behind which, he faid, lay Stratford-upon-Avon. Here, then, I was beginning to tread the ground which was familiar to him whose words are household words to all English-speaking people, and which fuggefted to him those sweet, and withal accurate and life-like pictures of country manners with which his great poems abound.

At about ten o'clock I started on my final ride to Stratford, and after defcending the almoft precipitous hill upon which the inn is perched, I found myself on a level road, bounded on either fide by cornfields, from which the harvest was, in many cafes, not yet gathered in. The only villages of note I paffed were Pillerton Priors and Eatington, the feat, ever fince the Conquest, of the ancient family of Shirley.

At a little after twelve I came in fight of the beautiful old bridge built over the Avon at the entrance to Stratford, by Sir Hugh Clopton, in the reign of Henry VII. It confifts of fourteen flightlypointed arches, and is nearly, if not quite, level. In fact, one does not fee how modern architects excel the older ones, even in this thoroughly utilitarian branch of the art—at least so far as the old materials of lime and stone are employed. The feudal trinoda neceffitas laid upon the vaffal the obligation of defending the country, building bridges, and keeping the highways

D

in order, and the vaffal appears to have performed the obligation tolerably well in medieval England.

And now I was all expectation. I had at last reached the fpot where Shakefpere was born, where he imbibed his earliest impreffions from outward things, and where he chose to spend his life, in preference to many other places which would feem to have had greater claims upon his regard. The question I afked myself was, Is it poffible, by fixing my mind upon the fcene which inscribed its impreffions upon the white paper of the poet's mind, and comparing it with his writings and with the few facts known of his life, to arrive at anything like a juft conception of the man himself? I have often obferved that by perfeveringly fixing the attention upon a difficult paffage in a foreign language, the meaning after a time seems to flash like lightning upon the mind. Can I, by any procefs like this, read the mysterious book of Shakespere's nature?

My first impreffions were certainly not encouraging. The bridge was fine, and to the right was a pretty old house, approached by an avenue of trees, and kept with that beautiful neatness and elegance of greensward and flower-beds which is feen nowhere but in England. The Avon, too, was flowing majestically on, as it did when Shakespere played upon its banks, or flew his hawk at the wild-fowl which harboured in its fedges;

and a pair of fwans, accompanied by their cygnets, were thrusting their long necks to the bottom, where they probably found an abundant repast of worms and grubs, washed down from fome new cuts and embankments a little higher up the ftream. These were all pleafing objects, upon which the fancy of a poet might delight to dwell; but as I rode up the High Street, I was obliged to acknowledge that Stratford is about as uninteresting to the outward fenfes as any country town I had ever seen in England. There is no appearance of anything like antiquity, except perhaps a couple of carriers' inns, and they are modernised. There is no appearance even of wealth, nor any of that neatness and elegance which are its fruits. Stratford is a collection, generally speaking, of mean houses, and the High Street is not its best feature. At the upper extremity is the ugly market-house, where the old market-cross used to stand, but this difappeared in the laft or the beginning of this century.

Having called at the "Red Horse," a good inn on the right of the High Street, in hopes of finding that Mr. Edwards, the photographer, had arrived—a hope in which I was difappointed-I turned to the left, down Chapel Street, to the "Shakefpere," where I took up my quarters.

The "Shakefpere" is an old-fashioned, comfortable

inn, and the hoft shows a laudable interest in the Poet who gives a name to his hostelry and brings him most of his customers. Each room is called after one of the plays, the title of which is placed over the door. Thus the commercial room is fuperfcribed "The Tempest "—not very appropriately, however, at least during my stay, for the house was remarkably quiet. The coffee-room was "As You Like It"-I confefs I did not much like it, for it was as lonely as the Forest of Arden itself. My bed-chamber was named “A Midfummer Night's Dream;" another on the same landing, "Much Ado about Nothing;" another, "Love's Labour Loft," and fo on. Bufts of the Poet are placed on every lobby, and the walls are hung with portraits of himself and illustrations of his works. A curious old clock, faid to have been taken from New Place, and various articles of ancient furniture with which his name is connected, are to be seen in different parts of the houfe. Indeed, as a general rule, I believe Stratford-upon-Avon may be faid to live upon the memory of its great Poet, as Rome does upon the relics of the Apostles.

What a capital plan it would be, by the way, to fet up a Shakesperian high-priest at Stratford, whose function it should be to regulate the devotions of the pilgrims and employ himself in the culte des ruines, and

who should be infpired to pronounce an infallible judgment upon Shakesperian criticism. He should decide whether "The Two Noble Kinfmen," "Titus Andronicus," "Pericles," and the first and second parts of "Henry VI." were canonical or apocryphal; what should be the received text—the folio of 1623 or that of 1632—and what the authority of the quartos; he would pronounce upon the validity of the claims of various readings, and winnow the whole crop of commentators, from Malone, Farmer, Theobald, Steevens, and Johnson, down to Collier, Dyce, and the Cambridge editors. And fo at length the republic of letters might repofe upon infallible authority, and not be, as it now is, a prey to unhappy divifions, and distracted by the uncertain found emitted by its contending teachers.

But to return from my digreffion.

Having feen poor little Stornaway made comfortable in a loose box, to rest after his long journey, and left Smoker to keep him company, I walked out to take a general furvey of the town. The High Street I have already described. Henley Street, which branches off from it at the market-place, is built of mean houses, and has nothing remarkable about it but Shakefpere's birthplace, of which I fhall fpeak presently. Chapel Street, where New Place once ftood, has much more character. But everybody seems to have conspired to