NEW PLACE, THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. For convenience sake, as the objects in the town of Stratford necessarily engage first attention, and as they lie in continuity, we shall leave for the present the romance of Shakespeare's love passages, and deferring our visit to Shottery look at the site of New Place, the home of Shakespeare when in Stratford, where he finally retired, and where he died. What! the site only ?—yes, immediately opposite the Guild Chapel, where now within the walls of a garden wave the branches of a lofty tree, is the site of Shakespeare's home, the home that he loved to abide in-broken up, demolished, built upon utterly degraded. Shakespeare when still a young man, early in the year 1597, purchased New Place from William Underhill for £60. It was then described as consisting of 66 one messuage, two barns, and two gardens with their appurtenances." The mansion had been originally built by Sir Hugh Clopton, in the reign of Henry VII., and called "The Great House," and was then doubtless the largest and best house in Stratford. Shakespeare repaired it, beautified and planted the grounds, and made it the retirement of his fondest joys. He had probably some pride in doing this, for youthful injuries and youthful recollections are never forgotten. Treated contumeliously, as he had been, by the great squire of the vicinity, Sir Thomas Lucy, and doubtless in some degree forced to leave Stratford on persecution connected with the deer-stealing affair, he determined to return as a gentleman, and so in ten years he re-appeared upon the scene as the purchaser of New Place, henceforth to be considered fit for worshipful company. His pride extended further, for in 1596 he caused his father to apply at the Herald's College for a grant of arms, on the strength of his mother being a co-heiress of the Ardens, a "family of worship," and accordingly he obtained "a spear of the first, the point upward hedded argent upon a bend sable in a field of gold," as shewn upon his monument, having for his crest a falcon with extended wings supporting a spear. He was now ready for a tilt with Sir Thomas Lucy or any other opponent, but possibly the sight of the spear, with its "point upward hedded argent" was enough—at all events it secured the bard in his position as an acknowledged gentleman, and he was not to be gainsayed as a poor player. Many authors have attempted to picture "the gentle Shakespeare" in his pleasant retirement of New Place, but the truth is that no chronicles exist on the subject, and but very little is known. He might feel himself indeed different to and above the comprehension of the world in poetical things, but he had to live and endure, like the general mass of mankind. But it is unneces sary to rake up minute matters, as some historians have done to show that Shakespeare sold things he did not want, lent money, and wanted again what was fairly due to him. One thing as interesting in his domestic history while possessing New Place, we may allude to. "On June 5th, 1607, Susanna, his eldest daughter was married to Dr. John Hall, and he was most probably present at the nuptial ceremony, as the union met his cordial approval, as may be inferred from the position Mrs. Hall occupied in his will. In the following December, Shakespeare lost his brother Edmund, and before another year had elapsed, his mother, who had lived to witness the success of her eldest son, likewise passed away from this transitory scene. She was buried at Stratford on September 9, 1608, and her eldest son most probably attended the funeral of his mother. Shakespeare himself had then retired from the stage, and three years before his death abandoned London altogether. Here he died on April 23rd, 1616, and was buried in the chancel of Stratford Church only two days afterwards. The fate of the house remains to be told. Shakespeare left it to his daughter, Mrs. Hall, for her life, and it was inhabited by her and her husband, Dr. Hall, a physician. Here the Dr. died in 1635, and in 1643 his widow entertained Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I., who had come to Stratford with an army, and remained at New Place three weeks. At Mrs. Hall's death in 1649 the house passed to her only daughter Elizabeth, then Mrs. Nash, and finally Lady Barnard. After her death the premises were sold and came again into the Clopton family, and Sir H. Clopton, Knight, Barrister, and Herald, new fronted the house as represented in "Wheler's History of Stratford.” In 1753, the Rev. F. Gastrell, Vicar of Frodsham, in Cheshire, purchased the property, but being pestered with enquiries about Shakespeare and the Mulberry tree in the garden planted by him, he in 1756 illnaturedly cut it down, the wood being gladly purchased by Mr. Thomas Sharpe, watchmaker, of Stratford, who sold articles made from the "immortal mulberry," as Garrick called it, for a long-a very long time! W. O. Hunt, Esq., of Stratford, has a valuable table made from the mulberry wood. At length Gastrell finding Stratford an uncomfortable place, left it and confided New Place to the charge of servants, but the parish still annoying him about rates, he took his revenge by entirely pulling down the house and selling its materials, in 1759. Thus the site of New Place, which if it had remained in its integral beauty, would perhaps have been the place of most interest in Stratford, as showing what Shakespeare really loved and prided himself in, can now only be glanced at with the most painful feelings. The garden is divided, built upon and cut up, and on a portion of it stands the modern theatre-but not a fragment of Shakespeare's home now remains. An interesting relic exists in Mr. Heritage's garden, below the Grammar School. This is the upper portion of the old font of the parish church, at which Shakespeare himself and many of his family received holy baptism. As is too often the case, about the middle of the seventeenth century the old font was discarded and a new one! put up. Thus all old associations were dried up, and the sacred stone at which so many had been christened, was thrown into the charnel house. Here among skulls and bones it lay neglected and broken till the charnel house was pulled down, when it was kicked into the church yard, and part of it taken by the parish clerk to be used as a watering trough. The late Captain Saunders purchased it of the clerk, and it now stands in the garden of Mr. Heritage, a builder. Such are the transitions we are subjected to in this sublunary scene. Shakespeare had a foreseeing wisdom, he had seen the skulls in the mouldy charnel house, and he had no wish his own bones should get there if his malediction could prevent it. Where would they have been now but for the lines on his grave? And here is the fragment-the broken fragment of the font at which he was presented for the first rite of the church-with all our efforts to preserve memorials of the sons of genius, how futile and vain is the task?— some spoiler, careless, indifferent, or malignant, defeats our hopes; and time himself unsparingly urges his scythe to continual destruction. "The great globe And all that it inherit must dissolve, And like the baseless fabric of a vision, |