write. We hold our right and title in him by courtesy; but in "Glorious Will," by full and direct inheritance as equal coheirs of all the wealth of his memory. Whoever classifies the signatures on the walls of his birth-chamber, and in the large record book brought in to supplement the exhausted writing-space outside, will have striking proof of this American sentiment. The first locale in all England to our countrymen is Stratford-upon-Avon. Westminster, even, stands second in their estimation to the birth-and-burial place of this one man. At no other historical point in Europe will you find so many American names recorded as over the spot where he was cradled. This is fitting. We have already become numerically the largest constituency of his fame. Already he has more readers on our continent than on all the other continents and islands of the world; and from decade to decade, and from century to century, doubtless this preponderance will increase by the ratio of more rapid progression.
What a race of kings, princes, knights, ladies, and heroes was created by Shakespeare! If the truth could be sifted out and known, more than half the homage the regal courts of to-day get from the spontaneous sentiment of the public heart arises from the dignity with which he haloed the royal brows of his monarchs. They never knew how to talk and walk and act with the majesty
