¹ It ought perhaps to be remarked that this prelude to Shakespeare's Will may not have been intended by him as a profession of faith, but may have been signed simply as a legal formula. His works denote a mind of high and broad spiritual convictions, untrammelled by creed or doctrine. His inclination, probably, was toward the Roman Catholic church, because of the poetry that is in it: but such a man as Shakespeare would have viewed all religious beliefs in a kindly spirit, and would have made no emphatic professions. The Will was executed on March 25, 1616. It covers three sheets of paper; it is not in Shakespeare's hand-writing, but each sheet bears his signature. It is in the British Museum. Once again there is a sound of organ music, very low and soft, in Stratford Church, and the dim light, broken by the richly stained windows, streams across the dusky chancel, filling the still air with opal haze and flooding those gray gravestones with its mellow radiance. Not a word is spoken; but, at intervals, the rustle of the leaves is audible in a sighing wind. What visions are these, that suddenly fill the region! What royal faces of monarchs, proud with power, or pallid with anguish! What sweet, imperial women, gleeful with happy youth and love, or wide-eyed and rigid in tearless woe! What warriors, with serpent diadems, defiant of death and hell! The mournful eyes of Hamlet; the wild countenance of Lear; Ariel with his harp, and Prospero with his wand! Here is no death! All these, and more, are immortal shapes; and he that made them so, although his mortal part be but a handful of dust in yonder crypt, is a glorious angel beyond the stars. Illustration: "Distant View of Stratford." CHAPTER IX LONDON NOOKS AND CORNERS