a wish to stop his horse. Were he told that he was in Stratford-the birth-place, the chosen retreat, and the grave of Shakespeare, he would, however, look on all about him with very different sentiments. He would eagerly examine every spot connected with our great bard, or that existed when he dwelt here; especially would he desire to realize the Stratford of Shakespeare, to divest the place of all that has been added to it since he walked about its streets, and to reconstruct whatever has been destroyed."*

To do this satisfactorily would, however, require a considerable effort of that imagination that "bodies forth the form of things unseen;" for, as respects the town of Stratford itself, little indeed remains tangible that met the eye of Shakespeare in its integrity. The Church, the Guild Chapel, the stone bridge, part of Middle Row, an old house in High Street, above the Town Hall, on the opposite side of the way, bearing the date of 1596 on its front, and the memorable dwelling in which Shakespeare himself was born, are nearly all the relics of much importance left of the olden times of Stratford. Nor, indeed, is this to be wondered at, from the lapse of time and the continual changes taking place in renovating the fronts of old houses.†

Stratford was an inconsiderable town in ancient

*Thorne's Rambles by Rivers-the Avon, p. 159.

+ Here and there an old timber-framed tenement of curious ancient character may be seen on the outskirts of the town. The subject is analyzed at some length in Mr. Halliwell's folio Shakespeare, vol. 1.

times, having a ford over the river upon the great street or road, and so derived its name. Its importance was increased by Sir Hugh Clopton, a lord mayor of London, in the reign of Henry VII, and a native of Warwickshire, who built a substantial stone bridge over the Avon, still existing, and also a "great house" in the town, where doubtless in his time he was the great man! The town still progressing, a charter was granted to it by Edward VI, and the "bailiffs and burgesses of Stratford-upon-Avon" constituted. A grammar-schoolattached to the old guild was also provided for, which is interesting as connected with Shakespeare's education. Here, then, in a market town of about a thousand inhabitants, we find John Shakespeare settled in 1555.

But a country town at this time was but a rude assemblage of low timber houses, many of them thatched, and without upper stories—perhaps the lesser ones even without chimnies, and thus fires were perpetually happening; so, in the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh years of Queen Elizabeth's reign two dreadful fires occurred at Stratford, consuming two hundred dwelling-houses; and in 1614-only two years before Shakespeare's death-another fire is said to have consumed fifty-four houses in less than two hours-probably many were thatched cottages, formed of very combustible materials. It is necessary to bear this in mind, when looking for vestiges of old Stratford, and also when gazing at the timber structure in Henley-street, where Shakespeare's father lived; for however inadequate it may appear now as the residence of a substantial family, it

was doubtless, in Queen Elizabeth's reign, a dwelling of note, when compared with the low wattled cottages that the lower order of people then inhabited. Be it our first duty, then, to inspect

THE POET'S BIRTH-PLACE,

And so, proceeding from the cradle to the grave, we shall notice in succession the spots in and about Stratford interesting most especially by their association with his time-enduring name.

Tradition has long pointed out the timbered house on the north side of Henley-street as that in which John Shakespeare resided when his illustrious son was born, and this statement may be said to be all but absolutely proved by a deed dated 1596, discovered by Mr. Halliwell, in which this identical house is mentioned as being in "the tenure and occupation of John Shakespeare."* We can therefore, as Mr. Halliwell says, "safely regard the humble dwelling now secured to the country by the praiseworthy efforts of committees formed at Stratford and London, as the earliest home of our great dramatic poet." But this was not the copyhold tenement purchased by his father in 1556, which has never been shown to have been his residence. The Shakespeare

* A fac-simile of this interesting document is given in Mr. H.'s folio Shakespeare.

+ Halliwell's Life of Shakespeare, 8vo., pp. 33, 34.