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The essays collected into this volume are, as has been hinted, from various sources; the earliest dates from the late ’twenties, the latest from the last year of the author’s life. No attempt has been made to place them chronologically. It has seemed well to keep the five Shakespearean essays together, representing as they do a life-long interest of their author’s. In the early ’thirties Douglas Jerrold and a number of other young Shakespeare enthusiasts—William Godwin the Younger, Laman Blanchard, Kenny Meadows, etc.—formed the Mulberry Club, at the gatherings of which essays and verses were read by the members; some certainly of the following papers formed part of the club’s “Mulberry Leaves,” as also did the same writer’s song on Shakespeare’s Crab Tree, a song which may be quoted here, as it is not widely known, to complete Jerrold’s “leaves.”

To Shakespeare’s mighty line

Let’s drink with heart and soul;

’Twill give a zest divine,

Though humble be the bowl.

Then drink while I essay,