IX

CLASSIC CHARLECOTE, THE HOME OF THE

LUCYS

CELIA. I like this place,

And willingly could waste my time in it.
As You Like It (Act II. Scene iv.)

TO CLASSIC CHARLECOTE.- Over the Clopton Bridge and four miles by road from Stratford-on-Avon-four miles of leafy laneway and hedgerow, through which glimpses of the classic river flash like silver mirrors upon the sight-brings the wayfarer in this romantic and poetic country into one of the most interesting portions of the Warwickshire Forest of Sweet Arden; for it is the scene of the youthful Shakespeare's exploit of deerstealing. Here is the theatre for ever immortalised as the stage upon which Justice Shallow-Robert Shallow, Esquire, who 'writes himself, Armigero; in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, Armigero'-played his part. Here also is the scene where the fat knight, Sir John Falstaff, with Master Slender, and

sweet Anne Page, presented their persons upon the vision of the stage of life and immortality; for those characters are so woven into the woof of literature that they will never be outwoven again. Another scene, too, comes upon the vision, a scene more personal and actual, and therefore, if anything, more pleasant still -the vision of Will Shakespeare (then called poetaster, lampooner, and ne'erdo-well), standing, not crestfallen let us hope, before the stern Sir Thomas Lucy, charged with killing the Justice's deer; but not with also kissing his deer-keeper's daughter (he must have been too much in love with Mistress Anne Hathaway just then to give his kisses to every pretty maiden he met, including the daughter of Sir Thomas' deer-keeper). Still, the fair scene arises vividly before the eyes as you approach the park of classic Charlecote and see in the distance the charming ancestral mansion erected there in 1558 by this very Sir Thomas Lucy, so mercilessly ridiculed by the poetic son of the Stratford-on-Avon glover.

In making the journey to Charlecote opportunity is given for seeing some of the

CHARLECOTE HALL FROM THE AVON

From a Painting by J. E. Duggins

A little herd of England's timorous deer.'

KING HENRY VI.