time before Scott's death, and is now on exhibition. Sir Walter, as the
guide repeatedly called him, spent the last years of his life under the
burden of a heavy debt, but instead of making use of the bankrupt law,
he set to work heroically with his pen to clear up the indebtedness. He
wrote rapidly, and his books sold well, but he was one day compelled to
lay down his pen before the task was done. The King of England gave him
a trip to the Mediterranean, for the benefit of his health, but it was
of no avail. Sir Walter returned to his home on the bank of the Tweed,
and died September twenty-first, 1832. In his last illness, this great
author, who had produced so many volumes that were being read then and
are still being read, asked his son-in-law to read to him. The
son-in-law asked what book he should read, to which Sir Walter replied:
"Book? There is but one Book! Read me the Bible." In Melrose I visited
the ruins of the Abbey, and then went on to Wigan.

After the annual meeting, I went to Birmingham and stayed a short while.
From here I made a little journey to the birth-place of Shakespeare, at
Stratford-on-Avon, a small, quiet town, where, to the best of my
recollection, I saw neither street cars nor omnibuses. After being in
several large cities, it was an agreeable change to spend a day in this
quiet place, where the greatest writer in the English tongue spent his
boyhood and the last days of his life on earth. The house where he was
born was first visited. A fee of sixpence (about twelve cents) secures
admission, but another sixpence is required if the library and museum
are visited. The house stands as it was in the poet's early days, with a
few exceptions. Since that time, however, part of it has been used as a
meat market and part as an inn. In 1847, the property was announced for
sale, and it fell into the hands of persons who restored it as nearly as
possible to its original condition.