THE SHRINES OF WARWICKSHIRE 1882
Night, in Stratford-upon-Avon--a summer night, with large, solemn stars,
a cool and fragrant breeze, and the stillness of perfect rest. From this
high and grassy bank I look forth across the darkened meadows and the
smooth and shining river, and see the little town where it lies asleep.
Hardly a light is anywhere visible. A few great elms, near by, are
nodding and rustling in the wind, and once or twice a drowsy bird-note
floats up from the neighbouring thicket that skirts the vacant, lonely
road. There, at some distance, are the dim arches of Clopton's Bridge.
In front--a graceful, shapely mass, indistinct in the starlight--rises
the fair Memorial, Stratford's honour and pride. Further off, glimmering
through the tree-tops, is the dusky spire of Trinity, keeping its sacred
vigil over the dust of Shakespeare. Nothing here is changed. The same
tranquil beauty, as of old, hallows this place; the same sense of awe
and mystery broods over its silent shrines of everlasting renown. Long
and weary the years have been since last I saw it; but to-night they are
remembered only as a fleeting and troubled dream. Here, once more, is
the highest and noblest companionship this world can give. Here, once
more, is the almost visible presence of the one magician who can lift
the soul out of the infinite weariness of common things and give it
strength and peace. The old time has come back, and the bloom of the
heart that I thought had all faded and gone. I stroll again to the
river's brink, and take my place in the boat, and, trailing my hand in
the dark waters of the Avon, forget every trouble that ever I have
known.
Illustration: "Stratford-upon-Avon."
It is often said, with reference to memorable places, that the best view
always is the first view. No doubt the accustomed eye sees blemishes. No
doubt the supreme moments of human life are few and come but once; and
neither of them is ever repeated. Yet frequently it will be found that
the change is in ourselves and not in the objects we behold. Scott has
glanced at this truth, in a few mournful lines, written toward the close
of his heroic and beautiful life. Here at Stratford, however, I am not
conscious that the wonderful charm of the place is in any degree
impaired. The town still preserves its old-fashioned air, its
quaintness, its perfect cleanliness and order. At the Shakespeare
cottage, in the stillness of the room where he was born, the spirits of
mystery and reverence still keep their imperial state. At the ancient
grammar-school, with its pent-house roof and its dark, sagging rafters,
you still may see, in fancy, the unwilling schoolboy gazing upward
absently at the great, rugged timbers, or looking wistfully at the
sunshine, where it streams through the little lattice windows of his
prison. New Place, with its lovely lawn, its spacious garden, the
ancestral mulberry and the ivy-covered well, will bring the poet before
you, as he lived and moved, in the meridian of his greatness.
_Cymbeline, The Tempest,_ and _A Winter's Tale,_ the last of his works,
undoubtedly were written here; and this alone should make it a hallowed
spot. Here he blessed his young daughter on her wedding day; here his
eyes closed in the long last sleep; and from this place he was carried
to his grave in the chancel of Stratford church. I pass once again
through the fragrant avenue of limes, the silent churchyard with its
crumbling monuments, the dim porch, the twilight of the venerable
temple, and kneel at last above the ashes of Shakespeare. What majesty
in this triumphant rest! All the great labour accomplished. The
universal human heart interpreted with a living voice. The memory and
the imagination of mankind stored forever with words of sublime
eloquence and images of immortal beauty. The noble lesson of
self-conquest--the lesson of the entire adequacy of the resolute,
virtuous, patient human will--set forth so grandly that all the world
must see its meaning and marvel at its splendour. And, last of all,
death itself shorn of its terrors and made a trivial thing.
Illustration: "Stratford Church."
There is a new custodian at New Place, and he will show you the little
museum that is kept there--including the shovel-board from the old
Falcon tavern across the way, on which the poet himself might have
played--and he will lead you through the gardens, and descant on the
mulberry and on the ancient and still unforgiven vandalism of the Rev.
Francis Gastrell, by whom the Shakespeare mansion was destroyed (1759),
and will pause at the well, and at the fragments of the foundation,
covered now with stout screens of wire. There is a fresh and fragrant
beauty all about these grounds, an atmosphere of sunshine, life, comfort
and elegance of state, that no observer can miss. This same keeper also
has the keys of the guild chapel, opposite, on which Shakespeare looked
from his windows and his garden, and in which he was the holder of two
sittings. You will enter it by the same porch through which he walked,
and see the arch and columns and tall, mullioned windows on which his
gaze has often rested. The interior is cold and barren now, for the
scriptural wall-paintings, discovered there in 1804, under a thick
coating of whitewash, have been obliterated and the wooden pews, which
are modern, have not yet been embrowned by age. Yet this church, known
beyond question as one of Shakespeare's personal haunts, will hold you
with the strongest tie of reverence and sympathy. At his birthplace
everything remains unchanged. The gentle ladies who have so long guarded
and shown it still have it in their affectionate care. The ceiling of
the room in which the poet was born--the room that contains "the Actor's
Pillar" and the thousands of signatures on walls and windows--is slowly
crumbling to pieces. Every morning little particles of the plaster are
found upon the floor. The area of tiny, delicate iron laths, to sustain
this ceiling, has more than doubled (1882) since I first saw it, in
1877. It was on the ceiling that Lord Byron wrote his name, but this has
flaked off and disappeared. In the museum hall, once the Swan inn, they
are forming a library; and there you may see at least one Shakespearean
relic of extraordinary interest. This is the MS. letter of Richard
Quiney--whose son Thomas became, in 1616, the husband of Shakespeare's
youngest daughter, Judith--asking the poet for the loan of thirty
pounds. It is enclosed between plates of glass in a frame, and usually
kept covered with a cloth, so that the sunlight may not fade the ink.
The date of this letter is October 25, 1598, and thirty English pounds
then was a sum equivalent to about six hundred dollars of American money
now. This is the only letter known to be in existence that Shakespeare
received. Miss Caroline Chataway, the younger of the ladies who keep
this house, will recite to you its text, from memory--giving a delicious
old-fashioned flavour to its quaint phraseology and fervent spirit, as
rich and strange as the odour of the wild thyme and rosemary that grow
in her garden beds. This antique touch adds a wonderful charm to the
relics of the past. I found it once more when sitting in the
chimney-corner of Anne Hathaway's kitchen; and again in the lovely
little church at Charlecote, where a simple, kindly woman, not ashamed
to reverence the place and the dead, stood with me at the tomb of the
Lucys, and repeated from memory the tender, sincere, and eloquent
epitaph with which Sir Thomas Lucy thereon commemorates his wife. The
lettering is small and indistinct on the tomb, but having often read it
I well knew how correctly it was then spoken. Nor shall I ever read it
again without thinking of that kindly, pleasant voice, the hush of the
beautiful church, the afternoon sunlight streaming through the oriel
window, and--visible through the doorway arch--the roses waving among
the churchyard graves.
In the days of Shakespeare's courtship, when he strolled across the
fields to Anne Hathaway's cottage at Shottery, his path, we may be sure,
ran through wild pasture-land and tangled thicket. A fourth part of
England at that time was a wilderness, and the entire population of that
country did not exceed five millions of persons. The Stratford-upon-Avon
of to-day is still possessed of some of its ancient features; but the
region round about it then must have been rude and wild in comparison
with what it is at present. If you walk in the foot-path to Shottery now
you will pass between low fences and along the margin of gardens,--now
in the sunshine, and now in the shadow of larch and chestnut and elm,
while the sweet air blows upon your face and the expeditious rook makes
rapid wing to the woodland, cawing as he flies. In the old cottage, with
its roof of thatch, its crooked rafters, its odorous hedges and climbing
vines, its leafy well and its tangled garden, everything remains the
same. Mrs. Mary Taylor Baker, the last living descendant of the
Hathaways, born in this house, always a resident here, and now an
elderly woman, still has it in her keeping, and still displays to you
the ancient carved bedstead in the garret, the wooden settle by the
kitchen fireside, the hearth at which Shakespeare sat, the great
blackened chimney with its adroit iron "fish-back" for the better
regulation of the tea-kettle, and the brown and tattered Bible, with the
Hathaway family record. Sitting in an old arm-chair, in the corner of
Anne Hathaway's bedroom, I could hear, in the perfumed summer stillness,
the low twittering of birds, whose nest is in the covering thatch and
whose songs would awaken the sleeper at the earliest light of dawn. A
better idea can be obtained in this cottage than in either the
birthplace or any other Shakespearean haunt of what the real life
actually was of the common people of England in Shakespeare's day. The
stone floor and oak timbers of the Hathaway kitchen, stained and
darkened in the slow decay of three hundred years, have lost no particle
of their pristine character. The occupant of the cottage has not been
absent from it more than a week during upward of half a century. In such
a nook the inherited habits of living do not alter. "The thing that has
been is the thing that shall be," and the customs of long ago are the
customs of to-day.
The Red Horse inn is now in the hands of William Gardner Colbourne, who
has succeeded his uncle Mr. Gardner, and it is brighter than of
old--without, however, having parted with either its antique furniture
or its delightful antique ways. The old mahogany and wax-candle period
has not ended yet in this happy place, and you sink to sleep on a
snow-white pillow, soft as down and fragrant as lavender. One important
change is especially to be remarked. They have made a niche in a corner
of Washington Irving's parlour, and in it have placed his arm-chair,
re-cushioned and polished, and sequested from touch by a large sheet of
plate-glass. The relic may still be seen, but the pilgrim can sit upon
it no more. Perhaps it might be well to enshrine "Geoffrey Crayon's
Sceptre" in a somewhat similar way. It could be fastened to a shield,
displaying the American colours, and placed in this storied room. At
present it is the tenant of a starred and striped bag, and keeps its
state in the seclusion of a bureau; nor is it shown except upon
request--like the beautiful marble statue of Donne, in his shroud,
niched in the chancel wall of St. Paul's cathedral.[1]
[1] A few effigies are all that remain of old St. Paul's. The most
important and interesting of them is that shrouded statue of the poet
John Donne, who was Dean of St. Paul's from 1621 to 1631, dying in the
latter year, aged 58. This is in the south aisle of the chancel, in a
niche in the wall. You will not see it unless you ask the privilege. The
other relics are in the crypt and in the churchyard. There is nothing to
indicate the place of the grave of John of Gaunt or that of Sir Philip
Sidney. Old St. Paul's was burned September 2, 1666.
Illustration: "Washington Irving's Chair."
One of the strongest instincts of the English character is the instinct
of permanence. It acts involuntarily, it pervades the national life,
and, as Pope said of the universal soul, it operates unspent.
Institutions seem to have grown out of human nature in this country, and
are as much its expression as blossoms, leaves, and flowers are the
expression of inevitable law. A custom, in England, once established, is
seldom or never changed. The brilliant career, the memorable
achievement, the great character, once fulfilled, takes a permanent
shape in some kind of outward and visible memorial, some absolute and
palpable fact, which thenceforth is an accepted part of the history of
the land and the experience of its people. England means stability--the
fireside and the altar, home here and heaven hereafter; and this is the
secret of the power that she wields in the affairs of the world, and the
charm that she diffuses over the domain of thought. Such a temple as St.
Paul's cathedral, such a palace as Hampton Court, such a castle as that
of Windsor or that of Warwick, is the natural, spontaneous expression of
the English instinct of permanence; and it is in memorials like these
that England has written her history, with symbols that can perish only
with time itself. At intervals her latent animal ferocity breaks
loose--as it did under Henry the Eighth, under Mary, under Cromwell, and
under James the Second,--and for a brief time ramps and bellows,
striving to deface and deform the surrounding structure of beauty that
has been slowly and painfully reared out of her deep heart and her sane
civilisation. But the tears of human pity soon quench the fire of
Smithfield, and it is only for a little while that the Puritan soldiers
play at nine-pins in the nave of St. Paul's. This fever of animal
impulse, this wild revolt of petulant impatience, is soon cooled; and
then the great work goes on again, as calmly and surely as before--that
great work of educating mankind to the level of constitutional liberty,
in which England has been engaged for well-nigh a thousand years, and in
which the American Republic, though sometimes at variance with her
methods and her spirit, is, nevertheless, her follower and the
consequence of her example. Our Declaration was made in 1776: the
Declaration to the Prince of Orange is dated 1689, and the Bill of
Rights 1628, while Magna Charta was secured in 1215.
Throughout every part of this sumptuous and splendid domain of
Warwickshire the symbols of English stability and the relics of historic
times are numerous and deeply impressive. At Stratford the reverence of
the nineteenth century takes its practical, substantial form, not alone
in the honourable preservation of the ancient Shakespearean shrines, but
in the Shakespeare Memorial. That fabric, though mainly due to the
fealty of England, is also, to some extent, representative of the
practical sympathy of America. Several Americans--Edwin Booth, Herman
Vezin, M. D. Conway, and W. H. Reynolds among them--were contributors to
the fund that built it, and an American gentlewoman, Miss Kate Field,
has worked for its cause with excellent zeal, untiring fidelity, and
good results. (Miss Mary Anderson acted--1885--in the Memorial Theatre,
for its benefit, presenting for the first time in her life the character
of Rosalind.) It is a noble monument. It stands upon the margin of the
Avon, not distant from the church of the Holy Trinity, which is
Shakespeare's grave; so that these two buildings are the conspicuous
points of the landscape, and seem to confront each other with
sympathetic greeting, as if conscious of their sacred trust. The vacant
land adjacent, extending between the road and the river, is a part of
the Memorial estate, and is to be converted into a garden, with
pathways, shade-trees, and flowers,--by means of which the prospect will
be made still fairer than now it is, and will be kept forever unbroken
between the Memorial and the Church. Under this ample roof are already
united a theatre, a library, and a hall of pictures. The drop-curtain,
illustrating the processional progress of Queen Elizabeth when "going to
the Globe Theatre," is gay but incorrect. The divisions of seats are in
conformity with the inconvenient arrangements of the London theatre of
to-day. Queen Elizabeth heard plays in the hall of the Middle Temple,
the hall of Hampton Palace, and at Greenwich and at Richmond; but she
never went to the Globe Theatre. In historic temples there should be no
trifling with historic themes; and surely, in a theatre of the
nineteenth century, dedicated to Shakespeare, while no fantastic regard
should be paid to the usages of the past, it would be tasteful and
proper to blend the best of ancient ways with all the luxury and
elegance of these times. It is much, however, to have built what can
readily be made a lovely theatre; and meanwhile, through the
affectionate generosity of friends in all parts of the world, the
library shelves are continually gathering treasures, and the hall of
paintings is growing more and more the imposing expository that it was
intended to be, of Shakespearean poetry and the history of the English
stage.
Illustration: "The Stratford Memorial."
Many faces of actors appear upon those walls--from Garrick to Edmund
Kean, from Macready to Henry Irving, from Kemble to Edwin Booth, from
Mrs. Siddons to Ellen Terry, Ada Rehan, and Mary Anderson. Prominent
among the pictures is a spirited portrait of Garrick and his wife,
playing at cards, wherein the lovely, laughing lady archly discloses
that her hands are full of hearts. Not otherwise, truly, is it with
sweet and gentle Stratford herself, where peace and beauty and the most
hallowed and hallowing of poetic associations garner up, forever and
forever, the hearts of all mankind.
In previous papers upon this subject I have tried to express the
feelings that are excited by personal contact with the relics of
Shakespeare--the objects that he saw and the fields through which he
wandered. Fancy would never tire of lingering in this delicious region
of flowers and of dreams. From the hideous vileness of the social
condition of London in the time of James the First, Shakespeare must
indeed have rejoiced to depart into this blooming garden of rustic
tranquillity. Here also he could find the surroundings that were needful
to sustain him amid the vast and overwhelming labours of his final
period. No man, however great his powers, can ever, in this world,
escape from the trammels under which nature enjoins and permits the
exercise of the brain. Ease, in the intellectual life, is always
visionary. The higher a man's faculties the higher are his
ideals,--toward which, under the operation of a divine law, he must
perpetually strive, but to the height of which he will never absolutely
attain. So, inevitably, it was with Shakespeare.
Illustration: "Mary Arden Cottage."
But, although genius cannot escape from itself and is no more free than
the humblest toiler in the vast scheme of creation, it may--and it
must--sometimes escape from the world: and this wise poet, of all men
else, would surely recognise and strongly grasp the great privilege of
solitude amid the sweetest and most soothing adjuncts of natural beauty.
That privilege he found in the sparkling and fragrant gardens of
Warwick, the woods, fields and waters of the Avon, where he had played
as a boy, and where love had laid its first kiss upon his lips and
poetry first opened upon his inspired vision the eternal glories of her
celestial world. It still abides there, for every gentle soul that can
feel its influence--to deepen the glow of noble passion, to soften the
sting of grief, and to touch the lips of worship with a fresh sacrament
of patience and beauty.
------
THE ANNE HATHAWAY COTTAGE.
_April,_ 1892.--A record that all lovers of the Shakespeare shrines have
long wished to make can at last be made. The Anne Hathaway Cottage has
been bought for the British Nation, and that building will henceforth be
one of the Amalgamated Trusts that are guarded by the corporate
authorities of Stratford. The other Trusts are the Birthplace, the
Museum, and New Place. The Mary Arden Cottage, the home of Shakespeare's
mother, is yet to be acquired.