It was not until twilight settled down over the landscape that I left the river-side. When I again entered the little town, I was struck by its antique character as well in the people as in the houses; it seemed to me that the whole physiognomy of the place belonged to the age of Shakspeare. Old men with knee-breeches, old women in old-fashioned caps, who with inquisitive and historical countenances, furrowed by hundreds of wrinkles, now gazed forth from their old projecting door-ways; thus must they have stood, thus must they have gazed when Shakspeare wandered here; and he, the black-garmented, hump-backed old man who looked so kind, so original and so learned, just like an ancient chronicle, and who saluted me, the stranger, as people are not in the habit of doing now-a-days—he must certainly be some old rector magnificus who has returned to earth from the sixteenth century. Whilst I was thus dreaming myself back again into the times of old, a sight met my eyes which transported me five thousand miles across the ocean, to the poetical wilderness of the new world. This was a full-blown magnolia-flower, just like a magnolia grandiflora, and here blossomed on the walls of an elegant little house, the whole of whose front was adorned by the branches and leaves of a magnolia reptans, a species with which I was not yet acquainted. I hailed with joy the beautiful flower which I had not seen since I had wandered in the magnolia groves of Florida, on the banks of the Welaka, (St. John,) and drank the morning dew as solitary as now. Every thing in that little town was, for the rest, _à la Shakspeare_. One saw on all sides little statues of Shakspeare, some white, others gilt—half-length figures—and very much resembling idol images. One saw Shakspeare-books, Shakspeare-music, Shakspeare-engravings, Shakspeare articles of all kinds. In one place I even saw _Shakspeare-sauce_ announced; but that did not take my fancy, as I feared it might be too strong for my palate. True, one saw at the same place an announcement of _Jenny Lind-drops_, and that did take my fancy very much, for as a Swede, I was well pleased to see the beautiful fame of the Swedish singer recognized in Shakspeare’s town, and having a place by the side of his. Arrived at my inn, close to Shakspeare’s house: I drank tea; was waited upon by an agreeable girl, Lucy, and passed a good night in a chamber which bore the superscription “Richard the Third.” I should have preferred as a bed-room “The Midsummer Night’s Dream,” a room within my chamber, only that it was not so good, and Richard the Third did me no harm.