Could not remain and muse in such company;
so looked hurriedly round at the countless names
scribbled all over the walls and ceiling, noticing
"Walter Scott" awkwardly scratched on one of
the diamond panes of the window, and rendered
almost illegible by the names of Brown and
Jones and Robinson that had been scrawled
through it, over it, under it, and all about it;
saw also the name of Thackeray neatly written
in pencil on the ceiling, the place nearest his
hand; and observed generally that the names
that were written in the largest characters and
in the most conspicuous places, were those of
ladies and gentlemen from the United States
of America. Paid another sixpence to the
Museum, where I saw many interesting things,
including Shakespeare's ring, which he must
have worn on his thumb; the desk at which he
sat at school, and on which he had only partly
accomplished the carving of his initials, having
been unable, apparently, to turn the tail of the
S, leaving it in the condition of a C; many
documents of the period, one relating to house
property, with John Shakespeare, his mark (a
very unsteady cross), at the foot of it; a letter
to the poet from a friend in London, asking him
for the loan of thirty pounds—the only epistle
extant addressed to the poet; a large folio
manuscript book, recently discovered in the
Lord Chamberlain's office, in which Shakespeare
is mentioned at the head of a list of other players,
as having received "iiij yardes of skarlet red
cloth," to enable him to appear in a procession
on the occasion of the entry of King James into
London; a flat candlestick found at the bottom
of the well in New Place, the site of the Bard's
grand house, a candlestick with which he may
often have gone up to bed, and which, having
been found at the bottom of a well, I am
inclined to regard as a true relic; much mulberry
and many clay pipes of modern aspect, which I
reject altogether.

From the house to the church, where I deem
myself fortunate in finding a seat in the chancel
exactly opposite the Bard's monument. I am
afraid I paid more attention to the bust than to
the service. The effigy struck me very much, and
gave me quite a new idea of the Bard's features
and expression. Give me this bust, and I resign
to you all the portraits. I have here the counterfeit
presentment of a face suggestive above all
things of strong vitality, freshness of spirit, and
liveliness of disposition. I can imagine this to be
the face of a man who was full of natural genius
and did not know it; whose animal and mental
spirits never flagged; who never toiled at
anything; whose head never ached. I cannot
discuss the question of the plaster cast of the face,
said to have been taken after death, and used as
a model by the artist who executed this effigy.
I can only say that the effigy satisfies me, and
that I can believe Shakespeare to have been
exactly such a man as it represents. I am in a
very favourable position in the chancel for
making these observations and revolving these
thoughts, but not for hearing the Archbishop of
Dublin's sermon, which is preached far away up
in the body of the church from a pulpit which I
cannot see. Every now and then, however, I
hear the word "Shakespeare," and catch
portions of familiar quotations from his works, and,
straining my ear, I hear the archbishop say by
way of peroration, that Shakespeare was a gift
from Heaven, for which we ought to give
thanks. And after a three hours' sederunt, we
stream out of the beautiful church, and march
home to our dinners (getting cold) to the martial
strains of the town band; and as I keep step to
"See the conquering hero," I wonder if Exeter
Hall is present, and what he is thinking of all
this.

I walk across the fields in the evening to Ann
Hathaway's cottage, and am charmed with the
quiet rural beauty of the scene. The fields are
sparkling with daisies and wild flowers, like
stars in a firmament of green; the rooks are cawing
high up on the trees; the groves are ringing
with the songs of birds; the air is laden with
the perfume of new leaves. That long-expected
thrill comes unbidden now. Truly a place to
nurse a poet. I sit lingering upon every stile,
drawing in great draughts of the fresh exhilarating
air, as if I could take in a stock of it to last
me when I have returned to the murky city.
And by-and-by little maidens come round me
with offerings of bunches of daisies and cowslips,
with a view to halfpence—and when I inquire
the whereabouts of the cottage, they all volunteer
to be my guides; and remonstrance and
halfpence being equally in vain, I proceed
onwards escorted by a whole troop of maidens,
who seem to conduct me in triumph. I find the
cottage more real than the house; no paint and
varnish here; but all the old beams, many of
the old stones, and a thatched roof that might
be any age. A female descendant of the Hathaways
receives me at the door joyfully, and conducts
me through the apartments—the sitting-
room and kitchen combined, where I imagined
William and Ann sitting courting on the stone
ledge under the great chimney—if, indeed, Ann's
father ever allowed the lad to come beyond the
garden-gate—up-stairs to the bedroom, where
Ann probably arrayed herself in bridal attire
previous to proceeding on William's arm to
Luddington church. And here there is a
wonderful old bedstead of black oak, which I
imagined might be that "second-best" which the
Bard bequeathed to his widow. The female
descendant of the Hathaways could not say:
perhaps it might be. Express myself very much
pleased with the cottage, and descendant of the
Hathaways hopes I will tell my friends that the
show is worth seeing. On looking at the
visitors' book I can understand her anxiety in
this respect. Very few pilgrims have as yet
walked across the fields to view Ann Hathaway's
cottage. I return by the way I came, and find
a missionary preaching under a hedge to a select
congregation of rustics, denouncing the
established clergy, especially in the form of
archbishops, calling down vengeance upon the
Pavilion, and describing Shakespeare as a worm.

The expected influx of visitors from all corners