Then they hastily replaced the stones, and over the grave they placed the slab that they had brought: 

    “Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear,
    To dig the dust enclosed here,
    Blest be the man who spares these stones,
    And cursed be he who moves my bones.”

A threat from a ghost!  Ah, no one dare molest that grave—­besides they didn’t know who was buried there—­neither are we quite sure.  Long years after the interment, some one set a bust of the poet, and a tablet, on the wall over against the grave.

Under certain circumstances, if occasion demands, I might muster a sublime conceit; but considering the fact that ten thousand Americans visit Stratford every year, and all write descriptions of the place, I dare not in the face of Baedeker do it.  Further than that, in every library there are Washington Irving, Hawthorne, and William Winter’s three lacrimose but charming volumes.

And I am glad to remember that the Columbus who discovered Stratford and gave it to the people was an American:  I am proud to think that Americans have written so charmingly of Shakespeare:  I am proud to know that at Stratford no man besides the master is as honored as Irving, and while I can not restrain a blush for our English cousins, I am proud that over half the visitors at the birthplace are Americans, and prouder still am I to remember that they all write letters to the newspapers at home about Stratford-on-Avon.

* * * * *

In England poets are relegated to a “Corner.”  The earth and the fulness thereof belongs to the men who can kill; on this rock have the English State and Church been built.

As the tourist approaches the city of London for the first time, there are four monuments that probably will attract his attention.  They lift themselves out of the fog and smoke and soot, and seem to struggle toward the blue.

One of these monuments is to commemorate a calamity—­the conflagration of Sixteen Hundred Sixty-six—­and the others are in honor of deeds of war.

The finest memorial in Saint Paul’s is to a certain eminent Irishman, Arthur Wellesley.  The mines and quarries of earth have been called on for their richest contributions; and talent and skill have given their all to produce this enduring work of beauty, that tells posterity of the mighty acts of this mighty man.  The rare richness and lavish beauty of the Wellington mausoleum are only surpassed by a certain tomb in France.

As an exploiter, the Corsican overdid the thing a bit—­so the world arose and put him down; but safely dead, his shade can boast a grave so sumptuous that Englishmen in Paris refuse to look upon it.

But England need not be ashamed.  Her land is spiked with glistening monuments to greatness gone.  And on these monuments one often gets the epitomized life of the man whose dust lies below.