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“Became wise by poring on his book”

“Shakespeare built himself a house and planted a tree. The house is gone, but the barbarians preserve bricks of it in their inner chambers, even—I tremble as I pen it—as we preserve the altars of our gods.

“The tree was cut down by a fakir in a brain fever, but the wood is still worshipped. And this, O Ting! I would not ask you to believe had not your own eyes witnessed that wonderful tree,^[5] the leaves whereof, falling to the ground, become mice! Hence learn that the leaves of Shakespeare’s mulberry have become men, and on a certain day every year, with mulberry boughs about their heads, their bodies clothed in their richest garments, they chant praises to the memory of Shakespeare, and drink wine to his name.

ssss1.See Navarrete’s China for the account of this tree; underneath which, we humbly suggest, it would be as well to keep a cat.

“Shakespeare—Forlstoff’s father, and the father of a hundred lusty sons and daughters, such as until that time had never been born, Shakespeare—died! He was buried in a chest of cedar, set about with plates of gold. On one of these plates was writ some magic words; for thieves, breaking into the grave, were fixed and changed to stone; and are now to be seen even as they were first struck by the charm of the magician. And so much, beloved Ting, of Shakespeare, Forlstoff’s father.”