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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

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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 Iwith 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

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