seen in the back premises. An amusing story connected
with the White Hart Inn has been revived by Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps,
who by means of it has endeavoured to explain the line in "Troilus and
Cressida." "The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break." The
anecdote is related by Robert Armin, who claims to have been an
eye-witness of the incident; and this would seem probable, as the
local touches are correct and Armin was for some time a member of the
company alluded to. It is to be found in a work entitled, _Foole Vpon
Foole, or Sixte Sortes of Sottes_, published in 1605, and re-edited
and issued, with the author's name attached, in 1608, as _A Nest of
Ninnies_. The fool referred to in the line quoted above is suspected
to be not merely the imaginary representative of a type but the
popular local Fool of Shakespeare's time, a fellow of brilliant parts,
but eccentric, and, we must suppose, lacking in balance and common
sense. We are told that one winter Lord Chandos's players visited
Evesham, and Jack Miller, our Fool, became greatly attached to the
company and in particular to Grumball the clown; indeed, so greatly
was he enamoured that he "swore he would goe all the world over with
Grumball." The townspeople being loth to lose so popular a character,
Jack was locked in a room at the back of the White Hart Inn from which
he could see the players journeying on their way to Pershore, their
next stage, by the road on the farther side of the river. With
difficulty he contrived to escape by the window, and ran down to the
water's edge. The stream, says our author, "was frozen over thinely,"
but Miller "makes no more adoe, but venters over the haven, which is
by the long bridge, as I gesse some forty yards over; yet he made
nothing of it, but my hart aked when my eares heard the ise crack all
the way. When he was come unto me," continues Armin, "I was amazed,
and tooke up a brick-bat, which lay there by, and threw it, which no
sooner fell upon the ise but it burst. Was not this strange that a
foole of thirty yeeres was borne of that ise which would not endure
the fall of a brick-bat?"! The fact that Robert Armin and William
Shakespeare were fellow-actors at the Globe Theatre lends probability
to Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps' elucidation.

Continuing our way beyond the Crown Hotel we see on our right, below
the level of the street, a quaint row of gables with little shops
below quite unchanged by the present conditions of t