For example, we find that Mr. Wilkes, and Mr. Harper, in the "American Catholic Review" for January, 1879--who otherwise believe the author of the Shakespearean plays to have been a roman catholic--are almost persuaded that he must have been a protestant, because he finds occasion to make mention of an "evening mass." But let us assure Messrs. Wilkes and Harper that they need neither abandon nor adopt a theory on rencontre with so trivial a phenomenon. If William Shakespeare felt the need of an "evening mass" at any time, we may be fairly sure, from our experience of that worthy, that he put one in. He had bolted too many camels {118}in his day to hesitate at such a gnat as that! The creator of a convent in old Ephesus and of a sea-coast to Bohemia was not one to stick at a trifling "evening mass!" The gentlemen above mentioned, believe the author of the plays to have been a romanist, not because the reverend Richard Davies, writing soon after 1685, distinctly says "he died a Papist," (for any statement made anywhere within a hundred years of William Shakespeare's lifetime is "mere gossip," and it is only the biographies we write now-a-days that are to be relied upon), but mainly because the liturgy and priesthood of that church are invariably treated with respect in the plays, while dissenting parsons are poked fun at without stint. Doubtless, in the modern drama the same rule will be perceived to obtain. The imperious liturgy and priesthood of the roman or of the stately anglican church appear to be beyond the attempts of travesty; while the snivel and preach of mere puritanism has always been too tempting an opportunity for "Aminadab Sleek" and his type--to be resisted, and such a fact would justify very little conclusion either way. Besides, there is no call to insist that the stage, in epitomizing life into the compass of an hour, shall preserve every detail; nothing less than a Chinese theater could answer a demand like that. There is a dramatic license even broader than the license accorded to poetry, and we would doubtless find the drama a sad bore if there were not. William Shakespeare, during his managerial career, appears to have understood this as well as any body; nor have the liberties he took with facts and chronology befogged any body, except the {119}daily lessening throng of investigators, who believe him to be the original of the masterpieces he cut into play-hooks for his stage. But did William Shakespeare ever try his hand at verse-making? There is considerable rumor to the effect that, during the leisure of his later life, no less than in the lampooning efforts of his vagrom youth, he did turn his pen to rhymes. And the future may yet bring forth a Shakespearean honest enough to collect these verses--as they follow here--and to entitle them--= ````THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS `````OF ```WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. ````EPITAPH ON ELIAS JAMES. * ```When God was pleased, the world unwilling yet,