s sound
to the pleasure to be derived from the thick shade of the lofty trees
overhead, mossy turf under the feet, and the sight of flowing water. Henry
V. visited this hermitage; and Shakspeare, on what authority we know not, is
said to have frequented it.

* * * * *

KENILWORTH follows Guy's Cliff, once a retired country village of one street,
one church, and one inn, now vulgarized by being made the site of a railway
station. At the risk of offending the Kenilworthians, we strongly advise the
romantic youths and maidens inspired by Sir Walter Scott's romance not to
visit the ruins, which, although an excellent excuse and pleasant situation
for a picnic, have nothing romantic about them beyond grey walls. The woods
and waters which formed so important a part of the scenery during Queen
Elizabeth's visit, have disappeared, as well as all the stately buildings.

At the same time, imagination will go a long way, and it may not be a day ill
spent after reading Laleham's "Princely Pleasures of Kenilworth," in which he
describes what he himself saw when Queen Elizabeth visited the Earl of
Leicester there in 1575, to journey over, especially if accompanied by a cold
collation, including a salad of the Avon crawfish, and a little iced punch.
It would be still better for good pedestrians to walk the distance by the
fields and push on to the inn for refreshment, without which all tame scenery
is so very flat. In the sublimity of the Alps, the Pyrenees, or even the
great Highland hills, a man may forget his dinner; but, when within the verge
of the horizon church-towers and smoking chimneys of farm-houses continually
occur, visions of fat, brown, sucking pigs, rashers of ham and boiled fowls,
with foaming tankards, will intrude unbidden after an hour or two of
contemplation.

* * * * *

STRATFORD ON AVON, with SHOTTERY, where Ann Hathaway was courted by
Shakspeare and CHARLECOTE, the residence of the Sir Thomas Lucy whom the poet
immortalised as Justice Shallow, are all within ten miles of Leamington. On
all these so much has been written that we will not venture to "pile up the
agony" any higher. The best companion on the road to Stratford is Charles
Knight's Life of Shakspeare, which colours all the scenes of the poet's life
in Warwickshire with the atmosphere of the sixteenth century, and summons to
meet us in the streets of Stratford costumes and characters contemporary with
Falstaff, Shallow, and Dogberry so well,