None more appreciate thy page's worth,
None more admire thy scenes well acted o'er,
Than we of states unborn in ancient lore."
The room in which the poet was born remains very nearly in its original state, and, save a table, an ancient chair or two, and a bust of Shakespeare, is without furniture; but another upper room is devoted to the exhibition of a variety of interesting relics and mementos. Not the least interesting of these was the rude school desk, at which Master Will conned his lessons at the grammar school. A sadly-battered affair it was, with the little lid in the middle raised by rude leather hinges, and the whole of it hacked and cut in true school-boy style. Be it Shakespeare's desk or not, we were happy in the belief that it was, and sat down at it, thinking of the time when the young varlet crept "like a snail unwillingly to school," and longed for a release from its imprisonment, to bathe in the cool Avon's rippling waters, or start off on a distant ramble with his schoolmates to Sir Thomas Lucy's oak groves and green meadows.
Next we came to the old sign of "The Falcon," which swung over the hostelrie of that name at Bedford, seven miles from Stratford, where Shakespeare and his associates drank too deeply, as the story goes, which Washington Irving reproduces in his charming sketch of Stratford-on-Avon in the Sketch Book. Here is Shakespeare's jug, from which David Garrick sipped wine at the Shakespeare Jubilee, held in 1758; an ancient chair from the Falcon Inn, called Shakespeare's Chair, and said to have been the one in which he sat when he held his club meetings there; Shakespeare's gold signet-ring, with the initials W. S., enclosed in a true-lover's knot. Among the interesting documents were a letter from Richard Quyney to Shakespeare, asking for a loan of thirty pounds, which is said to be the only letter addressed to Shakespeare known to exist; a "conveyance," dated October 15, 1579, from "John Shackspere and Mary his wyeffe" (Shakespeare's parents) "to Robt. Webbe, of their moitye of 2 messuages or tenements in Snitterfield;" an original grant of four yard lands, in Stratford fields, of William and John Combe to Shakespeare, in 1602; a deed with the autograph of Gilbert Shakespeare, brother of the poet, 1609; a declaration in an action in court of Shakespeare v. Philip Rogers, to recover a bill for malt sold by Shakespeare, 1604.
Then there were numerous engravings and etchings of various old objects of interest in and about Stratford, various portraits of the poet, eighteen sketches, illustrating the songs and ballads of Shakespeare, done by the members of the Etching Club, and presented by them to this collection. Among the portraits is one copied in crayon from the Chandos portrait, said to have been painted when Shakespeare was about forty-three, and one of the best portraits extant—an autographic document, bearing the signature of Sir Thomas Lucy, the original Justice Shallow, owner of the neighboring estate of Charlecote, upon which Shakespeare was arrested for deer-stealing. These, and other curious relics connected with the history of the poet, were to us possessed of so much interest that we quite wore out the patience of the good dame who acted as custodian, and she was relieved by her daughter, who was put in smiling good humor by our purchase of stereoscopic views at a shilling each, which can be had in London at sixpence, and chatted away merrily till we bade farewell to the poet's birthplace, and started off adown the pleasant village street for the little church upon the banks of the River Avon, which is his last resting-place.
However sentimental, poetical, or imaginative one may be, there comes a time when the cravings of appetite assert themselves; and vulgar and inappropriate as it was, we found ourselves exceedingly hungry here in Stratford, and we went into a neat bijou of a pastry cook's—we should call it a confectioner's shop in America, save that there was nothing but cakes, pies, bread, and pastry for sale. The little shop was a model of neatness and compactness. Half a dozen persons would have crowded the space outside the counter, which was loaded with fresh, lightly-risen sponge cakes, rice cakes, puffs, delicious flaky pastry, fruit tarts, the preserves in them clear as amber, fresh, white, close-grained English bread, and heaps of those appetizing productions of pure, unadulterated pastry, that the English pastry baker knows so well how to prepare. The bright young English girl, in red cheeks, modest dress, and white apron, who served us, was, to use an English expression, a very nice young person, and, in answer to our queries and praises of her wares, told us that herself and her mother did the fancy baking of pies and cakes, a man baker whom they employed doing the bread and heavy work. The gentry, the country round, were supplied from their shop. How long had they been there?
She and mother had always been there. The shop had been in the family over seventy years.
"Just like the English," said one of the party, aside. "It's not at all astonishing they make such good things, having had seventy years' practice."
And this little incident is an apt illustration of how a business is kept in one family, and in one place, generation after generation, in England; so different from our country, where the sons of the poor cobbler or humble artisan of yesterday may be the proud aristocrat of to-day.