TO a homeless man, who has no spot on this wide world which he can
truly call his own, there is a momentary feeling of something like
independence and territorial consequence when, after a weary day’s
travel, he kicks off his boots, thrusts his feet into slippers, and
stretches himself before an inn-fire. Let the world without go as it
may, let kingdoms rise or fall, so long as he has the wherewithal to pay
his bill he is, for the time being, the very monarch of all he surveys.
The armchair is his throne, the poker his sceptre, and the little
parlor, some twelve feet square, his undisputed empire. It is a morsel
of certainty, snatched from the midst of the uncertainties of life; it
is a sunny moment gleaming out kindly on a cloudy day: and he who has
advanced some way on the pilgrimage of existence knows the importance of
husbanding even morsels and moments of enjoyment. “Shall I not take mine
ease in mine inn?” thought I, as I gave the fire a stir, lolled back in
my elbow-chair, and cast a complacent look about the little parlor of
the Red Horse at Stratford-on-Avon.
The words of sweet Shakespeare were just passing through my mind as
the clock struck midnight from the tower of the church in which he lies
buried. There was a gentle tap at the door, and a pretty chambermaid,
putting in her smiling face, inquired, with a hesitating air, whether I
had rung. I understood it as a modest hint that it was time to retire.
My dream of absolute dominion was at an end; so abdicating my throne,
like a prudent potentate, to avoid being deposed, and putting the
Stratford Guide-Book under my arm as a pillow companion, I went to bed,
and dreamt all night of Shakespeare, the jubilee, and David Garrick.
The next morning was one of those quickening mornings which we sometimes
have in early spring, for it was about the middle of March. The chills
of a long winter had suddenly given way; the north wind had spent its
last gasp; and a mild air came stealing from the west, breathing the
breath of life into Nature, and wooing every bud and flower to burst
forth into fragrance and beauty.
I had come to Stratford on a poetical pilgrimage. My first visit was to
the house where Shakespeare was born, and where, according to tradition,
he was brought up to his father’s craft of wool-combing. It is a small
mean-looking edifice of wood and plaster, a true nestling-place of
genius, which seems to delight in hatching its offspring in by-corners.
The walls of its squalid chambers are covered with names and
inscriptions in every language by pilgrims of all nations, ranks, and
conditions, from the prince to the peasant, and present a simple but
striking instance of the spontaneous and universal homage of mankind to
the great poet of Nature.
The house is shown by a garrulous old lady in a frosty red face, lighted
up by a cold blue, anxious eye, and garnished with artificial locks
of flaxen hair curling from under an exceedingly dirty cap. She was
peculiarly assiduous in exhibiting the relics with which this, like all
other celebrated shrines, abounds. There was the shattered stock of
the very matchlock with which Shakespeare shot the deer on his poaching
exploits. There, too, was his tobacco-box, which proves that he was a
rival smoker of Sir Walter Raleigh: the sword also with which he played
Hamlet; and the identical lantern with which Friar Laurence discovered
Romeo and Juliet at the tomb. There was an ample supply also of
Shakespeare’s mulberry tree, which seems to have as extraordinary powers
of self-multiplication as the wood of the true cross, of which there is
enough extant to build a ship of the line.
The most favorite object of curiosity, however, is Shakespeare’s chair.
It stands in a chimney-nook of a small gloomy chamber just behind what
was his father’s shop. Here he may many a time have sat when a boy,
watching the slowly revolving spit with all the longing of an urchin, or
of an evening listening to the cronies and gossips of Stratford dealing
forth churchyard tales and legendary anecdotes of the troublesome times
of England. In this chair it is the custom of every one that visits the
house to sit: whether this be done with the hope of imbibing any of
the inspiration of the bard I am at a loss to say; I merely mention the
fact, and mine hostess privately assured me that, though built of solid
oak, such was the fervent zeal of devotees the chair had to be new
bottomed at least once in three years. It is worthy of notice also, in
the history of this extraordinary chair, that it partakes something of
the volatile nature of the Santa Casa of Loretto, or the flying chair
of the Arabian enchanter; for, though sold some few years since to a
northern princess, yet, strange to tell, it has found its way back again
to the old chimney-corner.
I am always of easy faith in such matters, and am ever willing to be
deceived where the deceit is pleasant and costs nothing. I am therefore
a ready believer in relics, legends, and local anecdotes of goblins
and great men, and would advise all travellers who travel for their
gratification to be the same. What is it to us whether these stories be
true or false, so long as we can persuade ourselves into the belief
of them and enjoy all the charm of the reality? There is nothing like
resolute good-humored credulity in these matters, and on this occasion I
went even so far as willingly to believe the claims of mine hostess to a
lineal descent from the poet, when, unluckily for my faith, she put into
my hands a play of her own composition, which set all belief in her own
consanguinity at defiance.
From the birthplace of Shakespeare a few paces brought me to his
grave. He lies buried in the chancel of the parish church, a large and
venerable pile, mouldering with age, but richly ornamented. It stands on
the banks of the Avon on an embowered point, and separated by adjoining
gardens from the suburbs of the town. Its situation is quiet and
retired; the river runs murmuring at the foot of the churchyard, and
the elms which grow upon its banks droop their branches into its clear
bosom. An avenue of limes, the boughs of which are curiously interlaced,
so as to form in summer an arched way of foliage, leads up from the gate
of the yard to the church-porch. The graves are overgrown with grass;
the gray tombstones, some of them nearly sunk into the earth, are half
covered with moss, which has likewise tinted the reverend old building.
Small birds have built their nests among the cornices and fissures of
the walls, and keep up a continual flutter and chirping; and rooks are
sailing and cawing about its lofty gray spire.
In the course of my rambles I met with the gray-headed sexton, Edmonds,
and accompanied him home to get the key of the church. He had lived in
Stratford, man and boy, for eighty years, and seemed still to consider
himself a vigorous man, with the trivial exception that he had nearly
lost the use of his legs for a few years past. His dwelling was a
cottage looking out upon the Avon and its bordering meadows, and was a
picture of that neatness, order, and comfort which pervade the humblest
dwellings in this country. A low whitewashed room, with a stone floor
carefully scrubbed, served for parlor, kitchen, and hall. Rows of pewter
and earthen dishes glittered along the dresser. On an old oaken table,
well rubbed and polished, lay the family Bible and prayer-book, and the
drawer contained the family library, composed of about half a score
of well-thumbed volumes. An ancient clock, that important article of
cottage furniture, ticked on the opposite side of the room, with
a bright warming-pan hanging on one side of it, and the old man’s
horn-handled Sunday cane on the other. The fireplace, as usual, was wide
and deep enough to admit a gossip knot within its jambs. In one corner
sat the old man’s granddaughter sewing, a pretty blue-eyed girl, and in
the opposite corner was a superannuated crony whom he addressed by
the name of John Ange, and who, I found, had been his companion from
childhood. They had played together in infancy; they had worked together
in manhood; they were now tottering about and gossiping away the evening
of life; and in a short time they will probably be buried together in
the neighboring churchyard. It is not often that we see two streams of
existence running thus evenly and tranquilly side by side; it is only in
such quiet “bosom scenes” of life that they are to be met with.
I had hoped to gather some traditionary anecdotes of the bard from
these ancient chroniclers, but they had nothing new to impart. The long
interval during which Shakespeare’s writings lay in comparative neglect
has spread its shadow over his history, and it is his good or evil lot
that scarcely anything remains to his biographers but a scanty handful
of conjectures.
The sexton and his companion had been employed as carpenters on the
preparations for the celebrated Stratford Jubilee, and they
remembered Garrick, the prime mover of the fete, who superintended the
arrangements, and who, according to the sexton, was “a short punch man,
very lively and bustling.” John Ange had assisted also in cutting down
Shakespeare’s mulberry tree, of which he had a morsel in his pocket for
sale; no doubt a sovereign quickener of literary conception.
I was grieved to hear these two worthy wights speak very dubiously of
the eloquent dame who shows the Shakespeare house. John Ange shook
his head when I mentioned her valuable and inexhaustible collection
of relics, particularly her remains of the mulberry tree; and the old
sexton even expressed a doubt as to Shakespeare having been born in her
house. I soon discovered that he looked upon her mansion with an evil
eye, as a rival to the poet’s tomb, the latter having comparatively but
few visitors. Thus it is that historians differ at the very outset, and
mere pebbles make the stream of truth diverge into different channels
even at the fountain-head.
We approached the church through the avenue of limes, and entered by a
Gothic porch, highly ornamented, with carved doors of massive oak. The
interior is spacious, and the architecture and embellishments superior
to those of most country churches. There are several ancient monuments
of nobility and gentry, over some of which hang funeral escutcheons and
banners dropping piecemeal from the walls. The tomb of Shakespeare is in
the chancel. The place is solemn and sepulchral. Tall elms wave before
the pointed windows, and the Avon, which runs at a short distance from
the walls, keeps up a low perpetual murmur. A flat stone marks the spot
where the bard is buried. There are four lines inscribed on it, said to
have been written by himself, and which have in them something extremely
awful. If they are indeed his own, they show that solicitude about
the quiet of the grave which seems natural to fine sensibilities and
thoughtful minds:
Good friend, for Jesus’ sake, forbeare
To dig the dust inclosed here.
Blessed be he that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.
Just over the grave, in a niche of the wall, is a bust of Shakespeare,
put up shortly after his death and considered as a resemblance. The
aspect is pleasant and serene, with a finely-arched forehead; and I
thought I could read in it clear indications of that cheerful,
social disposition by which he was as much characterized among his
contemporaries as by the vastness of his genius. The inscription
mentions his age at the time of his decease, fifty-three years--an
untimely death for the world, for what fruit might not have been
expected from the golden autumn of such a mind, sheltered as it was
from the stormy vicissitudes of life, and flourishing in the sunshine of
popular and royal favor?
The inscription on the tombstone has not been without its effect. It has
prevented the removal of his remains from the bosom of his native place
to Westminster Abbey, which was at one time contemplated. A few years
since also, as some laborers were digging to make an adjoining vault,
the earth caved in, so as to leave a vacant space almost like an arch,
through which one might have reached into his grave. No one, however,
presumed to meddle with his remains so awfully guarded by a malediction;
and lest any of the idle or the curious or any collector of relics
should be tempted to commit depredations, the old sexton kept watch over
the place for two days, until the vault was finished and the aperture
closed again. He told me that he had made bold to look in at the
hole, but could see neither coffin nor bones--nothing but dust. It was
something, I thought, to have seen the dust of Shakespeare.
Next to this grave are those of his wife, his favorite daughter,
Mrs. Hall, and others of his family. On a tomb close by, also, is a
full-length effigy of his old friend John Combe, of usurious memory,
on whom he is said to have written a ludicrous epitaph. There are other
monuments around, but the mind refuses to dwell on anything that is not
connected with Shakespeare. His idea pervades the place; the whole pile
seems but as his mausoleum. The feelings, no longer checked and thwarted
by doubt, here indulge in perfect confidence: other traces of him may be
false or dubious, but here is palpable evidence and absolute certainty.
As I trod the sounding pavement there was something intense and
thrilling in the idea that in very truth the remains of Shakespeare were
mouldering beneath my feet. It was a long time before I could prevail
upon myself to leave the place; and as I passed through the churchyard
I plucked a branch from one of the yew trees, the only relic that I have
brought from Stratford.
I had now visited the usual objects of a pilgrim’s devotion, but I had
a desire to see the old family seat of the Lucys at Charlecot, and to
ramble through the park where Shakespeare, in company with some of
the roisterers of Stratford, committed his youthful offence of
deer-stealing. In this harebrained exploit we are told that he was taken
prisoner and carried to the keeper’s lodge, where he remained all night
in doleful captivity. When brought into the presence of Sir Thomas Lucy
his treatment must have been galling and humiliating; for it so wrought
upon his spirit as to produce a rough pasquinade which was affixed to
the park gate at Charlecot.*
This flagitious attack upon the dignity of the knight so incensed him
that he applied to a lawyer at Warwick to put the severity of the laws
in force against the rhyming deer-stalker. Shakespeare did not wait
to brave the united puissance of a knight of the shire and a country
attorney. He forthwith abandoned the pleasant banks of the Avon and
his paternal trade; wandered away to London; became a hanger-on to the
theatres; then an actor; and finally wrote for the stage; and
thus, through the persecution of Sir Thomas Lucy, Stratford lost an
indifferent wool-comber and the world gained an immortal poet. He
retained, however, for a long time, a sense of the harsh treatment of
the lord of Charlecot, and revenged himself in his writings, but in
the sportive way of a good-natured mind. Sir Thomas is said to be the
original of Justice Shallow, and the satire is slyly fixed upon him by
the justice’s armorial bearings, which, like those of the knight, had
white luces+ in the quarterings.
* The following is the only stanza extant of this lampoon:
A parliament member, a justice of peace,
At home a poor scarecrow, at London an asse,
If lowsie is Lucy, as some volke miscalle it,
Then Lucy is lowsie, whatever befall it.
He thinks himself great;
Yet an asse in his state,
We allow by his ears but with asses to mate,
If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it,
Then sing lowsie Lucy whatever befall it.
+ The luce is a pike or jack, and abounds in the Avon about
Charlecot.
Various attempts have been made by his biographers to soften and explain
away this early transgression of the poet; but I look upon it as one of
those thoughtless exploits natural to his situation and turn of mind.
Shakespeare, when young, had doubtless all the wildness and irregularity
of an ardent, undisciplined, and undirected genius. The poetic
temperament has naturally something in it of the vagabond. When left to
itself it runs loosely and wildly, and delights in everything eccentric
and licentious. It is often a turn up of a die, in the gambling freaks
of fate, whether a natural genius shall turn out a great rogue or a
great poet; and had not Shakespeare’s mind fortunately taken a literary
bias, he might have as daringly transcended all civil as he has all
dramatic laws.
I have little doubt that, in early life, when running like an unbroken
colt about the neighborbood of Stratford, he was to be found in the
company of all kinds of odd anomalous characters, that he associated
with all the madcaps of the place, and was one of those unlucky urchins
at mention of whom old men shake their heads and predict that they will
one day come to the gallows. To him the poaching in Sir Thomas Lucy’s
park was doubtless like a foray to a Scottish knight, and struck
his eager, and as yet untamed, imagination as something delightfully
adventurous.*
* A proof of Shakespeare’s random habits and associates in
his youthful days may be found in a traditionary anecdote,
picked up at Stratford by the elder Ireland, and mentioned
in his “Picturesque Views on the Avon.”
About seven miles from Stratford lies the thirsty little market-town of
Bedford, famous for its ale. Two societies of the village yeomanry used
to meet, under the appellation of the Bedford topers, and to challenge
the lovers of good ale of the neighboring villages to a contest of
drinking. Among others, the people of Stratford were called out to prove
the strength of their heads; and in the number of the champions was
Shakespeare, who, in spite of the proverb that “they who drink beer
will think beer,” was as true to his ale as Falstaff to his sack. The
chivalry of Stratford was staggered at the first onset, and sounded a
retreat while they had yet the legs to carry them off the field. They
had scarcely marched a mile when, their legs failing them, they were
forced to lie down under a crab tree, where they passed the night. It
was still standing, and goes by the name of Shakespeare’s tree.
In the morning his companions awaked the bard, and proposed returning to
Bedford, but he declined, saying he had enough, having drank with
“Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston,
Haunted Hilbro’, Hungry Grafton,
Dudging Exhall, Papist Wicksford,
Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bedford.”
“The villages here alluded to,” says Ireland, “still bear the epithets
thus given them: the people of Pebworth are still famed for their skill
on the pipe and tabor; Hilborough is now called Haunted Hilborough; and
Grafton is famous for the poverty of its soil.”
The old mansion of Charlecot and its surrounding park still remain in
the possession of the Lucy family, and are peculiarly interesting front
being connected with this whimsical but eventful circumstance in the
scanty history of the bard. As the house stood at little more than three
miles’ distance from Stratford, I resolved to pay it a pedestrian visit,
that I might stroll leisurely through some of those scenes from which
Shakespeare must have derived his earliest ideas of rural imagery.
The country was yet naked and leafless, but English scenery is always
verdant, and the sudden change in the temperature of the weather
was surprising in its quickening effects upon the landscape. It was
inspiring and animating to witness this first awakening of spring; to
feel its warm breath stealing over the senses; to see the moist mellow
earth beginning to put forth the green sprout and the tender blade, and
the trees and shrubs, in their reviving tints and bursting buds, giving
the promise of returning foliage and flower. The cold snow-drop, that
little borderer on the skirts of winter, was to be seen with its chaste
white blossoms in the small gardens before the cottages. The bleating
of the new-dropt lambs was faintly heard from the fields. The sparrow
twittered about the thatched eaves and budding hedges; the robin threw
a livelier note into his late querulous wintry strain; and the lark,
springing up from the reeking bosom of the meadow, towered away into the
bright fleecy cloud, pouring forth torrents of melody. As I watched the
little songster mounting up higher and higher, until his body was a mere
speck on the white bosom of the cloud, while the ear was still filled
with his music, it called to mind Shakespeare’s exquisite little song in
Cymbeline:
Hark! hark! the lark at heav’n’s gate sings,
And Phoebus ‘gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs,
On chaliced flowers that lies.
And winking mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes;
With every thing that pretty bin,
My lady sweet arise!
Indeed, the whole country about here is poetic ground: everything is
associated with the idea of Shakespeare. Every old cottage that I saw
I fancied into some resort of his boyhood, where he had acquired his
intimate knowledge of rustic life and manners, and heard those legendary
tales and wild superstitions which he has woven like witchcraft into
his dramas. For in his time, we are told, it was a popular amusement in
winter evenings “to sit round the fire, and tell merry tales of errant
knights, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves,
cheaters, witches, fairies, goblins, and friars.” *
* Scot, in his “Discoverie of Witchcraft,” enumerates a of
these fireside fancies: “And they have so fraid us with host
bull-beggars, spirits, witches, urchins, elves, hags,
fairies, satyrs, pans, faunes, syrens, kit with the can
sticke, tritons, centaurs, dwarfes, giantes, imps, calcars,
conjurors, nymphes, changelings, incubus, Robin-goodfellow,
the spoorne, the mare, the man in the oke, the hell-waine,
the fier drake, the puckle, Tom Thombe, hobgoblins, Tom
Tumbler, boneless, and such other bugs, that we were afraid
of our own shadowes.”
My route for a part of the way lay in sight of the Avon, which made
a variety of the most fancy doublings and windings through a wide and
fertile valley--sometimes glittering from among willows which fringed
its borders; sometimes disappearing among groves or beneath green banks;
and sometimes rambling out into full view and making an azure sweep
round a slope of meadow-land. This beautiful bosom of country is called
the Vale of the Red Horse. A distant line of undulating blue hills seems
to be its boundary, whilst all the soft intervening landscape lies in a
manner enchained in the silver links of the Avon.
After pursuing the road for about three miles, I turned off into a
footpath, which led along the borders of fields and under hedgerows to a
private gate of the park; there was a stile, however, for the benefit of
the pedestrian, there being a public right of way through the grounds.
I delight in these hospitable estates, in which every one has a kind
of property--at least as far as the footpath is concerned. It in some
measure reconciles a poor man to his lot, and, what is more, to the
better lot of his neighbor, thus to have parks and pleasure-grounds
thrown open for his recreation. He breathes the pure air as freely and
lolls as luxuriously under the shade as the lord of the soil; and if he
has not the privilege of calling all that he sees his own, he has not,
at the same time, the trouble of paying for it and keeping it in order.
I now found myself among noble avenues of oaks and elms, whose vast size
bespoke the growth of centuries. The wind sounded solemnly among
their branches, and the rooks cawed from their hereditary nests in the
tree-tops. The eye ranged through a long lessening vista, with nothing
to interrupt the view but a distant statue and a vagrant deer stalking
like a shadow across the opening.
There is something about these stately old avenues that has the effect
of Gothic architecture, not merely from the pretended similarity of
form, but from their bearing the evidence of long duration, and of
having had their origin in a period of time with which we associate
ideas of romantic grandeur. They betoken also the long-settled dignity
and proudly-concentrated independence of an ancient family; and I have
heard a worthy but aristocratic old friend observe, when speaking of the
sumptuous palaces of modern gentry, that “money could do much with
stone and mortar, but thank Heaven! there was no such thing as suddenly
building up an avenue of oaks.”
It was from wandering in early life among this rich scenery, and about
the romantic solitudes of the adjoining park of Fullbroke, which then
formed a part of the Lucy estate, that some of Shakepeare’s commentators
have supposed he derived his noble forest meditations of Jaques and
the enchanting woodland pictures in “As You Like It.” It is in lonely
wanderings through such scenes that the mind drinks deep but quiet
draughts of inspiration, and becomes intensely sensible of the beauty
and majesty of Nature. The imagination kindles into reverie and rapture,
vague but exquisite images and ideas keep breaking upon it, and we revel
in a mute and almost incommunicable luxury of thought. It was in some
such mood, and perhaps under one of those very trees before me, which
threw their broad shades over the grassy banks and quivering waters of
the Avon, that the poet’s fancy may have sallied forth into that little
song which breathes the very soul of a rural voluptuary
Unto the greenwood tree,
Who loves to lie with me
And tune his merry throat
Unto the sweet bird’s note,
Come hither, come hither, come hither.
Here shall he see
No enemy,
But winter and rough weather.
I had now come in sight of the house. It is a large building of brick
with stone quoins, and is in the Gothic style of Queen Elizabeth’s day,
having been built in the first year of her reign. The exterior remains
very nearly in its original state, and may be considered a fair specimen
of the residence of a wealthy country gentleman of those days. A great
gateway opens from the park into a kind of courtyard in front of the
house, ornamented with a grassplot, shrubs, and flower-beds. The gateway
is in imitation of the ancient barbacan, being a kind of outpost and
flanked by towers, though evidently for mere ornament, instead of
defence. The front of the house is completely in the old style with
stone-shafted casements, a great bow-window of heavy stone-work, and a
portal with armorial bearings over it carved in stone. At each corner
of the building is an octagon tower surmounted by a gilt ball and
weather-cock.
The Avon, which winds through the park, makes a bend just at the foot
of a gently-sloping bank which sweeps down from the rear of the house.
Large herds of deer were feeding or reposing upon its borders, and
swans were sailing majestically upon its bosom. As I contemplated the
venerable old mansion I called to mind Falstaff’s encomium on Justice
Shallow’s abode, and the affected indifference and real vanity of the
latter:
“Falstaff. You have a goodly dwelling and a rich. Shallow. Barren,
barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all, Sir John:--marry, good air.”
Whatever may have been the joviality of the old mansion in the days of
Shakespeare, it had now an air of stillness and solitude. The great iron
gateway that opened into the courtyard was locked, there was no show
of servants bustling about the place; the deer gazed quietly at me as I
passed, being no longer harried by the moss-troopers of Stratford. The
only sign of domestic life that I met with was a white cat stealing with
wary look and stealthy pace towards the stables, as if on some nefarious
expedition. I must not omit to mention the carcass of a scoundrel crow
which I saw suspended against the barn-wall, as it shows that the Lucys
still inherit that lordly abhorrence of poachers and maintain that
rigorous exercise of territorial power which was so strenuously
manifested in the case of the bard.
After prowling about for some time, I at length found my way to a
lateral portal, which was the every-day entrance to the mansion. I was
courteously received by a worthy old housekeeper, who, with the civility
and communicativeness of her order, showed me the interior of the house.
The greater part has undergone alterations and been adapted to modern
tastes and modes of living: there is a fine old oaken staircase, and the
great hall, that noble feature in an ancient manor-house, still retains
much of the appearance it must have had in the days of Shakespeare. The
ceiling is arched and lofty, and at one end is a gallery in which stands
an organ. The weapons and trophies of the chase, which formerly adorned
the hall of a country gentleman, have made way for family portraits.
There is a wide, hospitable fireplace, calculated for an ample
old-fashioned wood fire, formerly the rallying-place of winter
festivity. On the opposite side of the hall is the huge Gothic
bow-window, with stone shafts, which looks out upon the courtyard. Here
are emblazoned in stained glass the armorial bearings of the Lucy family
for many generations, some being dated in 1558. I was delighted to
observe in the quarterings the three white luces by which the character
of Sir Thomas was first identified with that of Justice Shallow. They
are mentioned in the first scene of the “Merry Wives of Windsor,” where
the Justice is in a rage with Falstaff for having “beaten his men,
killed his deer, and broken into his lodge.” The poet had no doubt the
offences of himself and his comrades in mind at the time, and we may
suppose the family pride and vindictive threats of the puissant Shallow
to be a caricature of the pompous indignation of Sir Thomas.
“Shallow. Sir Hugh, persuade me not: I will make a Star Chamber matter
of it; if he were twenty John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Sir Robert
Shallow, Esq.
Slender. In the county of Gloster, justice of peace and coram.
Shallow. Ay, cousin Slender, and custalorum.
Slender. Ay, and ratolorum too, and a gentleman born, master parson; who
writes himself Armigero in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation,
Armigero.
Shallow. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three hundred
years.
Slender. All his successors gone before him have done’t, and all his
ancestors that come after him may; they may give the dozen white luces
in their coat....
Shallow. The council shall hear it; it is a riot.
Evans. It is not meet the council hear of a riot; there is no fear of
Got in a riot; the council, hear you, shall desire to hear the fear of
Got, and not to hear a riot; take your vizaments in that.
Shallow. Ha! o’ my life, if I were young again, the sword should end
it!”
Near the window thus emblazoned hung a portrait, by Sir Peter Lely,
of one of the Lucy family, a great beauty of the time of Charles
the Second: the old housekeeper shook her head as she pointed to the
picture, and informed me that this lady had been sadly addicted to
cards, and had gambled away a great portion of the family estate, among
which was that part of the park where Shakespeare and his comrades had
killed the deer. The lands thus lost had not been entirely regained by
the family even at the present day. It is but justice to this recreant
dame to confess that she had a surpassingly fine hand and arm.
The picture which most attracted my attention was a great painting over
the fireplace, containing likenesses of Sir Thomas Lucy and his family
who inhabited the hall in the latter part of Shakespeare’s lifetime.
I at first thought that it was the vindictive knight himself, but the
housekeeper assured me that it was his son; the only likeness extant
of the former being an effigy upon his tomb in the church of the
neighboring hamlet of Charlecot.*
* This effigy is in white marble, and represents the knight
in complete armor. Near him lies the effigy of his wife, and
on her tomb is the following inscription; which, if really
composed by her husband, places him quite above the
intellectual level of Master Shallow:
Here lyeth the Lady Joyce Lucy wife of Sir Thomas Lucy of
Charlecot in ye county of Warwick, Knight, Daughter and heir
of Thomas Acton of Sutton in ye county of Worcester Esquire
who departed out of this wretched world to her heavenly
kingdom ye 10 day of February in ye yeare of our Lord God
1595 and of her age 60 and three. All the time of her lyfe a
true and faythful servant of her good God, never detected of
any cryme or vice. In religion most sounde, in love to her
husband most faythful and true. In friendship most constant;
to what in trust was committed unto her most secret. In
wisdom excelling. In governing of her house, bringing up of
youth in ye fear of God that did converse with her moste
rare and singular. A great maintayner of hospitality.
Greatly esteemed of her betters; misliked of none unless of
the envyous. When all is spoken that can be saide a woman so
garnished with virtue as not to be bettered and hardly to be
equalled by any. As shee lived most virtuotisly so shee died
most Godly. Set downe by him yt best did knowe what hath byn
written to be true.
Thomas Lucye.
The picture gives a lively idea of the costume and manners of the time.
Sir Thomas is dressed in ruff and doublet, white shoes with roses in
them, and has a peaked yellow, or, as Master Slender would say, “a
cane-colored beard.” His lady is seated on the opposite side of the
picture in wide ruff and long stomacher, and the children have a most
venerable stiffness and formality of dress. Hounds and spaniels are
mingled in the family group; a hawk is seated on his perch in the
foreground, and one of the children holds a bow, all intimating the
knight’s skill in hunting, hawking, and archery, so indispensable to an
accomplished gentleman in those days.*
* Bishop Earle, speaking of the country gentleman of his
time, observes, “His housekeeping is seen much in the
different families of dogs and serving-men attendant on
their kennels; and the deepness of their throats is the
depth of his discourse. A hawk he esteems the true burden of
nobility, and is exceedingly ambitious to seem delighted
with the sport, and have his fist gloved with his jesses.”
And Gilpin, in his description of a Mr. Hastings, remarks,
“He kept all sorts of hounds that run buck, fox, hare,
otter, and badger; and had hawks of all kinds both long and
short winged. His great hall was commonly strewed with
marrow-bones, and full of hawk perches, hounds, spaniels,
and terriers. On a broad hearth, paved with brick, lay some
of the choicest terriers, hounds, and spaniels.”
I regretted to find that the ancient furniture of the hall had
disappeared; for I had hoped to meet with the stately elbow-chair of
carved oak in which the country squire of former days was wont to sway
the sceptre of empire over his rural domains, and in which it might be
presumed the redoubled Sir Thomas sat enthroned in awful state when
the recreant Shakespeare was brought before him. As I like to deck out
pictures for my own entertainment, I pleased myself with the idea that
this very hall had been the scene of the unlucky bard’s examination on
the morning after his captivity in the lodge. I fancied to myself the
rural potentate surrounded by his body-guard of butler, pages, and
blue-coated serving-men with their badges, while the luckless culprit
was brought in, forlorn and chopfallen, in the custody of gamekeepers,
huntsmen, and whippers-in, and followed by a rabble rout of country
clowns. I fancied bright faces of curious housemaids peeping from the
half-opened doors, while from the gallery the fair daughters of the
knight leaned gracefully forward, eyeing the youthful prisoner with that
pity “that dwells in womanhood.” Who would have thought that this poor
varlet, thus trembling before the brief authority of a country squire,
and the sport of rustic boors, was soon to become the delight of
princes, the theme of all tongues and ages, the dictator to the human
mind and was to confer immortality on his oppressor by a caricature and
a lampoon?
I was now invited by the butler to walk into the garden, and I felt
inclined to visit the orchard and harbor where the justice treated Sir
John Falstaff and Cousin Silence “to a last year’s pippin of his own
grafting, with a dish of caraways;” but I had already spent so much
of the day in my ramblings that I was obliged to give up any further
investigations. When about to take my leave I was gratified by the
civil entreaties of the housekeeper and butler that I would take some
refreshment--an instance of good old hospitality which, I grieve to say,
we castle-hunters seldom meet with in modern days. I make no doubt it is
a virtue which the present representative of the Lucys inherits from
his ancestors; for Shakespeare, even in his caricature, makes Justice
Shallow importunate in this respect, as witness his pressing instances
to Falstaff:
“By cock and pye, Sir, you shall not away to-night..... I will not
excuse you; you shall not be excused; excuses shall not be admitted;
there is no excuse shall serve; you shall not be excused.... Some
pigeons, Davy, a couple of short-legged hens; a joint of mutton; and any
pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell ‘William Cook.’”
I now bade a reluctant farewell to the old hall. My mind had become so
completely possessed by the imaginary scenes and characters connected
with it that I seemed to be actually living among them. Everything
brought them as it were before my eyes, and as the door of the
dining-room opened I almost expected to hear the feeble voice of Master
Silence quavering forth his favorite ditty:
“‘Tis merry in hall, when beards wag all,
And welcome merry Shrove-tide!”
On returning to my inn I could not but reflect on the singular gift of
the poet, to be able thus to spread the magic of his mind over the very
face of Nature, to give to things and places a charm and character
not their own, and to turn this “working-day world” into a perfect
fairy-land. He is indeed the true enchanter, whose spell operates,
not upon the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart. Under the
wizard influence of Shakespeare I had been walking all day in a complete
delusion. I had surveyed the landscape through the prism of poetry,
which tinged every object with the hues of the rainbow. I had been
surrounded with fancied beings, with mere airy nothings conjured up
by poetic power, yet which, to me, had all the charm of reality. I had
heard Jaques soliloquize beneath his oak; had beheld the fair Rosalind
and her companion adventuring through the woodlands; and, above all,
had been once more present in spirit with fat Jack Falstaff and his
contemporaries, from the august Justice Shallow down to the gentle
Master Slender and the sweet Anne Page. Ten thousand honors and
blessings on the bard who has thus gilded the dull realities of life
with innocent illusions, who has spread exquisite and unbought pleasures
in my chequered path, and beguiled my spirit in many a lonely hour with
all the cordial and cheerful sympathies of social life!
As I crossed the bridge over the Avon on my return, I paused to
contemplate the distant church in which the poet lies buried, and could
not but exult in the malediction which has kept his ashes undisturbed
in its quiet and hallowed vaults. What honor could his name have
derived from being mingled in dusty companionship with the epitaphs
and escutcheons and venal eulogiums of a titled multitude? What would
a crowded corner in Westminster Abbey have been, compared with this
reverend pile, which seems to stand in beautiful loneliness as his sole
mausoleum! The solitude about the grave may be but the offspring of
an overwrought sensibility; but human nature is made up of foibles and
prejudices, and its best and tenderest affections are mingled with these
factitious feelings. He who has sought renown about the world, and has
reaped a full harvest of worldly favor, will find, after all, that there
is no love, no admiration, no applause, so sweet to the soul as that
which springs up in his native place. It is there that he seeks to be
gathered in peace and honor among his kindred and his early friends. And
when the weary heart and failing head begin to warn him that the evening
of life is drawing on, he turns as fondly as does the infant to
the mother’s arms to sink to sleep in the bosom of the scene of his
childhood.
How would it have cheered the spirit of the youthful bard when,
wandering forth in disgrace upon a doubtful world, he cast back a heavy
look upon his paternal home, could he have foreseen that before many
years he should return to it covered with renown; that his name should
become the boast and glory of his native place; that his ashes should
be religiously guarded as its most precious treasure; and that its
lessening spire, on which his eyes were fixed in tearful contemplation,
should one day become the beacon towering amidst the gentle landscape to
guide the literary pilgrim of every nation to his tomb!