wars—fighting for fighting sake: no liberty to be defended or obtained, and no foreign enemy driven triumphantly from the frontier: but for him, "the aspiring blood of Lancaster" would long since have sunk in the ground. But Shakespeare has called life out of the past; a thousand passions of humanity hang around those white and red flowers. He has given the lasting archive to the high-born house that boasted,—
"Our aiery buildeth in the cedar's top,
And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun."
It is he who has given the life of memory to "the princely Edward," the subtle Richard, the brave-spirited Margaret, and the sad philosophy of the meek Henry, which comes home to many weary of a bleak and troubled world; and never do we feel how completely Shakespeare was our national poet, till we tread his own locale.
I confess I have a great disdain for the west end of the town. It belongs to the small, the petty, and the present. From Hyde Park
