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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE TERCEITEIARY : 
 
 A EETEOSPECT. 
 
 BY 
 
 ja: es cox, Jun., 
 
 MAYOR OF STRATFORU-aN-AVON, 
 
 LONDON : 
 OASSELL, PETTER, AND GAL PIN, 
 
 LA BELLE SAUVAGE YAED, LUDGATE HILL, E.C. 
 
 1865.
 
 LOS DON: 
 CASSELL, PETTEE, AKD GALPIN, BELLE SATJVAGE 'WCBRKS, 
 LONDON, E.C.
 
 ?K 
 
 THE TERCENTENARY 
 
 A RETROSPECT. 
 
 Now that tlie three liundi-edth anniversary of the birthday of our 
 
 great National Poet has passed away, and become numbered among 
 
 the things that have been, it is pei'haps not unfitting to take a look 
 
 at it from our present position. We may now be able to make some 
 
 estimate and judgment of it as a whole, without being confused by 
 
 mere adjuncts and minor details. 
 
 The sanguine expectations and bright hopes with which some ol 
 
 us anticipated its arrival have given place to feelings very much akin 
 
 to disappointment. What was to have been a great success and 
 
 brilliant ev-ent, has been, at least partially, a failure. The hopes that 
 
 were entertained of it have not been realised, and the question must 
 
 often have been asked, Why is this 1 What are the reasons that so 
 
 much labour, exertion, and energy were productive of so little result 1 
 
 It appears perfectly natural that the event sho\dd be specially marked, 
 
 that it should be a sort of red-letter day in our history. Cynics, and 
 
 those whom age, if it has rendered more wise, has in many cases made 
 
 more cold-hearted, may object that there was no reason why this 
 
 particular anniversary of our great Poet's birth should be specially 
 
 honoured ; that it was in reality no more important than the two 
 
 hundred and ninety-ninth or the three hundred and first ; but it is 
 
 sufficient argument for our purpose that the great bulk of mankind 
 
 think differently, and that it is the universal practice to take special 
 
 note of commemorations marked by these great divisions of time. 
 
 We find different sections of religionists celebrating their centenaries 
 
 and bicentenaries, and meeting to congratulate themselves upon the 
 
 a2
 
 spread of their peculiar views, aud to talk over and review the effect 
 they have had upon mankind. What more reasonable than that 
 the disciples of Shakespeare — who taught not peculiar views and 
 exceptional opinioiis, but who has held aloft before the world universal 
 truth, and illustrated and enforced those eternal principles of right 
 and justice, whose foundation is laid deep in every human breast — 
 should, after the lapse of thi*ee centui-ies, deem it not unfitting to try 
 to make some little estimate of the benefits Shakespeare had conferred 
 upon the world, and to mai-k their appreciation of such benefits by 
 paying some tribute to the memory of the great genius to whom 
 mankind is so largely indebted 1 We will go further : as loving chil- 
 dren would gather round their father on the jubilee of his birth, and 
 would delight to say how hale and strong he was, although the hoar 
 of fifty winters had gathered around his reverend head, so it was 
 impossible but that he who had attracted to himself such an amount 
 of what vfe may safely call filial affection, should on this occasion 
 have his children gathering round his feet in all the impulsiveness, and 
 ardoiu", and fulness of love, there to say, " Time works no change in 
 thee, unless, indeed, it be to make thy name greater and thy fame 
 more glorious." Such being the case, it mattei's little whether we can 
 point to this or that man as being the one w-ho first advocated a special 
 celebration of this event. It could not be otherwise than specially 
 marked. The Tercentenary Festival was, in fact, a necessity. 
 
 If it can be shown that the three hundredth anniversary of the 
 great Poet's birth would of necessity be a day singled out from all 
 other preceding anniversai'ies for especial honour, it will be easy to 
 show that Stratford-on-Avon — " the birth-place, the home, and the 
 grave of the bard" — was the necessary centre of any movement or 
 festival having for its object the rendering of honour to the world's 
 poet, to England's greatest son, but still to Stratford's darling child. 
 To this spot would all loving eyes be turned, all loving hearts 
 impelled ; hither would the pilgrim bend his step, as he had ever 
 done, to the sacred shrine of poesy and song — here in the very heart 
 of England, in the very centre of " this precious stone set in the 
 silver sea." 
 
 How any men who lay claim to possess ordinary intelligence.
 
 much less to be endowed with, some degree of genius, poetic feeling, 
 and sentiment, could ever be brought to believe that the noisy, 
 bustling, busy, crowded city was the place where a national monu- 
 ment should be erected to him who was so pre-eminently the child of 
 the fields, and the woods, and the river- side j who was born, and 
 cradled, and reared to manhood amid scenes of country life ; who 
 gained his lofty inspirations in the meadows among the wild flowers 
 by the side of the " soft-flowing Avon ;" who, if he wrote of men, and 
 cities, and human passions, of courts, and palaces, and the fierce 
 battle-field, yet ever delighted to linger, ay, to revel and roam, wild 
 and free, among those scenes of his childhood, youth, and manhood, 
 where Nature had whispered to him her choicest, rarest, noblest 
 thoughts, and where, ere yet his manly strength declined, he chose to 
 come and dwell, and spend the remainder of his days, that when 
 evening came he might be sweetly hushed to sleep in his native home, 
 close by his placid, quiet, peaceful Avon ; — how any men could beHeve 
 that any other place in the world was a fitting one for a nation's 
 tribute to his memory, is a mystery. Surely, if amongst Nature's 
 children sufficient enthusiasm and ardent love should be excited to 
 raise a monument to Nature's darling child, it was necessary that it 
 should be among the scenes of Nature that he so dearly loved, and 
 fi'om which he decreed his very bones and dust should not be severed. 
 Such being the case, it may be asked. Why was the demonstration 
 comparatively so small ? and why productive of so little result 1 Is 
 not Shakespeare loved 1 Have we, in the nineteenth century, not 
 learned to appreciate him yet 1 Does he hold the place in our hearts 
 to which he is entitled 1 or have we no room for him 1 Are we so 
 taken up with money-making and shop-keeping, and railroads and 
 steam-engines, and whirl and excitement, with business on the one 
 hand and vanity on the other, that for him, who to this England is 
 worth more and should be greater than all these things, we have no 
 room in our hearts 1 Let other nations admire him — the countrymen 
 of Schiller, and Goethe, and Dante — let them bow before his mighty 
 genius, and we feel proud of the tribute to one of our own country 
 and our own blood. Of him it may be tnily said, and we speak it 
 reverently, " His fame is gone out into all lands, and his words unto
 
 tlie ends of the world ;" and they come from the East and the "West, 
 and the Nortli and the South, to show their love and admiration for 
 his memory, while we in England — shame upon us! — cannot stop our 
 vast machinery for money-making one moment — cannot elevate our 
 souls a little above the sordid, mean spirit of the age, even for a day, 
 that we may show the world how England reveres her Shake- 
 speare. 
 
 And here it must be admitted, as a matter of great regret, that 
 those gentlemen upon whom devolved the responsibility and labour of 
 carrying out the details of the celebration — upon whom rested the 
 necessity of guiding and directing what ought to have been the 
 greatest demonstration of our time, fell short of what was i-equired of 
 them. They suffered themselves to be influenced by the utilitarian 
 spirit which is so universal amongst us, and decided that nothing 
 should be done to honour the great bard that had not for its end and 
 object something that should be of benefit to us or our children. 
 Hence the scheme for the endowment of a scholarship at the Uni- 
 versity ; while, unfortunately for them, and unfortunately for the 
 movement generally, those gentlemen who had fixed upon the wi'ong 
 jilace for the national tribute, seized the opportunity which presented 
 itself, and fixed upon the right thing to do, and the only thing which 
 was likely to command any general and great amount of support — 
 viz., the erection of a monument ; a work of art simply and solely for 
 the expression of a nation's love and admiration of him to whom she 
 owed so much. 
 
 So here we were at the commencement, Stratford attempting to 
 do the wi'ong thing in the right place, and London attempting the 
 right thing in the "WTong place. 
 
 Perhaps it is wi'ong to say Stratford, for at a very early period of 
 the proceedings she awoke to a proper sense of her position and duty. 
 Although at a county meeting it was determined by the smallest 
 possible majority that the erection of a national monument should 
 form no part of the programme, the inhabitants prayed the Mayor to 
 convene a town's meeting, at which it was decided by an over- 
 Avhelming majority, indeed all but unanimously, " That no scheme 
 for the celebration could be considered at all perfect that did not
 
 embrace, as its most prominent feature, the erection of a monument 
 to Shakespeare in his native town." 
 
 The public mind had, however, become mystified, a division of 
 feeling created, and although the monument scheme was adopted 
 by the Stratford Committee, a London Tercentenary Committee, 
 arrogating to itself the title of National, was formed, and a great 
 portion of the London press was induced to aid it by its powerful 
 advocacy. Thus there were two committees in the field, one backed 
 by men of considerable literary ability, having a knowledge of. the 
 working of such matters, assisted by contributors to the London 
 papers, aided by all the talent and wealth which could be brought to 
 bear upon it in the great metropolis, and using for itself all that self- 
 interest which London knows how to exert so well to make herself 
 the one great centre point of attraction in the kingdom. 
 
 This committee managed, by great efforts, to gather around itself 
 a host of eminent names — many names, indeed, of which we may well 
 be proud ; but later on, when the subject began to be more ventilated, 
 and the claims of Stratford to be more generally admitted, it declined 
 in public favour, and we all know its end. Is it not written in the 
 book of the chronicles of the time, " It attempted to do the right 
 thing, but in the wrong place, and it failed?" On the other hand, we 
 had a committee in a small county town, embracing, indeed, among 
 its members many good, able, and worthy men, but composed, for the 
 most part, of those who were utterly unused to such matters, and who 
 could ill afford the time that was necessary to be devoted to them in 
 order that success might be attained. We have seen that it was un- 
 fortunate that this committee did not get a fair start, and it is equally 
 unfortunate that, from a desire to conciliate, it was hampered with 
 the two or three objects which appeared in its programme, instead of 
 having one thing only, which should engage the interest of the public, 
 and to which they should be invited to contribute. The School, the 
 Monument, and the Festival Fund were unfortunate divisions, but, 
 after they had once been adopted, it was found impossible to drop 
 either of them. Whatever might have been the opinion at first, it is 
 now generally admitted that the erection of a monumental memorial 
 was the one thing the committee sho\ild have striven for, as it was the
 
 8 
 
 only part of their programme which commanded any great amount of 
 popular support. 
 
 It is reasonable to suppose that any committee, no matter how 
 composed, aiming at a great national demonstration in honour of the 
 foremost man of all times, would make many mistakes ; and certainly 
 the Stratford-on-Avon Tercentenary Committee, composed as it was 
 I)rincipally of men whose time was almost wholly occupied with their 
 ordinary business, might naturally be expected to fall into many 
 errors. With the very best intentions, it could scarcely be avoided. 
 On the committee there were, of course, great differences of opinion ; 
 but, upon the whole, the members held well together, and worked in 
 earnest for the common object, disinterestedly striving that, as far as 
 in them lay, it should be a celebration worthy of the occasion. If 
 there was one name more prominently before the public than others 
 in connection with it — if one man devoted more of his time and 
 enei-gies to it than others could do, it was almost a necessity ; and 
 the worthy IMayor of the borough must often have felt how desirable 
 it would have been if other members of the committee had been 
 equally at liberty to take active service in the cause, by visiting other 
 towns and advocating the claims of Stratford upon the public. The 
 IMayor must have felt it to be unfortunate that, at a time when the 
 people were so jealous of any attempt to make personal glory or 
 popularity out of such a celebration — when the publications of the 
 day were satirising the members of the London Committee for en- 
 deavouring to reap honour for themselves by writing their own little 
 names by the side of the great name of Shakespeare — that his name 
 was so continually before the public in connection with it. To those, 
 indeed, who knew the necessity of the case, and who knew how dis- 
 interestedly the Mayor was working, and bringing all his great energy 
 and determined, persevering, unremitting endeavours to bear upon it, 
 almost night and day for months, it would be seen in its true light; but 
 to the great world around us, it perhaps looked a little too much like 
 the committee of one man. It should be no reproach to the Mayor 
 that he was unable to do that which it would have taken, perhaps, 
 half a dozen men effectually to accomplish. If the local committee 
 had possessed among its members one man of great literary eminence
 
 and acquirements, both able and willing to take the initiative, having 
 the 2)restige of a great name, and withal an enthusiast in the cause, 
 more might undoubtedly have been effected. It was most desirable, too, 
 that for what professed to be a national celebration and undertaking, 
 the sanction of Royalty should have been obtained. If the committee 
 had been fortunate enough at the outset to get this, it would have 
 gone far to have made it a complete success. 
 
 The London Committee, however, standing in the way, it was 
 thought impolitic to make any direct application for this most neces- 
 sary sanction and patronage. The petition later on to H.R.H. the 
 Prince of Wales, asking him to lay the foundation of the National 
 Monument, was, perhaps, premature, as there were not sufficient funds 
 in hand to make the carrying out of the project a positive certainty; 
 but even then, if the committee had been so fortunate as to have 
 obtained the direct and immediate recognition of His Royal Highness, 
 by getting his consent to lay the first stone of the memorial, on the 
 three hundredth anniversary of the birthday of our great Poet, it 
 would have made the completion of the work a certainty. It would 
 have given renewed spirit to the committee and its friends ; it 
 would have decided those who had been hesitating between the 
 two rival committees, and it would have put fresh life into the 
 timorous and lukewarm. 
 
 In making these remarks, however, one cannot but feel that, in 
 the very courteous reply which was directed to be forwarded to the 
 committee. His Royal Highness only acted with proper and almost 
 necessary caution. 
 
 In the meantime many difficulties had to be contended against. 
 It was so impossible to know what the country generally wished or 
 expected to be done ; some suggesting one thing and some another ; 
 Bome thinking too much could not be attempted, and others thinking 
 we had better be contented with smaller things. 
 
 The Stratford Committee, however, knew that it ought to be a 
 great national celebration, and that on them devolved the responsibility 
 of providing for it. They, therefore, committed themselves to the 
 task, trusting to the generous right-feeling of the English people; and 
 who can say they did too much ? They had hoped, indeed, that the
 
 10 
 
 proceeds of the festival would have left a balance in hand to have 
 been applied to the pei'manent objects which they had in view, instead 
 of leaving them with a heavy deficit to provide for, and which would 
 not have been the case if the country had rallied round them as they 
 had every reason to hope and expect. But they have, at least, this 
 satisfaction, that, whatever others did, they, at least, did, or tried to 
 do, their duty. It is not the intention of the writer to recount the 
 many and very trying difficulties which continually beset the com- 
 mittee in carrying out the details of the celebration. These things 
 have been mostly before the public, although the public can never 
 fully appreciate the anxiety, and care, and extra work which they 
 brought with them. 
 
 What the committee were able to accomplish in the face of these 
 difficulties is also known. The grand pavilion, with its splendid 
 banquet and brilliant spectacles, is matter of history. The imposing 
 assembly, the telling speeches, the thrilling concerts, and magnificent 
 theatrical representations have been duly chronicled. The drop- 
 scene has fallen upon what should have been — upon what might have 
 been — a glorious and successful national festival, but for the apathy and 
 indifierence of the English people, the unfortunate division of opinion 
 at the outset, the jealousies and petty personalities introduced, the want 
 of high authorities' sanction and patronage, and the unavoidable mis- 
 takes which the local committee unwittingly made, and which should 
 have been generously overlooked by that England who has been able 
 and proud to erect monuments to her soldiers, and statesmen, and 
 kings, but who, during three long centuries, has not had the soul to 
 raise a fitting tribute to him of whom we should be pi'ouder than all. 
 
 The question now is, " Shall matters so end 1 " It is this considera- 
 tion which has prompted the writer to address the public on the 
 subject. Some will no doubt say they have had enough and heard 
 enough of the Tercentenary, and that it is foolish again to bring it 
 forward. Some may even insinuate that this is another attempt to 
 gain fame or popularity out of the occasion. This pamphlet will, 
 however, sufficiently show that literary fame is, at any rate, out of 
 the question. It never would have been written at all, but from 
 an honest conviction that, for the credit of England, and espe-
 
 11 
 
 cially for the credit of this county of Warwick, matters should 
 not eud where they are. If there had been no attempt at a 
 national demonsti'ation, if there had been no attempt to erect a 
 national monument, the case would be different ; but for England, 
 or for a considerable number of Englishmen, to have tried to do 
 this and failed, hopelessly and entirely, is what ought not to be, 
 and will be recorded in history as a disgrace to our time. The pecu- 
 niary loss attendant uf)on tbe celebration at Stratford is a very small 
 matter in comparison with this. The committee have provided for 
 the one, but they cannot for the other. It is for the public to say 
 whether, having paid dearly for trusting too much to the generosity 
 of the people of England, they shall have the additional mortifi- 
 cation of not being able to raise some permanent memorial of the 
 event. 
 
 Let it not be said that Stratford wants, or ever did want, to 
 gain any advantage to hei'self out of it. This cry has been continually 
 raised, while other towns were doingthe very same thing, instead of nobly 
 and ungrudgingly giving their aid where it was so much needed. We 
 were told, indeed, "Let Stratford have its demonstration, by all means : 
 it is, no doubt, the proper place for festivity and rejoicing on the 
 occasion ; let it have the labour, and work, and expense attendant 
 upon all this — the country will expect as much ; but if there is to be 
 a monument erected, it must be in London ; if any enduring record 
 of the event, it must be elsewhere." 
 
 Well, Stratford did what she was asked to do cheerfully and 
 willingly. She invited the world to come and rejoice with her, and 
 provided amply for her guests. The most and the worst that can be 
 said of her is, that she did too much, and this while she was all along 
 pained to see the utter selfishness with which other towns, whose 
 support she had calculated upon, were only bent upon making some- 
 thing for themselves out of the occasion. 
 
 Shall it be recorded that, while the little town of Stratfoi-d was 
 spending her thousands and exhausting her resources to show to the 
 world that she, at least, would not shrink from doing the work that 
 was required of her, she was denied the support and assistance that 
 she wanted to enable her to do that which she had promised herself —
 
 12 
 
 viz., the building a monumental memorial, which should be, in some 
 degree, worthy of her noble son 1 
 
 The committee have in their hands the nucleus of a fund for this 
 purpose, and other amounts are ready to be added if there is any pro- 
 bability of the project being carried out. Surely there is suiScient 
 warm-heartedness in the people of England to prevent its being 
 abandoned altogether 1 A very little effort even on the part of this 
 county of Warwick, including the great and usually liberal and 
 generous town of Birmingham, would accomplish the object. The 
 writer will be glad to receive assurances of support from any who may 
 be disposed to give their assistance. He is not vain enough to think 
 that he can do that which others of greater ability failed to accomplish, 
 or that he can contribute in any very important degree to a suc- 
 cessful result. Although he makes this appeal entirely on his own 
 responsibility, it is not that he desires any notoriety for himself, but 
 simply because he will continue to have faith in the good feeling and 
 generosity of the English public, even in spite of the temptation to the 
 contrary which would sometimes cross the mind. 
 
 CAS3ELL, PETTER, AND GALPIN, BELLE SAUVAGE WORKS, LONDON, S.C.
 
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