wrinkled senate from the bench And minister in their steads! To general filths Convert of the instant, green virginity!

Do it in your parent's yes! Bankrupts, hold fast; Rather than render back, out with your knives, And cut your trusters' throats! bound servants steal!

Large-handed robbers your grave masters are;
And kill by law! maid, to thy master's bed;
Thy mistress is of the brothel! son of sixteen,
Pluck the lined crutch from the old, limping

sire;

With it beat out his brains! piety, and fear
Religion to the Gods, peace, justice, truth,
Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighborhood,
Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades
Decrees, observances, customs and laws,
Decline to your confounding contraries,
And yet confusion live! Plagues incident to

men,

Your potent and infectious fevers heap