As the two sat by the open window, the poet’s own life and its prospects formed the principal topic of conversation.  After years of toil in London his fortunes were beginning at length to improve.  He was manager of a theatre, and was at length earning a moderate competency.  He had already saved a little money, and hoped soon to buy a house at Stratford.  He looked forward some day to returning to his native place and living a country life.  At present he was enjoying a short holiday, the first for over a year.

As they sat and talked over these matters, a minstrel began to play in one of the cottages of the village; the sound of the harp added another charm to the peaceful surroundings, and filled the poet’s mind with a strange delight.

“I am never merry when I hear sweet music,” said Jessica.

Whereupon her companion replied: 

“’ ... soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony.  Sit, Jessica.  Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:  There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; Such harmony is in immortal souls; But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.’” [31]

[Footnote 31:  Merchant of Venice, V. i.]

Sweet is the sound of soft melodious music on a moonlight night; sweet the faint sigh of the breeze among the elms, and the light upon the silent stream; but sweeter far is music on a moonlight night, sweeter the faint sigh of the breeze, and the light upon the silent stream, when hope, renewed after years of sorrow and sadness, flatters once again the aims and objects of youth, gilding the landscape of life with wondrous alchemy, shedding rays of happy sunshine on the vague, mysterious yearnings of the soul of man towards the hidden destinies of the boundless future.

It was not long, however, before Shakespeare bade the fair Jessica good-night and retired to his sleeping apartment; for a run of such uncommon excellence as he had enjoyed that day was calculated to produce the tired, though not unpleasant, sensation which even now sends the hunting man sleepy, though happy, to bed.

So, lulled by the strains of the minstrel’s harp did William Shakespeare seek his couch and sleep the sleep of the just But even while the body was wrapped in slumber, the highly wrought, powerful mind, though yet unconscious of its awful destiny, was hard at work, “moving about in worlds not realised.”  Yonder on the turret of that grey Gothic castle, whose pinnacles point ever upwards to the skies, they stand and wait, a glorious throng; and as they stand they wave him onwards.  Dante, Homer, Virgil, Chaucer, Plutarch, Montaigne, and many another hero of old is waiting there.  See the sharp-pointed features of the Italian bard, and Homer no longer blind!  The two are holding animated converse, and ever beckoning him on.  And a voice seemed to speak out loud and clear amid the solemn silence of eternity: