



WARWICK CASTLE I KENILWORTH '. STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 483 



a drapery so thick that I could not fathom it with an arm's length. 

 When the ivy gets to be a couple of hundred years old, it loses 

 something of its vine-like character, and more resembles a gigantic 

 laurel tree, growing against and partly hiding the venerable walls. 



In the ancient pleasure-grounds of Kenilworth those very 

 pleasure-grounds whose alleys, doubtless Elizabeth and Leicester had 

 trodden together, I saw remaining the most beautiful hedges of old, 

 gold and silver holly almost (to one fond of gardening) of them- 

 selves worth coming across the Atlantic to see so rich were they 

 in their variegated glossy foliage, and so large and massive in their 

 growth. As these ruins are open to the public, and are visited by 

 thousands, the keepers find it to their account to preserve, as much as 

 possible, the relics of the old garden in good order, though the pal- 

 ace itself is past all renovation. 



In this neighborhood, at a distance of eight miles, is also that 

 spot dearest to all who speak the English language, and all who re- 

 spect human genius, Stratford-on-Avon. The coachman who drove 

 me thither from Warwick Castle, and whose mind probably mea- 

 sures greatness by the size of the dwelling it inhabits volunteered 

 the information to me on the way there that it was " a very smallish 

 poor sort of a house," that I was going to see. As I stood within 

 the walls of the humble room, little more than seven feet high, and 

 half a dozen yards long, where the greatest of poets was born and 

 passed so many days of his life, I involuntarily uncovered my head 

 and felt how much more sublime is the power of genius, which 

 causes this simplest of birth-places to move a deeper chord in the 

 heart than all the pomp and external circumstance of high birth or 

 heroic achievements, based as they mostly are, upon the more selfish 

 side of man's nature. It was, indeed, a very " smallish " house, but 

 it was large enough to be the home of the mightiest soul that Eng- 

 land's sky ever covered. 



Not far distant is the parish church, where Shakspeare lies 

 buried. An avenue of lime-trees, singularly clipped so as to form 

 an arbor, leads across the churchyard to the porch. Under a large 

 slab of coarse stone, lies the remains of the great dramatist, bearing 

 the simple and terse epitaph composed by himself; and above it, 

 upon the walls, is the monumental bust which is looked upon as the 



