vered with iron gratings to prevent
depredation. The curb and canopy of the well from which he drank are
draped with clustering vines. It was a modest domain of small area,
and is now a grassy lawn surrounded by an iron paling. After the death
of Shakespeare's granddaughter, Lady Bernard, in 1670, the house was
sold to a descendant of its original owner, and finally became the
property of Rev. Francis Gastrell, who, in 1756, cut down the
mulberry-tree planted by Shakespeare, because he was annoyed by the
curiosity of visitors, and in 1759 razed the house to the ground on
account of some controversy about taxes with the local authorities.

The museum of relics and curiosities in the rooms adjoining the
kitchen and chamber above, in the house of John Shakespeare, contains
early editions of the plays, unimportant engravings, a ring with the
initials W. S., a chair, and a sword supposed to have belonged to the
poet, some contemporary deeds and writings, and a letter to him from a
neighbor entreating the loan of thirty pounds. Few traces of his
closing days in Stratford remain. He was an exacting creditor, had
some trivial transactions with the corporation, and took an active
interest in municipal affairs. He died suddenly, April 23, 1616. His
son-in-law, Dr. John Hall, the husband of Susanna, was the leading
physician of Stratford, and a practitioner of considerable repute. He
left notes of important cases in which he officiated, and their
treatment. He would naturally have attended Shakespeare in his last
illness, but he makes no mention of the case, nor of the cause of his
death. Reverend John Ward, who was vicar of Stratford nearly fifty
years afterward, wrote in his diary--"Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben
Jonson had a merie meeting and it seems drank too hard, for
Shakespeare died of a feavour there contracted." The old sanctuary in
which he was buried is a noble specimen of decorated gothic
architecture, a cruciform structure of yellowish-gray stone, with low
eaves and broad sheltering roof, from the midst of which rises a
square battlemented tower with slender pointed spire. It is approached
by a paved stone path bordered with limes, leading from the highway
through the graveyard where, beneath a twilight of shade, many
generations of the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. Along the
venerable aisles of the nave and in the transept, are effigies and
memorial tablets disclosed in the dim religious light. The chancel is