when pursuing the fame inquiry, by the late Mr. Harte, of Stratford, before mentioned. He told me there was an old oak chair, that had always in his remembrance been called Shakspeare's courting chair, with a purse that that had been likewife his, and handed down from him to his grand-daughter Lady Barnard, and from her through the Hathaway family to those of the present day. From the best information I was able to collect at the time, I was induced to confider this account as authentic, and from a wish to obtain the smallest trifle appertaining to our Shakspeare, I became a purchaser of these relics. Of the chair I have here given a sketch: it is of a date fufficiently antient to justify the credibility of its history; and as to farther proof, it must rest on the traditional opinion and the character of this poor family. The purfe is about four inches fquare, and is curiously wrought with small black and white bugles and beads; the taffels are of the fame materials. The bed and other furniture in the room where the chair stood, have the appearance of so high antiquity, as to leave no doubt but that they might all have been the furniture of this houfe long before the time of Shakspeare. THE proprietor of this furniture, an old woman upwards of feventy, had flept in the bed from her childhood, and was always told it had been there ever fince the house was built. Her abfolute refufal to part with this bed at any price was one of the circumstances which led to a perfuafion that I had not liftened with too eafy credulity to the tale she told me refpecting the articles I had purchased. By the fame perfon I was informed, that at the time of the Jubilee, the late George Garrick obtained from her a fmall inkstand, and a pair of fringed gloves, faid to have been worn by Shakspeare. RETURNING to Stratford we fhall contemplate the venerable pile that received the remains of our immortal Poet, |