I wish my grave were growing green, A winding-sheet drawn ower my een, And I in Helen's arms lying, On fair Kirconnell Lee. I wish I were where Helen lies! For her sake that died for me. Old Ballad. ANNE PAGE AND SLENDER. The comedy of The Merry Wives of Windsor, although rarely now performed on the stage, was regarded by Warton as "the most complete specimen of Shakspeare's comic powers;" and Johnson said: "This comedy is remarkable for the variety and number of the personages, who exhibit more characters appropriated and discriminated than perhaps can be found in any other play." The ludicrous misfortunes of Falstaff, into which he is betrayed by the "merry wives," Mistress Page and Mistress Ford, form the principal action of the comedy; of the underplot, "Sweet Anne Page," a bright, merry-eyed lass, is the centre. Her mother has decided that she shall marry the wealthy French Doctor Caius, who is in favour at court; her father has decided that she shall marry Slender, the cousin of Justice Shallow; whilst Anne herself has decided that she shall marry Fenton, a gallant cavalier, who finds favour with neither father nor mother. Slender "hath but a little wee face; but he is as tall a man of his hands as any is between this and his head." He is urged to the match by pompous Justice Shallow, but he is most awkward in his wooing. He means to show his affection by his indifference to dinner, and remains outside Page's house when all his friends are seated at table. Anne is sent to desire him to join the party: Anne. Will't please your worship to come in, sir? Slen. No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well. Anne. The dinner attends you, sir. Slen. I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go, sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my cousin Shallow. [Exit Simple.] A justice of peace sometimes may be beholding to his friend for a man. I keep but three men and a boy yet, till my mother be dead: but what though? yet I live like a poor gentleman born. Anne. I may not go in without your worship: they will not sit till you come. Šlen. Ï' faith, I'll eat nothing: I thank you as much as though I did. Anne. I pray you, sir, walk in. Slen. I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruised my shin th' other day with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence; three veneys for a dish of stewed prunes; and, by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your dogs bark so? be there bears i' the town? Anne. I think there are, sir: I heard them talked of. Slen. I love the sport well; but I shall as soon quarrel at it as any man in England. You are afraid if you see the bear loose, are you not? Anne. Ay, indeed, sir. Slen. That's meat and drink to me, now. I have seen Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by the chain; but, I warrant you, the women have so cried and shrieked at it, that it passed: but women, indeed, cannot abide 'em; they are very ill-favoured rough things. Anne. I pray you, sir. Slen. I'll rather be unmannerly than troublesome. You do yourself wrong, indeed, la! [Exeunt. The contrast between Fenton's wooing and Slender's floundering attempts is comically revealed in the following scene. Fenton and Anne are together: Fent. I see I cannot get thy father's love; Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan. Anne. Alas, how then? Fent. Why, thou must be thyself. He doth object I am too great of birth; And that, my state being gall'd with my expense, I seek to heal it only by his wealth: Besides these, other bars he lays before me, My riots past, my wild societies; And tells me 'tis a thing impossible should love thee but as a property. Anne. May be he tells you true. Fent. No, Heaven so speed me in my time I to come! Albeit I will confess thy father's wealth And 'tis the very riches of thyself That now I aim at. Anne. Gentle Master Fenton, Yet seek my father's love; still seek it, sir: If opportunity and humblest suit Cannot attain it, why, then-hark you hither! [They converse apart. Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and MISTRESS QUICKLY. Shal. Break their talk, Mistress Quickly; my kinsman shall speak for himself. Slen. I'll make a shaft or a bolt on't: 'slid, 'tis but venturing. Shal. Be not dismayed. Slen. No, she shall not dismay me: I care not for that, but that I am afeard. Quick. Hark ye; Master Slender would speak a word with you. Anne. I come to him. [Aside] This is my father's choice. I'll leave you. Anne. Now, Master Slender— Slen. My will! 'od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest indeed! I ne'er made my will yet, I thank Heaven; I am not such a sickly creature, I give Heaven praise. Anne. I mean, Master Slender, what would you with me? Slen. Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing with you. Your father and my uncle hath made motions: if it be my luck, so; if not, happy man be his dole! They can tell you how things go better than I can: you may ask your father; here he comes. Enter PAGE and MISTRESS PAGE. Page. Now, Master Slender: love him, daughter Anne. Why, how now! what does Master Fenton here? You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house: I told you, sir, my daughter is disposed of. Fent. Nay, Master Page, be not impatient. Mrs. Page. Good Master Fenton, come not to my child. Page. She is no match for you. Fent. Sir, will you hear me? Page. No, good Master Fenton. Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender, in. Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton. [Exeunt Page, Shal. and Slen. Fenton's appeal to the mother is equally unsuccessful; but the lovers triumph at length. To frighten and torment Falstaff for his attentions to Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, it is arranged to beguile the knight to the oak of Herne the Hunter in the forest, where all the conspirators will appear in the disguise of fairies and goblins, and play such pranks upon him as will make him glad to escape alive. On the occasion of this frolic Mistress Page has arranged that Anne is to be dressed in green, and to elope with Dr. Caius; Page has arranged that Anne is to be dressed in white, and is to escape with Slender to Eton, where they are to be married. Caius and Slender respectively carry out their parts of the programme, but when in the church each discovers that the companion of his flight is a great lubberly boy. Slender cries: I'll make the best in Gloucestershire know on't; would I were hanged, la, else. Page. Of what, son? Slen. I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i' the church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir, and 'tis a postmaster's boy! Page. Upon my life, then, you took the CUPID GREYBEARD. A LEGEND OF THE RHINE. [Tom Hood, born at Lake House, Wanstead, Essex, 19th January, 1835; died at Peckham Rye, 20th November, 1874; son of the humourist, Thomas Hood. He was educated at University College School, and at Pembroke College, Oxford. His first work, Pen and Pencil Sketches, was published in 1854, and was followed by Quips and Cranks; The Daughters of King Daher, and other Poems; The Loves of Tom Tucker and Little Bo-Peep; Vere Verecker's Vengeance-a Sensation; Jingles and Jokes for Little Folks; Rules of Rhyme, a Guide to Versification, &c. His most popular novels are: A Disputed Inheritance; Captain Master's Children: A Golden Heart; The Lost Link; Love and Valour; and Money's Worth. In 1865 he became editor of Fun, and retained that post Annual, one of the best of the Christmas publications. until his death. He also for several years edited Hood's Honoured by the inheritance of a name prominent in literature, Hood earned reputation by his own merits as a poet, novelist, and humourist. A granite monument was erected over his grave at Nunhead by his friends and admirers.] Upon a gray peak, overlooking the town of Verzenach, on the Rhine, stands a lonely tower, known to the traveller as The Young Tower. It owes its name to the luxuriant growth of the ivy, which clothes it completely from base to battlements with never-fading verdure. Viewed from the river it appears fully to merit its title, standing like a living green monument among the barren gray rocks, whose loftiest crags rise behind it against the sky, cold, unpeopled, inaccessible. But upon a nearer approach it is easy to see, in spite of the bright green ivy which vails it, that the tower is a very ancient and a very ruinous structure. Roof and floors are gone, and the stone stairs have fallen, and lie, a confused heap of masonry, in the basement. The windows are blank as the eye-sockets of a skull, and the doorways yawn over their mossgrown untrodden thresholds with a terrible suggestion of desolation. The very ivy, which gives it such a delusive appearance of youth, can no longer deceive the eye. Its gnarled and twisted branches cling about the ruin with a strange resemblance to the withered and shrunken arms of old age. Bats and owls are the only tenants of the tower, and their occupation is left undisputed, for the good folk of Verzenach are superstitious, and such strange legends are told about the ruin that it is seldom visited by day, and never approached after nightfall. I first made the acquaintance of The Young 1 See Library, vol. i. p. 298. Tower while on a sketching tour in the beautiful autumn of 184-. I was a stranger to Verzenach, and had therefore heard nothing of the reputation which the tower possessed of being haunted. Had I heard it, it is very improbable that I should have paid any attention to the traditions of the superstitious. It was towards sunset when I saw it, and the glory of the declining day lent its aid to the fresh greenery of the ivy, and made the tower look young indeed, in spite of the signs of age which were visible from the point of view I had taken. The rosy light of the sinking sun, reflected from the glossy leaves of the ivy, bathed the tower with a strange warm glow, but could not give life and colour to the dull gray barrier of mountain behind it, which threw out the building in strong relief. set effects are so fleeting that an experienced artist loses no time in noting down their salient points. In less time than it takes to write this I had pitched my camp-stool, opened colour-box and sketch-book, and set about making a hasty memorandum of the scene. Sun Suddenly a shadow fell across the page on which I was working. I looked up, and saw handled stick, and watching my operations a grave elderly gentleman, leaning on a crutchmade a hurried movement with his hand, as if with eager and all-absorbing attention. to urge me not to lose time, which impressed He Ime with the notion that he himself was a painter and knew the necessity for speed. I obeyed his gesture. But there is a certain awkwardness in such a silence as ensued, and I was compelled to speak. I asked him, without looking up. "Can you tell me the name of the ruin?" He drew a long breath like a sigh of extreme relief, and answered me in a feeble and hollow voice, "It has ever been called The Young Tower. Young!"-here he gave a dreary ghost of a laugh-"Young! Such a youth as that deceives no eyes! It is old-old-centuries old !" "It has all the picturesqueness of age," I said. "How can age be picturesque? Decay is never beautiful, truly. How can the young admire age? There is no charm in death, and age is but living death." I thought it would be kind to divert his reflections from a channel so melancholy as this. With that intention I inquired if there were, as usual, a number of legends connected with the ruin. He gave another long sigh of relief, and immediately, and without invitation, commenced the following narrative, which I regret much I cannot give in his exact words, for they were quaint, forcible, and vivid. The latest occupant of The Young Tower was Eberhardt Mulhaus, a studious and retiring man, considerably past middle age. His life was so simple, and his wants were so few, that he lived there quite alone, unattended, and uncompanioned, save by his books. Of books he had an enormous number, and was accounted a great scholar by the townsfolk. He was indeed an indefatigable student, and had read everything-except the human heart. How little had he learned, therefore, in all his long years of study and research! The years had passed him by almost unnoticed. He seemed to be aware that his hair had grown whiter and whiter, and that the hand that turned the page trembled more and more, and wasted away. His eyes grew dim, but that is the fate of the student. While he had been tracing figures in the sand the tide of his life had crept slowly up to the full of manhood's prime, and was sinking slowly to the extreme ebb of old age. He was solitary, for he made no acquaintances among the people of Verzenach. They used to see his lamp in his window burning all night long as he pored over his books, and they felt a secret awe of him, and never dreamed of breaking in upon his solitude. There was one bright spot in the past, not so bright in itself as it was by contrast with the dark monotony of all other memories, which had never quite died out of his mind, though it had grown faint as a star towards daybreak. He recalled it sometimes with a dreamy sort of wonder, and whenever he did so his sympathies for his fellow-creatures seemed to be stirred, and he looked down from his lone watch-tower upon the sleeping town that lay beneath with an unusual interest. This was the story of the bright remembrance. He had been a feeble and delicate child, and had therefore few, if any, playfellows among the boys of the town. His one constant companion was a little girl, Gretchen by name, a gentle, kind-hearted little soul. Between these two quiet thoughtful children there sprang up an attachment which was in truth love, but seemed to their innocent youth only friendship. One day, as they stood hand in hand on the little footbridge over a tiny brook that brawled down to the Rhine from the Father "For ever, and ever, and ever!" said he, and then he turned and put his arms round her neck and kissed her. At this moment a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder. He looked up and saw Father Gerome. Gerome was his pastor, confessor, and teacher, for Eberhardt was intended for the priesthood. The father was a stern man, ascetic, severe, unrelenting. "My son," he said, sternly, "the servants. of Heaven have nought to do with folly such as this. The rebellious spirit must be chastised. Come with me. Eberhardt never saw Gretchen again. Father Gerome set him a heavy penance, and took him away at once to the seminary, where he remained many years-until, indeed, it was seen that he was not fitted for holy orders, and was too fond of earthly wisdom and secular philosophy. But the seclusion of the seminary had wrought upon him; and when he left its quiet walls he could not face the stir of life, and was fain to retire to his tower and dwell in solitude and seclusion. The recollection of Gretchen was the faint gleam that lit up the past of that lonely student as he sat among his learned books, and grew more gray and feeble, and bowed his head lower and lower as Time laid his heavy hand upon him. It was one night at the end of the year, as he sat by his lofty window gazing out at the cold white stars, and thinking over all that the astronomers and wise men of old times had said about them, when he heard a clear, sweet, childish voice singing under his window. It He flung open the lattice to listen, for there was a something strangely touching in the sound, so unusual as it was too. He leaned his head out in order to hear the words. was a hymn that the child was singing-such a hymn as the gray-headed student had sung as a child standing beside his mother after he had risen from his knees before her at bedtime. It was a simple hymn enough, prais |