What though wi’ Royalty he’ll dine, ’Mid sleekit Jews an’ a’ that, Tam disna drink their best o’ wine, He’s wide awake an’ a’ that! For a’ that an’ a’ that, Their duds an’ shows an’ a’ that, The “Lipton Shares” are worth them a’ An’ Tam is Tam for a’ that! Ye see yon birkie ca’d a lord, Wha struts an’ stares an’ a’ that, When tradesmen winna tak’ his word, Tam rules his roast an’ a’ that! For a’ that an’ a’ that, His ribbon, stars an’ a’ that, Tam kens his man baith oot an’ in, An’ looks an’ laughs at a’ that. The Premier maks a belted knight, A duke, an earl an’ a’ that, But a “Lipton’s Stores” aboon his might, Gude faith! he maunna fa’ that! For a’ that an’ a’ that, Their pride o’ place an’ a’ that, Monopolies o’ Ham and Tea Mak’ louder fame than a’ that! An’ Tam has gi’en Y.M.C.A. A muckle cheque an’ a’ that, An’ angels waft him on his way To Paradise an’ a’ that! For a’ that an’ a’ that, For that’s the end o’ a’ that; His lavish hand’s its own reward, An’ Tam is Tam for a’ that! THREE HUNDRED YEARS OF FAME AVE SHAKESPEARE! Three hundred years ago, on April 23, 1616, William Shakespeare, of whom Carlyle wrote as “the pink and flower of remembered Englishmen--the greatest thing we have yet done and managed to produce in this world,” drew his last breath at “New Place,” the home he had earned for himself in his native town of Stratford-on-Avon. The great bell of the Guild Chapel facing the garden side of his “pretty house of brick and timber” tolled for his passing; but the great voice of the world which acclaims him so loudly to-day was dumb. In those Puritan times he was but little considered; and no hint or whisper of his coming renown stirred the sleepy quietude of the little country place where he was born and where he died. His fellow-townsmen of that period kept no particular record of him, nor did they dream of him as the future King of English Literature. He was laid to rest in the chancel of the Parish Church--an honoured place allowed to him, not because of his genius as a Poet, for this was as indifferent a matter then to the good bucolic folk of Stratford-on-Avon as it is now, but because he had, by purchase, become part owner of the tithes and as a lay-rector had right of interment there. In his lifetime he assumed to be nothing but a simple industrious man of business who “adapted” and rearranged old plays to suit the requirements of the Globe Theatre; and he flung out the splendid rays of his dazzling poetic genius over these dry bones of romance and history as freely and with as grand an absence of self-consciousness as the sun which shines alike on the just and the unjust.