SHAKESPEARE, "A COTSWOLD 31AN."
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
Ste,—In this Terunknary time it may interest some of your readers to knew that thirty years ago there lived in the obscure village of Bagpath, in Gloucestershire, a labourer named Shakespeare who claimed descent from the rect. I remember the old man as a bent, somewhat gro!csque figure, wearing a battered grey top-hat, and known by his neighbours (with their Cotswold love of nickname) as " Old Shaksbury." Be lived and died in his little grey stone hovel, and is buried in the old eburchyard on that treeless upland where even the squat Saxon church tower forms a landmark : truly the " wilds in Gloucestershire " of which Shakespeare writes with evident knowledge ! Both Shakespeares- three hundred years apart—may have stood on grand old Stinchcombe Bill (five miles from Bagpath) pointing out Berkeley in the Severn Tale lelow-
• There stands the castle, by con tuft of trees " (Richard 11.)— but I rather doubt if " Old Shaksbury " would rouse himself to roam
so far. " In Gloucestershire These high wild hills and rough uneven ways Draw out our miles and make them wearisome," and it was a more peaceful recreation to lean over the garden palings, scratching the pig's back and resting quietly on the laurels of his name.
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