It may be thought that an event so suggestive as a visit from Sir John Falstaff to Stratford-on-Avon--the future birthplace of his greatest historian, but for whose genius it is possible that the name and achievements of our knight would have lapsed into an oblivion from which not even these affectionate pages (which, of course, would have been written under any circumstances) could have rescued them--might be made the text for much instructive and entertaining reflection. But _cui bono?_ It is to be hoped that the character and objects of this work are now sufficiently understood to acquit the writer of any suspicion of a tendency to digress from the iron road of facts into the flowery groves of fanciful speculation. The fact, that Sir John Falstaff passed through Stratford-on-Avon, more than a hundred years before the birth of William Shakspeare, can scarcely have had any influence upon the dramatist’s after labours in connection with the warrior’s history. It is true, that Sir John Falstaff was in the habit of leaving his mark wherever he went; and in any town where he may have sojourned, if only for the space of a day or two, there would be no likelihood of his being speedily forgotten. But a century is a long time. And I am disposed to think that any interest or value attached to such Inn Memoriams of Sir John’s progress through Stratford as that city might be expected to possess at the date of his departure, would cease with the announcement of the knight’s death without heirs or estate. On the whole, I have decided to dismiss the question and resume my narrative. It was no part of our hero’s plan to take Mr. Shallow by surprise. His designs upon that rural potentate were not of a nature to be carried by a _coup de main_. He prepared for his appearance in Gloucestershire by sending on an _avant courier_, with the following dispatch. * * The preservation of this important document is probably due to the hereditary vanity of the race of Shallows--who from the time of John of Gaunt down to the last presentation of the Freedom of the City of London to a foreign prince,-- have never been known to lose an opportunity of claiming acquaintance with persons of rank and celebrity. The letter was preserved for many years in the family. The original Gloucestershire branch becoming extinct, it passed into the hands of some collateral descendants (through the Slenders and Aguecheeks, both nearly allied by blood and marriage to the Shallows), domiciled in the vicinity of Chepstow, in whose possession it remained _perdu_ until the early part of the present century, when the head of the family having providentially taken to drinking, and his goods being sold by auction, the treasure was discovered by his county neighbour, Mr. Roderick Bolton, F. S. A., and by him purchased for incorporation with the Strongate Collection.