rearing the unrighteously homed brood, until able to fly away and shift for themselves. Oddly enough, there is no "Defence Committee." Jack is permitted these house estate robberies with impunity, infrequency of the worse than lawlessness securing its toleration. A few crows occasionally offer themselves as associates in the watch and ward army, but have never succeeded in obtaining permanent enrolment. In flocks the Trinity rook builds its home, in flocks it seeks its food, and in flocks it returns at eve to its spire-crowned eyrie. Could Shakespeare have known the sacred duties to be performed by the rooks as guardians of his shrine, he would hardly have cared, and still less have applied the title "bully rook" in "Merry Wives of Windsor," act i., scene 3, although the term "bully" by no means meant what is usually its interpretation, a cheat and a sharper; the words "bully rook" in Shakespeare's time bore much the same signification as "jolly dog" does nowadays. At the poet's death the Stratford rooks abjured their former ways of jollity and took to a life of solemnity and devotion accordant with their avocation as watchers over and guardians of his resting-place. There is no mistake as to the religious observances of the Holy Trinity rooks, they are no mere formal worshippers, but true church-goers, observing daily Matins and Evensong, and so proffer a lesson to the many who hear with indifferance the holy sound of the bell summoning for morn and eve presence in God's House. It is a common remark with Stratford children when watching the wheeling and diving of the great body of watchers at eventide, and listening to the last dying-out subdued cawing just before the death-like silence preparatory to settling down to roost-" The rooks are saying their prayers." Let no man treat lightly the guileless expression of such simple children, borne out as it is by the holy declaration, "He feedeth the ravens who call upon Him." There is a strong esprit de corps among all ranks of the Holy Trinity guardian army, they come to the rescue of each other in danger, delight in each other's society, and are strongly conservative in the general interests. They have been known to expel from the community over-garrulous members, possibly promulgators of new-fangled schismatic doctrines, anti-Shakespearean; against these, vengeance is swift. Such is the naturalist's reading of rarely-occurring tumultuous uprisings of the whole body corporate, followed by determined vigorous outdriving at bayonet point some half-dozen noisy praters; these are, under strong escort, hurried out of the Shakespeare country, doubtless well warned never again to present themselves among the Trinity community of Stratford. Many a salutary teaching may be derived from watching the Shakespeare body-guard. Just before sunrise they may be seen rising into the air like a cloud, closely followed by a continual wheeling round and round in most wonderful tumbling and darting evolutions. Shortly after these grand manœuvres they break off into numerous divisions, each taking its course in opposite directions. After flying steadily awhile in their several routes with advance and rearguard, each sub-division is seen, after due word of command, to take post in some large field, whence again rising after a while they resume the evolutions in the air, apparently corresponding with those carried out by the main body shortly after daybreak. Having gone through these they sub-divide into brigades, each taking its own separate way over the Shakespeare country in pursuit of maintenance; this THE ROOKS AT SPRING TIME. military brigading is repeated at eventide, prior to returning home to rest, settling down in their lofty tree-top homes, and entering on restful guardianship. Holy Trinity rooks regard Vicar Arbuthnot's home as under their charge, making it an outpost, with which there is established communication. It is in no way strange that Oliver Goldsmith should have observed that he loved to study the polity of rooks! Trinity rooks suffer trials through destruction of their nests in autumnal and winter gales. In windy seasons three-fourths are blown out of the trees, and great is the lamentation over the additional labours thus thrown on March first days when nest-building is in full vigour. It is remarkable that despite the numerous hatchings out, and the blessed fact that no wicked fowler is permitted to 239 panying sketch, will readily distinguish between the rook and crow. At the base of the bill of the rook there is a light grey skin which, in the young birds, is covered with hairs, but naked in the old. By this greyish skin the rook is at once known from the crow or jackdaw; the latter, however, is a much smaller bird. A full-grown Holy Trinity rook in his full rich plumage of glossy black, of bluish reflection, is a noble bird, measuring nineteen inches in length and thirty-eight inches across the wings. Such as these compose Holy Trinity bodyguard. It has been matter of general surprise that the burial spots of Shakespeare's descendants in Holy Trinity God's Acre are not known, seeing the numerous generations of them who have passed away. We must remember that even headstones cost money, so also thei approach the holy precincts, little increase has been known during many years in the occupants of Shakespeare's elms, this though no disciples of Malthus. At certain seasons gentleman rook is a master of deportment, when in society of his charmer. Watch his gliding and curtseying before the lady-love in whose sight at spring-tide he by aid of gentle dalliance covets favour. His winsome glidings and bendings of body, the puffing out of feathers, the making a fan of his tail, an Adonis-like curvaturing of the neck, are worthy of any posture master, approaching a graceful minuet, and far in advance of the pigeons dwelling in large numbers at the adjoining mill. Bully Rook's attentions are not fitful, the adoration being continued through the whole period of maternity. The reader, from the accom repair; and until the recent decent cemetery receptacles for the dead, the new-comers were provided for by digging into such coffins as yielded to the pickaxe and spade creative space. So long ago as Shakespeare's time Hamlet found skulls and bones in plenty all around the open grave selected for poor Ophelia. No sepulchral monument of any description was erected in commemoration of Lady Barnard, the poet's daughter and last descendant. The memory of her husband, who died at Abington in 1674, was not so neglected, but the remains of both shared the fate of sparrows kicked out by cuckoos, for beneath the knight her husband's memorial slab is now a vault containing all that was mortal of another family. But although to appearance there may not be any portion of Holy Trinity God's Acre specially assigned to the generations of the Shakespeare family, to the writer's firm belief they are all gathered together in one spot on the north-east side of the churchyard, near the river bank, about twenty yards from the north-east end of the chancel, where is readily to be found a headstone with this inscription for Thomas Hart and Alice, his wife : "In Memory of Thos. Hart who was This headstone is almost in direct line with the Hart tablet built against the wall on the outside of the north aisle of the church on the west side of its eastern buttress. This tablet, now scarcely to be deciphered, bore the following: "Under this place lieth the body of George Hart and Esther his wife. She dyed ye 27 day of April, 1696, aged On a gravestone directly under the above was the following inscription to a son of the above George and Esther Hart : "In Memory of George Hart, who This gravestone has disappeared. There now exists a grass-grown space to the north-east of the Thomas and Alice Hart headstone which the good, unobtrusive folk of Stratford have never invaded, dreading with religious awe any exhumation of Shakespeare family bones. This, together with the ground intervening on the side between it and the north aisle tablet of George and Esther Hart, is believed by the writer to have been Shakespearean territory, and it is only by a very few assuming intrusive invaders that other occupancy has occurred. One by one the Shakespeares and their descendants have yielded to the sickle and been borne to the quarters tacitly assigned as specially their resting home. Probably the remains of the poet's father and mother rest close here abouts, and from their day downwards there has been continuance of their burials here. We believe they all nestle around this spot, such of the race as yielded up their breath in the place of their birth, doubtless with dulyerected records of entrance and exit, the which have vanished through time and the usual graveyard spiriting away for highway repair and maintenance. Vicars did not too closely inquire as to the dispossession of occupants; indeed, the clamour for admission to what was often in cynical language termed a last home, necessitously required displacement of precious occupants, though in this respect, having a groomy God's Acre, there was less quarrying among the remains of those who had themselves dug down earlier in the day than in many other churchyards. If Rural Deans existed in those long-ago periods, the office was then as now often one more in titled name than of usefulness eagerly sought by the lesser humble-minded of God's ministers. HOLY TRINITY. OLY TRINITY, the parish church of Stratford, is unique in its situation, surrounded as it is with great elm-trees, the river Avon flowing so near, and within sound of the adjoining mill weir. A few of these venerable trees have become somewhat trun cated at top, and cavernously hollow through the inroads of decay. Stoutly, however, their main body stand proudly erect; the tender in youth, the sturdy in prime, and the green in old age. It is pleasant to think of the great bard resting here side by side with his wife, and his favourite daughter and her husband. We can never be sad in contemplating their graves. His was a lot which anyone might envy-to be laid with those in death whom they loved dearest in life. The approach to the great shrine of the HH Holy Trinity is all in unison with the feelings of devotion and awe possessing one's soul, as borne on to the hallowed edifice, doubly sanctified as the sacred depository of all that was earthly in the great limner. The road from which you first get sight of the tall and exquisite spire cutting the sky, and, like "silent finger," pointing to heaven, grows gracefully out from among great elm trees, with the rooks cawing in their town of homes, built conscious of entire safety among the sacred branches, is a wide road with gentle curves, and well cared for. Reverent hearts and zealous hands have done well in keeping all the surroundings wide and in good taste. No drawn-out description of the exterior appearance of the church is needed. It is one of the finest of temples. The visitor needs no confused account of orders and tracery, and niches and drips and buttresses. The finest cathedral under heaven's canopy exceeds it not in interest and mental charm. Its inviting charm of holy place in which he oft besought his Heavenly Father's help and aid, and under whose shadow he at length laid him down to rest. Here it was that he worshipped as a boy and youth, and here, after acquaintance with the attractions and follies of the metropolis, great even in his day, he offered the outpourings of a grateful heart for a happy return, with independence honestly earned, to his native town, in which he took a place apart from the castes that try to overtake each other in the high road of life. The grandly venerable pile stands close to the Avon, at the south-east extremity of the town; and between the church and the river is a fine terrace, edged with large elms, whose boughs immediately overhang the stream as it flows placidly along. antiquity would commend it apart from its special hold on the educated world. What a love of God is enkindled in the soul from all around, attended with feelings of joy and admiration that stream up towards the heavens above in grateful thanksgiving! The grand old Prayer House discloses itself bit by bit, though with all the poetical strength and sweetness such as the most zealous devotees of the immortal bard can desire. Here we feel in presence of the holy temple in which he was "received into the congregation of Christ's flock, and signed with the sign of the cross, in token that hereafter he should not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under His banner against sin, the world, and the devil, and to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto his life's end." Yes, here we stand in the very This outside world of architecture in the surroundings almost rivals the beauteous temple itself. It is the architecture of the majestic worshippers that stand with folded hands, high up in the blue sky above in different directions. These wear the angles and arches of their own grand Gothic order and the imperial belt of centuries. In the spring and summer-time may be heard services continuously going on in this out-of-door Cathedral of Nature. The dew-moistened, foliated arches, so lofty, so interwebbed with wavy, restless spangles of sky, are all set to the music of the heavenly anthem. These noble trees, each contributing to matchless majesty-holding sentry-ward, nowhere crowding on the |