[Illustration: Anne Hathaway's Cottage.]
This is another of Mr. Rider's beautiful "Views to Illustrate the Life of
SHAKSPEARE,"[1]--it being the exterior of the cottage in which the poet's
wife (whose maiden name was _Hathaway_) is said to have resided with her
parents, in the village of Shottery, about a mile from Stratford-upon-Avon.
[1] Merridew and Rider, Warwick and Leamington, and Goodhugh,
Oxford-street, London.
Neither the exterior nor interior of this humble abode, says Mr. Rider,
appears to have been subjected to any renovating process; and as there
exists no reasonable ground for distrusting the fact of its having been
the abode of _Anne Hathaway_, previous to her marriage with Shakspeare, it
must ever be regarded as one of the most interesting relics connected with
his history. The occupier of the cottage in July, 1827, was an old woman,
the widow of John Hathaway Taylor, whose mother was a Hathaway, and the
last of the family of that name.
[Illustration]
The widow Taylor showed Mr. Rider the old carved bedstead, mentioned by
"Ireland," and assured him she perfectly recollected his purchasing of her
mother-in-law the piece of furniture which had always been known by the
designation of _Shakspeare's Courting-Chair_. From the wood-cut of this
chair, given by Ireland in his "Views on the Avon," Mr. Rider has been
enabled to introduce it in his representation of the interior of the
cottage.