This was the truest warrior

That ever buckled sword; This the most gifted poet

That ever breathed a word; And never earth's philosopher Traced with his golden pen

On the deathless page, truths half so sage As he wrote down for men.

And had he not high honor?
The hillside for his pall;

To lie in state while angels wait
With stars for tapers tall;

And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes,
Over his bier to wave;

And God's own hand, in that lonely land,

To lay him in the grave,

In that strange grave, without a name,
Whence his uncoffined clay

Shall break again - O wondrous thought!
Before the judgment day,

And stand with glory wrapped around,
On the hills he never trod,

And speak of the strife, that won our life,
With the incarnate Son of God.

O lonely grave in Moab's land!
O dark Beth-peor's hill!

Speak to these curious hearts of ours,
And teach them to be still.
God hath his mysteries of grace,-
Ways that we cannot tell:

He hides them deep, like the hidden sleep
Of him he loved so well.

- Mrs. C. F. Alexander.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

William Shakespeare was the child of Mary Arden and John Shakespeare. Both families belonged to that class of small property holders called yeomanry. The family was eminently respectable. His birthplace was Stratford-uponAvon in Warwickshire, England, April 23, 1564.

But little is known of his early life except that he attended the grammar school of

his native town, and that he studied Latin, which was the chief branch pursued in the schools of that day.

At the age of fourteen, on account of his father's financial embarrassment, he had to leave school. At the age of nineteen, he was married to Anne Hathaway, who was eight years his

senior.

In 1587 he went to London to seek his fortune. He began his career there by holding horses at the doors of the theaters, but soon we find him occupying a position of prominence in the theater itself. He continued his studies at night and during spare moments. It is altogether probable that his knowledge of the French and Italian languages was acquired at this time. In turn he was actor, playwriter, and theatrical manager.

Shakespeare did not forget his country home; for, regularly once a year, during the twentytwo years of his London life, he returned to Stratford, and wandered among its rural beauties, and enjoyed its peace and quietness.

He began his career as a dramatist by rewriting old plays, but soon his genius was manifest in original creations of such strength and beauty as firmly to establish his reputation as the greatest playwriter the world has ever known. In comedy, in tragedy, and in historical plays he seems to have been equally the master.

His best-known plays are, "The Merchant of Venice," "Julius Cæsar," "Richard the Third,"

"Hamlet," "King Lear," "As You Like It," and "Othello."

After a successful life in the great English metropolis, he retired with a competence to his boyhood home, and spent the remainder of his life in peaceful retirement.

MARK ANTONY'S ORATION.

Antony. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears:

I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Cæsar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Cæsar was ambitious;
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Cæsar answered it.

Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest
(For Brutus is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men),
Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me;
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill;
Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept ;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff;
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.

You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And, sure, he is an honorable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once, not without cause; What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?

O judgment thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason! Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

1st Citizen. Methinks there is much reason in his sayings.

2 Cit. If thou consider rightly of the matter, Cæsar has had great wrong.