Struggles and Triumphs, P. T. Barnum [good books to read in english .txt] 📗

however, till evening, and I arrived home at seven or eight o’clock, long after my friends had gone, though to the great gratification of my family, who thought some serious accident must have happened to me.

It must not be supposed that during my protracted stay abroad I confined myself wholly to business or limited my circle of observation with a golden rim. To be sure, I ever had “an eye to business,” but I had also two eyes for observation and these were busily employed in leisure hours. I made the most of my opportunities and saw, hurriedly, it is true, nearly everything worth seeing in the various places which I visited. All Europe was a great curiosity shop to me and I willingly paid my money for the show.

While in London, my friend Albert Smith, a jolly companion, as well as a witty and sensible author, promised that when I reached Birmingham he would come and spend a day with me in “sightseeing,” including a visit to the house in which Shakespeare was born.

Early one morning in the autumn of 1844, my friend Smith and myself took the box-seat of an English mail-coach, and were soon whirling at the rate of twelve miles an hour over the magnificent road leading from Birmingham to Stratford. The distance is thirty miles. At a little village four miles from Stratford, we found that the fame of the bard of Avon had travelled thus far, for we noticed a sign over a miserable barber’s shop, “Shakespeare hairdressing⁠—a good shave for a penny.” In twenty minutes more we were set down at the door of the Red Horse Hotel, in Stratford. The coachman and guard were each paid half a crown as their perquisites.

While breakfast was preparing, we called for a guidebook to the town, and the waiter brought in a book, saying that we should find in it the best description extant of the birth and burial place of Shakespeare. I was not a little proud to find this volume to be no other than the “Sketchbook” of our illustrious countryman, Washington Irving; and in glancing over his humorous description of the place, I discovered that he had stopped at the same hotel where we were then awaiting breakfast.

After examining the Shakespeare House, as well as the tomb and the church in which all that is mortal of the great poet rests, we ordered a post-chaise for Warwick Castle. While the horses were harnessing, a stagecoach stopped at the hotel, and two gentlemen alighted. One was a sedate, sensible-looking man; the other an addle-headed fop. The former was mild and unassuming in his manners; the latter was all talk, without sense or meaning⁠—in fact, a regular Charles Chatterbox. He evidently had a high opinion of himself, and was determined that all within hearing should understand that he was⁠—somebody. Presently the sedate gentleman said:

“Edward, this is Stratford. Let us go and see the house where Shakespeare was born.”

“Who the devil is Shakespeare?” asked the sensible young gentleman.

Our post-chaise was at the door; we leaped into it, and were off, leaving the “nice young man” to enjoy a visit to the birthplace of an individual of whom he had never before heard. The distance to Warwick is fourteen miles. We went to the Castle, and approaching the door of the Great Hall, were informed by a well-dressed porter that the Earl of Warwick and family were absent, and that he was permitted to show the apartments to visitors. He introduced us successively into the “Red Drawing-Room,” “The Cedar Drawing-Room,” “The Gilt Room,” “The State Bedroom,” “Lady Warwick’s Boudoir,” “The Compass Room,” “The Chapel,” and “The Great Dining-Room.” As we passed out of the Castle, the polite porter touched his head (he of course had no hat on it) in a style which spoke plainer than words, “Half a crown each, if you please, gentlemen.” We responded to the call, and were then placed in charge of another guide, who took us to the top of “Guy’s Tower,” at the bottom of which he touched his hat a shilling’s worth; and placing ourselves in charge of a third conductor, an old man of seventy, we proceeded to the Greenhouse to see the Warwick Vase⁠—each guide announcing at the end of his short tour: “Gentlemen, I go no farther,” and indicating that the bill for his services was to be paid. The old gentleman mounted a rostrum at the side of the vase, and commenced a set speech, which we began to fear was interminable; so tossing him the usual fee, we left him in the middle of his oration.

Passing through the porter’s lodge on our way out, under the impression that we had seen all that was interesting, the old porter informed us that the most curious things connected with the Castle were to be seen in his lodge. Feeling for our coin, we bade him produce his relics, and he showed us a lot of trumpery, which, he gravely informed us, belonged to that hero of antiquity, Guy, Earl of Warwick. Among these were his sword, shield, helmet, breastplate, walking-staff, and tilting-pole, each of enormous size⁠—the horse armor nearly large enough for an elephant, a large pot which would hold seventy gallons, called “Guy’s Porridge Pot,” his flesh-fork, the size of a farmer’s hayfork, his lady’s stirrups, the rib of a mastodon which the porter pretended belonged to the great “Dun Cow,” which, according to tradition, haunted a ditch near Coventry, and after doing injury to many persons, was slain by the valiant Guy. The sword weighed nearly 200 pounds, and the armor 400 pounds.

I told the old porter he was entitled to great credit for having concentrated more lies than I had ever before heard in so small a compass. He smiled, and evidently felt gratified by the compliment.

“I suppose,” I continued, “that you have told these marvellous stories so often, that you believe them yourself?”

“Almost!” replied the porter, with a grin of