“Why,” replied the young Scot, “by the surer side of the house, and after the old fashion, if D’Avenant speaks truth. It seems that his mother was a good-looking, laughing, buxom mistress of an inn between Stratford and London, at which Will Shakspeare often quartered as he went down to his native town; and that out of friendship and gossipred, as we say in Scotland, Will Shakspeare became godfather to Will D’Avenant; and not contented with this spiritual affinity, the younger Will is for establishing some claim to a natural one, alleging that his mother was a great admirer of wit, and there were no bounds to her complaisance for men of genius.” “Out upon the hound!” said Colonel Everard; “would he purchase the reputation of descending from poet, or from prince, at the expense of his mother’s good fame?—his nose ought to be slit.” “That would be difficult,” answered the disguised Prince, recollecting the peculiarity of the bard’s countenance.[1] [1] D’Avenant actually wanted the nose, the foundation of many a jest of the day. “Will D’Avenant the son of Will Shakspeare?” said the knight, who had not yet recovered his surprise at the enormity of the pretension; “why, it reminds me of a verse in the Puppet-show of Phaeton, where the hero complains to his mother— ‘Besides, by all the village boys I am sham’d, You the Sun’s son, you rascal, you be d—d!’ “I never heard such unblushing assurance in my life!—Will D’Avenant the son of the brightest and best poet that ever was, is, or will be?—But I crave your pardon, nephew—You, I believe, love no stage plays.” “Nay, I am not altogether so precise as you would make me, uncle. I have loved them perhaps too well in my time, and now I condemn them not altogether, or in gross, though I approve not their excesses and extravagances.—I cannot, even in Shakspeare, but see many things both scandalous to decency and prejudicial to good manners—many things which tend to ridicule virtue, or to recommend vice,—at least to mitigate the hideousness of its features. I cannot think these fine poems are an useful study, and especially for the youth of either sex, in which bloodshed is pointed out as the chief occupation of the men, and intrigue as the sole employment of the women.”