Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/164

142 hardly understood their value, and it was only after a century had passed that they began to be appreciated. Out of some of the old tales and legends which he had heard, the lowly bred country youth wove the most exquisite tissues of poetry and romance that the world has ever read. The forgotten creatures of some Italian story became like living, real people by the magic of his pen.

He stayed in the theatre a good many years. During that time he wrote about forty plays, and as he seems to have been more prudent and saving than most poets have been, he became quite prosperous and well off in worldly matters. He bought a share of the play-house, and for some years was manager of it. When he was a little past middle age he retired to a comfortable estate in his native town of Stratford, and there he died when he was just fifty-two years old.

The first of the stories from Shakespeare which I have to tell you has its principal scenes laid in fairy-land, and is called

The king and queen of the fairies had quarreled, and all fairy-land was in the dumps. Queen Titania sat pouting all day in her most retired bower, and would hardly stir abroad for