Of Shakspere’s house, “New Place,” where he retired after the turmoil of London life, in the gardens of which he planted the famous mulberry-tree, and from whence he was borne to his last home in the venerable church, was totally destroyed in 1757 by a certain “Rev. Mr. Gastrell,” whose want of reverence to all the world holds dear, will ever deprive his name of any other share of it than the prefix it bears. The whole history of the transaction is disgraceful in the highest degree--the more so as the man was in holy orders. The house was sold to him in 1751, on the death of Sir Hugh Clopton, who had resided in it. Five years afterwards, Gastrell became tired of showing the mulberry-tree, which Sir Hugh delighted in possessing, and by way of saving himself any further trouble, as well as to vex the Stratford people, with whom he was not on good terms, he cut it down, and sold it for firewood. In the year following he rased the house to the ground for the most discreditable of reasons--a refusal to pay poor’s rates. But the church--the church in which, in 1564, he was baptised, and where in 1616, just 52 years afterwards, he was buried--still exists, not only uninjured but skilfully and judiciously renovated. Here the great object of attraction is the famous bust, “by Gerard Johnson.” It was executed, doubtless, by a literal copyist, who, if he had not the high talent of a great sculptor who endows his work with traces of the mind, will, at least, faithfully preserve all peculiarities of form and feature. The head as here given, if not lit up with the soul of the great Poet, is not unworthy of his calmer moments; the forehead is ample, and the brain large, well-developed, and altogether characteristic of that evenness of temper which, combined with unequalled genius, gave him the title of “the gentle Shakspere.” The great breadth of the upper lip, which might be objected to as unnatural, finds its fellow in that of another genius, the Shakspere of the North--Walter Scott. The “bones” moulder underneath the chancel; and the memorable inscription remains uninjured upon the slab,-- “Good frend, for Jesus sake forbear, To digg the dust encloased hear; Blest be ye man yt spares the stones, And cvrst be he yt moves my bones.”[62] Although the history of Shakspere is not necessarily connected with our subject--a visit to Charlecote, the seat of the Lucys--it was impossible to consider the neighbourhood apart from the great genius who has made it famous for all time. [Illustration: From a drawing by J. G. Jackson Day & Son, Lithʳˢ. to The Queen. COMBE ABBEY, WARWICKSHIRE.] COMBE ABBEY, WARWICKSHIRE.