joy to light upon, so quiet, so old-fashioned, so homely, yet so comfortable-looking in its homeliness. The church is new, but of superior attractions, and a neat school-house stands beside it. Several large trees are about it, and on the village green. The river here is wide, and with the village has a cheerful look. But we hardly quit Hampton when all is as still and lonely as though all home of man were far removed. The stream glides quietly along, scarcely a ripple stirring its surface but when a heavy carp rises at some luckless fly, or a swallow dips his wing into it; and thick trees on every side close in the prospect.

Charlcote is on the opposite side of the river to Hampton Lucy, and it will be necessary for the pedestrian to cross the bridge at the latter place: a lane will lead him direct to the house. Charlcote House stands close to the river, in a small but richly-wooded park. A broad avenue of fine limetrees leads to the old-fashioned gateway of the mansion. Sir Thomas Lucy, as we have seen, built his mansion in 1558, and it retains all the characteristics of that period. It is a large, low, red brick edifice, full of projections, which checker it with a bold play of light and shadow, peaked gables, bays, and square-headed windows, and stacks of chimneys of twisted and other quaint shapes. So perfect is it, that it hardly requires the remembrance of Shakspere to carry the visitant at once back to the golden days of good Queen Bess. It is a place you linger about, half fearing to enter lest the charm should be broken. If Shakspere was not here as a culprit, he must have been often here as a visitor, have strolled about the park, and looked with similar feelings of delight to those we now

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feel, on it and on the river. To us the chief charm arises from its connection with those days; to us it is ancient, but he saw it when it was but of a few years' date; and whatever were the wild and glowing thoughts that passed through his mind as he lay stretched

"Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out

Upon the brook that brawls along this wood,"

it could scarcely have entered into his imagination that one day this place would be visited because his name had become connected with it.

The interior of the mansion is preserved with the same care and good taste as the exterior: the alterations and additions that had become necessary have been made with a strict regard to the original, and the result is all that could be desired by the straitest archæologist. The noble hall is pointed out as the place in which Shakspere was brought before Sir Thomas Lucy to answer for his misdemeanors. Whatever may have been the cause, it is certain that Shakspere did have some grudge against Sir Thomas, and point against him almost the only personal satire that escaped from his pen ; but it is most probable it arose from other and much later reasons. Another and very narrow avenue leads from the great gateway to the parish church, which stands just at the extremity of the park by the road. And along this avenue the stranger should be sure to walk. The little sober, grey, old pile, is quite the ideal of a simple rural village church. It is, too, quite untouched, and thoroughly unsophisticated. As you look at it from the road, nestling so happily among the noble trees whose fresh deep green shade and dense

foliage make it look greyer and older than it is, and with the grave-stones scattered about the churchyard, it seems the very emblem of peace. Among all the beautiful and impressive sights that our dear Old England can show us, none is more beautiful, more soothing, more elevating than one of her quiet village churches. The loveliest spot is rendered lovelier by it, the grandest is sanctified. The interior of Charlcote Church contains the monuments of Sir Thomas Lucy and of his wife; and if faith may be placed in epitaphs, he was anything but what tradition would represent him. But both are doubtful witnesses, and were they to coincide they would hardly be held sufficient by a rigorous judge to save a suspected person. The epitaph on Sir Thomas's wife is really an excellent sketch of a good wife," set down by him that best did know" whether she were one- -Thomas Lucy. There is a plain stone in the churchyard with an inscription to another couple (John Gibbs, aged 81; and his wife, 55), who seem to have been more content with each other than with the world; it is set down in what the clerk would call such uncommon metre, that it is perhaps worth copying :

"Farewell, proud, vain, false, treacherous world, we have seen enough of thee;

We value not what thou canst say of we."

Perchance, if Sir Thomas could have known all that the wicked world would say of him, he would have jotted down the sentiment, if he had couched it in other words-though they would have done well enough to run in tether with "Shakspere's ballad."

CHAPTER X.

THE BIRTH-PLACE OF SHAKSPERE.

WE will not return again to our stream yet, but proceed at once to Stratford, where we shall abide awhile, and from whence we can at our leisure follow the poet's footsteps along his own Avon. The distance from Charlcote to Stratford is about four miles and a half by the road; by the riverside, some two miles farther.

Wherever he goes, unquestionably the first place the traveller looks after is his Inn-supposing, of course, that he be turned five-and-twenty and have a wife; for till then, travellers, especially such as have a touch of the romantic, do many strange things to their own discomfort, the horror of their seniors in the craft, and the amazement as well as amusement of all innkeeper's men. But for the master traveller, till he is satisfied in respect to his inn, faint and feeble are the attractions of the loveliest scenes, dim the brightest associations, unthought-of the most glorious recollections :to him are the lakes and the mountains,-the birth-places of genius, -the fields that have been moistened with the life-blood of the patriot, or the glorious monuments of man's god-like mind—if he have not had his dinner, and knows not where he shall sleep? Johnson said a toothache would speedily bring to the earth the loftiest flight of the

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