We have spoken of accident as often determining the development and directing the course of genius. Edward Shuter was one of the most popular comedians on the London stage in 1776, but he began life as a pot-boy at a public-house in the neighborhood of Covent Garden. A gentleman came to the house one evening, and after refreshing himself he sent the boy Shuter to call him a hackney-coach. On reaching home he found that he had dropped his pocket-book; and suspecting that he had lost it in the coach, he went the next morning to the tavern to make inquiry. He asked Shuter if he knew the number of the hack. The poor boy could not read or write, and was totally unskilled in numerals; but he knew the signs by which his master scored the quarts and pints of porter that were drunk, and to the gentleman's inquiry as to the number of the coach which the boy had called for him Shuter said it was "two pots and a pint" (771). This was unintelligible to the gentleman, but was explained by the landlord. The coachman was summoned, and the pocket-book recovered. This acuteness of the boy interested the gentleman, and he became his patron, sent him to school, and gave him a start in the line of his choice, which was the theatrical profession. Such is the story in brief of one of the famous London comedians. How many of our readers remember the one recorded scene when Queen Elizabeth condescended to coquet with Shakespeare? The great bard was performing the part of a king; Elizabeth's box was contiguous to the stage, and she purposely dropped her handkerchief from the box upon the boards, at the very feet of Shakespeare, having a mind thus to try whether her poet would stoop from his high estate of assumed majesty. "Take up _our_ sister's handkerchief," was his prompt and dignified order to one of the actors in his train. * * * * * It will doubtless be found interesting to see recorded in juxtaposition the words and the manner of death of some of the great geniuses whom history mentions. When Alonzo Cano, the famous Spanish artist, was dying, the attendant priest presented before him an ivory crucifix; Cano turned away and refused to look at it because the sculpture was so bad, calling for a plain cross, which he embraced, and died. Chaucer breathed his last while composing a ballad. When the priest came whom Alfieri had been prevailed upon to see, he requested him to call the next day. "Death, I trust, will tarry four-and-twenty hours," he said, but died in the interim. Petrarch was found dead in his library, leaning on a book. "I could wish this tragic scene were over," said Quin the actor, "but I hope to go through it with becoming dignity." Pitt, the great statesman, died alone, in a solitary house on Wimbledon Common. Rousseau, when dying, asked to be carried to the window of the apartment overlooking his garden, that he might look his last on Nature.