"No matter that is enough to call me by," replied she. "And now, if it please you, yours.'

"Mine is William.'

"William what?" enquired Joanna.

"No matter that is enough to call me by," replied Master Shakspeare with a smile.

"You will not say?" she asked, as if she was curious to know. “Then must I take my leave of you, for I am in haste to return home."

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"Let me at least see you to the street in which you dwell," said he, as he was standing with her at the end of the bridge. "I should hold myself but a sorry gallant to leave so fair a creature to find her way home unattended."

"Oh, if your name is such that it may not be told, the sooner we part company the better for me," observed Joanna, smiling in her turn.

"Nay, it is not so bad as that, believe me," answered the other. "In truth, I may say, it is a name in some repute. But it may just as well be told walking as standing." And at that, she hesitated not to proceed onwards. "Doth it not strike you,' he continued, "that what is fair in one case is honest in another; for as you have given me but your Christian name, have I given you but mine: and yet are you not content."

"Were you as well disposed towards me as you have asserted," observed his fair companion, who, as is usual, grew more inquisitive the longer her curiosity remained ungratified, "you would have made no question about the matter. I' faith it says but little for your regard. Methinks you must either have an ill name,, or hold me of so little account, that you think me undeserving of knowing you." "Never

"Neither, o' my life!" exclaimed Master Shakspeare. met I a pretty woman I so much desired to be well known untoand as for my name, I do assure you it standeth well in the public estimation."

"By my troth 'tis hard to credit," replied Joanna, though the more intent from what he said, of getting the knowledge she required. Just at that moment the Lord Southampton, the Lord Pembroke, and other noble gallants, to whom he was well known, came riding by very finely apparelled, and pulled off their hats to him. "Know you those princely looking gentlemen ?" she enquired.

"It is mine excellent good friend the Lord Southampton and certain of his acquaintance," replied he: at which she becameall the more curious, and as they arrived at the corner of Eastcheap, she said, "Here is the street in which I live, where I must leave you: but your name hath not yet been told to me."

"Nay, let me behold the dwelling in which lives so inestimable a creature," asked the other very pressingly. "And as for my name-it may be told in one street as well as in another," and they continued to walk together.

"What a place for traffic is this !" exclaimed Master Shak

speare, "and how busy do the citizens seem in the different shops and warehouses! Methinks I can hear the chink of the money; or at least the ready laugh of the chapman at his customer's jest. These be they, fair Joanna! who are up early and late, labouring to the utmost every day of their lives that others may have the advantage of it-whose greatest pleasure consisteth in the counting their gains, and greatest consolation is the knowing that they are worth something more than their neighbours. These be they who are acquainted with no virtue unless it be in the possession of wealth; and believe there cannot be any vice so abominable as poverty. In their idea, aldermen are on a footing with angels; and to be in the city compter is to be damned to all eternity. They will wink at one who defrauds the orphan and robs the widow of her right, if he hath done it to some tune; but at the necessitous wretch, who is driven to do any small villany, they shout, "Oh, the horrid rogue!' and would have him hanged forthwith. A man who hath his thousands might turn his wife and children into the street, and live as sensually as he pleased, and they would never wag a tongue at him; but if another, who liveth honestly with what little he gains, be but suspected of kissing a pretty wench on the sly, they would raise such a hubbub about his ears, and would seem so shocked at his iniquity, that the poor fellow should be right glad to escape out of the city with a whole skin. These be they-but why stop you here?" he enquired suddenly, finding that his companion proceeded no further.

"This is the house in which I live," replied she, who had not been inattentive to what had passed. "But shame upon you for keeping me unanswered! you have not told me your name yet."

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"O' my life I am exceeding tired, fair Joanna," said Master Shakspeare. "It would be but a charity to ask me in-and as for my name-why it may as well be told sitting as walking."

It is scarcely necessary to add that Master Shakspeare was ushered up stairs into the best room; in the which he quickly made himself at home, as may be believed. Indeed, Joanna found his conversation so agreeable, that for a time she quite forgot to ask his name of him; but in truth he gave her not the opportunity, for as soon as one subject seemed about to be exhausted, he launched out with another; and displayed such abundance of wit, genius, and knowledge of the world, that she appeared quite in amaze with wonder and admiration.

"Since you talk so well upon poetry," said she, when she found opportunity for speech, "I have some lines here of which I should like mightily to have your judgment." Then from a drawer she took a paper, which she brought towards him; and added, "they were writ by a worthy gentleman, who doth fancy, much after your own fashion, that he is in love with me, and pays me such fine compliments, as you will therein peruse. Perhaps you also write

verses ?"

"A little," replied Master Shakspeare with a smile; and, believing that he had a rival in the field, he opened the paper. His astonishment may in some degree be conceived when it is known that

he began to read the very poem he had given to Master Burbage. He saw in an instant how the affair stood, and was in no small degree amused thereat.

"What think you of them?" enquired Joanna.

"O' my life, I think of them very indifferently," answered he. "Indeed!" she exclaimed with some surprise, "I marvel at that -for they seem to me admirably ingenious. By my troth, between ourselves, I have my doubts that they were writ by him who brought them me; for he seemeth such a mad, hare-brained, wild, wilful gallant. I have given him but monstrous little encouragement, yet doth he go on at such rate, one would think he was in so poor a case for the love of me, that he would be a knocking at death's door unless I smiled upon him."

"Oh, the exaggerating varlet!" cried the other, laughing exceedingly as he compared in his own mind Master Burbage's statement with what he had just heard.

"And when I told him I doubted his authorship," continued his fair companion, "he swore by Apollo and all the Nine that he wrote every line on't; and that it was the worst stuff he ever did." "He said that, did he !" exclaimed Master Shakspeare.

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"Ay that he did," added Joanna; "and moreover, vowed to me most solemnly that he was considered such an exquisite fine hand at the making of verses, that his friend Will Shakspeare, among many others, was oft obliged to borrow a line of him when he came to a halt in his measure."

"Oh! Dick, Dick, Dick," cried he, in more a subdued voice.

"And when I asked of him his opinion of Master Shakspeare and his plays," continued the other, "he answered slightingly,- Why, a-to be sure, he was very well; but no one knows how much he hath been beholden to me for all his best verses.""

"If he deserved not cudgeling for this, then am I no judge of merit," exclaimed Master Shakspeare; "but of course you know him, fair Joanna?"

"He hath told me that he was one of the queen's players," replied she; "but else I know of him as little as I do of you. Tell me, I pray you, of what name you are, for in truth I am near tired of asking." "Hush!" cried he, "there cometh some one to the door;" for a knocking was heard at that momont.

"Tis he," replied the mercer's daughter, "and till now I had forgot he promised to pay me a visit."

"Hist! hist! Joanna," cried a voice from the other side of the door, 'tis I, Richard the Third."

"Tis Dick sure enough," thought Master Shakspeare: then whispering to his fair companion,-"Leave him to me, I pray you," he advanced softly to the door.

"Hist! hist! adorable Joanna," exclaimed Master Burbage, through the keyhole, "'tis I, Richard the Third."

"Go, get thee hence, thou crook-backed tyrant," replied Master Shakspeare aloud; "knowest thou not that William the Conqueror reigned before Richard the Third?"

"What, Will!" cried the other in the utmost astonishment;

"what ill wind brought thee here? Oh! thou abhorred traitor, thou hast betrayed me.'

"Nay, thou errest in that, Master Dick," responded his old associate, "for knew I not till this moment that the truly adorable Joanna was known to thee. But if I had taken advantage of thy confidence, it would have been but a proper return for the most atrocious things thou hast said of me to this exquisite creature. So get thee gone, and quickly; for in truth thou hast interrupted the infinite gratification I have been receiving."

"Oh! most sweet Joanna," cried Master Burbage, in a marvellous moving voice,-"my heart's treasure!-my soul's idol!-my angel upon earth! my everything!-I do implore you, through the keyhole (because the door is fast, and I cannot get in), by that fathomless ocean of love I bear for your inconceivable excellences, get rid of that villain straight, for it be utter destruction to be seen in his pestilent company."

"Who is he?" asked she, laughingly; although she began to have some suspicion of who he was.

"The very notoriousest villain that walks, adorable Joanna," replied he, outside; "he hath done such mischief among women as you would find it horrible to think on. Item, five-and-twenty maids utterly undone-fifty widows sent stark mad-and a hundred and odd wives made miserable for life. I do assure you, sweet Joanna, that through him there hath lately been such abundance of crowner's quests, that the like hath not been known since the memory of man. Indeed, it be beyond dispute, that half a dozen stout fellows are kept in constant employ fishing distracted damsels out of the conduit, such a traitor is he to your dear sex. And as for hanging, the citizens scarce dare leave a nail sticking in their wainscots, so many of their wives and daughters have of late been found suspended to them, with these melancholy words pinned upon their kirtles,-'Oh! cruel-cruel Shakspeare.'

"Are you such a wretch as this, Master Shakspeare?" enquired Joanna, as seriously as she could.

"No, on my life," replied he, laughing very heartily.

"Believe him not dear Joanna," exclaimed Master Burbage, "he hath a tongue that would undo the Gordian knot; therefore your undoing would be but an easy matter with such a thorough villain. Oh! incomparably sweet Joanna! here on my bended knees, outside the door, (for lack of being in) I conjure you injure not your delicate reputation by talking to such a fellow. Listen not to what he hath to say, for truth and he are in no sort of acquaintance: he will swear you black's white, such a horrid reprobate is he; and then, on the instant, turn round and take oath it be crimson. I have preached to him by the hour, in hopes of getting him to repent of his villanies; but, I say it with tears in my eyes, adorable Joanna, he is incorrigible; and as clean past all good counsel as a chicken with the pip."

"Prythee go on, Dick," cried Master Shakspeare, very merrilyhis fair companion evidently being in much the same mood; "I admire thy invention hugely."

"Out, traitor!" exclaimed the other.

"If I had not heard this, I should have doubted thou wert clever enough to say the witty things thou hast."

"Away, villain!"

"But since I have known thou art such an exquisite fine hand at making verses," continued Master Shakspeare, "that I, of many others, am oft obliged to borrow a line of thee when I happen to come to a halt in my measure; and remember how much I am beholden to thee for all my best scenes, I marvel not at all at thy present cleverness, and do promise to have a better opinion of thee than I have done."

"A fico for thy opinion," replied Master Burbage; "all stratagems are fair in love and war; and when I gave her thy verses

"What, wrote you not the poem?" quickly inquired Joanna, interrupting him; "did you not swear to me by Apollo and all the Nine, that you wrote every line on't, and that it was the worst stuff you ever did?”

"What a goose art thou for not keeping thine own counsel," said his friend; "for though thou hast used me very scurvily, I would not have betrayed thee for it."

"Let me in, I pray you most exquisite Joanna," exclaimed he through the keyhole, "and I will say such things to you that you shall be satisfied of my behaviour."

"Nay, if you can put on me Master Shakspeare's lines as your own," said Joanna, "I doubt hugely you can be more sincere in other matters."

"Pardon me this one small fault," replied he, very movingly, "which I have been led into from exceeding love of your ravishing perfections, and send away that fellow, who, by this hand, is the errantest deceiver that lives; and let me see you more commodiously than through the chinks of the door, which in truth afford me but a mere glimpse of your infinite beauties; and if I do not love you for it, in such a sort as will make amends for my transgression, then banish me for ever."

"Dost take me for thy friend, Dick?" enquired Master Shakspeare, leaning against the door.

"Open the door, and get thee gone, and then thou shalt be held a friend indeed," replied Master Burbage.

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'Well-my bowels yearn towards thee exceedingly," continued the other.

"Ah! do they so? Thou wert ever a true friend," said he on the outside: "do open the door-there's a sweet Will.”

"But am I the very notoriousest villain that walks, Dick!" "By this light thou art a very angel! Excellent Will, open the door."

"And haye I really undone so many women as thou hast said?" "Nay, on my life, thou hast so good a heart, thou wouldst not undo a mouse. Open the door, sweet Will, I prythee."

"Well, Dick"

"What sayest, old friend ?".

"For thy consolation in this extremity"—