In the month of his birth, 1616, Stratford Church received the body of William Shakespeare. "Church and churchyard are worthy of being connected with so great a memory. The former is a fine cruciform structure, crowned with a central spire; the latter a spacious tract, planted with aged trees. An avenue of limes leads up to the church porch, between which, perhaps, the poet often passed to worship, and whose quivering shadows may one sad day have fallen upon his coffin. But there is a part of the God's acre where, perhaps, more than any other, we may think of him, for it is one which can hardly have failed to tempt him to musing. The Avon bounds the churchyard, and by its brink is a terraced walk, beneath a row of fine old elms. On the one hand, through the green screens of summer foliage, or through the chequered lattice-work of winter boughs, we see the grey stones of the church--here the tracery of a window, there a weather-beaten pinnacle--then, through some wider gap, the spire itself. On the other hand, beneath the terrace wall, the Avon slowly and silently glides along by bridge and town, by water-meadows, bright with celandine in spring and thick with lush grass in June."[5] The church, once collegiate, is an unusually fine one, partly Early English, partly Decorated, but mostly Perpendicular in style. To the last belongs the chancel, where Shakespeare is buried, with his wife, daughter, and other relations. His monument, with the bust, is on the north wall, and his grave with the quaint inscription is near at hand, both too well known to need description; but though this one great memory pervades the place, almost to the exclusion of all beside, there are other tombs of interest, and the church of itself is well worth a visit.