Turning abruptly to William, the proprietor said: "I understand you know something about theatres and acting?" "Try me; you shall be my judge." "Then, sir, from this hour you are appointed assistant property man and assistant prompter for the Blackfriars, at sixteen shillings a week, with chance of promotion, if you deserve it! "Your business hours shall be from noon, every week day, until five o'clock; and from eight o'clock in the night until eleven o'clock, when you are at liberty until the next day! "Do you accept the work?" William promptly replied: "I accept with immeasurable thanks, and like Caesar of old, I cross the dramatic Rubicon." The Bard was then introduced to Bull Billings, the chief property man and prompter, who at once initiated William into the machinery secrets of the stage, with its scenes, ropes, chains, masks, moons, gods, swords, bucklers, guns, pikes, torches, wheels, chairs, thrones, giants, wigs, hats, bonnets, robes, brass jewels, kings, queens, dukes, lords, and all the other paraphernalia of dramatic exhibition. William was now launched upon the ocean of theatrical suns and storms, with Nature for his guide and everlasting glory for his name. _"Lowliness is young ambition's ladder, Whereto the climber turns his face; But when he once attains the utmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend!"_ CHAPTER VII. THEATRICAL DRUDGERY. COMPOSITIONS. _"Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in its head."_ Shakspere had now his foot firmly planted on the lower round of the ladder of fame, whose top leaned against the skies of immortality! The fermentation of composition began again to work within his seething brain, and the daily demands of the Blackfriars spurred him on to emulate if not surpass Kyd, Lodge, Greene and Marlowe. During the time Shakspere had been a strolling player through the middle towns of England he had studied the works of Ovid and Petrarch, and read with pleasure the sonnets and Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney. While playing at Kenilworth, the Lady Anne Manners, young and beautiful cousin to the Earl of Leicester, honored the young actor with great praise for his part in playing the Lover in "Love's Conquest." She presented the Bard with a bunch of immortelles, that even when withered, he always kept in an inside pocket, and at various times composed sonnets to his absent admirer, playing Petrarch to another Laura. The languishing, luscious, lascivious poem of "Venus and Adonis" was really inspired by the remembrance of Miss Manners, and imagination pictured himself and the lady as the principals in the sensuous situation!