80 
allowed to possess of their own £5 per annum. The number is 
now increased to 22, and each receives rooms and £80 per annum. 
The Lord De L’Isle and Dudley appoints the master. The 
buildings are a beautiful specimen of the old timber built houses 
of the 16thcentury. The hall still stands wherein Fulke Greville, 
Lord Brooke, entertained his Sovereign, James I., in 1617, but 
half of it is used asa coal store. In the kitchen there are several 
quaint antiquities, including a Saxon chair, King James’s arm 
chair, some handiwork of Amy Robsart and other articles. The 
conductor of the party, a retired colour-sergeant of the 12th 
Lancers, was an extremely garrulous and amusing cicerone, and 
finally suffered the party to view his private apartments, which 
are reached by a staircase erected in the great hall. Bidding him 
thanks and farewell the party returned by train to Leamington, 
and to the table d’héte at the Manor House Hotel. 
On the following day a start was made by the Great Western 
Railway at 10.35 for the Shakespeare country, and Stratford-on- 
Avon was reached in three-quarters of an hour. A short walk 
brought the party to the house where the immortal bard was 
born in Henley street, and to the most interesting Museum of 
Shakespearean reliques contiguous thereto. Externally the building 
is in excellent repair, being vested in trustees, who were incor- 
porated by an Act 54 and 55 Vict., 1891, and make a small 
charge for admission. Internally the portion of the building 
which was Shakespeare’s birthplace is left unrepaired, the walls, 
windows, ceilings and every available space being scribbled over 
with names of visitors. Those of Sir Walter Scott and Carlyle 
-are still visible on window panes, those of Schiller and Edmund 
Kean on the plaster. The annual number of visitors is over 
24,000, a large majority being Americans, who leave many gifts 
to the church and town, in the way of painted windows and 
drinking fountains. Since Washington Irving wrote his book, 
Stratford has become a veritable Mecca to literary Americans, 
and no trip to the old country would be considered complete 
