flattered Queen Elizabeth, for many men laid their hearts at her
feet, but she in return never gave her own. She was the woman
above all others to be loved, to be worshiped, but herself
remained in "maiden meditation fancy-free." The memory of those
brilliant days stayed with the poet-child. They were sun-gilt,
as childish memories are, and in after years he wrote:

"That very time I saw (but thou couldst not)
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm'd. A certain aim he took
At a fair vestal, throned by the West,
And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower;
Before, milk-white; now, purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness."*

*Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II Scene i.

Some time after John Shakespeare became chief bailiff his
fortunes turned. From being rich he became poor. Bit by bit he
was obliged to sell his own and his wife's property. So little
Will was taken away from school at the age of thirteen, and set
to earn his own living as a butcher--his father's trade, we are
told. But if he ever was a butcher he was, nevertheless, an