His very name fascinated me. Willie Hughes! Willie Hughes! How musically it sounded! Yes; who else but he could have been the master-mistress of Shakespeare’s passion, {1} the lord of his love to whom he was bound in vassalage, {2} the delicate minion of pleasure, {3} the rose of the whole world, {4} the herald of the spring {5} decked in the proud livery of youth, {6} the lovely boy whom it was sweet music to hear, {7} and whose beauty was the very raiment of Shakespeare’s heart, {8} as it was the keystone of his dramatic power? How bitter now seemed the whole tragedy of his desertion and his
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