Visit To Stratford-On-Avon And Its Vicinage.

science , and art seem to be finding their way into every cottage * God forbid that they should ever again be locked up in lodge or cloister ; but without seeking to make either a mere mutual improvement society or an antiquarian and archaeological institution of the Craft , I for one will never rest content with our present high pretensions and poor practice . We haveas we ever

, have had , an immense amount of talent and learningin our ranks ; let us turn to it good account ; let us have Masonic Halls , of chaste design , in every town of consequence throughout the habitable globe ; let them be reserved exclusively for the Craft , and never let for hire ; let us have lectures on all the liberal arts and

sciences delivered therein , and on such literary subjects as can be handled without sectarianism , whenever the halls are not needed for our solemn rites ; and instead of Masonry being a stumbling-block to thousands of good men , who judge it by the heartless and brainless felloAvs whom they sometimes see strutting in Masonic

clothing , to the immense injury of the Royal Craft , Ave shall number in our ranks the best portion of the wealth , the intelligence , and the virtue of the age . Unless we do this , let the degree of a Eelloiv Craft be remodelled , and the valued privilege of laying the foundation-stones of public buildings foregone , and all the ancient landmarks and traditions of the Order cast to the fat Aveed

That rots itself m case on Lethe wharf . " Hamlet , " Act i ., so . v . Why should we not have a library , and museum , and scientific apparatus , belonging to every lodge ? The money which some lodges spend hi refreshment alone would furnish these ; but they , alas ! cannot afford so much aa a tracing-board ! When I look upon those

fine old structures which our ancient brethren erected before the divorce of operative and speculative Masonry —take this church ofthe Holy Trinity of Stratford as an example—and think of the bauble which some of " my incompetent brothers , " as Thomas Carlyle would very properly call them , make of our venerable and

ever-to-bevenerated Craft , " I could brain them AA'ith my lady ' s fan . ' At the east end of the north aisle is the chapel of the Holy Virgin , AA'hich is filled with monuments of the ancient family of Clapton , men of mark in their day one of whom ( Sir Hugh ) was elected Lord Mayor ol London in the year 1491 , and erected the noble bridge of fourteen arches over the Avon , at the northern extremity of the town . The monuments are , many oi

them , costly ones ; that against the north wall , with the tivo recumbent figures in white marble , rather interested me . As the William Clopton , Esq ., who died April 18 th , 1592 , and who is here represented in armour beside his wife , Anne , who survived him until September 17 th , 1596—as both these persons must have known the youthful Shakspere and his Anne

Hathaway , with many of their kith and kin , I would have given old Kempe something handsome if he could have roused them up for an hour from their dreamless sleep , so that I mig ht have asked a feAV simple questions concerning fche great poet of humanity . And then , if I had ascertained all that I could have Avished , AA'hat

savage criticisms and learned " dry-as-dust" treatises would haA'e been written to prove my historical ignorance and total unfitness to write on a subject like Shakspere . The trouncing which Wordsworth and Keats received for their poetry at the hands of the reviewers , or that Bro . Collier is receiving now , would be mildness itself compared to the cutting-up I should catch at the hands of the Mac Growlers * and Augustus

Tomlinsons of the press . But the Clopton information would be curious and important in its lvay ; for vvhen this AVilliam died , our William had become a husband and a father , a player , a shareholder in the Blackfriars Theatre , and a dramatist who had received the published praise of Edmund Spenser * and the envy of poor Robert Greene and others . Ancl when the ladywhose ashes

, now repose with those of her husband beneath this gorgeous tomb , departed to The undiscover'd country , from ivhose bourne " No traveller returns . Our bard had published his poems of Venus ancl Adonis and The Rape of Lucreceboth dedicated to his noble

, patron , the Right Honourable Henry Wriothesley , third Earl of Southampton , who ( like his unfortunate friend , the Earl of Essex ) was then a popular and powerful peer ; Spencer was writing his Colin Clout's Come Home Again , ivith its genial allusion to Shakspere , under the feigned name of Action , —•

And there , though last not least , is Action , A gentler shepherd may nowhere be found , Whose muse , full of high thoughts' invention , Doth , like himself , heroically sound . " f Ben . Jonson , then twenty years of age , having abandoned alike the callings of bricklayer and soldier , was marriedand an actor in Londonjust beginning to write

, , for the stage ; and—but hold ! Why recount further ? Both the chief of the Clapton clan , and his spouse of the Welsh Griffith family , are alike silent and indifferent to the inquiries-1 would make ; never more shall sound salute their ears , until " the trumpet shall sound , and the dead shall be raisedincorruptible . " + Pass we on

, , therefore , and let us eome to the tomb of Shakspere . The south aisle is described by Wheler as " a well-built structure , strengthened by the addition of buttresses , terminating in foliaged pinnacles ; and at the west end is a circular staircase , which , on the outside , has the appearance of an octagonal embattled toiver . This aisle

Avas rebuilt by John de Stratford , in the beginning of the fourteenth century , during the time he was Bishop of Winchester ; and at the east end he founded his chapel , which he dedicated to Thomas a Becket . The ascent to the altar is now remaining ; and in the south wall are three empty niches , spirally canopied , and ornamented ivith perforated carved Avork , which , when

perfect , must have had an elegant appearance . At present , however , it is very much mutilated but , from what remains , some idea may be formed of its primeval beauty . " The transept appears to have undergone considerable alterations in Shakspere ' s twenty-sixth year ( 1589 ) , AA'hen the poet Avas a layer ancl shareholder in the

p Blackfriars Theatre , certifying ( along with his fellows ) the Lords of the Privy Council that they had " neA'er given cause of displeasure , in that they had brought into their plays matters of state and religion , unfit to be handled by them , or to be presented before lewd