And when you come to read some of the writers of Shakespeare's
age and see that in them the laughter is often brutal, the horror
of tragedy often coarse and crude, you will wonder more than ever
how Shakespeare made his laughter so sweet and sunny, and how,
instead of revolting us, he touches our hearts with his horror
and pain.

About eleven years passed after Shakespeare left Stratford before
he returned there again. But once having returned, he often paid
visits to his old home. And he came now no more as a poor wild
lad given to poaching. He came as a man of wealth and fame. He
bought the best house in Stratford, called New Place, as well as
a good deal of land. So before John Shakespeare died he saw his
family once more important in the town.

Then as the years went on Shakespeare gave up all connection with
London and the theater and settled down to a quiet country life.
He planted trees, managed his estate, and showed that though he
was the world's master-poet he was a good business man too.
Everything prospered with him, his two daughters married well,
and comfortably, and when not more than forty-three he held his
first grandchild in his arms. It may be he looked forward to
many happy peaceful years when death took him. He died of fever,
brought on, no doubt, by the evil smells and bad air by which
people lived surrounded in those days before they had learned to
be clean in house and street.

Shakespeare was only fifty-two when he died. It was in the
springtime of 1616 that he died, breathing his last upon