“By the mass, a heavy accusation,” said Joceline, the bold recklessness of whose temper could not be long overawed; “Odds pitlikins, is our master’s old favourite, Will of Stratford, to answer for every buss that has been snatched since James’s time?—a perilous reckoning truly—but I wonder who is sponsible for what lads and lasses did before his day?” “Scoff not,” said the soldier, “lest I, being called thereto by the voice within me, do deal with thee as a scorner. Verily, I say, that since the devil fell from Heaven, he never lacked agents on earth; yet nowhere hath he met with a wizard having such infinite power over men’s souls as this pestilent fellow Shakspeare. Seeks a wife a foul example for adultery, here she shall find it—Would a man know how to train his fellow to be a murderer, here shall he find tutoring—Would a lady marry a heathen negro, she shall have chronicled example for it—Would any one scorn at his Maker, he shall be furnished with a jest in this book— Would he defy his brother in the flesh, he shall be accommodated with a challenge—Would you be drunk, Shakspeare will cheer you with a cup— Would you plunge in sensual pleasures, he will soothe you to indulgence, as with the lascivious sounds of a lute. This, I say, this book is the well-head and source of all those evils which have overrun the land like a torrent, making men scoffers, doubters, deniers, murderers, makebates, and lovers of the wine-pot, haunting unclean places, and sitting long at the evening-wine. Away with him, away with him, men of England! to Tophet with his wicked book, and to the Vale of Hinnom with his accursed bones! Verily but that our march was hasty when we passed Stratford, in the year 1643, with Sir William Waller; but that our march was hasty”— “Because Prince Rupert was after you with his cavaliers,” muttered the incorrigible Joceline. “I say,” continued the zealous trooper, raising his voice and extending his arm—“but that our march was by command hasty, and that we turned not aside in our riding, closing our ranks each one upon the other as becomes men of war, I had torn on that day the bones of that preceptor of vice and debauchery from the grave, and given them to the next dunghill. I would have made his memory a scoff and a hissing!” “That is the bitterest thing he has said yet,” observed the keeper. “Poor Will would have liked the hissing worse than all the rest.” “Will the gentleman say any more?” enquired Phœbe in a whisper. “Lack-a-day, he talks brave words, if one knew but what they meant. But it is a mercy our good knight did not see him ruffle the book at that rate—Mercy on us, there would certainly have been bloodshed.—But oh, the father—see how he is twisting his face about!—Is he ill of the colic, think’st thou, Joceline? Or, may I offer him a glass of strong waters?”