For a child of ten years, we thought that she proved that she had absorbed a good deal of local colour! Here are the lines inspired by her visit to Kenilworth: THOUGHTS AT KENILWORTH The solitary ruins where once the castle stood Are dreary silent after the gay days of long ago. I saw it, and I found within, a room Where once fair damsels danced the night away. 'Tis crumbled into dust: and dead the damsels After the gay days of long ago. you. I hereby give a recipe for all who want to enjoy this castle. Sit back on the grassy bank, and visualize the scene, with Scott open before "Onward came the cavalcade, illuminated by two hundred thick waxen torches, in the hands of as many horsemen, which cast a light like that of broad day all around the procession, but especially on the principal group, of which the queen herself, arrayed in a most splendid manner, and blazing with jewels, formed the central figure. She was mounted on a milk-white horse, which she reined with peculiar grace and dignity, and in the whole of her stately and noble carriage, you saw the daughter of a hundred kings." After arriving and being welcomed, the progress of the queen continued. 66 Queen Elizabeth crossed the gallery tower, which extended from thence to Mortimer's bridge, and which was already as light as day, so many torches had been fastened to the palisades on either side. . . . Meanwhile the queen had no sooner stepped on the bridge than a new spectacle was provided; for as soon as the music gave signal that she was so far advanced, a raft, so disposed as to resemble a small floating island, illuminated by a great variety of torches, and surrounded by floating pageants formed to represent sea-horses, on which sat tritons, nereids, and other fabulous deities of the seas and rivers, made its appearance upon the lake, and, issuing from behind a small heronry where it had been concealed, floated gently toward the farther end of the bridge." In Princely Pleasures" there are full descriptions of the festivities at Kenilworth during the stay of the royal lady. Perhaps the very heart of all hearts in England is Stratford, Shakespeare's own town. Of course it is very much visited, and is therefore full of tourists; but one of the first requisites for a good traveller is to acquire the ability, for his own enjoyment, if for no other reason, mentally to omit from his view all encroaching objects, and to have the capacity only for looking at the actual centre of interest. One has infinite opportunity to practise this art at Mont St. Michel; and at Conway, last year, I was glad that I was able, when in the old house, Plas Mawr, to eliminate from its walls the pictures of the Cambrian Art Society, which was there holding an exhibition, and to visualize only the old Tudor house itself. To sit writing in the Shakespeare Inn, at Stratford, in a room with little high casements with leaded panes, surrounded by Chippendale chairs and an old "four poster," in front of a cheerful fire, smacks of conscious picturesqueness. This is a pleasant house in which to stay during a visit to the historic town, and is almost a sufficient curiosity in itself to repay one for a trip! The house in which Shakespeare was born has to be something of a museum now, of course. In the eighteenth century it may have had more natural picturesqueness; we are told that the house was then a butcher's shop, and that tacked up on the door was a sign: "William Shakespeare was born in this house. N. B., A Horse and Cart to Let." The town, indeed, hardly waked up to the importance of this monument until P. T. Barnum tried to buy it to carry it to America! Then the Warwick shire mind began to unfold to the genial possibilities of American curiosity, and it has been justified in its expectations. The house was prepared to receive Americans, and the Amerito such an extent that you wish they would stop coming! If only just long enough to allow you to admire it by yourself! cans came When one sees that "Mistress Anne Page is still a "Licensed Victualler" in Stratford, one conjures up a vision of very musty ale and very blue Stilton cheese. The whole town is a shrine, and one meets Shakespeare in some form on every corner. No words can express the sensations of a true lover of the poet when he stands in the chancel of Trinity Church, and looks at the little flat stone with its well-known warning in verse. One forgets everything but just the fact that he lies there the eyes of the imagination look below the surface, and the actual bones lying there take on a sacred significance: Some say the sonnet's compass is too small, Yet in this little verse's rise and fall |