nothing at all to the position (such as it is) of co-manager, along with a dozen others, of a theater. Here, just as young lords and swells take theater managers into their acquaintance to-day, he became intimate with greater men than himself, and so enlarged his skirts and his patronage, as it was the part of a thrifty man to do. At this time there were no circulating libraries in London, no libraries, accessible to the general public, of any sort, in fact; no booksellers at every corner, no magazines or reviews; no public educators, and no schools or colleges swarming with needy students; even the literature of the age was a bound-up book to all except professional readers. But, for all that, this William Shakes-{053}peare--this vagrom runaway youth, who, after a term at Stratford school (admitting that he went where the romancers put him), cuts off to London at the heels of a crew of strolling players--who begins business for himself somewhere (perhaps as "link-boy" at a theater door, but we may be sure, at an humble end of some employment) and, by saving his pence, works up to be actually a part-proprietor in two theaters, and ultimately a rich man--begins to possess himself of a lore and knowledge of the Past which, even to-day, with all our libraries, lyceums, serials, and booksellers, it would need a lifetime to acquire. He did the work of a lifetime. Like Mr. Stewart, in New York, he began penniless, and by vigilance, shrewdness, and economy, rose to respectability, affluence, and fortune.