It has two stories and an attic, with three gables in the roof facing
the street. At the left of the door by which the tourist is admitted, is
a portion of the house where the valuable documents of the corporation
are stored, while to the right are the rooms formerly used as the "Swan
and Maidenhead Inn," now converted into a library and museum. The
windows in the upstairs room where the poet was born are fully occupied
with the autographs of visitors who have scratched their names there. I
was told that the glass is now valuable simply as old glass, and of
course the autographs enhance the value. The names of Scott and Carlyle
are pointed out by the attendant in charge. From a back window one can
look down into the garden, where, as far as possible, all the trees and
flowers mentioned in Shakespeare's works have been planted. For some
years past the average number of visitors to this house has been seven
thousand a year. The poet's grave is in Trinity Church, at Stratford,
beneath a stone slab in the floor bearing these lines:

"Good friend, for Jesus' sake, forbear
To digg the dust enclosed here.
Blest be ye man y spares these stones,
And curst be he ty moves my bones."

On the wall, just at hand, is a bust made from a cast taken after his
death. Near by is a stained-glass window with the inscription,
"America's gift to Shakespeare's church," and not far away is a card
above a collection-box with an inscription which informs "visitors from
U.S.A." that there is yet due on the window more than three hundred
dollars. The original cost was about two thousand five hundred dollars.
The Shakespeare Memorial is a small theater by the side of the Avon,
with a library and picture gallery attached. The first stone was laid in
1877, and the building was opened in 1879 with a performance of "Much