myself had an opportunity of spending together with our new friends. The interest which I know, in your contemplation, and that of your uncle, attaches itself to every thing connected with the person and family of Shakspeare, must plead my excuse for this prolixity. What has occurred here since the day I have thus minutely described, and I can assure you our time has not been idly spent, you shall have when I see you at Wyeburne Hall. We prosecute our journey thither in a few days, and as a temptation to hasten to your friend which cannot fail of having its due effect, I will just add, that it is highly probable we shall soon be honoured with a visit from our dear and amiable bard. "Farewell, my sweet cousin, and continue to love her who doth most exceedingly love you.

"HELEN MONTCHENSEY."

Of the occurrences alluded to in the above letters, as taking place between the period of Montchensey's mingling with the family at NewPlace, and his departure for Wyeburne Hall, we shall now proceed to give some account, merely observing in this place, that if Helen

had deferred her communication a few days longer, she would have found something still more attractive to Agnes, and much more allied to her own fortunes and feelings to expatiate upon, than what had been the subject of her late correspondence, however curious and interesting it had proved.

Shakspeare had felt, as we have already remarked, extremely anxious to lighten the load which seemed to press with so much weight upon the spirits of his elder guest; and now that he was able to enter into society, he endeavoured by occasional company, and, as far as his reviving strength would permit, by short excursions in Stratford and its neighbourhood, to divert the current of his thoughts. As nothing, however, so effectually contributed to abstract Montchensey from his own affairs, as what more immediately related to the person and character of his host, the latter submitted, though somewhat reluctantly, to become, every now and then, his own historian.

"Yes, my friend," returned the bard, in answer to a question put by Montchensey, as they one morning sauntered along Henley Street,

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"if posterity should ever enquire about such a personage as myself, it may be told that here," pointing to an ancient and somewhat homelylooking tenement," he drew the first breath of life, and passed his childhood, and his early youth." "And may we be allowed," cried Helen, her fine eyes sparkling with enthusiasm, and turned upon Shakspeare, as if imploring his consent, may we be allowed to cross this hallowed threshold ?" "If vanity, my fair young flatterer," he replied, "were not the prescriptive inmate of the poet's breast, you would, without all question, plant it there. It is hallowed, however, in my estimation, my dear lady, by the memory of a man of worth; for it was beneath this humble roof that my father lived and died, and maintained a family of eight children.* I am the eldest and last surviving son, and it is a source of inexpressible comfort to me to reflect, that I was able through the patronage of the public to render his latter days easy and

"Our poet's mother," says Mr. Malone, "never appears to have borne to her husband more than eight children, five of whom only, namely, four sons and one daughter, attained to years of maturity."-Vide MALONE's Shakspeare, apud Boswell, vol. ii. p. 51.

independent. It is now about fourteen years since I lost him, and I revisit this house, which I have taken care to preserve nearly in the state in which he left it, with sensations which, if somewhat different from those with which you are kindly pleased to view it, my gentle lady, yet leave me, I trust, a wiser and a better man.” "Ah! my dear Sir," cried Helen blushing, yet with a deep expression of admiration on her features, " you must permit me to say, that he was your Shakspeare, whilst you are everybody's Shakspeare." "It is smartly and eloquently put, my sweet Ellen," rejoined the poet, smiling, whilst the hectic of a moment cross'd his cheek, "but, conscious as I am of my own deficiencies, I dare not trust the picture which the glow of your too partial imagination would place before me; - but let us enter."

"I have heard," remarked Montchensey, sitting down in an old oak armed chair, and surveying the apartment into which they had been admitted with no slight interest, "I have heard, though I know not how truly, that Mr. John Shakspeare was in the woollen trade." "His principal occupation, Master Montchen

sey," returned the bard, "was that of a glover *; and though in reduced circumstances when I first left Stratford for London, owing in a great measure to the pressure of a large family, of which, I am sorry to say, I was then a very thoughtless and extravagant member yet had he formerly lived in comparative affluence, having filled the office of High Bailiff for his native town; and with pride and pleasure can I add, that not only when fortune favoured him, did he perform the duties of a man and a magistrate with promptitude and effect, but that in the hour of adversity he exerted every nerve to support with decency a numerous offspring."

A tear trembled on the cheek of Shakspeare as he uttered these last words, and Montchensey, anxious to avert what might, in the slightest degree, give pain, enquired if the school where he had been educated were yet in existence. "I will show it you," he replied, "as we

* This has been satisfactorily ascertained by Mr. Malone from a very ancient manuscript account of the proceedings in the bailiff's court at Stratford. See his Shakspeare, apud Boswell, vol. ii. p. 78.