that he despises it altogether. His tendency
to do so now, indeed, grows with him into a
mental habit.

He chooses themes which are remarkable for
their weight and importance, and in which he
may work out a consistent theory. For this
purpose he resorts to Plutarch's Lives, and
dramatises the biographies of Roman heroes.
Coriolanus, Julius Cæsar, and Antony and
Cleopatra form a cluster of plays, all
animated with the same inner purpose—that of
showing the growth of tyranny in a state, and
in what ultimately the despotism of individual
will must culminate. He derives wisdom from
the past, and sets it forth in his most careful
manner for the instruction of the future.
Nothing of "the poor player" adjusting a
piece for the boards is now apparent; but a
rich spirit exhausting itself of its abundance
for the advantage of the race—for the
culture of leading minds, and the building up of
states.

Shakespeare had now clomb his way up the
scale of his art to the ideal in philosophy and
the imaginative in poetry, preserving in both,
however, the thoroughly human even in the
loftiest of his conceptions and characters—
even in those which belong to the
preternatural. It now became his ambition to
transcend that boundary; and in Prospero he
proposed a man so perfect that he might pass
tor a divine person, yet even to him he gives
a feeling of human infirmity, so that at the
very height of action he becomes perturbed
and angry, imperilling a great cause by
accidental forgetfulness and the indulgence of a
dangerous passion. He endows him with a
perception of arcana, so that he can penetrate
the secret causes and spiritual agencies by
which we are affected in creation, and to these
latter assigns a sort of angelic personality and
mission, as well as an intelligence which is in
some respects superhuman. The play of The
Tempest is abstract and purely intellectual.
Nor is the drama which succeeded, namely,
Timon of Athens, much less so. The hero is
the opposite of Prospero; a man who by the
magic of his wealth has "conjured" around
him the attendance of "spirits," who, for their
own interests, are willing to minister to him
their special gifts in return for his bounty.
Not only the painter, the poet, the jeweller and
the merchant, but the Athenian aristocracy
consent to swell his state and feed his pride.
The cynic even is found in the train of his
worshippers. But, in the treatment of his
theme, Shakespeare failed to fulfil all its
conditions as stated in the argument of it, which
he places in the mouth of Timon's poet, who
makes a pretty allegory illustrative of the
instability of fortune. Accordingly, he left
this drama in an incomplete state, and tried the
theme again in his Henry the Eighth, which,
in all its characters, as well as in the character
of the time, is occupied with the same moral,
the prevalence of change both in the condition
of persons and manners. In this new drama,
the form of the old chronicle play is adopted,
and it appears to have been written as a
pageant for some occasion when spectacle was
expedient. As such, it has also been
produced on the modern stage with profitable
results.

It was acted on the 29th June, 1613, at the
Globe, by Burbadge's company, with a fatal
result. While the performance was in progress,
"there shooting of certaine chambers in way
of triumph, the fire catched and fastened upon
the thatch of the house, and there burned so
furiously as it consumed the whole house, the
people having enough to doe to save
themselves." Thus ended Shakespeare's career as
a dramatic poet. He had already in 1612
returned to Stratford, whither he seems now
to have finally retired. We have few traces of
him there, but these suffice to show him as a
busy man, whose help and counsel were valued
by his neighbours. He went backward and
forward to London, and was engaged in some
questions touching the enclosures of common
lands. He seems also to have attended juries,
and entertained preachers "at Newe Place."
Meanwhile, new editions of several of his
dramas went through the press. Our next
date is 1616, when we find him making his
will, and providing for the marriage of his
daughter Judith, which took place on the 10th
of February. The will was executed on the
25th of March. Whether Shakespeare was
ill at this time is not known, but he died on or
about the 23rd of next April. The character
of his bust, which was taken from a cast after
his death, and forms part of his monument at
Stratford-on-Avon, at any rate renders it
improbable that he died of a fever. The Stratford
Burial Register has this entry: "1616.
April 25, Will. Shakspere, Gent." His wife
survived him seven years, and was buried
beside him on the 8th August, 1623. The
first folio edition of his plays was published
in. the same year.

Up to the last we may note Shakespeare as a
careful, prudent man, who left nothing to chance,
and who was desirous of preserving the
respectability of his family. During the whole of
his career he seems never to have suffered from
pecuniary want. From a document recently
placed in the hands of the writer of this paper,
he appears to have had relatives in London,
who may have prepared the way for him on his
first visit, and it is probable that from his
earliest residence there he was connected with
the theatre. Thirteen years he worked both
as author and manager in comparative obscurity.
For fourteen years afterwards he lived as an
independent gentleman, though for great part
of that time he still continued in management,
and during that long period wrote those great
tragedies and comedies which are the glory of
our dramatic literature. We question much,
however, whether his two first tragedies are
not quite as popular, though not so perfect,
as those of his later period. Those of the
latest are certainly the least popular, and