bridle path by which he had seen Sir Philip Sidney start from Penshurst for the City of the Court.

There were then no coaches and no carriage roads, and the ways were evil, difficult, and sometimes even dangerous. Herbert was young, armed, rode a good horse, and was too much occupied with his own sad thoughts to heed much of danger. He lay one night upon the road, and on the second day reached London, and put up at an hostelry in the Strand, kept by a Kentish man who came from Herbert's own part of the country, and knew well the Greys of Greyscote.

Thus fate had suddenly brought about the fruition of a long-cherished wish. Francis Grey had steadily opposed the departure of his only son from the lonely old house; but the duel had decided the point, and Herbert found himself in that London of which he had fondly dreamed as the place in which energy could attain to fortune. He had parted with regret from the old father; now left alone in the desolate home; he was anxious for news of the Earl; he was at times buoyed up by sanguine youthful hope of a successful future, but all other feelings were swallowed up in the master passion, as the young man, sitting alone in his room in the inn, in the great city, kissed a ribbon and a token, and felt his own eyes dim as he thought fondly of the dear eyes of his own gentle Lettice.

Rising the next morning, Master Herbert could not refrain from looking curiously at the royal city of which he had dreamed so often and so long. The Palace of Westminster, and York Place, as also the Savoy, then existed in their splendour. Riding down the Strand, past Somerset House, and the other riverside palaces, set in gardens, of princely nobles, he

passed the Temple, and came to the Palace of Bridewell and to Baynard's Castle. Old St Paul's still raised its stately spire, and the Tower had not then been touched by Wren. Old London Bridge, picturesque with many turrets and houses built above its narrow arches, spanned the river, which, silver and silent, was, above bridge, only stirred by the oars of princely barges, or of ordinary boats crossing from Paul's or from Somerset Place to the Southwark side. Off the Tower lay some ships of the Navy and merchant vessels, the precursors of the forest of masts of later days.

The country to north and to south of London was plainly visible from the Strand, and the streets were charming with the picturesque domestic architecture of gable, cross-beam, and lintel, which marked a homeloving people, whose energy of natural character was ennobled by a sense of the beautiful.

As Herbert rode on, marking with the fresh interest of youth all the fair sights of the strange city, he half ceased for the time to think of Mistress Lettice's golden hair, of her tender eyes, and of her delicate beauty. His sadness was dissipated by the charm of novelty and by the magic of wonder. He saw Elizabeth's London for the first time-and he was young.

Herbert soon found friends in London. He was handsome, tall, brave, and had the frank, sweet manners of noble youth. But while waiting to see the patron to whom, according to the manners of his time, he looked for help, he wrote an epistle to fair Mistress Lettice, in which he assured her of eternal fidelity, prayed her to be equally constant, and informed her of his purpose to win for her a name and fortune. This letter reached the lady; but parental

control was in those days a stern and real thing; and vainly did fair Lettice hope to be allowed to wait till a poor suitor, rejected by her family, should win the fortune already possessed by others who sought her hand.

Herbert had friends of influence in London. He was received with great kindness by the Earl of Pembroke, and by that "subject of all verse"-that Sidney's sister for whom the Arcadia was written. He was presented to Burleigh, and introduced at Court, where his fresh fair face and stately figure were looked upon approvingly by the old Queen, who, during her long reign, had seen so many splendid specimens of noble English manhood. His habit costly as his purse could buy-though that purse was not very deepHerbert waited, and courted, and lived the life of the young gallant of the day. He heard from his father that his rival, though sorely wounded, was doing well under the hands of the surgeon; and in those days of simple faith a man's conscience was not troubled by an honourable duel. One memory kept him pure. The eyes of gentle Lettice, in the portrait which memory and passion painted in his breast, seemed to follow him everywhere. He chafed at all delays that kept him back from winning her. But for the thought of her, and of the difficulties in the way of wedding her, he would have been happy in the new and splendid life of pleasure and of hope.

While in London, Herbert had the good fortune to become acquainted with the gentle Southampton, and to be well liked of that cultured and courteous nobleman. Southampton shunned the court, but was constant to the playhouse. He was the friend and patron of Shakspeare, who has repaid the obligation by making him immortal in virtue of the poet's dedi

cations to him. Southampton was one of the first to recognise the transcendent genius of the poet who wears "the crown o' the world," and he worshipped Shakspeare "on this side idolatry." Southampton had a true critical sympathy, which could value at its full worth whatever the poet could create, and not unawares he entertained an angel. The noble and the poet were friends, and often met at the wit combat at the tavern, or, in quieter hours, in Southampton's house. In days in which all criticism was oral, Southampton had great influence in spreading the player's reputation among the noble and the refined. He urged upon Herbert the necessity of seeing one of Shakspeare's plays. The poet had just written a new play called " Hamlet," or " The Tragicall Historie of the Prince of Denmark," and had shown the manuscript to the noble, who was enthusiastic in his delight. He proposed to take Herbert to the first representation, and after a dinner in the middle of the day at an ordinary, the friends took barge to Blackfriars, and reached the theatre by three o'clock. Herbert was excited by anticipation, and Southampton criticised the cast, while he prophesied a great success for the play, which he held to be the poet's noblest work. And so Master Herbert Grey found himself for the first time in a playhouse-in the Blackfriars Theatre in Playhouse Yard-and was to see the first version of Shakspeare's "Hamlet" played for the first time by her Majesty's servants. Shakspeare, though already recognised by the judicious as a great and ever rising dramatic genius, had not then attained to the full altitude of such fame as, even in his lifetime, he acquired; but still great expectations were excited by his new play, and the house was

full of eager spectators. Herbert obtained, through Southampton's influence, a stool on the rush-covered stage itself, and sat there with Southampton and with Rutland, surrounded by other nobles and persons of rank and mark who loved plays and players. The gallants wore plumed hats, and gay cloaks, hanging from the left shoulder, over quaint and dainty doublets. Those who had come by water wore high shoes with rosettes; those whose horses were being held outside the theatre wore long boots and jingled massive spurs. Each gay hanger suspended a rapier, bell-hilted and guarded with carving, tracery, and bar; a picturesque costume, though one that never had its Vandyck. The pit was filled with the "groundlings," and the house was eager to enjoy, and to criticise through enjoyment. No journals then, or newspapers; no professional critics who wrote notices of plays for payment. Criticism was then the task of noblemen, scholars, poets, who met in the playhouse and discussed in the tavern. The judgment of the competent, disseminated orally, spread through the town and made the success of the player and the playwright. At length the house was hushed and the play began. After three soundings of the trumpet, the prologue was spoken and the curtain drawn aside. The opening lines of "Hamlet" were then spoken for the first time.

Now, to every cultured Englishmen, the lines of "Hamlet" are household words; the characters are a part of our experience; the events form a portion of our romance. The play is interwoven with our lives; but on the day which I am trying to recall from oblivion to a faint and shadowy life, the words were heard, the incidents were seen, for the first time,