aery
under a June sun, when the wheeling gulls are dazzling white flashes
above it, broken into greys and greens and purples by the sudden hail
of quick spring squalls, a heaving grey waste of waters under steady
rain, or a wild and elemental force, terrible and splendid, under the
fury of a gale.

It is a land for poets and dreamers, a land to touch the fancy and stir
the imagination of men, a land of beauty and of adventure.

It will not, therefore, be without interest to pick up thread after
thread by which the ports and hamlets, woods and waterfalls, are woven
into the history of our literature.

[Illustration: Dunkerry Beacon]

We find a trace, firstly, of the chief of poets and greatest name of
all--Shakespeare--in the municipal records of Barnstaple, where under
the date 1605 an entry records: "Geven to the Kynges players being in
the town this year xs." That is all, and Shakespeare is not named; but
we know that he was associated with the Kynges Players for many years,
and Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, who is a well-known authority on this
subject, asserts that at this date Shakespeare was still one of the
company. It is a shadowy trace enough, but in view of the bare
outlines of the life and death of this man, whose name is almost
universal and whose history is almost completely obscure, we seize on
any tiny fact that may help to bring before us so wonderful a
personality. That Shakespeare was in Barnstaple, went up and down
Boutport Street, the old street that half encircles the town, running
"about the port," that he acted here, lodged here, if only for a week
or two, talked in the tavern and walked in the old town, with that
observant inner eye which noted the veriest detail of life, the swing
of a flower, the swallow under the eaves, the idiosyncrasy of dress or
gesture in the passers-by, and at the same time comprehended and
recorded the springs of action, the fumbling thoughts, the consciences,
the strivings, and the pretences, of the world of men and women that
moved around him--that Shakespeare was, once in his short and wonderful
life, actually in Barnstaple gives even to the most unreflective an
interest and a romance to this town.

It was near Barnstaple, also, and during Shakespeare's lifetime, that
Thomas Westcote, gentleman, was born at Westcote, in the parish of
Marwood, in 1567. He wrote, towards the end of his life, a description
of the country called "A View of Devon," and a genealogy of