if people knew what comfort and hap. piness they miss by waiting to grow rich, early marriages-where there was a competence and a fair prospect of getting on -would be promoted, and we should in the end be wiser, happier, and better..

You must teach me," she said, (the tears rising in her still beautiful eyes,) "to be my husband's helpmate; and in return I will tell your girls, when they grow up, my story, and warn them against putting off happiness for riches."

BIOGRAPHICAL

WE are impressed with the belief that we could not please our readers with any embellishment better than to place at the head of this first number of the year, a portrait of the world-renowned poet, in company with his cotemporaries, in one beautiful group, of which he was the honored chief. His fame will last undimmed while the world shall stand, and his works remain an inexhaustible store-house and mine of thought and literary treasures, for all coming generations, who will dig or draw out their gems and jewelry.

For this beautiful portrait-group, adapted thus to the dimensions of our journal, we are indebted to the artistic skill of, our incomparable artist, Mr. John Sartain, who for fourteen years has embellished its consecutive numbers. We subjoin a brief sketch of the poet.

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, married and had children there; went to London, where he commenced actor, and wrote poems and plays; returned to Stratford, made his will, and died. "This," says Steevens, "is all that is known, with any degree of certainty, about Shakspeare." We should have cared very little about the birth and marriage, the will, or the death, of this native of a petty country-town in the sixteenth century, but for the one other certainty, "he wrote poems and plays." That fact renders the minutest incident in the life of this son of a Warwickshire yeoman, a matter of interest to the whole human race; for out of the cottage in which he was born, has gone forth a voice which is the mightiest in modern litera

OF SHAKSPEARE.

ture; which has had no small influence in forming our national character; and which, in connection with the higher teaching from above, is refining and humanizing wherever its sound is heard. Steevens was in a great degree right, as far as regards a mere biographical notice of Shakspeare. His real biography lies in a critical estimate of his writings, as compared with others of his time, and in his relation to the age in which he flourished. The documentary biography, beyond that furnished by the facts that tell us the dates of his several works, lies in a very narrow compass. William Shakspeare was born in 1564. His baptism was registered in the parish church of Stratford, on the 26th April, in that year. It was usual to baptize within three days of birth, and, therefore, his birth-day is held to be the 23d of April, the St. George's day of England. The probability, though not the certainty, is that he was born in the town of Stratford. The old house there, in which he is said to have been born, was unquestionably the property of his father, John Shakspeare. His father was married and living in Stratford in 1558. His mother was Mary Arden, of the ancient family of the Ardens. The course of John Shakspeare may be traced by the parochial and municipal record, from the office of juryman of the court leet in 1556, to that of bailiff, or chief magistrate, in 1568. He has been held to have been a butcher, or a wool-stapler, or a glover. In an age when there was little subdivision of occupations, the yeoman cultivating his land, might have sold the carcasses of his sheep,

cathedral by a small, low side-door, of which I always made use. The bishop was absent. I went to stroll in the palacegrounds, and, remembering that in the morning I had needed a work of reference, which I knew to be among the ancient volumes in the library above the cloisters, I obtained the key of the library from the bishop's housekeeper. After wards I sauntered beneath the ancient trees on the close shaven lawns, the while denouncing the stifling heat, a good time; then I paced the wall above the moat di viding the palace-grounds from the cathedral precincts. Presently I fancied that I heard the tones of the organ. I had left the door ajar, the organ and my music-book open. Rather indignant that any one should intrude into my domain, the organ-loft, I left the palace-grounds immediately. As I passed into the cathedral-yard by the heavy arched-way, from which an avenue of glorious old limes leads to the principal entrance, I was startled by a full burst of rich harmony; it died away as I reached my little door. Just within it, I paused and listened: I was not disappointed; the organ again sounded. Open upon my desk I had left a collection of intricate fugues; these the unknown musician began to play. I detected signs of diffidence, and of ignorance of the resources of the instrument in the style of the player; but I also detected the presence of feeling, refinement, enthusiasm.

"This man will do," I thought, as I listened. "He needs confidence and practice, but he has genius. Ah! ye Waldon. ites! ye shall slumber through your services no longer! The power of music shall stir ye!"

Twilight was gathering; fine full chords melted into silence; the instrument was not touched again. I proceeded to mount the stairs of the organ-loft. It chanced that I still had in my hand the key of the library; unfortunately, I dropped it, and the consequent noise, echoing from arch to arch, no doubt alarmed the musician. Having reached the organ, I drew back the curtain, prepared to address the unknown. I found there no one. Of course, the player had descended one stair as I mounted the other. I leaned over the loft, gazed down into the dimness of the vast building, and listened intently for the sound of a foot-fall. I heard no sound, and was inclined to doubt if

human fingers had pressed the keys that night. But there was my book of fugues, not open where I had left it—a spirit-musician would hardly make use of letters. I peremptorily called upon the unknown to come forth, unless he desired to be locked in for the night: only the echoing of my own voice replied to me. I shook up the clownish boy who had blown the bellows for me, and still slumbered in his niche. He could give me no information; had "drowsed" from the time I left off playing till the playing began again, and had seen "naught nor nobody."

No one was now lingering in the building, I felt convinced; so I departed, locking the door behind me; but I sauntered a long time beneath the limes before I could persuade myself to go home.

Next evening I practiced again, playing with revived enthusiasm, perhaps in unconscious emulation of the unknown, who might probably be listening. From time to time I peered between the curtains; I saw no one save an old man hobbling about examining the monuments, and a child or young girl whom I had, as it were, noticed, without remarking, for several afternoons, occupying a dim corner during the service. Both had disappeared when I next looked.

I left Mozart's Twelfth Service open on the desk and departed. I took up my station behind a tree, and watched the temptingly open door unflinchingly. I had bidden the boy remain in his niche, ready to blow for any performer. No one passed in at that door; yet by and by the playing commenced. It drew me on into the building. The choicest passages of the service were exquisitely played by more assured fingers than those of yesterday; this was evidently familiar music. When daylight entirely failed, the performer began to extemporize, trying the full powers of the instrument, of which I was justly proud. Strains of what seemed to me unearthly sweetness, and weird strangeness, rooted me to the spot. Sometimes I gazed into the mys teriously stirred duskness of the building, sometimes fixed my eyes upon a star glimmering above the piney top of one of the solemn phalanx of ancient trees, so unwaveringly still, so perfectly defined against the delicious clear tone of the summer night sky. I guarded the only exit; the musician could not escape me, unless indeed

But I did not consider my

I and my chum of that period lived for some time up among the queer gables of a quaint German town, in the house of a professor of music. At that period, I was studying musical science. One day I sat at the piano in an inner room, poring over a blotted manuscript score, while my chum smoked and read metaphysics in the outer chamber! My brain was perplexed, and the difficulties at which I stuck seemed insurmountable. In desperation, I ran down to the professor's library, and rum. maged among musty tomes for any passages that might throw light upon my perplexity. I found what I needed in a mass of Alessandro Scarletti's. I mount ed the steep stair slowly, reading as I went. Suddenly I heard my instrument struck, and paused, rather surprised. My chum was ignorant of the simplest rule of my art.

"The old professor," I thought, as I listened to a passage which was a perfect and exquisite illustration of the point which I had needed to have illustrated.

I waited till the music ceased, that I might not lose a note, then rushed up stairs, and burst in upon my hazy friend. He removed his pipe from his lips, and opened his dreamy eyes widely. "Hollo! I thought you were in the other room," he exclaimed.

"Who is there?-the old professor, or -the old?" My chum rose; we entered the inner room together, and found no one. Every thing was as I had left it. Dusky sunshine from the begrimed lattice checked my music-paper. We looked round, then at each other. My chum shrugged his shoulders. My many eager questions produced this answer, "I don't understand it, any more than I understand this"-tapping his book with his pipe. "I saw you leave that door"-pointing to that of the outer room: "Soon after heard a grand strike-up; thought you had perhaps returned while I dozed; saw you appear, looking as if you were slightly demented. That's all; don't pretend to explain. If it were a ghost who played, I fear I have been mighty disrespectful, for I cried out: Well done, old boy.""

We knocked about the furniture, rattled a securely fastened-up door, which evidently had not been open for ages, and led only to an unsafe wing of the mould

Something passed by me, stirring the air, making no noise. I started up, stood erect; the last vibrations of sound were dying out. What had passed me? Was I thwarted? Had the musician escaped me? I locked the door behind me, locking in the unfortunate boy, and hurried after a something that flitted along, close to the wall of the building. Obliged to leave that shelter, it kept close to the trees in the avenue, and proceeded very rapidly. I ran.

An oil-lamp flared under the arched way; just there I overtook the form I had pursued. Bah! it was only the child I had noticed lingering while I practiced. Then my musician was, I flattered myself, safely locked up. But the child must have seen him, as she had lingered ever since the service. The musician must, too, have lingered, no one having passed in since I had kept watch.

When I overtook the young girl, I found she was not quite a child; she paused, and turned upon me a small sickly face. I felt foolish before the mild questioning of her eyes, and the meek dignity of her manner. I muttered some excuse for frightening her.

"You did not frighten me," she answered.

"You have just left the cathedralyou have heard the playing. Do you know who the musician is? Did any one pass you as you came away?"

"You were in the porch. I passed you. I have seen no one else."

"No one else! Yet you must have been in the cathedral ever since service, or I should have seen you later. I want to speak to the person who played. Surely you can help me to find him."

Her eyes fell, and she seemed to me to hold debate within herself. Just then, an elderly woman slipped under the arch from the street without; she put the girl's arm under her own, and led her away, scolding her for not having come home earlier.