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 of port, yet rise in the morning headacheless and proceed with their journey smiling. There must be some wonderful recuperative virtue about life in the open air, otherwise they could hardly have led the life they did. Up early, and to bed late, with port, or punch, nearly every night, and sometimes both—and yet we have no record of their complaining of dyspepsia! Again I repeat they were marvellous men; peace be to their ashes.

In many a coaching inn they have left mementoes of themselves by scratching their names with dates, and sometimes with added verses, on the window panes of the rooms: these always deeply interest and appeal to me; they tell so little and so much! The mere scratches of a diamond on the fragile glass have been preserved all those years, they look so fresh they might have been done only a month ago. Nowadays it is only the "'Arrys" who are supposed to do this sort of thing, but in the olden times even notable personages did not deem it beneath their dignity thus to record their names. On the window of the room in which Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon may be found the genuine signature of the "Wizard of the North," in company with those of other famed and unfamed men and women. Where walls are silent, windows sometimes speak! I have noted dates on these of nearly two centuries ago; the names of the writers being thus unwittingly preserved whilst perchance they have weathered away from their tombstones. Such records as the following which I select haphazard from my note-book are interesting:—"Peter