committed to memory during the salad days of my schoolboyishness, and with such effect that Miss Wee-Wee Allbutt-Innett (who is excessively emotional) was compelled, at times, to veil her countenance in the recesses of a pocket-handkerchief.
Having at length arrived at that hallowed and sacred spot, the very name of which sends a sweet and responsive thrill through every educated bosom, our first proceeding was to partake of a copious cold tiffin.
This repast we ordered at an old-fashioned hostelry, whose doorway was decorated by a counterfeit presentment of the Bard, and I observed that similar effigies were placed above several of the shops as I walked along the streets. These images somewhat resemble those erected to Buddha in certain parts of India, being similarly bald, but terminating—not in crossed legs, but a cushion with tassels. However, I was not able to discover that it is the custom for even the most ignorant inhabitants to do anything in the nature of poojah before these figures any longer, though probably usual enough before Cromwell, with the iron sides, ordered all such baubles to be removed. In a hole of the upper wall of the Town Hall there is a life-size statuary of Shakspeare, with legs complete, showing that he was not actually deficient in such extremities and a mere gifted Torso: and it
