An odd thing happened to me in the church, where at the vestry I had just signed my name as other visitors did.  An American, utterly unknown to me as I to him, came eagerly up to me as I was inspecting that unsatisfactory bust and inscription about Shakespeare, and said, “Come and see what I’ve found,—­Martin Tupper’s autograph,—­he must be somewhere near, for he has just signed:  do tell, is he here?” I rather thought he might be.  “I’ve wished to see him ever since I was a small boy.  Do you know him, sir?” Well, yes, a little.  “Show him to me, sir, won’t you?  I’d give ten dollars for his autograph.”  After a word or two more, my good nature gave him the precious signature without the dollars,—­and I shan’t easily forget his frantic joy, showing the document to all around him, whilst I escaped.

Besides a Pindaric Ode to Shakespeare, to be found in my Miscellaneous Poems, wherein many of his characters are touched upon, I wrote the following sonnet, now out of print:—­

    The Stratford Jubilee.

    “Went not thy spirit gladly with us then,
      Most genial Shakespeare!—­wast thou not with us
      Who throng’d to honour thee and love thee thus,
    A few among thy subject fellow-men? 
    Yea,—­let me truly think it; for thy heart
    (Though now long since the free-made citizen
    Of brighter cities where we trust thou art)
    Was one, in its great whole and every part,
      With human sympathies:  we seem to die,
    But verily live; we grow, improve, expand,
    When Death transplants us to that Happier Land;
      Therefore, sweet Shakespeare, came thy spirit nigh,
    Cordial with Man, and grateful to High Heaven
    For all our love to thy dear memory given.”

CHAPTER XIX.

TRANSLATIONS AND PAMPHLETS.

The best of my unpublished MSS. of any size or consequence is perhaps my translation of Book Alpha of the Iliad, quite literal and in its original metre of hexameters:  hitherto I have failed to find a publisher kind enough to lose by it; for there are already at least twelve English versions of Homer unread, perhaps unreadable.  Still, some day I don’t despair to gain an enterprising Sosius; for my literal and hexametrical translation is almost what Carthusians used to call “a crib,” and perhaps some day the School Board or their organ, Mr. Joseph Hughes’s Practical Teacher, may adopt my version.  Its origin and history is this:  finding winter evenings in the country wearisome to my homeflock, I used to read to them profusely and discursively.  Amongst other books, a literary daughter suggested Pope’s Homer; which, as I read, after a little while, I found to be so very free and incorrect a translation (if my memory served me rightly) that I resolved to see what I could do by reading from the original Greek in its own (English) metre.  I soon found it quite easy to be both terse and literal; and having rhythm only to care for without the tag of rhyme, I soon pleased my hearers and in some sort myself, reading “off the reel” directly from the Greek into the English.