Receiving no answer, Wentworth looked up, and saw Harrington gazing with rapt affection on the noble bust of Verulam. For a moment the young artist held his breath in utter stupefaction; then a deep flush burned upon his face, and he laughed immoderately. Harrington colored, but took his friend’s merriment, as he took everything, good-naturedly, and sat smiling at him. “Bravo!” cried Wentworth, at length. “Another sacrifice to the idol! Now, Harrington, I can’t swallow the idea, that the idol wrote Shakspeare’s plays, but, for goodness’ sake do publish it! It will make such a jolly row. By Jupiter! what fun it will be to see all the steady old ink-pots fizzing into vitriol bottles, and foaming over on to your idea! Do publish it.” “One of these days, Richard,” said Harrington, gently. “But I don’t think Verulam alone wrote the plays. He had help from others—and some of them came from a lower order of mind than his. But in all the great plays his intellect and design are visible. However, let it pass, and in the meantime, say nothing about it to any one, for till it can come with solid proof, it will meet with no favor from the Jedburgh justice of a world that hangs your thought first, and tries it afterward. But for your own sake, I wish you could believe that this great poet could not have been the poet he was, if he had not been concerned in everything that concerns mankind. Especially must he have cherished the idea of political liberty, for without that, poet or artist can be but little.” “Upon my word, Harrington,” said Wentworth, “I shouldn’t be much astonished if you were to assert that the author of Shakspeare’s plays, as you call him, would be, if he was alive, a Garrisonian Abolitionist.” “Well,” replied Harrington, laughing in his beard, “you know Montaigne says a man’s books are his children, and I’m sure this author’s children don’t vote with the Webster Whigs or go union-saving or kidnapping with either Whigs or Democrats. And as for Shakspeare being a Garrisonian, it’s quite clear to my perverted sense, that the man who makes his patriot, Brutus, cry aloud, as the first demand of political justice, ‘Liberty, Freedom, and Enfranchisement,’ would not, at any rate, if he were with us, be found in Mr. Ben Hallett’s party.” Wentworth, touched at the idea of Shakspeare and Ben Hallett being by any chance thrown together, laughed immoderately, while Harrington, highly amused at his mirth, sat and smiled at him. “Harrington,” said Wentworth, recovering from his merriment, “you almost tempt me to extend my studio among the sons of men.” “That’s where the great artists extended theirs,” replied Harrington. “Raphael, Giotto, Cellini, Angelo, all those superb artists, were politicians, country-lovers, friends and comrades of their kind. Their human sympathies gave their genius its pulse of life. You young artists ought to blush when you think of Michael Angelo.” “Well, Michael was a trump,” returned Wentworth, gaily.