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Show n HISTORIC sroT. I Our t'irrosiiomteni VUitu Shakesiieoro's I Old Home on (lie Avon. j The following is the conclusion I of Elder Burrows' letter to Tue ; Bl'Ol.ER. From Warwick we traveled on to Stratford, where we arrived in the evening. As 1 entered the town I could almost imagine there was poetry in the very air, in the llowers and on the trees. We sought our lodgings and retired in a poetical mood, but arose in the morning to lind that the fleas had chased the poetry from our chamber cham-ber into the street. In passing through the city we found that almost everything was Shake- spcarean ana u that celebrated poet were permitted to visit his birthplace now he would learn that he lives there more tha.n ever. Having in due time reached the world-famed old cottage where the poet was born, we first made a very careful examination of its exterior, ex-terior, which cost us nothing. We j found that its attractiveness con- j sisted chiefly in its ancient style of design and construction, being built partly of wood and partly of brick and mortar. Entering by a curiously shaped door, we were admitted by "a portly, good-natured old gentleman, we fonudwe were the first visitors for the morning. The price of admission admis-sion is one shilling sixpence to view the cotbige and sixpence to view the .museum. We "were shown to the re; al r and discovered discover-ed that half the pages of that book bore the names and residences of Americans, to which we added ours. Turning round we saw the four walls of the room were literally covered with the autographs of former visitors from all parts of the world aiid such is the case in all the rooms, but visitors are no longer allowed t') write on the walls. The floors and ceilings are much the worse for wear and age1 nd some of the ceilings are supported sup-ported to prevent them from fall-! fall-! ig- There are quite a few pieces of furniture once used by the poet on exhibition. Chairs, tables and an old desk once used by him attract much attention. We ascended by a very rickety stairway into the room where the poet was born and on entering and viewing its crumbling, crumb-ling, shattered appearance I thought, ''can it be possible that In such ' a humble cot as this was corn one who wrote such aoul-stir-ring pbiys and poetry as Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, etc." In the museum are many interesting inter-esting relics, among which is Shakespeare's signet ring which was worn by him. The museum adjoins ad-joins the library. The library contains con-tains Shakespeare's works in various vari-ous sJi7fR nnd f(1ifiiin nlon npflrlv all the works which have been written hy various authors on Shakespeare and his works. After leaving Shakespeare's house we visited the river Avon. We saw the old church where the poet was buried. We alto visited the Memorial Me-morial Theatre and other interesting interest-ing reminders of the bard, which fully repaid us for our visit. John Biutnows. Coventry, England, S-jpt. 10, HM. |