d the vanity of
Venus!"

William's heart was heavy when turning his back on father, mother, brother,
sister, wife and children, at the age of twenty-two.

We passed along the Clopton stone bridge, and as we tramped over Primrose
Hill looking back at the roofs and spires of Stratford, glinting in the
morning light, the Bard uttered this impulsive dash of eloquence:

_Farewell, farewell! a sad farewell
To glowing scenes of boyhood.
Ye rocks, and rills and forests primeval
List to my sighing soul, trembling on the tongue
To vent its echoes in ambient air.
No more shall wild eyed deer,
Fretful hares, hawks and hounds
Entrance mine ear and vision,
Or frantically depart when
Stealthy footsteps disturb the lark,
Ere Phoebus' golden light
Illuminates the dawn.
Memory, many hued maiden,
Oft in midnight hours
Shall picture these eternal hills,
And purling streams, rimmed by
Vernal meadows;
And pillowed even in the lap of misery
Fantastic visions of thee
Shall lull deepest woe to repose.
And banqueting at yon alehouse,
Nestling near blooming hedge and snowy
Hawthorn, I shall live again
In blissful dreams among the enchanting
Precincts of the silver, serpentine Avon.
To thee I lift my hands in prayer
Disappearing, and pinioned with Hope;
Daughter of Love and sunrise--
Go forth to multitudinous London,
And, "buckle fortune on my back"
"To bear her burden," to successful,
Lofty heights of mind illimitable._

With this apostrophe, we took a last look at the glinting gables and
sparkling spires of Stratford, disappearing over the hill, our steps and
faces turned to London town, that seething whirlpool of human woe and
pleasure.

The air was cold and the country roads were rutty and muddy, but the autumn
landscape was beautiful, in its gray and purple garb, while the notes of
flitting wild birds chirped and sang from bush, hedge, field and forest, in
a mournful monotone to the fading glory of the year.

The various birds chattered in clumps along the highway, and then would
rise over our heads in flitting flocks, steering their course to the south
and seemingly accompanying us on our wandering way to the great metropolis.

In our zigzag course we passed through the towns of Ettington, Oxhill,
Wroxton, Woodstock, Eversham and Oxford.

It was near sunset when the lofty towers and steeples o