[Footnote 5: The writer was anxious to obtain some information respecting that curious relic from the inhabitants of the place: he was induced, therefore, to address a note of query to the present resident, of the house in question, Mr. G. C. Hague; but the following was the extent of the reply received:--"All I know of the sun-dial is this: It is told that a Jew, who was a mason, and assisted in putting up the front of Wentworth House, the mansion of the Earl Fitzwilliam, made the thing, and put it up during his leisure hours. This is all that I ever learned about it. I should be greatly obliged to you If you would inform me what the translation of the Hebrew characters is.--I am, Sir, yours, &c.--G. C. HAGUE."] VALUE OF SHAKSPEARE'S LEAGUE.--MEANING OF SHIP.--LOG-SHIP. So universal was Shakspeare's knowledge even of the arcana of other men's pursuits, that his commentators, in their anxiety to reduce his attainments to an ordinary standard, have attributed to him a sort of ubiquitous apprenticeship to all manner of trades and callings,--now a butcher,--now an attorney's clerk,--now a schoolmaster,--and anon a holder of horses at the theatre door, where doubtless he acquired that farrier-knowledge so profusely lavished upon Petruchio's charger in _The Taming of the Shrew_. Dr. Farmer, amongst other atrocities which have earned for him an unenviable immortality in connexion with Shakspeare's name, had the incredible folly to recognise, in the splendid image-- "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will," an allusion to _skewer making_! in which the rough-hewing was Shakspeare's, while his more skilful sire _shaped the ends_! Even Dr. Johnson cried "shop" at that passage of _The Winter's Tale_ where Perdita, fearing lest Florizel's father might discover him "obscured with a swain's wearing," exclaims-- "How would he look to see his work so noble Vilely bound up." Whereupon the great critic utters this sapient apothegm, "It is impossible for any man to rid his mind of his profession"--meaning of course Shakspeare's profession of _book making_! It is therefore surprising that none of them should have discovered a trace of Shakspeare in the occupation of _ship-boy_; since in no calling has he shown a more accurate knowledge of technicalities; and his seamanship has satisfied the strictest professional criticism. It is to this circumstance my attention is more especially directed at present by a singular blunder which I have observed in one of the illustrations to Knight's _Illustrated Shakspeare_. The artist, W. Dicks, professes to illustrate Ægeon's description of his shipwreck, taking for his text these lines in the first scene of the _Comedy of Errors_: "We were encounter'd by a mighty rock, Which being violently borne upon Our helpful ship was splitted in the midst."