In the mean time, it is in the power of every admirer of Shakspeare to honour the day privately. Rich or poor, busy or at leisure, all may do it. The busiest finds time to eat his dinner, and may pitch one considerate glass of wine down his throat. The poorest may call him to mind, and drink his memory in honest water. We had mechanically written health, as if he were alive. So he is in spirit;-and the spirit of such a writer is so constantly with us, that it would be a good thing, a judicious extravagance, a contemplative piece of jollity, to drink his health instead of his memory. But this, we fear, should be an impulse. We must content ourselves with having felt it here, and drinking it in imagination. To act upon it, as a proposal of the day before yesterday, might be too much like getting up an extempore gesture, or practising an unspeakable satisfaction.

The following outline may be drawn of the manner, in which such a birth-day might be spent. The tone and colouring would be filled up, of course, according to the taste of the parties. If any of our readers then have leisure as well as inclination to devote a day to the memory of Shakspeare, we would advise them, in

the first place, to walk out, whether alone or in company, and enjoy, during the morning, as much as possible of those beauties of nature, of which he has left us such exquisite pictures. They would take a volume of him in their hands, the most suitable to the occasion; not to hold themselves bound to sit down and read it, if the original work of nature should occupy them too much, but to read it, if they read any thing; and to feel that Shakspeare was with them substantially as well as spiritually ;that they had him with them under their arm. There is another thought connected with his presence, which may render the Londoner's walk the more interesting. Shakspeare had neither the vanity, which induces a man to be disgusted with what every body can enjoy; nor, on the other hand, the involuntary self-degradation, which renders us incapable of enjoying what is abased by our own familiarity of acquaintanceship. About the metropolis, therefore, there is perhaps not a single rural spot, any more than about Stratford-upon-Avon, which he has not himself enjoyed. The south side of London was the one nearest his theatre. Hyde Park was then, as it is now, one of the fashion

able promenades. Richmond, also, was in high pride of estimation. At Greenwich, Elizabeth held her court, and walked abroad amid the gallant service of the Sydneys and Raleighs. And Hampstead and Highgate, with the country about them, were, as they have been ever since, the favourite resort of the lovers of natural productions. The Mermaid in Cornhill, the Devil Tavern in Fleet-street, the Boar's Head in Eastcheap, are town associations with Shakspeare. The reader who cannot get out of London on his birth-day, and who has the luck to be hard at work in Chancery-lane or the Borough, may be pretty certain that Shakspeare has admired the fields and the May-flowers there; for the fields were close to the latter, perhaps came up to the very walls of the theatre; and the suburban mansion, and gardens of his friend, Lord Southampton, occupied the spot now called Southampton-buildings. It was really a country neighbourhood. The Old Bourne (Holborn) ran by, with a bridge over it; and Gray's Inn was an Academic bower in the fields.

The

The dinner does not much signify. sparest or the most abundant will equally suit the various fortunes of the great poet; only it

will be as well for those who can afford wine, to pledge Falstaff in a cup of "sherris sack," which seems to have been a sort of sherry negus. After dinner, Shakspeare's volumes will come well on the table, lying among the desert like laurels, where there is one, and supplying it where there is not. Instead of songs, the persons present may be called upon for scenes. But no stress need be laid on this proposition, if they do not like to read out loud. The pleasure of the day should be as much at liberty as possible; and if the company prefer conversation, it will not be very easy for them to touch upon any subjects which Shakspeare shall not have touched upon also. If the enthusiasm is in high taste, the ladies should be crowned with violets, which (next to the roses of their lips) seem to have been his favourite flower. After tea should come singing and music, especially the songs which Arne set from his plays, and the ballad of "Thou soft-flowing Avon." If an engraving or bust of him could occupy the principal place in the room, it would look like the " 'present deity" of the occasion; and we have known a very pleasant effect produced by every body's bringing some quotation applicable to him from

his works, and laying it before his image, to be read in the course of the evening.

LEIGH HUNT.

POETRY AND GORMANDIZING.

CAMILLO QUERNO, one of the buffoon poets who contributed, by their foibles as well as by their talents, to the amusements of the gay and motley Court of the tenth Leo, was born at Monopoli, in the kingdom of Naples, A. D. 1470. His propensity to gormandizing was so great, that many historians make no mention of him but asa notorious glutton, whose other qualities were too trifling to redeem this unpardonable sin. He seems, however, early to have listened to the whisperings of his art, and ere he quitted his native country had composed a poem of 20,000 verses, called Alexias, in which, as it frequently happens, the author discovered more beauties than were clear to the indifferent reader. On its merits he determined to risk his reception at Rome, and, accordingly, proceeded thither with his poem.

On his arrival, he presented himself to the scholars of the academy, and courted their inspection of his performance. The gentlemen,