Visit To Stratford-On-Avon And Its Vicinage.

And now , reader , having enjoyed my tea better I dare say , than thou Avilt enjoy my digressions , I am off for Shottery . An intelligent gentleman who was staying at the same inn as myself , and who knew the locality very Avell , kindly aceepted my invitation , and accompanied me to Ann Hathaway ' s cottage . A leasant Avalk by the footpath

p through the fields soon brought us to the place , although we loitered to vieAv the scenery on every hand . Many a time , thought I , has Will Shakspere passed along this footpath with Ann Hathaivay leaning on his arm ; their hearts full of loA'e and hope at one time , and of love and trouble at another for had not the irit of Shakspere

; sp felt every emotion AA'hich can stir the soul of man , he Avould never have become the poet of the human race . Here , many a time and oft , he has plucked the ivild rose to place it in her bosom , and doubtless here said many a wise thing as he has marked its petals so soon Avither or fall away . HOAV he could moralise on a rose those read

in his writings Avell know . Take the following passage from Oiltello as a sample . It is AA'here the Moor is soliloquising in the bed-chamber of poor Desdemona , kissing her hand before he becomes her murderer : —

" Avhen I have pluck d thy rose , I cannot give it A'ital growth again , It needs must wither . —I'll smell it on the tree . " —Act v ., scene 2 . Shottery is a very small rural hamlet , about a mile from Stratford ; and the cottage from which Shakspere wooed and Avon his Ann Hathaivay stands at the end of

the hamlet farthest from Stratford . It is one of those quiet , rustic places where a lover of pastoral life might delight to divell . Entering by a small gate , Ave found ourselves in what Avas once the garden or orchard of the Hathaway family ; but it has been shorn of its fair proportions , being UOAV much smaller than it then was . I sat me down on a stone by the little old-fashioned well ,

lighted my pipe , and quenched my thirst with . Adam ' s Avine ; and as I did so , I thought of the many times which Shakspere may have drunk of this well , and then —like SOTJTHEY ' S Stranger at the Well of St . Keyne—I" drank of the ivater again . " I am not the only pilgrim AVIIO has rested on that stone , ancl " stoopt to the Avell" in remembrance of the

"gentle Willy" and his lovely and beloved Ann Hathaway . If I mistake not , our Bro . David Garrick , William HoAA'itt , and Charles Dickens are amongst those who have done the same before me ; and hundreds I hope Avill do it ages after the atoms Avhich compose my body have entered into new combinations . The house is a long and rather IOAV building-ivith one

, of those strong frameAvorks of timber which one only finds noAv-a-days in very old houses ; the roof is of thatch , and everything about the place Avears an air of antiquity . I was glad to find that a modern projection , Avhich is generally shoivn in vieAvs of this cottage , had been removed ; and , save that this once-substantial farm-house

is UOAV divided into tAvo cottages , it appears to have been little altered since Shakspere went a-Avooing there . It has long ceased to be the property of the Hathaways , but one of their descendants , Mary Baker , * still occupies one of the cottages . She is a very clean and civil young woman , and is married , as she informed us , to au agricultural labourer , —a body of men , as I learnt from other sources , who toil in the vicinage of Stratford for the humble p ittance of nine shillings a week . In

Cleveland Ave pay such men fifteen shillings- ; so that the immense difference struck me painfully . In fact , it Avas the only thing that marred tlie pleasure of my visit to Warwickshire ; unless it Avas the Avish that my Avife and children could have shared the privilege of visiting these poetic sites along with me . Mary Baker seemed delighted to shoiv US the house of

her fore-elders : for most of the visitors to Stratford , strange to say , miss this spot . What they can be thinking about to do so , I am at a loss to guess ; ignorance alone can be the cause of it , —for the house of Ann Hathaivay at Shottery is much more gratifying to the intelligent admirer of Shakspere than the house

in Henley-street , on account of tlie one being kept in its original state , whilst the other has been modernised after a most barbarous fashion . As the house of Ann Hathaway—which an unpoetical farmer of Luddington , named Barns , once purposed destroying—is now , I understand , the property of a brother Mason , I trust it is in hands where its safe preservation may be depended upon . Mounting a few steps , Ave entered the passage Avhich

runs through the house , and seated ourselves on the old oaken bench , against whose high back it is by no means improbable the manly shoulders of the poet may have rested , both in his youth and in his later years . And then Ave sat by the ingle , where many a Hathaway , aye , and many a Shakspere , have often sat ; for the families appear to have been very intimateeven before the young

, deer-stealer took old Richard Hathaway ' s daughter for his bride , and—as I believe—for his life-long beloved and loving Avife . On entering a loAv-roofed room , the Avindow of Avhich looked out upon a pleasant country , where a man earning more than nine shillings a week might live as happily as

tlie day is long , I was delighted to find that Mary Baker in her poverty had resisted many tempting offers to sell an ancient , curiously carved bedstead , * of black oak , Avhich has stood there from time immemorial , and which I hope Avill stand there as long as a fragment of it Avill hold together . Some ancient , heavy , and excellent linen articles , which formerly belonged to the Hathaways of Shottery , are also in poor Mary Baker ' s possession . " I did not like to part Avith either the bedstead or the linen ,