felled. Even the "One Elm," the boundary of the Borough on the Birmingham road, and which had been in existence before the Bard's time, and is noticed in a perambulation made the 7th of April 1591, was compelled to bow to Vandal innovation only a few years since, and the act is excused because another elm has been planted in its place! Yes!-take my coat and give me a scarecrow's!

In the absence, then, of any

other tree about Stratford worth looking at, we may examine this, and if we cannot prove that it ever sheltered the love-lorn Willie and the buxom Anne, we can only say it seems old enough to have done so; and as there is an old spring or well in the field whose sides are built up with stones and evidently of some antiquity, the spot besides shadowed over with hawthorns, it is highly probable that this "hawthorn shade" and willowy glen might not have been unvisited by the loving pair.

While on the subject of rural haunts, we would suggest to the stranger a walk down the river from the old mill foot-bridge, whose stone foundation dates in 1599, to the retired hamlet of Luddington. In the spring-time or summer this is a delicious ramble, and occasional views present themselves well worthy of artistic skill. The lofty wood of the Weir Brake has a charming aspect, and lower down where the little river Stour augments the expanse of the Avon with its slow current, the sedgy islets stalking across the stream, the golden water lilies bathing in the water, the tall flowering rushes, yellow ragworts, and clustered purple spikes of the loosestrife, produce a combination of brilliant yet.

harmonious colours. Mounting a rising hill that here overlooks the river, the junction of the streams forms a pretty pastoral scene, while beyond a richly cultivated tract where the wheat begins to brown upon the eye in contrast with the emerald verdure of Avon's meadows, the Meon and Ilmington hills softly tinted in evening hues boldly rise upon the sky. There are several timber-framed houses with thatched roofs at Luddington, leading the imagination on to other days; and at the Weir further on, where the foaming yellow water boldly dashes in musical resonance into the deep woody glen below, the adjuncts of the scene with the little village and church of Weston in the distance, are such as to dwell upon the memory when it looks back in quietude to loved nooks of the past. Higher up, a rough lock formed of massive timber offers in conjunction with the placid water another scene which a Cuyp might delight to sketch and fill in. Beyond meadows, corn-fields, and various copsy masses of foliage, the spire of Stratford Church appears rising finely in the distance. Viewing without hurry these snatches of inland landscape, and marking their beauties in detail, and many exquisite little bits of willow, water, and old ragged trees present themselves along the course of the river, we understand how these homely yet interesting landscape scenes wound their way into Shakespeare's truly English heart, and so he was enabled to describe them, and blend them into thousand similes."

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That Shakespeare had looked upon the landscape familiarized to his childhood with a keen observant eye

is abundantly manifest, and whatever country may be the scene of his play, his pictorial thoughts and rural companions are generally of true Warwickshire growth. Especially is this the case with regard to any plants he mentions, which are mostly vernal ones obvious to every rustic rambler. Thus, "daisies pied," "violets blue," "lady-smocks," and "cuckoo-buds," the latter the lesser celandine, that "paint the meadows with delight," are still beautiful in the vernal time as they ever were, and even "tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss, and thorns are far more likely to enter the frail shins on Warwickshire heaths than in Sicily. So in the "Winter's Tale" Willie turns to his youthful recollections for the flowers that Proserpina let fall, which are daffodils, "violets dim," "pale primroses," and bold oxlips." Thus the spring flowers of England seem to have sweetened Shakespeare's memory, for at every opportunity they give a sweet odour to his thoughts. The grave of Imogen is strewed with the "pale primrose," the "azur'd harebell," and "leaf of eglantine," or sweet briar, all native plants ;-so that in tracing the country around Stratford, the rural haunts of Shakespeare in early life, the pilgrim is imbibing the very images of Nature which more or less coloured the scenery of most of his plays.

If eloquence then has been exhausted at the tomb of Shakespeare, enjoyment may yet be elicited and inspiration obtained among the scenes on Avon's banks which his spirit loved to trace.

56 STRATFORD, AND THE HAUNTS OF SHAKESPEARE.

Though the river is rather tame near the town, yet at the Weir Brakes and Hatton Rock the banks rise with dignity, boldly prominent in their dense cloak of wood with an embroidery of flowers on their diverging margin. Towards Alveston and Charlecote, the Avon, in the heart of secluded scenery, has all the wildness of aspect it ever had-in some places half filled with tall bullrushes and whispering sedges, hemmed in by stragling bushes, and darkened by hoar impending willows looking into the unruffled stream. Here meditative thoughts rise spontaneously, remembrance is satisfied, and the fount of the bard's power is seen sparkling from Nature's source for

"Did he not moralize this spectacle?"

CHARLECOTE.

"What shall he have that killed the deer?"-As YOU LIKE IT. "You have beaten my men, killed my deer, and broken open my lodge."-MERRY WIVES OF Windsor.

Charlecote Park is about three miles from Stratford, beautifully situated upon the green banks of the quiet musing Avon, and at present embosomed in gigantic elms whose leafy canopies surround it on all sides. So thickly placed are these lofty wooded citizens that the old Elizabethan mansion with its turrets, gables, balustrades, and chimneys, is scarcely to be seen from between the foliage unless the house is approached very near.

Charlecote has always been traditionally connected with an early exploit of Shakespeare's, the truth or falsehood of which has engaged the attempts of many writers to elucidate. We accept the tradition, and think it highly probable that Shakespeare in his younger days may have been passionately fond of field sports, and engaged in them clandestinely. Romance and adventure would give to deer-stealing in those days a very different aspect to what it now appears in, and Mr. Halliwell has shown by extracts from various authors of the day, that killing deer, without permission first had and obtained, was an "amusement indulged in by the