When we read Shakespeare's plays for the first time, it is at once apparent that the poet was a countryman. He has the knowledge, founded upon close observation, that we associate with the highly intelligent dweller in the countryside, the man or woman from whom the poet differs merely in his supreme capacity for expression. We turn again to his scenes of city life to find he is no less at home there. It is quite another world, but he has fathomed it; quite another company of men, but he has gauged their strength and weakness, the pathos and humour of their lives. He deals with rulers and courts, and his touch is as sure and faithful as before; his genius has taught him that kings and queens are men and women like the rest of us, that environment cannot alter fundamental characteristics, that royalty is swayed by the same forces that rule the lives of lesser men. Only when he deals with foreigners the poet of Avon is often an unconscious humorist, for his store of geography is inadequate to meet the small demands upon it, and some of his simple errors, such as "the seashore of Bohemia," excite our kindly laughter now. But it is easy to see that the poet's habit of accurate observation was established in the country and that he applied to the larger life of London the self-taught methods he had acquired in the little town of his birth. It is on this account that the minds of his admirers turn to Stratford-on-Avon, and the footsteps of enthusiasts are directed, year in, year out, to the pleasant county of Warwickshire. In and around Stratford we can keep company with the poet in his earliest and latest days; nor can the bustling crowds of tourists from all parts, the clamour of innkeepers and coach-drivers, the ever-present determination to turn a national genius to profitable account, stir our deep content. Men and public places have changed, but the country is as it was when William Shakespeare, poor and little known, was gathering the stores of knowledge and habit of thought that were to lift him to heights no following Englishman has scaled. =THE HOME OF JOHN SHAKESPEARE--SNITTERFIELD=