There is a Macbeth livery-stable, a Falstaff bakery, and all the shops and stores keep Othello this and Hamlet that.  I saw briarwood pipes with Shakespeare’s face carved on the bowl, all for one-and-six; feather fans with advice to the players printed across the folds; the “Seven Ages” on handkerchiefs; and souvenir-spoons galore, all warranted Gorham’s best.

The visitor at the birthplace is given a cheerful little lecture on the various relics and curiosities as they are shown.  The young ladies who perform this office are clever women with pleasant voices and big, starched, white aprons.  I was at Stratford four days and went just four times to the old curiosity-shop.  Each day the same bright British damsel conducted me through, and told her tale, but it was always with animation, and a certain sweet satisfaction in her mission and starched apron that was very charming.

No man can tell the same story over and over without soon reaching a point where he betrays his weariness, and then he flavors the whole with a dash of contempt; but a good woman, heaven bless her! is ever eager to please.  Each time when we came to that document certified to by

           Her
    “Judith X Shakespeare,”
          Mark

I was told that it was very probable that Judith could write, but that she affixed her name thus in merry jest.

John Shakespeare could not write, we have no reason to suppose that Ann Hathaway could, and this little explanation about the daughter is so very good that it deserves to rank with that other pleasant subterfuge, “The age of miracles is past”; or that bit of jolly claptrap concerning the sacred baboons that are seen about certain temples in India:  “They can talk,” explain the priests, “but being wise they never do.”

Judith married Thomas Quiney.  The only letter addressed to Shakespeare that can be found is one from the happy father of Thomas, Mr. Richard Quiney, wherein he asks for a loan of thirty pounds.  Whether he was accommodated we can not say; and if he was, did he pay it back, is a question that has caused much hot debate.  But it is worthy of note that, although considerable doubt as to authenticity has smooched the other Shakespearian relics, yet the fact of the poet having been “struck” for a loan by Richard Quiney stands out in a solemn way as the one undisputed thing in the master’s career.  Little did Mr. Quiney think, when he wrote that letter, that he was writing for the ages.  Philanthropists have won all by giving money, but who save Quiney has reaped immortality by asking for it!

The inscription over Shakespeare’s grave is an offer of reward if you do, and a threat of punishment if you don’t, all in choice doggerel.  Why did he not learn at the feet of Sir Thomas Lucy and write his own epitaph?

But I rather guess I know why his grave was not marked with his name.  He was a play-actor, and the church people would have been outraged at the thought of burying a “strolling player” in that sacred chancel.  But his son-in-law, Doctor John Hall, honored the great man and was bound he should have a worthy resting-place; so at midnight, with the help of a few trusted friends, he dug the grave and lowered the dust of England’s greatest son.