"What needs my Shakspeare for his honor'd bones, The labor of an age in piled stones? Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame! What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hath built thyself a long-lived monument." But if this honor be not needed, what needs there for our Shakspeare, the still weaker witness of his name, of guzzling and gormandizing? Is there any the remotest connection between the achievements of pure intellect and seven-gallon barrel stomachs of anniversary topers? Between the still labors of a divine imagination, and the uproarious riot of a public feed when half-seas over? Let mock turtle do honor to mock heroes; but what has Shakspeare, and the honor of Shakspeare, to do with the "hip! hips!" and the swilling of mere herds of literary swine? To become part and parcel of such a herd, were Dickens and Talfourd invited down to Stratford this very year. They wisely eschewed the honor. Let us suppose, for a moment, that the spirit of Shakspeare could hear the hiccoughings of the crew assembled in his name, to honor him forsooth! If he were permitted to descend from the serene glory of his seventh heaven, and appeared at the door of their dining-room with the meager descendants of the Shakspeare family crowding sadly behind him, what are the indignant words that he would address to the flushed and bloated throng of his _soi-disant_ worshipers? They have been already addressed to like ears by the great Master of love, and of the philosophy of true honor. "I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. * * * _Inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these, ye did it not to me._"[4] No, the sycophantic humbugs never did it to Shakspeare. What cares he, in his seventh heaven of glory and of poetry, for their guzzlings? What have they to do with him or his honor? Is it not a precious imposture, to make a feast to a man's honor, and not to invite to it his nearest relatives, especially when they live at the next door? In the name of the national reputation, let this wretched and egotistic farce be put down by the good sense of the British public. If these people will not honor Shakspeare by honoring his family, let them at least abstain from insulting their poverty and their neglect by this public parade, and this devouring of joints.