two lines of railroad are in progress, which will put it in easy communication with the metropolis and important districts of the north. There are also several comfortable hotels, the accommodations of which have been the theme of praise to many distinguished travellers.

The town also contains a Theatre, fitted up with much neatness and taste, and which has occasionally been honoured by the exertions of some of our most distinguished actors. A Public Infirmary, for supplying the sick with advice and medicines, was established in 1823, and is liberally supported; its objects being materially assisted by a District Visiting Society, the members of which (ladies) visit the poor and provide them with the comforts needful in sickness.

The inhabitants also enjoy the advantages of an ex cellent Free School for their children; and, besides the parish Church, and the Chapel of the Holy Trinity, there are several places of worship for different denominations of dissenters.

Stratford consists of eighteen principal streets, generally well paved and remarkably clean. The market, which was formerly on Thursday, is now, by Charter granted in the 59th of Geo. III., held on Friday, and is very considerable for wheat and other grain. Several well-attended fairs are held; and also two statutes for the hiring of servants.

Unvarying tradition has pointed out the house on the north side of Henley-street, as that in which John Shakspeare resided when his illustrious son was born. Though it is now of unassuming appearance, and rather of mean character, it was evidently, in the sixteenth century, a dwelling quite adequate to the domestic accommodation of a respectable family.--See the Illustration, page 8. The instrument is still preserved in the archives of the Borough, whereby John Shakspeare became the actual proprietor of these premises, in 1574, by purchase of Edward, and Emma Hall, for the sum of £40. They then consisted of two dwellings, with gardens, &c. He resided here till his death, and left the whole to William, his eldest son, who bequeathed them to his children, reserving a life interest to his sister Joan in the particular residence of their father, wherein she dwelt till her death in 1646; and upon the demise of Lady Barnard, our immortal Poet's grand-daughter, in 1699, it reverted to the issue of the said Joan, by her husband William Hart, in the possession of whose descendants it continued till 1806, when the late William Shakspeare Hart, seventh in descent from the "Pride of Stratford," sold the houses, &c. to Mr. Thomas Court, from whose family they have now been sold to the united committees of Stratford and London, for the benefit of the nation at large. Its original features have been somewhat altered since

it was purchased by the elder Shakspeare, and the two messuages have become three tenements, one of which was long a public house, known by the sign of the Swan and Maiden's Head, and latterly faced with brick.

On catching sight of the low but honoured roof from whence came forth the man whose writings were for all time, the general impression certainly is that the dwelling is but an humble one. It must, however, be remembered that the house fell into hands continually becoming poorer, and thus its dimensions were curtailed. Besides this, the property was purchased by Shakspeare's father, and at this time but few houses in country towns exceeded one story in height. fact, as may be seen from humbler ancient dwellings yet remaining in Stratford, there was usually only an apartment with attic windows above the ground floor. Loftier houses only became general in the sixteenth century. Yet this house, lowly as it seems, is constructed with a ponderosity that will yet resist time's efforts for centuries.

In

This honoured house was naturally an object of primary attraction during the Jubilee, instituted in 1769, by Garrick, in honour of his beloved Shakspeare. He displayed a well-painted transparency, from a design by Sir Joshua Reynolds, before the chamber of the Poet's birth, representing the sun breaking in splendour through obscuring clouds, with this motto

"Thus dying clouds contend with glowing light."