Note 160 — APRIL.

The visit to Kenilworth in 1815 is not noticed in the Life, but as Scott was in London for some weeks in the spring of that year he may have gone there on his return journey. Mr. Charles Knight, writing in 1842, says that Mr. Bonnington, the venerable occupant of the Gate House, told him that he remembered the visit and the visitor! It was "about twenty-five years ago"—and after examining some carving in the interior of the Gate House and putting many suggestive questions, the middle-aged active stranger slightly lame, and with keen grey eye, passed through the court and remained among the ruins silent and alone for about two hours. (Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 89.) The famous romance did not appear until six years later, viz. in January 1821, and in the autumn of that year it is somewhat singular to find that Scott and his friend Mr. Stewart Rose are at Stratford-on-Avon writing their names on the wall of Shakespeare's birthplace—and yet leaving Kenilworth unvisited.—Perhaps the reason was that Mr. Stewart Rose was not in the secret of the authorship of the Novels.