chambers in which he dwelt, and where he doubtless received, at that last fatal meeting, Ben Jonson and Drayton, as well as all the other illustrious poets at previous times.

The house in Henley-street, said to be that of his birth, is by no means so interesting. In the first place, it has undergone very great changes; and again, there is no very strong evidence of Shakspere's birth having taken place there. There is, however, but little doubt that he passed a considerable part of his boyhood there, and from thence started to the great world that he was afterwards so materially to modify by his genius. There are still left also several interesting spots that an effort should be made to preserve as much as possible in their pristine form and state. The Grammar-school, where he no doubt received his "small Latin and less Greek." The Hall of the Ancient Gild, underneath the school, where in Elizabeth's days dramatic performances took place, and where it is by no means improbable the young actor and future dramatist may himself have appeared. The Church has received every proper attention, and is in itself an object of great interest, and as containing the tomb of the greatest genius of modern, and perhaps of any time, is well worthy of every care. The Cottage of Anne Hathawaye at Shottery is also in tolerable preservation, as is the old English mansion of the Lucys at Charlecote.

It would seem that there is still sufficient remaining of the haunts and home of the poet to make his birthplace a grateful rendezvous to all who, feeling ardently towards his works, desire to indulge that personal affection which it is impossible not to feel towards an intellectual benefactor of the race. Every means should be taken to preserve Stratford-upon-Avon as an old Elizabethan town, as nearly as possible in accordance with the modes of life in Shakspere's days.

If the subscription now going forward should realise enough to found a college for aged and infirm poets, giving the preference to Dramatic, it would be a worthy memento, and form a nucleus that might draw the genius of present and succeeding times round the tomb of the great one.

There are many curious and interesting details in this little volume, and we sincerely recommend it to all proceeding to or desiring an account of the place and its memorials.

DOUGLAS JERROLD'S

SHILLING MAGAZINE.

THE DREAMER AND THE WORKER.*

BY THE AUTHOR OF "ORION."

CHAPTER XVIII.

OAT-CAKES.-A POET'S LETTERS OF BUSINESS. ABSTRACT INTELLECT AND THE ACTUAL WORLD. THE BUST OF SCHILLER.—THE FISHERMAN.—ARCHER, AND THE MISS LLOYDS.

THE sharp blow of an open hand sounded with a loud smack against the passage-wall of the house where Archer lodged. It was the hand of Mrs. Dance, the mistress of the house, who, intending to administer chastisement to the servant girl's shoulders, had fallen short of her severe intentions and smacked the lath and plaster instead. Her voice, however, followed the flight of the culprit as she ran down stairs: so that Archer was obliged to lay down Goethe's Kunst und Alterthum, and listen to it, against his will.

"To think of it!" cried Mrs. Dance; "to think of such neglect! We shall have no oat-cakes made this day! What will the world come to! Here have I been rubbing and cleaning up the griddle, with scouring-paper and an old glove, after it had got rusty through your shameful forgetsomeness, thinking all the time that you were gone to old Bigses wife to know why old Bigs hadn't sent the oatmeal I ordered a week ago from Gosport; and here I find you, up in your bed-room, reading a book! Neglect your work for this, will you! I'll teach you to sit improving your mind, you hussey, I will! You've been taking a leaf out of the * Continued from page 201, Vol. VI.

book of the lodger, I suppose! You've seen him a-sitting half his life away over books, till you've caught a little of the same craze. But if some people read less, and worked more, other people would not have to wait for their rent, and their servants wouldn't catch the complaint-idling and wasting o' good time! That's a bit of my mind-let them hear it as may.

With these words, growing more and more indistinct as she descended the stairs, the landlady's voice ceased to fall upon the ear of Archer, yet seemed to continue with an endless echo in his mind. He was unable to continue reading, and he laid aside the book, sick and disgusted with the meannesses of life, and enraged with his own folly for allowing himself to be brought within the range of their vulgar pressure. Why had he suffered any false delicacy, or pride, or uncomfortable feeling between himself and Mr. Walton, originating in an absurdity, to prevent him from making known this temporary emergency to Mary? How very unworthy of her open and handsome nature was such a concealment, and especially under their relative positions! Yet the very smallness of the need, the meanness of the circumstance, had prevented him quite as much as any other feeling.

Archer caught up a pen, and scrawled off a note to the friend who still delayed transmitting him the amount of his obligation, though he had repeatedly promised it, and then another note to the editor, who seemed resolved never to forward him his cheque. In all Archer's previous notes he had touched upon his need, and expressed his wishes with so circuitous and mystified a delicacy, ornate with evasive digressions, that what he had intended as stating his emergency, and pressing the point, had very likely escaped the observation of the parties addressed, or, at any rate, had given them good grounds for treating with neglect a matter upon which he had chosen to be so indefinite and facetious. This never struck Archer: and his present notes were in an extreme vein, so opposite-distinct, cold, peremptory, and laconic—that it would be very difficult to believe they could have been written by the same man. He sealed them with a smear of wax each, caught up his hat, and hurried out to take them to the post-office. At the door of the house there was a low parapet-wall on one side, and upon it stood a huge flower-pot with a withered laureltree sticking up in the dry and sun-parched mould. Upon this mould three little bills were laid, addressed to Archer. His eye caught the letters: he snatched up the bills, and, being in an irritated state

of mind, returned into the house with indignation, to demand of the landlady upon what grounds of suspicion she had perpetrated these petty insults.

He gave his bell-rope such a tug, that in a moment it lay in a coil at his feet, together with a sheet of dry plaster from the ceiling. There was a bell-rope on the other side of the chimneyplace, but it was only ornamental, being fixed to a nail.

While Archer was hesitating as to whether he should call for the servant in the passage, or stamp upon the floor till she came, a carrier's cart drew up to the door. It was nearly opposite to the window, and Archer looked out mechanically. The carrier and his man were busying themselves in lifting up from the bottom of the cart a great white package in a sackcloth, which seemed heavy, and to require both strength and care. Archer stood dismayed. The bust of Schiller! Here was the bust of Schiller arrived, and he had not a shilling to pay the carrier.

The feeling was altogether unbearable; and, without stopping to reflect, Archer instantly left the room, and walked out into the garden at the back of the house with a cold perspiration upon his forehead. He opened a side-door in the garden that led into a back-lane; and here he made his exit, in a state of humiliation and rage equally painful and ridiculous, considering the paltriness of the external cause. As he closed the door, a great smash was heard in the street, and the rattling of fragments upon the pavement. The bust of Schiller!-tumbled out of the men's arms !—dashed to pieces!-all this because he could not run out to superintend its careful carriage into the house-all this for the base want of a few shillings. Archer clenched his teeth, while the tears gushed into his eyes, as he hurried away to take a walk and recover himself on the sea-beach.

His imagination and feelings had created all this. It was not the poet's bust which had arrived, but a sack of oatmeal for the landlady; and, in its passage into the house, the men had run against the great flower-pot with the dead laurel in it, which was smashed by the blow, and the fragments had clattered down on all sides upon the pavement.

Archer, once clear of the lane, hurried across towards the beach, to cool himself in the sea-breeze, and to recover from the shock his feelings had just received. He paused by the side of an old boat that was lying upon its side in the shingles. Under the other side

U 2

of the boat, and out of Archer's sight, sat an old fisherman mending a net.

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،، ، What a piece of work is man ! " exclaimed Archer, quoting Hamlet, almost without being conscious of it-" what a strange piece of work we are! We speculate upon Art, till its roots and branches entwine themselves with those of Nature, and its veins and arteries are scarcely separable from the parent source-yet separable they must be, or Art is lost, and resolves itself into Nature, which is distinct;-we wander back into antiquity, till we seem to resign our present life in the generation that surrounds us, and take upon ourselves the feelings and thoughts of a dead generation, with all its objects and interests—yet, in the very midst of this noble oblivion of personal identity, and of self in all its mean relations-at this very moment, perhaps, comes some base, paltry, commonplace worldly need, urged upon us by the most insignificant of creatures and causes;—and art and antiquity vanish in a whirlwind of dust, that chokes, and blinds, and maddens us. What an ocean to be troubled with the moods of its small fry-what a piece of work is here!"

The old fisherman rose with an angry face from underneath the other side of the boat.

"Piece of work!" said he, indignantly, "I should like to see how you would look if you had done half the work this here boat has! Men don't catch fish by heaving sighs and groans, and turning up the whites o' their eyes. Small fry, d'ye call us?—do you think the ocean is only meant for whales? You come down to the sea-side with your head full of nonsense and pride, and mayhap more nice than wise; you spin a yarn about the natur of antickerty and the art o' generation, and sich like palaver of Tom Cox's Traverse, and you think, because you 've money in your pocket, that you 're to crack on with to'-gallan' sails, royals, and stunsails, and run down poor fishermen, as if them and their boats were the most insignificant of creaturs. I wouldn't give a dried sprat for a dozen of you!

"My good friend," exclaimed the astonished Archer, much annoyed at the absurdity of the misunderstanding, but also rather amused, "I was not alluding to you, or your boat, or anything belonging to your calling. I was only-"

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Why, didn't I hear you call us small fry, that choked and maddened you to look at? and didn't you flap your starboard fin upon the gunnel o' this here boat, and call her a rotten piece o'