SHAKSPEARE. 399 



written within and without with several thousand 

 names. I saw among the others a name not particu- 

 larly classical, that of John Tawell the Quaker, who was 

 hung some time since for poisoning his mistress. The 

 characters are written in a firm bold hand, and immedi- 

 ately beside them there is a vignette evidently of after 

 production, a gallows with an unfortunate wight 

 hanging on it, 



" With his last gasp his gab doth gape." 



Immediately behind the garden is the snug parsonage- 

 house, the home in succession of John Newton and 

 Thomas Scott, and the parish church in which they 

 both preached, a fine solid structure with a tall hand- 

 some spire, closes the vista in this direction. 



' So much for Olney ; the greater part of yesterday 

 I spent in Stratford-on-Avon, where I saw both the birth- 

 place and grave of " William Shakspear, Gentleman,"- 

 have you ever heard of such a person ? The birth-place, 

 a low-browed room, under the beams of which one can 

 barely walk with one's hat on, is not half a mile removed 

 from the burial-place. The humbly-born boy was a 

 purpose-like fellow, and returned to his native town a 

 gentleman, and to get himself a grave among its mag- 

 nates in the chancel of the church. By the way, in 

 utter defiance of fine taste and fine art, I pronounce the 

 humble stone bust, his monument, incomparably 

 superior to all the idealized likenesses of him, whether 

 done on canvas or on marble, that men of genius 

 have yet produced. The men of genius make him a 

 wonderfully pretty fellow, with poetry oozing out of 

 every feature, but their Shakspear would never have 

 been " William Shakspear, Gentleman ; " neither, in the 

 times of Elizabeth and James, when money was of 

 such value, would he have returned to his native 



