"During the last years of his life it is stated that he and his family attended the parish church where the Rev. Richard Byfield, an eminent Puritan minister, and father of the distinguished commentator on the Epistle to the Colossians, commenced his ministry, a. d. 1606." Of course, the reverend contributor to the "Sunday Magazine" does not in-form us where this fact "is stated," but concludes from the fact (he is sure it is a fact) that Shakespeare was "during the last years of his life the constant hearer of this eminent and energetic preacher of the gospel," and that "we may reasonably hope for the best of consequences." So simple a process has Shakespeare-making become! Now-a-days our "biographies" of William Shakespeare are huge tomes of Elizabethan and other antiquarian lore, commentary, conjecture, argumentation; that stupefy us, as it were, by mere bulk and show of research, into accepting the whole rather than plunge into so vast and shoreless a sea of apparent labor, and, therefore, alleged learning. For such is the indolence of man, that the bulkier the book the less likely is it to be read or refuted. And so, in view of the great eye-filling books labeled "biographies" of William Shakespeare--volumes commensurate with the idea of a life which might, in time at least, have compassed the mighty works--one need not doubt that "William Shakespeare" was the name of the marvelous man who wrote the plays. But, when one left the fiction of Mr. De Quincy and his ilk, and was forced to confront the William Shakespeare who wrote the Lucy lampoon and the epitaph on Elias James, who stuck calves and stole {162}deer, the difficulty only recurred with redoubled emphasis.