It was erected in 1558 by Thomas Lucy, who in 1578 was Sheriff of Warwickshire, who was elected to the Parliaments of 1571 and 1584, and who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1565. The porch to this building was designed by John of Padua. There is a silly ballad in existence, idly attributed to Shakespeare, which, it is said, was found affixed to Lucy's gate, and gave him great offence. He must have been more than commonly sensitive to low abuse if he could have been annoyed by such a manifestly scurrilous ebullition of the blackguard and the blockhead,--supposing, indeed, that he ever saw it. The ballad, proffered as the work of Shakespeare, is a forgery. There is but one existing reason to think that the poet ever cherished a grudge against the Lucy family, and that is the coarse allusion to the "luces" which is found in the _Merry Wives of Windsor. _There was apparently, a second Sir Thomas Lucy, later than the Sheriff, who was more of the Puritanic breed, while Shakespeare evidently was a Cavalier. It is possible that in a youthful frolic the poet may have poached on Sheriff Lucy's preserves. Even so, the affair was trivial. It is possible, too, that in after years he may have had reason to dislike the ultra-Puritanical neighbour. Some memory of the tradition will, of course, haunt the traveller's thoughts as he strolls by Hatton Rock and through the villages of Hampton and Charlecote. But this discordant recollection is soon smoothed away by the peaceful loveliness of the ramble--past aged hawthorns that Shakespeare himself may have seen, and under the boughs of beeches, limes, and drooping willows, where every footstep falls on wild-flowers, or on a cool green turf that is softer than Indian silk and as firm and elastic as the sand of the sea-beaten shore. Thought of Sir Thomas Lucy will not be otherwise than kind, either, when the stranger in Charlecote church reads the epitaph with which the old knight commemorated his wife: "All the time of her Lyfe a true and faithfull servant of her good God; never detected of any crime or vice; in religion most sound; in love to her husband most faithfull and true. In friendship most constant. To what in trust was committed to her most secret; in wisdom excelling; in governing her House and bringing up of Youth in the feare of God that did converse with her most rare and singular; a great maintainer of hospitality; greatly esteemed of her betters; misliked of none unless the envious. When all is spoken that can be said, a Woman so furnished and garnished with Virtue as not to be bettered, and hardly to be equalled of any; as she lived most virtuously, so she dyed most godly. Set down by him that best did know what hath been written to be true. Thomas Lucy." A narrow formalist he may have been, and a severe magistrate in his dealings with scapegrace youths, and perhaps a haughty and disagreeable neighbour; but there is a touch of manhood, high feeling, and virtuous and self-respecting