You may make any use of this opinion that you see fit. If you
think its publication will subswerve the cause of litteraoor, you
may publicate it.
I told my wife Betsy when I left home that I should go to the
birthplace of the orthur of "Otheller" and other Plays. She said
that as long as I kept out of Newgate she didn't care where I
went.
"But," I said, "don't you know he was the greatest Poit that ever
lived? Not one of these common poits, like that young idyit who
writes verses to our daughter, about the Roses as growses, and
the Breezes as blowses--but a Boss Poit--also a philosopher, also
a man who knew a great deal about everything."
She was packing my things at the time, and the only answer she
made was to ask me if I was goin to carry both of my red flannel
night-caps.
Yes. I've been to Stratford onto the Avon, the Birthplace of
Shakspeare. Mr. S. is now no more. He's been dead over three
hundred (300) years. The peple of his native town are justly
proud of him. They cherish his mem'ry, and them as sell pictures
of his birthplace, &c., make it prof'tible cherishin it. Almost
everybody buys a pictur to put into their Albiom.
As I stood gazing on the spot where Shakspeare is s'posed to have
fell down on the ice and hurt hisself when a boy, (this spot
cannot be bought--the town authorities say it shall never be
taken from Stratford), I wondered if three hundred years hence
picturs of MY birthplace will be in demand? Will the peple of my
native town be proud of me in three hundred years? I guess they
won't short of that time because they say the fat man weighing
1000 pounds which I exhibited there was stuffed out with pillers
and cushions, which he said one very hot day in July, "Oh bother,
I can't stand this," and commenced pullin the pillers out from
under his weskit, and heavin 'em at the audience. I never saw a
man lose flesh so fast in my life. The audience said I was a
pretty man to come chiselin my own townsmen in that way. I said,
"Do not be angry, feller-citizens. I exhibited him simply as a
work of art. I simply wished to show you that a man could grow
fat without the aid of cod-liver oil." But they wouldn't listen
to me. They are a low and grovelin set of peple, who excite a
feelin of loathin in every brest where lorfty emotions and
original idees have a bidin place.
I stopped at Leamington a few minits on my way to Stratford onto
the Avon, and a very beautiful town it is. I went into a shoe
shop to make a purchis, and as I entered I saw over the door
those dear familiar words, "By Appintment: H.R.H.;" and I said
to the man, "Squire, excuse me, but this is too much. I have
seen in London four hundred boot and shoe shops by Appintment:
H.R.H.; and now YOU'RE at it. It is simply onpossible that the
Prince can wear 400 pairs of boots. Don't tell me," I said, in a
voice choked with emotion--"Oh, do not tell me that you also make
boots for him. Say slippers--say that you mend a boot now and
then for him; but do not tell me that you make 'em reg'lar for
him."
The man smilt, and said I didn't understand these things. He
said I perhaps had not noticed in London that dealers in all
sorts of articles was By Appintment. I said, "Oh, HADN'T I?"
Then a sudden thought flasht over me. "I have it!" I said.
"When the Prince walks through a street, he no doubt looks at the
shop windows."