A lawyer’s clerk with five mouths to feed could hardly find enough to do in Stratford to earn a living, so William Shakespeare went to London to seek his fortune. It is said that he began life in the great city by holding horses in front of one of the theaters, as they did not have hitching-posts in Shakespeare’s days. Then he was promoted to be prompter’s boy. One of his duties was to tell the actors when it was time for them to go on the stage and play their parts. Nothing is really known of what the young man from Stratford was doing for six or seven years. He made his living in one way or another in connection with the theaters. At the end of that time a dying actor left some bitter lines about Will “Shake-scene.” But another actor at this time called Shakespeare a good man, a graceful actor, and a witty writer of plays. Shakespeare seems not to have been a leading actor. It is said that he took the part of the Ghost in his own play of “Hamlet.” He became so successful as a writer that he was “commanded” to bring his company and produce a play before Queen Elizabeth in one of her palaces. It is recorded that Shakespeare was paid from thirty to seventy-five dollars for one of his plays. While it is true that thirty dollars would buy as much then as three hundred dollars to-day, yet that was a very small price to pay for the greatest dramas ever written. But the real value of the greatest things of the world cannot be measured by money. Every one is said to have at least one great chance in life. Shakespeare’s Door of Opportunity was the door of a theater. He did not wait for it to open; he opened it himself. Shakespeare’s life showed that “poets are born, not made.” He had the keenest insight into the human heart and life of all the writers who ever lived. HOW CROMWELL CHANGED PLACES WITH THE KING In Shakespeare’s day Queen Elizabeth came first in the thoughts of all the people of England. She was almost worshiped by the men of wealth and genius whom she gathered at her court, and by the people at large. By her cleverness and wisdom she kept England peaceful and prosperous almost all through her reign. But she never married; so, when she died, her cousin, James Stuart, king of Scotland, became king of England. James had been brought up to think that because he was king, everybody must bow to him as the Lord’s anointed. It was he and his councilors who drove the Pilgrim Fathers out of England because they would not worship God, as James wished them to, in the Church of England, of which he was the head. On his way down to London to be crowned, James stopped at the beautiful estate of Sir Oliver Cromwell. In the royal company was the king’s eldest son, Charles, called by the Scottish people “the bonnie prince.” The little Scotch boy, only six years old, already thought that the world was created for him and that no other boy had any rights which he, Prince Charles, was bound to respect.