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sat, and the cupboard in which he kept his books, A tobacco-stopper also was shewn us, said to be that which he had been accustomed to use for some years; but as we found this inestimable relic might have been purchased for is. 6d. and that parts of the chair and cupboard might be procured upon similar reasonable terms, we were as much inclined to trive credit to their genuineness, as we had felt ourselves willing to believe the traditions of Guy Karl of Warwick, his shield, sword, and porridge- pot. Homely as the tenement was, however, we had much gratification in recollecting that it had been the birth-place of our great poet, and the scene when the first dawning of his gigantic intellect was displayed. We were naturally led to a recollection of the circumstance (ill-starred as it was thought at the time) that, throwing the young bard upon his own exertions for subsistence, evolved those soarks of eenius, which had they not been elicited
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by necessity, would probably have remained latent: and unknown, and never kindled into a meteor that for i!j wards of a century has surprised and de- ii hied, the civilized world; and will continue to surprise and delight, as long as sense, feeling, and taste, influence the human mind.
Shakespeare, you know, had quietly settled him- self in his father's trade of a wool-dealer, and to
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