Shakspeare’s father, it seems, was a man of some position and substance in his day, being high sheriff and justice of the peace for the borough; and this house, therefore, I suppose, may be considered a specimen of the respectable class of houses in the times of Queen Elizabeth.  This cut is taken from an old print, and is supposed to represent the original condition of the house.

We saw a good many old houses somewhat similar to this on the road, particularly resembling it in this manner of plastering, which shows all the timber on the outside.  Parts of the house have been sold, altered, and used for various purposes; a butcher’s stall having been kept in a part of it, and a tavern in another portion, being new-fronted with brick.

The object of this Shakspeare Club has been to repurchase all these parts, and restore them as nearly as possible to their primeval condition.  The part of the house which is shown consists of a lower room, which is floored with flat stones very much broken.  It has a wide, old-fashioned chimney on one side, and opens into a smaller room back of it.  From thence you go up a rude flight of stairs to a low-studded room, with rough-plastered walls, where the poet was born.

The prints of this room, which are generally sold, allow themselves in considerable poetic license, representing it in fact as quite an elegant apartment, whereas, though it is kept scrupulously neat and clean, the air of it is ancient and rude.  This is a somewhat flattered likeness.  The roughly-plastered walls are so covered with names that it seemed impossible to add another.  The name of almost every modern genius, names of kings, princes, dukes, are shown here; and it is really curious to see by what devices some very insignificant personages have endeavored to make their own names conspicuous in the crowd.  Generally speaking the inscription books and walls of distinguished places tend to give great force to the Vulgate rendering of Ecclesiastes i. 15, “The number of fools is infinite.”

To add a name in a private, modest way to walls already so crowded, is allowable; but to scrawl one’s name, place of birth, and country, half across a wall, covering scores of names under it, is an operation which speaks for itself.  No one would ever want to know more of a man than to see his name there and thus.

Back of this room were some small bed rooms, and what interested me much, a staircase leading up into a dark garret.  I could not but fancy I saw a bright-eyed, curly-headed boy creeping up those stairs, zealous to explore the mysteries of that dark garret.  There perhaps he saw the cat, with “eyne of burning coal, crouching ’fore the mouse’s hole.”  Doubtless in this old garret were wonderful mysteries to him, curious stores of old cast-off goods and furniture, and rats, and mice, and cobwebs.  I fancied the indignation of some belligerent grandmother or aunt, who finds Willie up there watching a mouse hole, with the cat, and has him down straightway, grumbling that Mary did not govern that child better.