A book has been kept for many years, at the church of Hucknall-Torkard, in which visitors desiring to do so, can write their names.  The first book provided for this purpose was an album given to the church by the poet, Sir John Bowling, and in that there was a record of visitations during the years from 1825 to 1834....  The catalog of pilgrims to the grave of Byron during the last eighty years is not a long one.  The votaries of that poet are far less numerous than those of Shakespeare.  Custom has made the visit to Stratford “a property of easiness,” and Shakespeare is a safe no less than a rightful object of worship.  The visit to Hucknall-Torkard is neither as easy nor as agreeable.  Torkard is neither as easy nor as agreeable....  On the capital of a column near Byron’s tomb I saw two moldering wreaths of laurel, which had hung there for several years; one brought by the Bishop of Norwich, the other by the American poet Joaquin Miller.  It was good to see them, and especially to see them beside the tablet of white marble which was placed on that church wall to commemorate the poet, and to be her witness in death, by his loving and beloved sister Augusta Mary Leigh,—­a name that is the synonym of noble fidelity, a name that cruel detraction and hideous calumny have done their worst to tarnish.  That tablet names him “The Author of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” and if the conviction of thoughtful men and women throughout the world can be accepted as an authority, no name in the long annals of English literature is more certain of immortality than the name of Byron.  His reputation can afford the absence of all memorial to him in Westminster Abbey,—­can endure it, perhaps, better than the English nation can,—­and it can endure the neglect and censure of the precinct of Nottingham.  That city rejoices in many interesting associations, but all that really hallows it for the stranger is its association with the name of Byron.  The stranger will look in vain, however, for any adequate sign of his former connection with that place.  It is difficult even to find prints or photographs of the Byron shrine, in the shops of Nottingham. [Footnote:  Since this paper was written the buildings that flanked the front wall of Hucknall-Torkard churchyard have been removed, the street in front of it has been widened, and the church has been “restored” and considerably altered.—­Author’s note to the Editor.]

Dr. Johnson’s birthplace [Footnote:  From “Our Old Home.”  Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.]

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Seeking for Dr. Johnson’s birthplace, I found it in St. Mary’s Square (Lichfield), which is not so much a square as the mere widening of a street.  The house is tall and thin, of three stories, with a square front and a roof rising steep and high.  On a side-view, the building looks as if it had been cut in two in the midst, there being no slope of the roof on that side.  A ladder slanted against the wall, and a painter was giving a livelier hue to the plaster.  In a corner-room of the basement, where old Michael Johnson may be supposed to have sold books, is now what we should call a dry-goods store, or, according to the English phrase, a mercer’s and haberdasher’s shop.