with the means that had rewarded the labours of his genius, and there he retired, honoured and esteemed, to spend his closing days in the same scenes where he had passed his happy youth. Who has not heard of Shakspere's garden and his mulberry-tree,—of the scene of his birth in the old timber dwelling in Henley Street, which still remains, and has been recently purchased by the nation, as a valued memorial of England's greatest poet,-and of the scene where his honoured dust is laid, resting in the hope devoutly expressed by him in the opening sentence of his will, written only a month before his death:-"I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, hoping, and assuredly believing, through the only merits of Jesus Christ, my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting." F BEAUTIES OF SHAKSPERE, BEN JONSON, AND DRUMMOND. Shakspere. VANITY OF POWER. For within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps death his court: and there the antic sits, To monarchise, be fear'd, and kill with looks; As if this flesh, which walls about our life, Bores through his castle wall, and—farewell king! |