ended in marriage at Luddington or Temple Grafton Church. 'Jog on, jog on the footpath way, And merrily hent the stile-a ; sings Shakespeare, in his liveliest mood, in 'The Winter's Tale' (Act IV. Scene ii.), and doubtless when writing that buoyant verse he had in mind the footpath way over the fields to Shottery. The roadways thither do, of course, afford delightfully picturesque drives; but healthy and robust natures will infinitely prefer the field ways; for the foothpaths speak of Shakespeare all the way-there are his old-world wild-flowers, his green, sloping meadows, his fleecy flocks and lowing herds, and his melodious Shottery Brook, meandering through an avenue of shady trees; and you can rest, if you are tired, upon the stiles, knowing for a surety that he and his Anne sat upon a stile in that very place, or somewhere near it, doing their courting in the sweet and pleasant summer gloaming. So take the footpath way then from Chestnut Walk, two minutes' distance from Holy Trinity Church, to the hidden village of Sweet Shottery, where at every turn you will be walking in the footsteps of Will Shakespeare, the auburn-haired darling of Nancy Hathaway. In spite of a row of modern-built brick cottages, which is evidence of the careless spirit of the age in dealing with famous, old-world villages, there is still quite an antique-fashioned air about Shottery; and it has probably not undergone any very marked change since the days of the Poet's Courtship. It is quite a typical Arden village, with the cottages grouped about in irregular blocks, and mostly in black and white, highly reminiscent of the time of Queen Elizabeth. Here you see Shottery Manor, 'the great house' of the hamlet, with its ancient dovecote; there your eye rests upon shepherds' cottages, with gardens of old-fashioned flowers, warm with colours thrown from tall hollyhocks and golden sunflowerscottages any one of which might well stand for the shepherd's cote bought by Rosalind for herself and Celia in the skirts of the Forest of Arden; and there you look upon the pretty little Church of Saint Andrew's, quite a modern edifice, alas! erected in 1870, and attached to the Church of the Holy Trinity at Stratfordon-Avon. It is not so much the old-world charm of the dwelling-places at Shottery, or the rural beauty by which they are surrounded, that is the cause of attraction thither; it is the associations which cling around this little hamlet which bring it into the picture of Shakespeare's early life so vividly that none can resist making a pilgrimage there. Such natural and physical features as Shottery possesses are typical only of many villages in the Warwickshire Arden; but from Shottery young Shakespeare chose his bride, who was born there, and that makes a difference -all the difference in the world. MISTRESS ANNE HATHAWAY.-But this difference, gratifying though it is, does not give Shakespeare lovers entire and complete satisfaction, for we have no portrait of his bride, and it would certainly have been a most pleasing thing to have known the kind of face and figure that lured the future Poet into the troublous waters of matrimony at so early an |