of the earth did not take place at the beginning
of the week, as the natives fondly hoped; and
sleeping became a less expensive luxury. Beds
declined in the market, and sofas that had been
looking up on Saturday, were entirely at a
discount. Omnibuses came rattling up from the
station with only three or four persons in them.
Wombwell's menagerie came in with a little
village of yellow vans and many men and horses,
looked about and thought it would go away
again. Eventually, however, drew up beside
the Scotch giant, and blew brass horns until it
black in the face; but to no purpose.
Performing elephants were reported to be engaged
in an entirely new and astonishing feat—that of
eating their heads off. I call at the office of the
committee, and find that a poet has sent in an
invocation beginning:

             Come let us Tercentenerate—

Wander forth again and invoke the town in the
poet's words: Come let us tercentenerate,
by all means. But at present all the
tercentenerating is done by the town band, which for
wind is a paragon. The performance of the
Messiah at the Pavilion in the afternoon is, as
respects the attendance, a failure. The audience
consisted chiefly of the gentry of the neighbourhood,
who came in in their carriages and went
away again immediately the performance was
over. It was a bitter sight for the natives to
see the horses eating out of their own nose-
bags, and the owners of the horses sitting in
the carriages eating out of their own nose-bags—
not patronising the town to the extent of a feed
of corn, nor a biscuit and a glass of sherry.
Prospect brightens, however, on Tuesday, when
the players come. Tickets for Twelfth Night
going off rapidly, and the indefatigable mayor,
who is ubiquitous, begins to look more cheerful.
The vicar, beloved of all the natives high and
low, is seen driving through the town a phaeton,
in which are seated side by side the Bishop of
St. Andrews and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, the
bishop craving for something more solid than
Twelfth Night, and asking Sir Andrew why he
doesn't play Macbeth. I go to the Pavilion
for the first time to see the comedy, and am
delighted with the splendid proportions of the
building; consider it a model of what a theatre
ought to be, and can only account for its perfection
by the supposition that the architect set to
work to construct a wooden tent and by accident
hit upon a perfect theatre. The Pavilion is larger
in area than any theatre in London, and yet the
spectator can see and hear in every part of it,
and this seems to be owing to the low roof
and the absence of piled-up tiers of boxes. Will
some one confer a great obligation on the London
play-going public by bringing the Pavilion up to
London, and planting it, say, in Leicester-square?
Sitting in a wide open balcony, with plenty of
room to move about, and neither oppressed with
heat nor chilled with draughts of cold air, I
thought Twelfth Night a more enjoyable comedy
than I had ever thought it before, and
considered that I had never seen it so well played
even by the Haymarket company: which
impressions, I have no doubt, were induced by the
beauty and the comfort of the theatre. I had
seen all the plays and all the actors, but I went
night after night simply to enjoy the rare English
luxury of being comfortable in a theatre.

Now that the players were coming down
every day, there was an agreeable combination
of the rus in urbe, of London and Stratford,
about the place. When I had heard the band
blow from all quarters of the town, and marched
hither and thither, always turning into Henley-
street to see the House, and never finding
anybody near it, except on one occasion, when
Punch was giving his performance exactly
opposite; when I had mused myself nearly asleep
in the old churchyard, or by the banks of the
placid Avon; when I had inspected the portraits
of the Bard in the Town-hall, and the plaster
cast with some hairs adhering to the
moustache, concerning which I had grave doubts,
and the walking-stick and drinking-cup under
the glass case, and more pipes fron New Place;
and gazed in through a window at an old rusty
piece of iron, said to be the original key of the
church where Shakespeare was married; and
dropped in for a glass of ale at the Falcon,
whose parlour is lined with the oak panelling
from the Bard's grand house, and where the Bard
himself is said to have sat of an evening and
smoked a pipe, to the wonder and amazement
of the village gossips—when I had done all
these things, and tercentenerated (poet, I thank
thee for that word!) to my heart's content, it
was very pleasant to betake me to a certain
snug room in the Red Horse, there to foregather
with Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Sir Toby Belch,
and Malvolio, and the two Dromios, and Touchstone,
and many more, who were well bestowed
at that hostel, when they were not being
entertained by the most hospitable Mayor and the no
less hospitable Vicar. And here, whenever a
new comer arrived, Washington Irving's poker
was brought in, tenderly encased in a blue baize
sheath, and handed round to be admired.
Washington Irving had stirred the fire with that very
poker, in that very room, and so it has been a
holy poker ever since. And here the Irish
"busker" stole in one evening and gave us a
recitation with remarkable emphasis and
propriety, showing that, when occasion required,
he had a soul above Limerick Races and Irish
jigs.

Away on the top of an omnibus to Charlcote
Park, the scene of the Bard's poaching exploit.
An unbelieving phantom who has haunted me
for days, and denied the birthplace, and the
tomb, and everything else, now denies the
poaching. I shut him up finally, by myself
denying Shakespeare altogether. After a three
miles' ride, we come upon the park, which is
swarming with tame deer, and I picture young
Will sneaking under the shadow of the wall to
knock one of them on the head. Seeing that
the deer are all as tame as hens or ducks, it
came into my head that it was not poaching but
something else, which I will not mention. Drive