It is but a fragment, the upper portion only. The same style was adopted with singular good taste for the new font in the church, which may therefore be considered as a restoration of it. Mr. Knight has thus given its history: "The parochial

accounts of Stratford shew that about the middle of the seventeenth century a new font was set up. The beautiful relic of an older time, from which William Shakspere had received the baptismal water, was, after many years, found in the old charnel-house. When that was pulled down it was kicked into the churchyard, and half a century ago was removed by the parish-clerk to form the trough of a pump at his cottage. Of the parish-clerk it was bought by the late Captain Saunders; and from his possession came into that of the present owner, Mr. Heritage, a builder at Stratford." It is still in his possession. The font shewn at the Shakspere Arms is reported to have been brought from the neighbouring church of Bidford.

From the house where Shakspere was born to the place where he obtained his "small Latin and less Greek," is but a short distance.

THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL

is situated in the High Street, beside the Chapel of the Guild, or of the Holy Cross, a good specimen of the ecclesiastical architecture of the reign of Henry VII.; and the interior of which was originally decorated with a series of remarkable paintings; the principal being the legendary history of the Holy Cross. In this chapel, at one time, the school was held; and an order in the corporation books, dated February 1594, directs "that there shall be no school kept in the chapel from this time following." The occupation of the chapel as a school may have been but a temporary thing; but Shakspere may have imbibed some portion of his learning within its walls.

The foundation of the Grammar School took place in the reign of Edward IV. In 1482, Thomas Jolyffe gave certain lands and tenements to the Guild of the Holy Cross, to maintain 66 a priest fit and able in knowledge to teach grammar freely to all scholars coming to the school in the said town to him, taking nothing of the scholars for their teaching." On the dissolution of the guild, Edward VI., in the seventh year of his reign, ordered that "the free grammar school for the instruction and education of boys and youth there, should be thereafter kept up and maintained as heretofore it used to be."

It is a

The Latin schoolroom is situated over the old Guildhall, and is that portion of the building nearest the chapel. perfectly plain room, with a low plaster ceiling; but from the massive beams at the sides of the room, and those above the modern plaster, to which the struts from the side beams form a support, as well as from the external appearance of the deeplypitched roof, there can be little doubt that an open timber roof

originally decorated this apartment. The Mathematical schoolroom beside it has a flat roof, crossed by two beams of the Tudor era; and in the centre of the roof, where they meet each other, is a circular ornament or boss. The school has been recently repaired, and it has entirely lost its look of antiquity. A few years ago there were many very old desks and forms there; and one among them was termed Shakspere's desk. It is now kept below. We engrave a representation of

it. The tradition which assigned it to Shakspere may be very questionable its being the oldest and in the worst condition may have been the reason for such an appropriation. The boys of the school very generally carried away some portion of it as a memento, and the relic-hunters frequently behaved as boyishly, so that a great portion of the old wood has been abstracted.

The court-yard of the school presented many features of interest; but the hand of modern " improvement" has swept them away. On a visit to Stratford eight years ago, the author obtained the sketch engraved opposite. The schools were at that time approached by an antique external stair, roofed with tile, and up which the boys had ascended from the time of Shakspere. This characteristic feature has passed away; its only record is the cut now given; the court-yard has been subdivided and

walled; and the original character of this portion of the building has departed for ever.

For the mementoes of Shakspere's later life, we must look in the neighbourhood of Stratford. Tradition assigns adventures and visits to many places in its vicinity; but the most important locality with which his name is connected is the Park of Sir Thomas Lucy at

CHARLECOTE.

This was the scene of his deer-stealing adventures, which led, says tradition, to his quarrel with Sir Thomas, to a lampoon by the Poet, which occasioned him to leave Stratford for London in greater haste than he wished, and produced his connexion with the theatres. Of these tales, we must speak farther on. But first let us say a few words on this ancient mansion.

Dugdale has given the history of Charlecote and its lords with much minuteness. It is mentioned in Domesday Book; and its old Saxon name Ceorlcote the home of the husbandman — carries us back to years before the Conquest. The present house was built in 1558 by Thomas Lucy, who in 1593 was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. It stands at a short distance from, and at some little elevation above, the river Avon. The building forms three sides of a quadrangle, the fourth being occupied by a handsome central gate-house, some distance in advance of the main building. The octangular turrets on each side, and the oriel window over the gate, are peculiar and pleasing features. The house retains its gables and angular towers, but has suffered from the introduction of the large and heavy sashwindows of the time of William III. or George I. In Thomas's edition of Dugdale's Warwickshire, published in 1730, there is an interesting "East prospect of Charlecote," drawn by H. Beighton in 1722, which gives a curious bird's-eye view of the entire house and gardens in their original state; that is, in the

state in which Shakspere would see them. A reduced copy of this view appears opposite. There is another view, shewing the back of the house from the river, preserved in the hall, and which appears to have been painted about the reign of James II. It shews the building to have been at that time precisely in the same condition; and as all modernisation has affected the interior principally, the exterior aspect is now much the same as it was in the days of the Poet.

Passing through the old gate, we enter the court-yard, which, in place of the old fountain and circular tank of water, is now laid out in flower-beds. The hall is entered by a porch having the family arms and crest at each angle. We give a view of the interior as it is now. It has undergone alterations since Washington Irving thus described it in his Sketch-book: "The ceiling is arched and lofty; and at one end is a gallery, in which stands an organ [this has now been removed]. The weapons and tro