Such a votary, for example, never doubts that Shakespeare was a frequenter, in leisure or convivial hours, of the ancient Red Horse inn. It stood there, in his day, as it stands now, on the north side of Bridge Street, westward from the Avon. There are many other taverns in the town--the Shakespeare, a delightful resort, the Falcon, the Rose and Crown, the old Red Lion, and the Swan's Nest, being a few of them,---but the Red Horse takes precedence of all its kindred, in the fascinating because suggestive attribute of antiquity. Moreover it was the Red Horse that harboured Washington Irving, the pioneer of American worshippers at the shrine of Shakespeare; and the American explorer of Stratford would cruelly sacrifice his peace of mind if he were to repose under any other roof. The Red Horse is a rambling, three-story building, entered through an archway that leads into a long, straggling yard, adjacent to offices and stables. On one side of the entrance is found the smoking-room; on the other is the coffee-room. Above are the bed-rooms. It is a thoroughly old-fashioned inn--such a one as we may suppose the Boar's Head to have been, in the time of Prince Henry; such a one as untravelled Americans only know in the pages of Dickens. The rooms are furnished in neat, homelike style, and their associations readily deck them with the fragrant garlands of memory. When Drayton and Jonson came down to visit "gentle Will" at Stratford they could scarcely have omitted to quaff the humming ale of Warwickshire in that cosy parlour. When Queen Henrietta Maria was ensconced at New Place the general of the royal forces quartered himself at the Red Horse, and then doubtless there was enough and to spare of revelry within its walls. A little later the old house was soundly peppered by Roundhead bullets and the whole town was overrun with the close-cropped, psalm-singing soldiers of the Commonwealth. In 1742 Garrick and Macklin lodged in the Red Horse, and thither again came Garrick in 1769, to direct the Shakespeare Jubilee, which was then most dismally accomplished but which is always remembered to the great actor's credit and honour. Betterton, no doubt, lodged there when he came to Stratford in quest of reminiscences of Shakespeare. The visit of Washington Irving, supplemented with his delicious chronicle, has led to what might be called almost the consecration of the parlour in which he sat and the chamber (No. 15) in which he slept. They still keep the poker--now marked "Geoffrey Crayon's sceptre"--with which, as he sat there in long, silent, ecstatic meditation, he prodded the fire in the narrow, tiny grate. They keep also the chair in which he sat--a plain, straight-backed arm-chair, with a haircloth seat, marked, on a brass plate, with his renowned and treasured name. Thus genius can sanctify even the humblest objects, "And shed a something of celestial light Round the familiar face of every day."