St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-12-27
SHAKESPEAkE's BIRTHPLACE
Where He Lived, Worked, Died,
and Lies Buried.

Rev. George Hodges in the PittSburg
Dispatch: There are three places.il.
Stratford which everybody must see,
and, these seen, we go u hurried way.
One is Shakespeare's house where he
was born: another is Anne Hathawav'S
cottage where he did his counting. The
third is the church in whose chancel he
lies buried. There was once a fourth,
the house in which he lived, he and his
Anne. But that is pulled down and
nothing left of it. 1t had been repaired
put of all likeness to the original,
anyway; so that the loss may
not be great. But the circum-
stances of the pulling down were pecul-
lar. 1t seems that there was an ancient
mulberry tree in the garden. under
which the poet meditated. And every
body who came to StratfOrd wanted to
see the mulberry tree. But the garden
and the house belonged to an ill-natured
parsOn. And the parson was not pleased
at all this swinging of his gate and
trampling over his lawn; no doubt it
was not altogether pleasant. And after
he had endured the tourists to the limits
of his patience (Which was probably not
gteatly eXtended), he took his clerical
Goa off one fine morning, and got a
stout AK and chopped that historical
mulberry into small pieces. and made a
bonfire of the pieces. And shortly after
he effected a clean sweep of the whole
business by tearing down the house to
the last brick; and having thus revenged
him of his enemies, he departed, leav-
ing this curious memory behind rim.
"Shakespeare'S house," where he was
born, is a rather respectable-lOoking
dwelling on the outside. 1t is in that
style of architecture which is known as
post and pave" that is, it is built of
great timbers, with wide spaces be-
tween, which are filled with lath and
plaster. But the house within is I'M
comfortable and cherries enough to
satisfy even the most ardent ad .nirer of
the good old times" The nrst o
into which the street door opens is that
upon whose dingy and contracted walls
John ShakeSpeare'S baby first opened
its nbservant eyes. They knew none of
our modern distinctions between a par
lOr and a bedroom i'll S~hakespeare's
day. The only evidence of the weIl-to-
do condition Of the family is i'm
the presence of a chimney. a
chimney was a luxury. Common people
built their fires infOrmall upon the
floor, and allowed the smoke TO make
its graceful exit through a hole in the
ceiling. But John Shakespeare had a
chimney. Indeed during SEASON of brief
prosperity he WaS>an important man
i'm StraJford holding the two significant
ly related positions OF ale-taSter and aid
erman. The splendors of the house begin
and end with that plain brick chimney.
The rOomSa are low, cherries, comforts
less, dark. like the rooms of a low-class
tenement. Up stairs you strike your
head against the rough beams of the
roof. Part OF the house is used as a
museum for Shakespearean treasures.
Here, among other curious sights, you
may see the poets autographs, a score
of them, and no two spelled alike.
Out among the fields at Shottery is
Anne Hathaway's cottage. You go out
along a footpath, with whose windings
Shakespeare was familiar. And if tits
early morning when you make your Pill
grimage, and the dew is on the grass,
and everybody is asleep bnt the early
birds, and the sun and the mist are con-
tending in the meadows, and the air is
fresh and clear, and you have pleasant
company-why, your long walk through
the green fields and over the stiles and
beneath the great trees is all event
which you will always mark with a red
line. Shottery is a little village of low
browed, thatch-roofed cottages, any
one of which is picturesque
enough to have been a counting place
for William Shakespeare. Anne Hatha-
ways cottage stands close by the way
side, prettier than the prettiest pictures
of it, with vines climbing up the corner
and a hedge aboutit. Here Young Master
Will came with sweet words for the
fair Mistress Anne. and they we're
married-the boy of eighteen and the
young woman of twenty-six-and lived
happily (let us try to think forever
after. The happiness is somewhat open
to question, this fact in the case being
at least certain, that the poet in his will
left as a sole bequest to his wife, out.of