forests of the far west, on every sea where the British flag was seen, on every land where the British tongue was heard, his name should be mentioned with reverence, exceeding that paid to the great Lord Burleigh and to the great Elizabeth. It was this still small voice, which, when he was the acknowledged great dramatist of the age, when the applauses of men followed him, when princes corresponded with him, might influence him to moderate his desires, to turn away from the glittering prizes of ambition, and, conscious that he had written things that the world would not willingly let die, to seek the lovely scenes of his youth, far from the bustle of the great metropolis, and the splendour of courts; and there, happy in the affections of his family, await with Christian resignation the summons which the greatest must obey.

He had done his work. He had left an imperishable name. He had bequeathed to all thinking minds an inheritance more valuable than the gold mines of Peru. Nor had his lot been unhappy. When we consider how so many great men, whose geniuses were inferior only to his, have lived and died; how they have suffered from the world, how they have been exposed to danger, how they have lived in poverty, in prison, in exile, and disgrace, how the vials of wrath have been poured on their heads, how the malice of their enemies has embittered their last moments, so that death has been welcomed as a release from their miseries, how the storms of faction have raged round their death-beds, how their sun has gone down while it was yet day, how others have reaped the harvest from the seeds which they have sown; when we remember Socrates drinking the hemlock as the sun was setting behind the distant mountains; Cicero flying from the assassins that were on his track, and his head exposed in that forum, where he had so often held multitudes entranced by the magic of his eloquence until the cloud of night was gathering around; Galileo under the watchful guard of the Inquisition because he was wiser than his generation; Milton, in old age, poverty, sickness, and sorrow, bearing

meekly the obloquy that was heaped upon him, his eyes vainly searching for the light, his only comfort the light within which no misery could extinguish; we must thankfully acknowledge that, if Shakspeare excelled all these men in genius, he was exempted from many of their calamities. He loved his children. He seems to have been happy in the esteem of his friends. And his will, almost the only authentic relic that exists of the great dramatist, shows how calmly his powerful mind, conscious of a well spent life, could await the approach of his last hour.

Empires rise and fall, commerce flourishes and decays, the fortune of war is ever changing, the noblest specimens of architecture, the finest paintings, the most majestic statues, all perish by the consuming influence of time. But the creations of the poet, the eloquence of the orator, the reasoning of the philosopher, remain, when brass and marble crumble into dust. The Spartans no longer march to victory. The fleets of Athens are no longer seen upon the seas. Athens herself, the beautiful city, is no more. Her market place is no longer crowded with multitudes eagerly asking, "what news?" The noisy tongue of the demagogue is no longer heard. The sophist no longer vainly exercises his subtilty. A few ruined temples and broken statues, amid her paltry houses and squalid population, are nearly all the remains of Athens. Nearly all the remains; yet not all. Greece and her empire is gone; yet the literature of Greece still lives. The genius of Greece still exists; Homer, Sophocles, Thucydides, Demosthenes, Plato, though silent, still speak; though dead, still live. Rome too has fallen. Her glittering eagles are no longer triumphantly carried over all the known world. The triumphal chariot is no longer followed up the Sacred way. The smoke of the sacrifice no longer ascends from the Capitol. The white gown of the candidate is no longer seen in the Campus Martius. The people no longer assemble to listen to the eloquence of Cicero. Consuls, prætors, augurs, tribunes, centurions, soldiers, patricians, plebeians, are all sleeping peaceably

together. And yet Rome is not dead. Virgil, Horace, Livy, Cicero, Tacitus, still delight and still instruct the world.

A little island which Cicero laughed at has become the seat of a mighty empire, the repository of wealth, the mart of commerce, the temple of freedom, the focus of civilization. England has done great things. But we have no reason to suppose that she will be exempt from the mutability that attends all human greatness. It seems to be a law of nature that nations, like individuals, should grow, reach maturity, and then decline. Greece has gone, Rome has gone, Venice has gone; and to none of these has their greatness returned. Like a fire burnt out, like ground that has been once fertile, they exhibit a melancholy spectacle to a reflecting mind. Marius sitting on the ruins of Carthage, was not likely to be a believer in human perfectibility. Civilization may one day take her flight across the Atlantic. The sun of England may set. The noise of our great towns may be no more heard, the clang of machinery, the rattle of the railway, or the hum of the crowded exchange. Imperial London may bow her head. The streets that now resound with life and activity, and are crowded with anxious faces hurrying to and fro, may lie as silent as the grave. The Strand may be desolate. Regent-street may be covered with grass. A few broken columns and headless statues may be all that will remain of that celebrated Abbey in which kings, heroes, poets, statesmen lie buried. On Westminster bridge the traveller may take his stand to sketch the ruins of that noble pile which in a season of anarchy has been erected as the chosen temple of constitutional freedom. From the ruined dome of St. Paul's the moralist may overlook the ruins of the great city, and sigh deeply at the nothingness of human greatness. Yet amid all this desolation, a ray of glory must linger. It is the country of Newton, of Burke, of Milton; it is, above all, the country of Shakspeare. It is the country of him who pictured to us all the various workings of human nature; of him who created Mac

beth, and Hamlet, and Othello; of him to whom the human heart was no riddle, but as plain as the simplest book of childhood; of him who united the most exalted genius with the warmest sympathies for all that is beautiful, virtuous, and good; of him who delineated all the vices of mankind in their true colours, and yet breathed around a serene and mild philosophy, that taught us to pity, and to endeavour to alleviate, not to hate and to mock the misfortunes, the errors, the crimes, of our unhappy fellowmen. His writings must endure; they are stamped with the sign manual of nature. All men

in all ages must unite to do him reverence, for of such men all history is a record of the glory, and the whole world their mausoleum.