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 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 the 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 crones and gossips of Stratford, dealing forth
churchyard tales and legendary anecdotes of the troublesome times in
England. In this chair it is the custom of everyone who 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, tho built of solid oak, such
was the fervent zeal of devotees, that the chair had to be new-bottomed at
least once in three years. From the birthplace of Shakespeare a few paces
brought me to his grave.... 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 inclosèd here.
Blessed be he that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones."
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 the 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.
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 Lucy's at Charlecot, and to
ramble through the park where Shakespeare, in company with some of the
roisterers of Stratford, committed his youthful offense of deer-stealing.
The old mansion of Charlecot and its surrounding park still remain in the
possession of the Lucy family, and are peculiarly interesting from 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.
My route for a part of the way lay in sight of the Avon, which made a
variety of the most fanciful 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 around 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, while 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
foot-path, 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 everyone has a kind of
property--at least as far as the foot-path is concerned. 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.
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 grass-plot, shrubs, and flower-beds. The gateway
is in imitation of the ancient barbican; being a kind of outpost and
flanked by towers; tho evidently for mere ornament, instead of defense.
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 weathercock.
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.
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 fire-place, 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 court-yard. Here are emblazoned in stained glass the armorial
bearings of the Lucy family for many generations, some being dated in
1558....
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 scepter of empire over his rural domains; and in which might be
presumed the redoubted Sir Thomas sat enthroned in awful state, when the
recreant Shakespeare was brought before him. As I like to deck out
pictures for my 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 the
blue-coated serving-men with their badges; while the luckless culprit was
brought in, forlorn and chapfallen, in the custody of game-keepers,
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, eying 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 now bade a reluctant farewell to the old hall. My mind had become so
completely possest 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 my
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 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 Jacques 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.
NEWSTEAD ABBEY [Footnote: From "English Note Books." By permission of, and
by arrangement with, the publishers of Hawthorne's works, Houghton,
Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1870-1898.]