Evening star., 1912-09-15
LITERARY SHRINES.
Homes Made Historic by Famous
Men of Letters.

From London Tit Bits.
When Turner purchased a few square
feet Of canvas worth a shilling or two
and. with his pigments and brush.
painted the sunset on it. or the towers
minarets and palaces of Venice, he made
that piece of canvas practically price
less. 1t is the touch Of genius which
alone can work this miracle. and. as
many holiday wanderer discovers, II
has worked It's enchanting spell on bricks
and mortar, as we'll as upon fimsier ma
terial.
About two miles from the town OF Ayr
stands a little unpicturesque clay-built
cottage, reared by the horny hands OF
the father of Robert Burns. and which
the poet himself refers to as an 'auid
clay biggin." There the national bard OF
Scotland came into a rough and stormy
world on January %, 1853. and spent the
first seven years of his life Deneatn lts
thatch. What is that cottage worth! In
mud and thatch and moldering timber
are practically nothing. Yet, by reason
of its being the birthplace OF Robert
Burns, 1t is priceless to the people OF tne
poets native land.
Tucked away under the lee OF the
mountains, which stand like sentlneis
round the charming lakes of Rydal water
tious but very picturesque house wnlch,
il it had not once been the abode OF
genius, might probably be bought. lock
stock and barrel" for few hundreo
pounds. It's name is Dove Cottage, and
William Wordsworth, the great nature
poet, lived there for some years with ms
sister, and beneath its roof and IN its
steep little garden, laid out by the poet
| own hands. many of his most memoraoie
poems were written. Doubtless the thou
sands Of American tourists VINO MAKE
pilgrimage to Dove Cottage would dearly
like to transport the sacred stones TO the
states. But the price is too heavy even
for Rockefeller.
There is a quiet and eminently respect
able street in Chelsea. Opposite the end
of it, in the Embankment gardens sits
the rugged stone effigy, carved by mas
ter sculptor. of man who used to live at
the house numbered "a. The price OF
all the other houses in Cheyne row could
not suffice to buy Thomas Carlyle's house.
because there he lived many years. and
there he wrote his French Revolution
Cromwell" The visitors book which
lies upon the table of the old sage's din
ing room contains the names OF prince
and peasant from every country on the
globe
At the corner Of an oId-fash ashioned Geor-
gian square in the sleepy cathedral city
Of IAchfield stands another priceless
house 1t is priceless Just as the portrait
Of the man who was born there, painted
by his friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds, one
Of the chief treasures Of our national
gallery, is priceless. People from the
ends of the earth go to Lichfield pri-
marily to see the house in which DIR.
Samuel Johnson was born, and then, as
an afterthought, they go round the cor
ner and visit the cathedral.
About a mile out OF Stratford-on-Avon,
in a typical Warwickshire village. stands
a low, long thatched cottage which would
command a rental Of half a crown a week
at the most Yet all the wealth Of the
world could not buy 1t. In that cot and
its pretty rustic garden the greatest of the
worlds poets, the sweet Swan Of Avon,
the immortal Shakespeare, did his court
ing. 1t is the cottage Of Ann Hathaway.
And If that cottage is priceless, what
must be asked for the old timbered
Elizabethan house in Stratford itself,
where the great playwright was born
It is literally worth its weight in rubies.
The house in Broad street. in the city
of London. where John Milton was born,
perished, like thousands Of its kind. in
the fire Of London, still commemorated by
.the monument on Fish Street hill. But
there is cottage rendered priceless.
nevertheless. by the touch of the blind
bard's genius. It is at Chalfont st. Giles,
in Bucks. It was Milton's country re-
treat, and thousands make pilgrimage to
it because Milton there finished his great
epic, Paradise Lost.