Many circumstances conspired to make our visit to Stratford upon Avon one of peculiar interest. We had the finest autumnal weather, and so perfect a full moon, that our researches could be continued in the evening, almost as well as during the day.
The native place of Shakspeare is not strikingly picturesque, and the habitudes of its people reveal no distinctive character. We fancied that the urchins playing about the streets were somewhat more noisy and insubordinate, than English children are wont to be. Possibly they were striving to be like the renowned bard, in those points of character most easily imitable. His name is in almost every mouth, and you can scarcely turn a corner but what some vestige of him meets the eye. It would seem that he, who throughout life was the least ambitious, the most careless about his fame, of all distinguished men, was, by the very echo of that fame, after the lapse of centuries, to give the chief impulse to some five or six thousand persons, dwelling on the spot where he first drew breath. There are the Shakspeare relics, the Shakspeare statue, the Shakspeare Theatre, the Shakspeare Hotel, the Shakspeare bust, the Shakspeare tomb;-every body tells you of them,—every body is ready to rise, and run, and show them to the stranger. The ancient house and chamber, where he was born, are humble even to meanness. Yet walls, and ceilings, and casketed albums, are written over, and re-written, with the names of pilgrim-visitants from
