Just as we had been sometime eagerly conversing about Shakespeare, we arrived, without either of us having thought of it, at Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace, where our coach stopped, that being the end of one stage.  We were still two-and-twenty miles from Birmingham, and ninety-four from London.  I need not tell you what our feelings were, on thus setting our feet on classic ground.

It was here that perhaps the greatest genius nature ever produced was born.  Here he first lisped his native tongue; here first conceived the embryos of those compositions which were afterwards to charm a listening world; and on these plains the young Hercules first played.  And here, too, in this lowly hut, with a few friends, he happily spent the decline of his life, after having retired from the great theatre of that busy world whose manners he had so faithfully portrayed.

The river Avon is here pretty broad, and a row of neat though humble cottages, only one storey high, with shingled roofs, are ranged all along its banks.  These houses impressed me strongly with the idea of patriarchal simplicity and content.

We went to see Shakespeare’s own house, which, of all the houses at Stratford I think is now the worst, and one that made the least appearance.  Yet, who would not be proud to be the owner of it?  There now however lived in it only two old people, who show it to strangers for a trifle, and what little they earn thus is their chief income.

Shakespeare’s chair, in which he used to sit before the door, was so cut to pieces that it hardly looked like a chair; for every one that travels through Stratford cuts off a chip as a remembrance, which he carefully preserves, and deems a precious relic, I also cut myself a piece of it, but reverencing Shakespeare as I do, I am almost ashamed to own to you it was so small that I have lost it, and therefore you will not see it on my return.

As we travelled, I observed every spot with attention, fancying to myself that such or such a spot might be the place where such a genius as Shakespeare’s first dawned, and received those first impressions from surrounding nature which are so strongly marked in all his works.  The first impressions of childhood, I knew, were strong and permanent; of course I made sure of seeing here some images at least of the wonderful conceptions of this wonderful man.  But my imagination misled me, and I was disappointed; for I saw nothing in the country thereabouts at all striking, or in any respect particularly beautiful.  It was not at all wild and romantic; but rather distinguished for an air of neatness and simplicity.

We arrived at Birmingham about three o’clock in the afternoon.  I had already paid sixteen shillings at Stratford for my place in the coach from Oxford to Birmingham.  At Oxford they had not asked anything of me, and indeed you are not obliged in general in England, as you are in Germany, to pay your passage beforehand.