you ever know a critic mention Ratcliffe or
Catesby in his review? I have been acting
Shakespearian parts now for thirty years, and I
don't think I ever was mentioned but once, and
that was when I made a mistake and said,
"The early village cock hath thrice done solution
to the morn," and then the ill-natured
critic congratulated me upon the introduction
of a new reading of the immortal bard.

He was not for an age, but for all time, you
say. Worse luck. How his plays came down
through three hundred years to this day, is a
puzzle to me. And what's more puzzling, is
all this fuss that you're making about their
immortal author. You have been a long time
making your minds up to give him a statue, and
you set to work at last when his plays have
gone out of fashion, and when people won't go
to see them even with orders. Is it likely that
anybody will go and see Balthazar, and Montano,
and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? But you
want to erect a statue to the author. Now,
that's what I call inconsistent.

Will I go down to his birthplace? Certainly
not. I know I should hate the very
sight of it. What pleasure could it be to me
to gaze upon the birthplace of a man who has
left me nothing but an inheritance of bad parts?
Why didn't he follow his father's trade, and be
a woolstapler? If he had made stockings or
blankets, and they'd been bad ones, they would
only have troubled the people of his own time;
they would have been worn out long before
this. But his plays have lasted, confound them!
Will I take a ticket for the actors' supper in his
honour, price, to suit all classes of the profession,
five shillings? No, I won't. Why should
I? Shakespeare never gave me a five-shilling
supper. Nothing like it. It's been mostly
saveloys and a crust, with half a pint of porter.
Rump-steak and onions at the best on ticket-
nights. Go to the masked ball? I think I see
myself; and have to buy, or hire, the rags to
go in. No, I thank you; Shakespeare has cost
me fancy dresses enough already. Would you
have me get a new pair of silk tights, and go as
Salanio; or hire a set of Bow-street jewels, and
appear as the Prince of Morocco? Will I drink
to the bard's memory on the day? No, I won't;
but I'll tell you what I'll do; if you are inclined
to be hospitable, I'll drink to your health now.

A RENT IN A CLOUD.
IN TWENTY-FOUR CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER Vlll. GROWING DARKER.

IT was late at night when Calvert left the
villa, but, instead of rowing directly back to the
little inn, he left his boat to drift slowly in the
scarce perceptible current of the lake, and,
wrapping himself in his cloak, lay down to muse
or to sleep.

It was just as day broke that he awoke, and
saw that he had drifted within a few yards of
his quarters, and in a moment after he was on
shore.

As he gained his room, he found a letter for
him in Loyd's hand. It ran thus:

"I waited up all night to see you before I
started, for I have been suddenly summoned
home by family circumstances. I was loth to
part in an angry spirit, or even in coldness, with
one in whose companionship I have passed so
many happy hours, and for whom I feel,
notwithstanding what has passed between us, a
sincere interest. I wanted to speak to you of
much which I cannot write — that is to say, I
would have endeavoured to gain a hearing for
what I dare not venture to set down in the
deliberate calm of a letter. When I own that it
was of yourself, your temper, your habits, your
nature, in short, that I wished to have spoken,
you will, perhaps, say that it was as well time
was not given me for such temerity. But bear
in mind, Calvert, that though I am free to admit
all your superiority over myself, and never
would presume to compare my faculties or my
abilities with yours— though I know well there
is not a single gift or grace in which you are
not my master, there is one point in which I
have an advantage over you— I had a mother!
You, you have often told me, never remember
to have seen yours. To that mother's trainings
I owe anything of good, however humble it be,
in my nature, and, though the soil in which the
seed has fallen be poor and barren, so much of
fruit has it borne that I at least respect the
good which I do not practise, and I reverence
that virtue to which I am a rebel. The lesson,
above all others, that she instilled into me, was
to avoid the tone of a scoffer, to rescue myself
from the cheap distinction which is open to
every one who sets himself to see only ridicule
in what others respect, and to mock the themes
that others regard with reverence. I stop, for
I am afraid to weary you— I dread that, in your
impatience, you will throw this down and read
no more— I will only say, and I say it in all the
sincerity of truth, that if you would endeavour
to be morally as great as what your faculties
can make you intellectually, there is no eminence
you might not attain, nor any you would not
adorn.

"If our intimacy had not cooled down of late,
from what causes I am unable to tell, to a point
in which the first disagreement must be a breach
between us, I would have told you that I had
formed an attachment to Florence Walter, and
obtained her aunt's consent to our marriage; I
mean, of course, at some future which I cannot
define, for I have my way to make in the world,
and, up to the present, have only been a burden
on others. We are engaged, however, and we
live on hope. Perhaps I presume too far on
any interest you could feel for me when I make
you this communication. It may be that you
will say, ' What is all this to me?' At all events,
I have told you what, had I kept back, would
have seemed to myself an uncandid reservation.
Deal with it how you may.

"There is, however, another reason why I
should tell you this. If you were unaware of