DEAR SISTERS:—You have heard of Mr. Shakespeare, a writer of old England, who died, years and years ago, in a little country place in England. He was celebrated for several things besides writing. Going to sleep under trees is one of them; shooting deer that belonged to somebody else—who took him up and made an awful time about it before a justice of the peace, who fined him, or something—is another. Then, again, he married an elderly girl, and forgot to live with her ever so long. While she stayed at home, he went up to London, and wrote plays and played them before her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, who ought to have reminded him of his married elderly girl, being her own royal self of that class, only not married. There is no reason to think she did have much influence in that direction though, for that particular queen was more celebrated for keeping husbands away from their wives than bringing them cosily together.

The truth is, from the very first—when she got up a series of romping platonics with Lord Seymour, her step-mother's husband, to her last, gray-headed old flirtation with the young Essex—her taste ran against the practical idea of husbands living with their own wives. That non-matrimonial creature may have tried her power on Shakespeare—who knows?

Sisters, there is one part of this man's life and character that may shock your religious feelings. He wrote plays; he acted plays too; and that female queen encouraged him in it. Now, ever since I went to see the "Black Crook," I scorn myself for ever having one mite of charity for such things, and I haven't the conscience to say one word in their favor to you, as a Society. Still, this Mr. Shakespeare did write some things that might have sounded tolerably well in a lecture or a sermon that wasn't too strictly doctrinal.

Last night I was talking with a lawyer from away "Out West," who spoke real kindly about Mr. Shakespeare's writings, and seemed to think if he had put off being born until now, and settled "Out West," where he could have given him a hint now and then, he might have made a first-rate literary man. "Even as it is," says he, "I do my best to make him popular, for he wrote some very readable things—very readable, indeed. For instance, not long since, in an exciting slander case, I quoted these lines, with a burning eloquence that lifted the judge right off from his bench:

"Is that the genuine old English that Mr. Shakespeare wrote in?" says I.

"Oh, that is the beauty of it," says he. "Shakspeare was no doubt a very respectable writer, but perfection is the watch-word of modern progress. Of course one doesn't introduce a quotation of his without all the modern improvements. Shakespeare—"

"Mr. Shakspeare," says I, determined to keep up the dignity of authorship with my last breath.

"Well, Mr. Shakspeare would have made a very superior writer if he had lived in this country and been fostered by an American Congress."

"An American Congress," says I. "What on earth did that ever do for writers?"

"Why, don't it publish books for the members to give away. Isn't that encouraging literature?"

I said nothing, never having read one of the books in my life, and never having seen any one that had.

"Then," says he, "hasn't every man that can write the life of a President of these United States before his election, been made an ambassador, or counsel, or something? Didn't Pierce send Hawthorne to Liverpool, not because of his transcendant genius, but for the reason that he had written a paltry life of himself?"

"Mr. Hawthorne," says I, with expressive emphasis.

"And didn't General Grant send Colonel Badeau to London, after his life was taken by that young man?"

"I give in," says I; "the literature of this country has been fostered beautifully. Hawthorne was rewarded for degrading the finest genius this country has ever known, by writing a commonplace life of a ordinary man; and Adam Badeau was made a colonel, and is now figuring in London, because all the talent he ever had was crowded into such a book. Yes, I give in. But one thing is to be relied on, each of the Presidents struggling to rule over this country next, has brains enough to write his own life. Grant has written his out with a sword, and Greeley can handle his own pen. He won't have any debts of that kind to pay off, and I'm awfully mistaken if the authors of this country won't stand almost as high with him as corporals in the army do now. In his time bayonets will be stacked, and pens have their day. During the next four years I shouldn't wonder if Mr. Shakspeare might have a little chance if he were alive."

"That puts me in mind," says the Western gentleman, "that a statue of Shakspeare is going to be unveiled in the New York Central Park to-morrow."

"To-morrow?" says I; "then I'm off to New York to see it done. By and by, when we have put all the British authors in marble, some one born in America may get a chance."

"But Shakespeare belongs to the world," says Cousin Dempster, who was sitting near me.

"All men or women of genius belong to the world," says I, "just as far as the world knows them; but the country in which a great man or woman was born, and has lived and written, is the place where he should be first honored. Have we done anything of that kind yet? I'm not saying one word against Mr. Shakespeare; his monument ought to be in the most beautiful spot we have; but let the next statue be that of some first-class American. Mr. Shakespeare belongs to us as much as he did to England, because when he lived England was our country, and he belongs to us now. But since then we have cut loose from the Old World, and built up a powerful nation, where great authors, both men and women, have worked out their own birthright of genius, with no help but the power God has given them—worked it out, too, with not half the recognition that our Government and our people, to their shame be it spoken, have given to coarser and weaker intellects from over the sea."

"Why, Phoemie," says Cousin Dempster, "don't get so excited; do you know that you are talking like a book?"

"It must be an English book if any American takes much notice of it," says I; "but rile me up on this subject, and I don't know or care how I talk. In our part of the country we are Americans to the backbone, and we mean to keep so."

"Well, but this statue of Shakespeare was first thought of by the actors who have been living over his plays years and years—Booth, Wallack, Wheatley, and your dead and gone Halleck, set it a-going.

"What Shakespeare did for theatres, theatre people know how to acknowledge. They have some spirit; but what author ever comes forward and asks a place for his fellow-author? How can they expect the country to be generous to them when they do nothing for each other?"

It kind of took me down when Cousin Dempster said this, and not having anything to observe, I said nothing, but got right up, and says I:

"If we mean to start for New York, it's time to be getting ready."