This unceasing memory of and through Shakepeare became significantly clear to me during my residence in London, while I, an inquisitive traveller, ran about from early morn till deep into the night, to see the so-called noteworthy objects. Every lion recalled the greater lion Shakespeare. All the places which I visited live an immortal life in his historical dramas, and were known to me from my earliest youth. But these dramas are known in England not only by the cultivated, but by the people, and even the stout beefeater who with his red coat and red face acts as guide to the Tower, and shows you behind the middle gate the dungeon where Richard caused the young princes, his nephews, to be murdered, refers you to Shakespeare, who has described minutely the details of this harrowing history. Also the verger who leads you round through Westminster Abbey always speaks of Shakespeare, in whose tragedies those dead kings and queens whose stony counterfeits here lie stretched out on their sarcophagi—and whom he shows to you for eighteenpence—play such a wild or lamentable part.
He himself, or the image of the great poet, stands there the size of life, a noble form with a thoughtful head, holding in his hand a roll of parchment. There may be magic words inscribed on it, and when he moves at midnight his white
