From an Old Drawing
STONELEIGH AND CHARLECOTE
In driving from Warwick to Stratford the traveler obtains a distant glimpse of Stoneleigh Abbey, one of the fine baronial homes of England, the residence of Lord Leigh, and at a certain stile, near Charlecote House, the carriage is halted, so that the spacious park of Charlecote can be crossed on foot by a passenger who may wish to see the place where, as legend has long affirmed, Shakespeare killed the deer of Sir Thomas Lucy, thereby incurring enmity and punishment. The story lacks proof. No deer were kept by Sir Thomas at Charlecote,—though now they are numerous there,—but they were kept by him at Fullbrook, a park that he owned, not very far from Charlecote, and it is not impossible that Shakespeare and his comrades, in the wildness of frolicsome youth, did poach upon his preserves. Tradition, in all old English country places, has, when tested, often been found entirely worthy of credence.
STRATFORD OLD AND NEW
The Stratford of the sixteenth century, though then nearly 300 years old, was merely a village. The houses were chiefly of the one-story kind, made of timber. The inhabitants were in number about 1,400: indeed, the whole population of England was not so numerous as that of London is now. If Shakespeare could revisit his old haunts, though he would see the same green, rose-decked, and poppy-spangled countryside that once he knew, and hear the ripple of the Avon softly flowing between its grassy banks, he would miss many objects once familiar to him, and he would be conscious of much change,—in many ways for the better. Yet there are the paths in which he often trod; there is the school in which he was taught; there is the garden of the mansion that he once owned, and in which he died and there is the ancient church that enshrines his tomb.
THOMAS NASH’S HOUSE, STRATFORD-UPON-AVON
Nash was the husband of Shakespeare’s only granddaughter. The house stands next to New Place
The Birthplace, as it is now designated, is a two-story cottage made of timber and plaster, with dormer windows in its sloping, attic roof. It was originally a finer house than most of its neighbors. Its age is unknown. John Shakespeare, William’s father, bought it in 1556 and occupied it till his death, in 1601, when it became William’s property by inheritance. By him it was bequeathed to his sister, Joan, Mrs. William Hart. It has passed through many ownerships and has been materially changed; but parts of it remain as originally they were, particularly the room on the ground floor, in which there is a large fireplace, with seats in the brick chimney jambs, and also the one immediately above it, the best room in the house, in which, according to ancient tradition, the poet was born. In that room there is a chair, of the sixteenth century.
