up to the new gate, beside which is preserved
an old post, which we are left to imagine is the
very post on which the youthful poet fixed his
lampoon upon Sir Thomas. And now a strange
thought. The house and park of the Lucys are
thrown open to visitors to-day in the name of
one who once did the family the honour to steal
a deer from its park. If the story be not true,
it is still more remarkable that a slander in
connexion with the Bard's name should have been
enough to immortalise a house, and render a
family famous. The house and grounds very
beautiful—the gardens laid out to realise a
picture by Watteau: the house reminding one
of the magnificence of Versailles oak floors,
emblazoned ceilings, and the walls hung with
rare pictures by old masters. The portrait of
Sir Thomas Lucy over the mantelpiece, and the
marble monument in the church forbid the idea
of Justice Shallow. They are emphatically the
portraits of a gentleman—a chivalrous-looking
gentleman, with a fine head and a noble
countenance.

Returning over the old bridge to Stratford,
I am horrified to see the calm bosom of the
Avon being ruffled by the paddle-wheels of a dirty
steam-boat from the Birmingham Soho. Man
on the bank touting for passengers to go up the
river to Luddington, where the Bard was
married. I have seen his birthplace, and I have
seen his tomb, and I should like to view the
scene of the middle event of his life; but I
decline to navigate the Avon in a steam-boat, so
forego Luddington, and content myself with
another sight of the old key in the shop window
in High-street.

Now, if you ask me if I passed a pleasant
time and enjoyed myself, I answer that I
passed a very pleasant time, and never enjoyed
myself more in my life. Nature has made the
neighbouring country a paradise of quiet beauty,
and the mayor and the committee, as the
representatives of Art, certainly did everything in their
power to add to the delights of the town. The
erection of that handsome Pavilion I regard as a
great achievement, and too much praise cannot
be awarded to the committee for its spirit and
enterprise in providing entertainments utterly
regardless of expense. As an example, the
whole of the scenery and properties that were
used in Romeo and Juliet at the Princess's
Theatre, on Tuesday night, in London, were
used in Stratford on Wednesday, and were seen
again in London on the evening of Thursday.
I think, as a whole, the celebration was as
successful as could have been reasonably
expected. The Pavilion was never filled, but it
would have been difficult to fill so large a building
even in London. If the visitors from the
neighbourhood came and went away again the
same day without spending money in the town,
the natives had only themselves to blame.
Thousands were scared away by the false
reports of overcrowded hotels and high charges.
But that honour to the Bard had much to do
with the celebration, I will not pretend to
declare, in the face of the fact, that the most
successful entertainment in the Pavilion,
specially erected for the purpose of performing his
works, was a masked ball.

SUSSEX IRONMASTERS.

THE ironworks of Sussex and Kent were the
most important in England for sixteen hundred
years. In the sandstone beds of the Forest
Ridge, called by geologists the Hastings sand,
which lies between the chalk and the oolite-
layers, there is an abundance of ironstone.
The ironstone beds lie in a north-easterly direction
from Ashburnham and Heathfield to the
neighbourhood of Crowborough; and timber for
the ironstone, fuel suitable for smelting the ores,
lay handy and plentiful—the country about
having been called the Forest of Anderida, and
the Weald, or wild wood, and being full of large
oaks. The district thus combined both the
conditions suitable for iron-making. When, in
the far and obscure past, the iron-smelting
began here, nobody can tell, but more than
seventeen hundred years ago, in the year 120,
the iron-ores of Sussex were extensively worked
by the Romans, or by Teutonic iron-workers
using Roman pottery, and the coins of Nero,
of Vespasian, and Diocletian. Coins of Roman
emperors and fragments of Roman pottery have
been plentifully found, in a bed of cinder-heaps
extending over several acres, at Old Land Farm,
near Maresfield. Throughout the county, old
mansions, places, and farm-houses occur, bearing
such names as Furnace-place, Cinder Hill,
Hammer Pond, and Forge Farm. But Sussex
iron is now a mere curiosity, for the Sussex
furnaces, which were probably blazing long
before the Christian era, were all except one
blown out by the end of the eighteenth century.

The discovery of the art of smelting iron by
pit coal enabled the districts combining iron-
stone and coal to undersell the district in which,
although the ores remained, the fuel was always
becoming scarcer and dearer; but, whilst the
iron trade flourished in Sussex, noteworthy
incidents marked its history, and notable men
pursued it. Several wealthy families in the
county owe their fortunes to the iron trade.
Smith, the most common of all names, is one
which is now disguised and abandoned, but it
ought to be remembered that this commonness
of the name ought to accompany the characteristic
of the English nation, for the Englishman
is pre-eminently the blacksmith of the
world. A Saxon means a sharp blade. Whatever
ever other superiorities he may boast, it is
chiefly in reference to iron tools and machinery
that the superiority of the Englishman is
admitted. He may call himself John Bull, but he
is John Smith. And, in ancient times, the
blacksmith was a great man, holding a high
place at court, sitting at royal tables, and
quenching the spark in his throat after hobbing
and nobbing with kings. Indeed, Smith and
Smithson (Hadad and Benhadad) were the