kindly supplied to us by a friend residing at Dursley. We may take it for granted that  the tradition which states  how the  young poet fled  before the enraged face of  Sir Thomas Lucy, on  account  of  some  illegal intrusion in the  knight's park in  Warwickshire, is   based  on  some fact.  It is surmised that he sought shelter in Dursley, a small town seated on the edge of a wild woodland tract. Some passages in his writings show an intimate acquaintance with Dursley, and the names of its inhabitants. In the Second Part of Henry IV., act v. sc. 1, "Gloucestershire, "Davy says to Justice Shallow—" I beseech you, Sir, to countenance William Visor of Woncot, against Clement Perkes of the Hill." This Woncot, as Mr. Stevens, the commentator, supposes, in a note to another passage in the same play (act v., sc. 3) is Woodmancot, still pronounced by the common people "Womcot,"  a  township  in   the parish  of Dursley.  It is also to  be observed that  in   Shakespeare's time a family named Visor,  the ancestors  of   the present family of Vizard, of Dursley,  resided and held property in Woodmancot. This township lies at the foot of Stinchcombe Hill, still emphatically called "The Hill" in that neighbourhood on account of the magnificent view which it commands. On this hill is the site of a house wherein a family named "Purchase," or "Perkis," once lived, which seems to be identical with "Clement Perkes of  the  Hill."  In addition  to these coincidences,  we must mention the fact that a family named Shakespeare  formerly resided  in  Dursley, as  appears  by an ancient rate book, which family still exist,  as  small freeholders, in the adjoining parish of  Bagpath,  and claim kindred  with the poet. A physician, Dr. Barnett, lately residing in London, and who died at an advanced age, was in youth apprenticed at Dursley,  and had a vivid  remembrance of the tradition that Shakespeare once dwelt there; he affirmed, that losing his way in a ramble in the extensive woods which adjoin the town, he asked a person whom he met where he had been, and was told that the name of the spot which particularly attracted his attention was called "Shakespeare's walk."In the play "King Richard II. act ii. sc. 3," a description of Berkeley Castle is given, which is so

P.23. exact that it is hardly possible to read it without considering it as if seen from Stinchcombe Hill. The scene is "A Wild Prospect in Gloucestershire." Bolingbroke and Northumberland  enter; Bolingbroke opens the dialogue:—

"How far is it, my lord, to Berkeley, now?

North.—I am a stranger here in Gloucestershire;

These high wild hills and rough uneven ways