The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-08-23

on the grave of-whom?-with thoughts of the brevity of life haunting me. The spirit of peace seems to have it's dwelling place here, and to give itself to all who pass it's enchanted portals Time sped so quickly that instead of sitting on the grass twenty minutes an hour passed; and to me at least never has the gift of life seemed go great nor the thought of death so immeasureably sad.
 After dinner we walked to Shottery, where Anne Hathaway, wh) became Shakespeares wife, lived before her mar riage. The houses of the little hamlet have the matched roofs of old England, the walls of stone with their supports Of wood showing through, to me. utter lack of comforts. 1 canot conceive of keeping house in such places. The color | ing of these houses is beautiful and for sketches in watercolor nothing could be more artistic and beautiful.
 We walked back through an English lane, and who has not heard of their hawthorne and wild rose hedges. It was too late for hawthorne blossoms, and the wild roses were the last of summer, but 1 buttercups and daisies, and sweet clover blossoms bloomed everywhere. It seemed to be Lovers Lane," for young Eng ] fish couples were everywhere, sitting on . fences, sitting on the grass, and one cou- | pie lay under a tree.
 On through the meadow and over the stile, that famous bit of fencing over which a lover must help his sweetheart. | After the meadow came the gardens. I Pansies are planted in them, and ir their vivid colors they make a space of 1 light on the landscape. One very queer plant looked like touch-me-nots, but we were told 1t was bean, the beans grow 1 ing from the auxiliary buds just where 1 touch-me-not has it's blooms. I was very desirous of eating some so when mine host at "Warwich Arms offered d queer dish, 1 asked if they were peas. With look of astonishment, he replied. Early peas; green, ma'am."
 Early Monday morning we saw the house in which Shakespeare was borr. It is very much like the pictures that are shown of it. There is nothing within absolutely known to have been his prop erty In the garden are the plants and | flowers he has mentioned, and in the rooms one finds autographs all over the walls. Washington Irving's is on a raf- l ter, while Carlyle's and Scotts are on panes of little glass. The keeper holds a piece of parafln paper over the names | on the glass to make them visible. The 1 house is said to have had 16 rooms, but they must have used all the gable end1 1 as separate rooms if this be true Housekeeping in this, too, would seem "dreary, stale flat and improbable" to use his own language and l, for one. am very glad to live in the twentieth centu- ry instead of the sixteenth or seventeenth. The walls upstairs have had to be reinf breed to prevent their falling and the stairs have been patched by having pieces of wood fastened over them. In the living room, front room, there is such an im- mense fireplace that a small family might sit inside as one does in church pew. There Is a small seat on enc siie of the fireplace where pots can rest, or where one may sit. l wondered if young Shakespeare was sometimes left by his mother, whose beautiful name was Mary Arden, to see that the fire did not ec out, or that the pot, hanging on it's 1 crane above, boiled merily enough wondered if he looked Into the fire and saw and felt dimly then the great pas sions of humanity which he afterwards portrayed Before a fire in a hut herdly more rude, Ahred the Great. king of England, sat, watching the cakes of the herdsmans wife and planning the gr eat battle against the Danes. in which he oVercame them and drove them fl om the
  the rooms and here are shown the things, documentary and otherwise, that have to do most intimately with Shakespeare his ring. a note to borrow S200 h.s char, and portraits of the family. The eerer is one of those enthusiastic women who tell you the facts and cal' on you for acquiescence and confirmation with "is that not true?" Is that not wonderful2
 "Do you not like to know that?"
 But time came for us to leave Warwieh and Wentworth, so we drove down the fine road by way of Charecote Park
 where Shakespeare stole the deer. IT passing l made nasty sketch of tho gate through which he earned the deer from Sir Thomas Lucy's park. Just across Is the stile over which he fell and where the keepers took him redhanded. The Lucy estate is very large. being entaied but a bank failure impoverished the fam ily so that they are living very simply
 The lower class has such respect fol the gentry Our driver looked at the place and said sadly: They are poor They are not kept up as they ought tc be- Sir has only three or four horses and one man where he had seven or eight, and he do,s part of the work fir the garden" Then shaking his head
 NO money. When the storm came Il blew some of the big trees down and they were sold; so he got little money that way
 Warwich was first on the way. This is where the old earls who did SO much to make English history glorious lived among them he who was cai'ed the King maker.' The castle is surrounded by ifs