No place could be less romantic than Southwark is now; but there are few places in England that possess a greater charm for the literary pilgrim. Shakespeare lived there, and it was there that he wrote for a theatre and made a fortune. Old London Bridge spanned the Thames at this point, in those days, and was the only road to the Surrey side of the river. The theatre stood near the end of the bridge and was thus easy of access to the wits and beaux of London. No trace of it now remains; but a public-house called the Globe, which was its name, is standing near, and the old church of St. Saviour--into which Shakespeare must often have entered--still braves the storm and still resists the encroachments of time and change. In Shakespeare's day there were houses on each side of London Bridge; and as he walked on the bank of the Thames he could look across to the Tower, and to Baynard Castle, which had been the residence of Richard, Duke of Gloster, and could see, uplifted high in air, the spire of old St. Paul's. The borough of Southwark was then but thinly peopled. Many of its houses, as may be seen in an old picture of the city, were surrounded by fields or gardens; and life to its inhabitants must have been comparatively rural. Now it is packed with buildings, gridironed with railways, crowded with people, and to the last degree resonant and feverish with action and effort. Life swarms, traffic bustles, and travel thunders all round the cradle of the British drama. The old church of St. Saviour alone preserves the sacred memory of the past. I made a pilgrimage to that shrine, with Arthur Sketchley (George Rose), one of the kindliest humourists in England. (Obiit November 13, 1882.) We embarked at Westminster Bridge and landed close by the church in Southwark, and we were so fortunate as to get permission to enter it without a guide. The oldest part of it is the Lady chapel--which, in English cathedrals, is almost invariably placed behind the choir. Through this we strolled, alone and in silence. Every footstep there falls upon a grave. The pavement is one mass of gravestones; and through the tall, stained windows of the chapel a solemn light pours in upon the sculptured names of men and women who have long been dust. In one corner is an ancient stone coffin--a relic of the Roman days of Britain. This is the place in which Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, in the days of cruel Queen Mary, held his ecclesiastical court and doomed many a dissentient devotee to the rack and the fagot. Here was condemned John Rogers,--afterwards burnt at the stake, in Smithfield. Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth may often have entered this chapel. But it is in the choir that the pilgrim pauses with most of reverence; for there, not far from the altar, he stands at the graves of Edmund Shakespeare, John Fletcher, and Philip Massinger. Illustration: "Gower's Monument."