Anyway, an interesting quote from 1785! By John Byng the Viscount Torrington, in "A Ride Taken in 1785" in The Torrington Diaries, about a visit to already-long-respected William Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon:
I...enter'd the White Lion Inn,...where in the yard is the [bust] of Shakespeare....I order'd dinner from a bill of fare...and then [since it took a while to get dinner prepared, I] went forth to pay my obeisance at the shrine of our immortal bard: but first the house of his birth, next door to the Swan and Maidenhead (the old sign), still in the possession of the Hart family....If I had been born in an earlier time, I had done wonders as an antiquary, being self-inspired, and not catching manners from fashion and conversation; but my ideas are, that if I was born 150 years too late, I was, however born 100 years before those who will follow me; and who perhaps will envy me for what I saw and possessed. How do you, Mrs. Hart? Let me see the wonders of your house. 'Why, there, sir, is Shakespeare's old chair...'
