nothing more. It is easy to realise the supreme beauty of the scene that
Shakespeare knew, to understand how the lovers' secret meetings were
made all the more memorable by reason of their surroundings. The scene
and the associations went to the making of the poet; they were among the
treasures he carried up to London when he was compelled to leave
Stratford behind him and time and distance were smoothing all the little
troubles that had beset his short and uneventful life. He must have
heard Stratford and Shottery calling to him in the heart of the town,
for when his name was made and his future assured, he came back to home,
wife, and little ones to enjoy the "poor remains" of life.

On his road to and from Shottery, he would have passed "under the shade
of melancholy boughs" and watched the "guest of summer, the
Temple-haunting martlet," that built under the eaves of Anne Hathaway's
house. Doubtless to his mood of elation or depression, and to his quick
and intimate response to the wild life round him, we owe those clear
impressions that connect certain scenes and phases of our life with his
more familiar utterances. To hear the cuckoo and the nightingale to-day
in the woods round Shottery and Wilmcote is to recall some of the poet's
most inspired moods. But it is not the familiar birds alone that caught
the poet's eye and stimulated his imagination. In the days of his youth,
before he went to London, he must have studied bird life closely and
accurately. Nearly fifty wild birds find mention in his plays and poems,
and for the most part they are birds he would not have seen in London,
though in his day the metropolis was small enough, and the outer London
of his time was well-nigh as wild and wooded as the least frequented
parts of Warwickshire to-day. The halcyon or kingfisher, the
white-breasted water-ouzel, the skylark, the "ruddock" or
robin-redbreast, the wren, the green plover, the woodcock--these serve
for some of his moods; but he mentions eagle, kite, hawk, buzzard, owl,
falcon, cormorant, and a number of others, always with discretion and
with the full measure of knowledge vouchsafed to his time. Classical
lore and country superstitions are sometimes found in his references,
but the most of them point to the poet's own loving observation at a
time when there was no widespread interest in birds or beasts, unless
they had a part to play in hunting. Shakespeare's references to the
chase are accurate and sugge