“Rooms,” said Mr. S.; “why, what are there to have?”

“Well, there’s Richard III., and there’s Hamlet,” says the girl.

“O, Hamlet, by all means,” said I; “that was always my favorite.  Can’t sleep in Richard III., we should have such bad dreams.”

“For my part,” said C——­, “I want All’s well that ends well.”

“I think,” said the chamber maid, hesitating, “the bed in Hamlet isn’t large enough for two.  Richard III. is a very nice room, sir.”

In fact, it became evident that we were foreordained to Richard; so we resolved to embrace the modern historical view of this subject, which will before long turn him out a saint, and not be afraid of the muster roll of ghosts which Shakspeare represented as infesting his apartment.

Well, for a wonder, the next morning arose a genuine sunny, beautiful day.  Let the fact be recorded that such things do sometimes occur even in England.  C——­ was mollified, and began to recant his ill-natured heresies of the night before, and went so far as to walk, out of his own proper motion, to Ann Hathaway’s Cottage before breakfast—­he being one of the brethren described by Longfellow,

  “Who is gifted with most miraculous powers
  Of getting up at all sorts of hours;”

and therefore he came in to breakfast table with that serenity of virtuous composure which generally attends those who have been out enjoying the beauties of nature while their neighbors have been ingloriously dozing.

The walk, he said, was beautiful; the cottage damp, musty, and fusty; and a supposititious old bedstead, of the age of Queen Elizabeth, which had been obtruded upon his notice because it might have belonged to Ann Hathaway’s mother, received a special malediction.  For my part, my relic-hunting propensities were not in the slightest degree appeased, but rather stimulated, by the investigations of the day before.

It seemed to me so singular that of such a man there should not remain one accredited relic!  Of Martin Luther, though he lived much earlier, how many things remain!  Of almost any distinguished character how much more is known than of Shakspeare!  There is not, so far as I can discover, an authentic relic of any thing belonging to him.  There are very few anecdotes of his sayings or doings; no letters, no private memoranda, that should let us into the secret of what he was personally who has in turns personated all minds.  The very perfection of his dramatic talent has become an impenetrable veil:  we can no more tell from his writings what were his predominant tastes and habits than we can discriminate among the variety of melodies what are the native notes of the mocking bird.  The only means left us for forming an opinion of what he was personally are inferences of the most delicate nature from, the slightest premises.