^^! > ::<:y^^m:!M >'W^T^ :«fa ■s , 6 - i/ 1 7LfQH^ ^ /y [to OXa. ^Mi ltd dvicic^ a^c^^ ^ c. oLujui)^<^ / (^^.6<>.2)^- , 7'J luri/ /^f V THE TRIP TO ENGLAND. BY WILLIAM WINTER. ^tconi €!)Uu)n, |ltfaistJ( anb €nbr(jtli. With Illustrations v.y Joseph Jefferson. ".l/v /idirl is /illcd -with fond yet melancholy emotions : and still t linger, and still, like a child leaving the venerable abodes o/ his /ore/athers, I turn to breathe forth a filial benediction : Peace be within thy -vails, O England I and plenteousness nithin thy palaces: for my brethren and my companions' sake. I will now say. Peace be within //K-i>.'"— WaSMIXGTON IrviXG. BOSTON: JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY. I 88 I. Copyright 1878 and 1880, By William Winter. All Rights Reserved. University Press : i yohn Wilso7i and Son, Cavthridge^ I I TO WHIT EL AW REID, WITH ESTEEM FOR HIS PUBLIC CAREER, WITH HONOUR !•■ O R HIS PURE CHARACTER, AND WITH AFFECTIONATE FRIENDSHIP, THIS MEMORIAL OF LOVELY SCENES ^MJ HAPPY MOMENTS IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. *h (»■ 1^=^ CONTENTS. PAGE I. Tnii Voyage ii II. The Beauty of England 19 III. Rambles in London 30 IV. A Visir to Windsor 39 V. The Palace of Westminster 48 \I. Warwick and Kenilwokth 57 VII. Stratford-on-Avon- 64 VIII. A Glimpse of France 75 IX. English Home Sentiment S4 X. London Nooks and Corners 89 XL The Tower and the Lyron ^Memorial 9S XII. W^estminster Ar.nEY 106 XIII. The Home of Shakespeare 119 LIST OF ILLUSTRA TIONS. Heliotypes, from Sketches by Joseph Jefferson. I. Windsor Castle. II. Windsor Park. III. The Victoria Tower, at Westminster. IV. The Thames from Richmond. V. The Avenue at Guy's Cliff. VI. Warwick Castle on the Avon. VII. The Road to Stratford. VIII. Distant View of Kenilworth. IX. Rouen. PREFACE. 'T^HE letters that form this volume ivere first ■^ published in the New- York Tribune, from which journal they are now reprinted, with a few changes and additions. Their writer passed ten weeks of the sutn/ner of 1877 in England and France, where he met with a great and surprising kindness, and where he saw many beautiful and fnemorable things. These letters were written because he wished to commemorate — however inadequately — a delightful experience: and they are now presented in this form, at the kind request of many persons — strangers as -cuell as friends — to whotn, and to all other readers, it is hoped they may bring an hour of peaceful and pleasant reverie. IV. W. New- York, Noveinber IGth, 1S7S. NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 'V ^HE text of this volume has been rei'ised, for the presetit edition, by the correction of one or tivo errors, and by the improvement of a few phrases. A chapter also has been added, con- taining a paper on The Home of Shakespeare, written by me for Harper's Magazine, and first published in May, 1S79, to record, for the American public, the dedication of the Shakespeare Memorial, at Stratford That paper was embellished, in the Magazine, with beautiful ilhistrations, — equally poetical and truth fid, — by Edward A. Abbey. A repetition of somewhat familiar facts was found unavoidable by the writer, but perhaps this will not be fotcnd tedious by the reader. W. W. Fort Hill, New Brighton, S. I. June 21, iSSo. »f< THE TRIP TO ENGLAND. >h This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of 7najesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise. This fortress built by nature for herself. This precious stone set in the silver sea, This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land. Dear for her reputation through the 7uorld ! Shakespeare. THE TRIP TO ENGLAND. I. THE VOYAGE. THE coast line recedes and disappears, and niglit comes down upon the ocean. Into what dangers will the great ship plunge ? Through what mysterious waste of waters will she make her viewless path ? The black waves roll up around her. The strong blast fills her sails and whistles through her creaking cordage. Overhead the stars shine dimly amidst the driving clouds. Mist and gloom close in the dubious prospect, and a strange sadness settles upon the heart of the vovairer — who has left his home behind, and who now seeks, for the first time, the land, the homes, and the manners of the stranger. Thoughts and 12 The Trip to England. iinages of the past crowd thick upon his remem- brance. The faces of absent friends rise up before him, wliom, perliaps, he is destined never more to behold. He sees their smiles ; he hears their voices ; he fancies them by familiar hearth-stones, in the hght of the evening lamps. They are very far away now ; and already it seems months in- stead of hours since tlie parting moment. Vain now the pang of regret for misunderstandings, unkindness, neglect ; for golden moments slighted, and gentle courtesies left undone. He is alone upon the wild sea — all the more alone because surrounded with new faces of unknown compan- ions — and the best he can do is to seek his lonely pillow, and lie down with a prayer in his heart and on his lips. Never before did he so clearly know — never again will he so deeply feel — the uncer- tainty of human life and the weakness of human nature. Yet, as he notes the rush and throb of the vast ship, and the noise of the breaking waves around her, and thinks of the mighty deep be- neath, and the broad and melancholy expanse that stretches away on every side, he cannot miss the impression — grand, noble, and thrilling — of hu- man courage, skill, and power. For this ship is the centre of a splendid conflict. Man and the ele- ments are here at war ; and man makes conquest of the elements by using them as weapons against themselves. Strong and brilliant, the head-light streams over the boilin7i day, they ring it for '-'poor Nelly's" sake. Her funeral occurred in this church, and was very pom- pous, and no less a person than Tennison (after- wards Archbishop of Canterbury) preached the funeral sermon. That prelate's dust reposes in Lambeth Church, which can be seen, acro.ss the river, from this part of Westminster. If you walk down the Strand, througli Temple Bar, you presently reach the Temple : and there is no place in London where the past and the present are so strangely con- fronted as they are here. The venerable church, so quaint with its cone-pointed turrets, was sleep- ing in the sunshine when first I saw it; sparrows were twittering around its spires, and gliding in and out of the crevices in its ancient walls ; while from within a strain of organ music, low and sweet, trembled forth, till the air became a benediction, and every common thought and feeling was chas- tened away from mind and heart. The grave of Goldsmith is close to the pathway that runs beside this church, on a terrace raised above the founda- tion of the building, and above the little grave-yard of the Templars, that nestles at its base. As I stood beside the resting-place of that sweet poet, it was impossible not to feel both grieved and glad — grieved at the thought of all he suffered, and of all that the poetic nature must always suffer before it will give forth its immortal music for mankind : glad that his gentle spirit found rest at last, and that time has given him the glory he would most 34 The Trip to Eii gland. have prized — the affection of all true hearts. A grey stone, coffin-shaped, and marked with across, — after the fashion of the contiguous tombs of the Templars, — is imposed upon his grave. One sur- face bears the inscription, " Here lies Oliver Gold- smith;" the other presents the dates of his birth and death. I tried to call up the scene of his burial, when, around the open grave, on that tearful April evening, Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, Beauclerc, Boswell, Davies, Kelly, Palmer, and the rest of that broken circle, may have gathered to witness " The duties by the lawn-robed prelate paid, And the last rites that dust to dust conveyed." No place could be less romantic than Southwark is now ; but there are few places in England that possess a greater charm for the literary pilgrim. Shakespeare lived there, and it was there that he managed his theatre and made his fortune. Old London Bridge spanned the Thames, at this point, in those days, and was the only road to the Surrey side of the river. The theatre stood near the end of the bridge, and was thus easy of access to the wits and beaux of London. No trace of it now re- mains; but a public-house called the "Globe" — which was its name — is standing there; and the old church of St. Saviour's — into which Shakes- peare must often have entered — still braves the storms, and still resists the encroachments of time and change. In Shakespeare's day there were Rambles in London. 35 houses on each side of London Bridse ; and, as lie walked on the bank of tlie Thames, he could look across to the tower, and to Baynard Castle, which had been the residence of Richard, Duke of Glos- ter, and could see, uplifted high in air, the spire of Old St. P^aul's. The borough of Southwark was then but thinly peopled. Many of its houses, as may be seen in an old picture of the city, were sur- rounded by fields or gardens ; and life to its inhabit- ants must have been comparatively rural. Now, it is packed with buildings, gridironed with railways, crowded with people, and to the last degree resO' nant and feverish with action and effort. Life swarms, traffic bustles, and travel thunders, all round the cradle of the British drama. The old church of St. Saviour's alone preserves the sacred memory of the past. I made a pilgrimage to this shrine, in the company of one of the kindliest humorists in England. We took boat at West- minster Bridge, and landed close by the church in Southwark, and we were so fortunate as to get per- mission to enter the church without a guide. The oldest part of it is the Lady Chapel — a wing which, in English cathedrals, is placed behind the choir. Through this we strolled, alone and in silence. Every footstep there falls upon a grave. The pave- ment is one mass of grave-stones ; and through the lofty, stained windows of the chapel a solemn light pours in upon the sculptured names of men and women who have lon^r been dust. In one corner is 36 The Trip to England. an ancient stone coffin — a relic of the Roman days of Britain. This is the room in which Stephen Gardiner — Bishop of Winchester, in the days of cruel Queen Mary — held his ecclesiastical court, and condemned many a dissentient devotee to tlie rack and the faggot: in this very room he had him- self been put to trial, in his hour of misfortune. Both Mary and Elizabeth must often have entered this chapel. But it is in the choir, hard by, that the pilgrim pauses with most of reverence; for here, not far from the altar, he stands upon the graves of Edmund Shakespeare, John Fletcher, and Phillip Massinger. Tliey rest almost side by side, and only their names and the dates of their death are cut in the tablets that mark their sepulchres. Ed- mund Shakespeare, the younger brother of William, was an actor in his company, and died in 1607, aged twenty-seven. The great poet must have stood at this grave, and suffered and wept here ; and some- how the lover of Shakespeare comes very near to the heart of the master, when he stands in this place. Massinger was buried there, March 18, 1638, — the parish register recording him as "a stranger." Fletcher — of the Beaumont and Fletcher brother- hood — was buried there, in 1625 : Beaumont's grave is in the Abbey. The dust of Henslowe, the man- ager, also rests beneath the jDavement of St. Sav- iour's. In the north transept of the church is the tomb of John Gower, the old poet — whose effigy, carved and painted, reclines upon it, and is not Rambles in London. 37 pleasant to beliokl. A formal, uncomely, severe as- pect he must have h:^d, if he resembled tliis image. The tomb has been moved from the spot where it first stood — a proceeding made necessary by a fire that destroyed part of the old church. It is said that Gower caused this tomb to be erected during his life-time, so that it might be in readiness to receive his bones. The bones are lost, but the memorial remains — sacred to the memory of the father of English song. This tomb was restored by the Uuke of Sutherland, in 1830. It is enclosed by a little fence made of iron spears, painted brown and gilded at their points. 1 went into the new part of tlie church, and, quite alone, knelt in one of the pews, and long remained there, overcome with thoughts of the past, and of the transient, moment- ary nature of this our earthly life and the shadows that we pursue. One object of merriment attracts a passing glance in Southwark Church. There is a tomb in a corner of it, that commemorates an ancient maker of patent medicine — an elaborate struct- ure, with the deceased cut in effigy, and with a long and sonorous epitaph on the pedestal. These are two of the lines : " His virtues and bis Pills are so well known, That envy can"t confine them under stone." Shakespeare once lived in Clink street, in the borough of Southwark. Goldsmith practised medi- 38 The Trip to England. cine there, for a while. Chaucer came there, with his Canterbury Pilgrims, and stopped at the Tab- ard Inn. It must have been a romantic region, in the old times ; but it bears now the same relation to London that Brooklyn bears to New-York — ex- cept that it is more populous, active, and noisy. rv. A VISIT TO WINDSOR. TF the beauty of England were merely sirper- -'- ficial it would produce a merely superficial effect. It would cause a passing pleasure, and would be forgotten. It certainly would not — as now in fact it does — inspire a deep, joyous, serene and grateful contentment, and linger in the mind, a gracious and beneficent remembrance. The con- quering and lasting potency of it resides not alone in loveliness of expression, but in loveliness of character. Having first greatly blessed the British Islands with the natural advantages of position, climate, soil, and products, nature has wrought out their development and adornment as a necessary consequence of the spirit of their inhabitants. The picturesque variety and pastoral 40 The Trip to England. repose of the English landscape spring, in a con- siderable measure, from the imaginative taste and the affectionate gentleness of the English people. The state of the country, like its social constitu- tion, flows from principles within (which are con- stantly suggested), and it steadily comforts and nourishes the mind with a sense of kindly feeling, moral rectitude, solidity, and permanence. Thus in the peculiar beauty of England the ideal is made the actual — is expressed in things more than in words ; and in things by which words are transcended. Milton's " L' Allegro,'' fine as it is, is not so fine as the scenery — the crystallized, em- bodied poetry — out of which it arose. All the delicious rural verse that has been written in Eng- land is only the excess and superflux of her own poetic opulence ; it has rippled from the hearts of her poets just as the fragrance floats away from her hawthorn hedges. At every step of his progress the pilgrim through English scenes is impressed with this sovereign excellence of the accomplished fact, as contrasted with any words that can be said in its celebration. Among representative scenes which are eloquent with this instructive meaning, — scenes easily and pleasurably accessible to the traveller, in what Dickens expressively called "the green, English summer weather," — is the region of Windsor. The chief features of it have often been described; the charm that it exercises can only be suggested. A Visit to U'iniisor. 41 To see Windsor, moreover, is to compreliend, as at a jilance, the old feudal system, and to feel, in a profound and special way, the pomp of En,£;lish character and history. More than this : It is to rise to that ennobling exaltation which always accompanies broad, retrospective contemplation of the current of human aflfairs. In this quaint, dec- orous town — nestled at the base of that mighty and magnificent castle which has been the home of princes for more than five hundred years — the imaginative mind wanders over vast tracts of the past, and beholds, as in a mirror, the pageants of chivalry, the coronations of kings, the strifes of sects, the battles of armies, the schemes of statesmen, the decay of transient systems, the growth of a rational civilization, and the everlast- ing march of thought. Every prospect of the region intensifies this sentiment of contemplative grandeur. As you look from the castle walls your gaze takes in miles and miles of blooming country, sprinkled over with little hamlets, wherein the utmost stateliness of learning and rank is gracefully commingled with all that is lovely and soothing in rural life. Not far away rise the "antique towers" of Eton — " Where grateful Science still adores Her Henry's holy shade." It was in Windsor Castle that lier Henry was horn ; and there he often held his court ; and it 42 The Trip to England. is in St. George's Chapel that his reHcs repose. In the dim distance stands the church of Stoke-Pogis, about which Gray was wont to wander, " Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade." , You recognize now a deeper significance than ever before in the "solemn stillness" of the incom- parable Elegy. The luminous twilight mood of that immortal poem — its pensive reverie and solemn passion — is inherent in the scene; and you feel that it was there, and there only, that the genius of its exceptional author — austerely gentle and severely pure, and thus in perfect harmony with its surroundings — could have been moved to that sublime outburst of inspiration and eloquence. Near at hand, in the midst of your reverie, the mellow organ sounds from the chapel of St. George, where, under " fretted vault " and over " long-drawn aisle," depend the ghostly, mould- ering banners of ancient knights — as still as the bones of the dead-and-gone monarchs that crumble in the crypt below. In this church are many of the old kings and nobles of England. The handsome and gallant Edward the Fourth here found his grave ; and near it is that of the accomplished Hast- ings — his faithful friend, to the last and after. Here lies the dust of the stalwart, impetuous, and savage Henry the Eighth, and here the ill-starred and hapless Queen Caroline; and here, at midnight, by the light of torches, they laid beneath the A Visii to IVindsor. 43 pavement tlic man.!;led body of Charles the First. As you stand on Windsor ramparts, pondering thus upon the storied past and the evanescence of "all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave," your eyes rest dreamily on green fields far below, through which, under tall elms, the brimming and sparkling river flows on without a sound, and in which a few figures, dwarfed by distance, flit here and there, in seeming aimless idleness ; while, warned homeward by impending sunset, the chat- tering birds circle and float around the lofty towers of the castle; and delicate perfumes of seringa and jasmine are wafted up from dusky, unknown depths at the base of its ivied steep. At sucii an hour 1 stood on those ramparts, and saw the shy villages and rich meadows of fertile Berkshire, all red and golden with sunset light; and at such an hour I stood in the lonely cloisters of St. George's Chapel, and heard the distant organ sob, and saw the sunlight lade up the grey walls, and felt and knew the sanctity of silence. Ao-e and death have made this church illustrious ; but the spot itself has its own innate charm of mystical repose. " " No use of lanthorns ; and in one place lay Feathers and dust to-day and yesterday." The drive from the front of Windsor Castle is through a broad and stately avenue, three miles in length, straight as an arrow and level as a 44 The Trip to England, standing pool ; and this white highway through the green and fragrant sod is sumptuously em- bowered, from end to end, with double rows of magnificent old elms. The Windsor avenue, like the splendid chestnut grove at Busliy Park, long famous among the pageants of rural Eng- land, has often been described. It is after leav- ing this that the rambler comes upon the rarer beauties of Windsor Park and Forest. From the far end of the avenue, — where, in a superb position, the equestrian statue of King George rises on its massive pedestal of natural rock, — the road winds away, through shaded dell and verdant glade, past great gnarled beeches and under boughs of elm, and yew, and oak, till its silver thread is lost in the distant woods. At intervals a branching path-way strays off to some secluded lodge, half hidden in foliage — the property of the Crown, and the rustic residence of a scion of the royal race. In one of these retreats dwelt poor old George the Third, in the days of his mental darkness ; and the memory of the agonizing king seems still to cast a shadow on the mysterious and melancholy house. They show you, under glass, in one of the lodge gardens, an enormous grape-vine, owned by the Queen — a vine which, from its single stalwart trunk, spreads its teeming branches, laterally, at least two hun- dred feet in each direction. So come use and thrift, hand in hand with romance ! Many an A Visit to Windsor. 45 aged oak is passed, in your progress, round wliicli, "at still midnight," Hcrne the Hunter might still take his ghostly prowl, shaking his chain " in a most hideous and dreadful manner." The wreck of the veritable Heme's Oak, it is said, was rooted out, together with other ancient and decayed trees, in the time of George the Third, and in somewhat too literal fulfilment of his Majesty's misinterpreted command. This great park is four- teen miles in circumference, and contains nearly four thousand acres ; and many of the youngest trees that adorn it are more than one hundred and fifty years old. Far in its heart you stroll by Virginia Water — an artificial lake, but fault- less in its quiet beauty — and perceive it so deep and so breezy that a full-rigged ship-of-war, with heavy armament, can navigate its wind-swept, curling billows. In the dim groves that fringe its margin are many nests wherein pheasants are bred, to fall by the royal shot and to supply the royal tables : these you may contemplate, but not approach. At a point in your walk, seques- tered and lonely, they have set up and skilfully disposed the fragments of a genuine ruined tem- ple, brought from the remote East — relic, per- chance, of ''Tadmor's marble waste," and certainly a most solemn memorial of the morning twi- light of time. Broken arch, storm-stained pillar, and shattered column are here shrouded with moss and ivy ; and should you chance to see 46 The Trip to England. them as the evening shadows deepen and the evening wind sighs mournfully in the grass, your fancy will not fail to drink in the perfect illusion that one of the stateliest structures of antiquity has slowly crumbled where now its fragments remain. Quaint is a descriptive epithet that has been much abused ; but it may, with absolute pro- priety, be applied to Windsor. The devious little streets there visible, and the carved and timber- crossed buildings, often of great age, are uncom- monly rich in the expressiveness of imaginative character. The emotions and the fancy, equally with the sense of necessity and the instinct of use, have exercised their influence and uttered their spirit in the shaping and adornment of the town. While it constantly feeds the eye — with that pleasing irregularity of lines and forms which is so delicious and refreshing — it quite as constantly nurtures the sense of romance which ought to play so large a part in all our lives, redeeming us from the tyranny of the commonplace and intensifying all the high feelings and noble aspirations that are possible to human nature. England contains many places like Windsor; some that blend, in even richer amplitude, the elements of quaint- ness, loveliness, and magnificence. The meaning of them all, as it seemed to me, is the same : that romance, beauty, and gentleness are not effete, but forever vital ; that their forces are within our A Visit fo IVindsor. 47 own souls, and ready and ea-^er to find their way into all our thoughts, actions, and circumstances, and to brighten for every one of us the face of every day ; tliat they ought neither to be relegated to the distant and the past, nor kept for our books and day-dreams alone; but — in a calmer and higher mood than is usual in this age of universal mediocrity, critical scepticism, and miscellaneous tumult — should be permitted to flow out into our architecture, adornments, and customs, to hallow and preserve our antiquities, to soften our manners, to give us tranquillity, patience, and tolerance, to make our country loveable for our own hearts, and so to enable us to bequeath it, sure of love and reverence, to succeeding ages. I V. THE PALACE OF WESTMINSTER. ^ I "'HE American who, having been a careful and interested reader of English historj', visits London for the first time, naturally expects to find the ancient city in a state of mild decay : and he is, consequently, a little startled at first, upon realizing that the Present is quite as vital as ever the Past was, and that London antiquity is, in fact, swathed in the robes of every-day action, and very much alive. When, for example, you enter Westminster Hall — "the great hall of William Ruf us " — you are beneath one of the most glori- ous canopies in the world — one which was built by Richard the Second, whose grave, chosen by himself, is in the Abbey, just across the street ^ n m ^3 . '•. t1 .:j^'^^- TJie Palace of IVtstminstcr. 49 from where you stand. I)ut tliis old Iiall Is now only a vestibule to the Palace of Westminster. 'Ilie Lords and the Commons of England, on thuir way to the Houses of Parliament, pass every day over the spot on which Charles the First was tried anil condemned, and on which occurred tiie trial of Warren Hastings. It is a mere thoroughfare — glorious though it be, alike in structure and historic renown. The Palace Yard, near by, was the scene of the execution of Sir Walter Raleigh ; but all that now marks the spot is a rank of cabs and a shelter for cab-drivers. In Bishopsgate street — where Shakespeare once lived — you may find Crosby House ; the same to which, in Shakespeare's tragedy, the Duke of Gloster requests the retirement of Lady Anne. It is a restaurant now ; and you may enjoy a capital chop and excellent beer, in the veritable throne- room of Richard the Third. The house of Cardi- nal Wolsey, in Fleet street is now a shop. Milton once lived in Golden Lane ; and Golden Lane was a sweet and quiet spot. It is a slum now, dingy and dismal, and the visitor is glad to get out of it. To-day makes use of yesterday, all the world over. It is not in London, certainly, that you find much of anything — except old churches — mouldering in silence, solitude, and neglect. Those who see every day, during the Parliamen- tary session, the mace that is borne through the lobby of the House of Commons, although they are 4 50 The Trip to England. < obliged, on every occasion, to remove their hats as it passes, do not, probably, view that symbol with much interest. Yet it is the same mace that Oliver Cromwell insulted, when he dissolved the Parlia- ment, and cried out "Take away that bauble ! " I saw it one day, on its passage to the table of the Commons, and was glad to remove the hat of .re- spect to what it signifies — the power and majesty of the free people of England. The Speaker of the House was walking behind it, very grand in his wig and gown, and the members trooped in at his heels, to secure their places by being pre- sent at the opening prayer. A little later I was provided with a seat, in a dim corner, in that august assemblage of British Senators, and could observe at ease their management of the public business. The Speaker was on his throne ; the mace was on its table ; the hats of the Commons were on their heads ; and over this singular, ani- mated, every-day, and yet impressive scene, the waning light of a summer afternoon poured softly down, through the high, stained, and pictured win- dows of one of the most symmetrical halls in the world. It did not happen to be a day of excitement. The Irish members had not then begun to impede the transaction of business, for the sake of drawing attention to the everlasting wrongs of Ireland. Yet it was a lively day. Curiosity on the part of the Opposition, and a respectful dubiousness on the part of Her Majesty's representatives, were the pre- The Palace of // 'cstminsicr. 5 1 vailinc conditions. I thought I had never before heard so many questions asked — outside of tiic French grammar — and asked to so little purpose. Everybody wanted to know, and nobody wanted to tell. Each inquirer took off his hat when he rose to ask, and put it on again, when he sat down to be answered. Each governmental sphinx bared his brow when he emerged to divulge, and covered it again when he subsided without divulging. The respect of all these interlocutors for each other steadily remained, however, of the most deferential and considerate description ; so that — without dis- courtesy — it was impossible not to think of Byron's '' mildest mannered man tliat ever scuttled sliip or cut a throat." Underneath this velvety, purring, conventional manner tlie observer could readily discern the fires of passion, prejudice, and strong antagonism. They make no parade in the House of Commons. Tliey attend to their business. And upon every topic that is brought before their notice they have definite ideas, strong convictions, and settled purposes. The topic of Army Estimates, upon the occasion to whicli I refer, seemed espe- cially to arouse their ardour. Discussion of this was continually diversified by cries of " O ! " and of '• Hear ! " and of " Order ! " and sometimes these cries smacked more of derision than of compliment. Many persons spoke, but no person spoke well. An off-hand, matter-of-fact, shambling method of speech would seem to be the fashion, in tlie British 52 The Dip to Etigland. House of Commons. I remembered the anecdote that De Ouincey tells, about Sheridan and the young member who quoted Greek. It was easy to perceive how completely out of place the sophomore orator would be, in that assemblage. Britons like better to make speeches than to hear them, and they never will be slaves to oratory. The moment a certain windy gentleman got the floor, and be'gan to read a manuscript respecting the Indian Govern- ment, as many as forty Commons arose and noisily walked out of the House. Your pilgrim likewise hailed the moment of his dehverance, and was glad to escape to the open air. Books have been written to describe the Palace of Westminster; but it is observable that this structure, however much its magnificence deserves commemorative applause, is deficient, as yet, in the charm which resides in association. The old Pal- ace of St. James, with its low, dusky walls, its round towers, and its fretted battlements, is more impressive, because history has freighted it with meaning, and time has made it beautiful. But the Palace of Westminster is a splendid structure. It covers eight acres of ground, on the bank of the Thames ; it contains eleven quadrangles and five hundred rooms ; and, when its niches for statuary have all been filled, it will contain two hundred and twenty-six statues. The monuments in St. Ste- phen's Hall — into which you pass from Westminster Hall, which has been incorporated into the Palace, The Palace of Westminster. 53 and is its only ancient, and therefore its most inter- esting feature — indicate, very eloquently, what a superb art-gallery this will one day become. The statues are the images of Selden, Hampden, Falk- land, Clarendon, Somers, Walpole, Chatham, Mans- field, Burke, Fox, Pitt, and Grattan. Those of Mansfield and Grattan present, perhaps, the most of character and power, making you feel that they are indubitably accurate portraits, and drawing you by the charm of personality. There are statues, also, in Westminster Hall, commemorative of the Georges, William and Mary, and Anne: but it is not of these you tiiink, nor of any local and every- day object, when you stand beneath the wonderful roof of Richard the Second. Nearly eight hundred years " their cloudy wings e.vpand " above this fab- ric, and copiously shed upon it the fragrance of old renown. Richard the Second was deposed there : Cromwell was there installed Lord Protector of Enjr- land: John Fisher, Sir Thomas More, and Straf- ford were there condemned : and it was there that the possible, if not usual, devotion of woman's heart was so touchingly displayed, by her "Whose faith drew strength from death, And prayed her Russell up to God." No one can realize, without personal experience, the number and variety of pleasures accessible to the resident of London. These may not be piquant to him who has tliem alwavs within his reach. I 54 The Trip to England. met with several residents of the British Capital who had always intended to visit the Tower, but had never done so. But to the stranger they possess a con- stant and keen fascination. The Derby this year [1877], was thought to be, comparatively, a tame race ; but I know of one spectator who saw it from the top of the Grand Stand and thought that the scene it presented was wonderfully brilliant. The sky had been overcast with dull clouds till the mo- ment when the race was won ; but, just as Archer, rising in his saddle, lifted his horse forward and gained the goal alone, the sun burst forth, and shed upon the Downs a sheen of gold, and lit up all the distant hills, and all the ,far-stretching roads that wind away from the region of Epsom like threads of silver through the green. Carrier-pigeons were instantly launched off to London, with the news of the victory of Silvio. There was one winner on the Grand Stand who had laid bets on Silvio, for no other reason than because this horse bore the prettiest name in the list. The Derby, like Christ- mas, comes but once a year ; but other allurements are almost perennial. Greenwich, for instance, with its delicious white-bait dinner, invites the epi- cure during the best part of the London season. The favourite tavern is the Trafalgar — in which each room is named after some magnate of the old British Navy ; and Nelson, Hardy, and Rodney are household words. Another cheery place of re- sort is The Ship. The Hospitals are at Greenwich, The Palace of Westininstcr. 55 that Dr. Johnson tliought to be too fine for a char- ity ; and back of tliese — which are ordinary enough now, in comparison witli modern structures erected for a kindred purpose — stands the famous Obser- vatory whicli keeps time for Europe. This place is hallowed, also, by the grave of Wolfe — to whom, however there is a monument in Westminster Ab- bey. Greenwich sets one tliinking of Queen Eliza- beth, who was born there, who often held her court there, and who often sailed thence, in her barge, up the river, to Richmond — her favourite retreat, and the scene of her last days and her wretched death. Few spots can compare with Richmond, in brill- iancy of landscape. This place — the Shene of old times — was long a royal residence. The woods and meadows that you see from the terrace of the Star and Garter Tavern — spread out on a rolling plain as far as the eje can reach — sparkle like emeralds ; and the Thames, dotted with little toy- like boats, propelled by the oars of coquettishly apparelled rowers, shines with all the deep lustre of the black eyes of Spain. Pope's lovely home is here, in the village of Twickenham ; and not far away glimmers forth to view the " pale shrine " of the poet Thomson — whose dust is in Richmond Church. As I drove through the vast and sweetly sylvan Park of Richmond, in the late afternoon of a breezy summer day, and heard the whispering of the great elms, and saw the gentle, trustful deer couched at ease, in tlie golden glades, I heard all the 56 The Trip to England, while, in the quiet chambers of thought, the tender lament of Collins — which is now a prophecy ful- filled : " Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore, When Thames in summer wreaths is drest ; And oft suspend the dashing oar, To bid his gentle spirit rest." VI. WARWICK AND KENILWORTH. A LL the way from London to Warwick it rained ; •*■ ^ not lieavily but witli a gentle fall. Tlie grey clouds hung low over the landscape, and softly darkened it ; so that meadows of scarlet and emerald, the shining foliage of elms, grey turret, nestled cottage, and limpid river were as mysteri- ous and evanescent as pictures seen in dreams. At Warwick the rain had fallen and ceased, and the walk from the station to the inn was on a road — or on a foot-path by the road-side — still hard and damp with the water it had absorbed. A fresh wind blew from the fields, sweet witli the rain and fragrant with the odour of leaves and rtowers. The streets of the ancient town — entered 58 The Trip to England. through an old Norman arch — were deserted and silent. It was Sunday when I first came to the country of Shakespeare ; and over all the region there brooded a sacred stillness pecuhar to the time and harmonious beyond utterance with the sanctity of the place. As I strive, after many days, to call back and to fix in words the impres- sions of that sublime experience, the same avVe falls upon me now which fell upon me then. Nothing else upon earth — no natural scene, no relic of the past, no pageantry of the present — can vie with the shrine of Shakespeare, in power to impress, to humble, and to exalt the devout spirit that has been nurtured at the fountain of his transcendent genius. A fortunate way to approach Stratford-on-Avon is by Warwick and Kenilworth. These places are not on a direct line of travel ; but the scenes and associations which they successively present are such as assume a symmetrical order, increase in interest, and grow to a delightful culmination. Ob- jects which Shakespeare himself must have seen are still visible there ; and, little by little, in con- tact with these, the pilgrim through this haunted region is mentally saturated with that atmosphere of serenity and romance in which the youth of Shakespeare was passed, and by which his works and his memory are embalmed. No one should come abruptly upon the Poet's Home. The mind needs to be prepared for the impression that JVarwick and Kenilivorlh. 59 avvails it ; and in tliis gradual approach it finds preparation, both suitable and delicious. Tiie luxuriance of tlie country — its fertile fields, its brilliant foliage, its myriads of wild flowers, its pomp of colour and of physical vigour and bloom, do not fail to announce, to every mind — howso- ever heedless — that this is a fit place for the birth and nurture of a great man. But this is not all. As you stroll in the quaint streets of Warwick, as you drive to Kenilworth, as you muse in that poetic ruin, as you pause in the old grave-yard in the valley below, as you pass beneatli the crum- bling arch of the ancient Priory, at every step of the way you are haunted by a vague sense of some impending grandeur ; you are aware of a presence that fills and sanctifies the scene. The emotion that is thus inspired is very glorious ; never to be elsewhere felt ; and never to be for- gotten. The cyclopvcdias and the guide-books dilate, wMth much particularity and characteristic elo- quence, upon Warwick Castle and other great features of Warwickshire ; and an ofF-hand sketch cannot aspire, and should not attempt, to emulate those authentic chronicles. The attribute which all such records omit is the atmosphere ; and this, perhaps, is rather to be indicated than described. The prevailing quality of it is a certain high and sweet solemnity — a feeling kindred with the pla- cid, happy melancholy that steals over the mind. 6o The Trip to E/igland. when, on a sombre afternoon in autumn, you stand in the church-yard, and Hsten, amidst rus- tling branches and sighing grass, to the low mu- sic of distant organ and chaunting choir. Peace, haunted by romance, dwells here in reverie. The great tower of Warwick, based in silver Avon and pictured in its slumbering waters, seems musing upon the centuries over which it has watched, anfl full of unspeakable knowledge and thought. The dark and massive gate-ways of the town and the timber-crossed fronts of its antique houses live on in the same strange dream and perfect repose ; and all along the drive to Kenilworth are equal images of rest — of a rest in which there is nothing supine or sluggish, no element of death or decay, "but in which passion, imagination, beauty, and sorrow, seized at their topmost poise, seem crystallized in eternal calm. What opulence of splendid life is vital forever in Kenilworth's crumbling ruin, there are no words to say. What pomp of royal banners ! what dignity of radiant cavaliers ! what loveliness of stately and exquisite ladies ! what magnificence of banquets ! wliat wealth of pageantry ! what lustre of illumination ! The same perfect music that the old poet Gascoigne heard there, three hundred years ago, is still sounding on, to-day. The proud and cruel Leicester still walks in his vaulted hall. The imperious face of the Virgin Queen still from her dais looks down on plumed courtiers and jeweled dames ; and still the moon- IVitnc'ick and Kenihvorth. 6i light, streaming through the turret-window, falls on the white bosom and the great, startled, black eyes of Amy Kobsart, waiting for her lover. The gaze of the pilgrim, indeed, rests only upon old, grey, broken walls, overgrown with green moss and ivy, and pierced by irregular casements through which the sun shines, and the winds blow, and the rains drive, and the birds fly, amidst utter desolation. But silence and ruin are here alike eloquent and awful ; and, much as the place impresses you by what remains, it impresses you far more by what has vanished. Ambition, love, pleasure, power, misery, tragedy — these are gone ; and being gone they are immortal. I plucked, in the garden of Kenilworth, one of the most brilliant red roses that ever grew ; and, as I pressed it to my lips, I seemed to touch the lips of that superb, bewildering beauty who outweighed England's crown, and whose spirit is the everlasting genius of the place. There is a crescent of tliatch-roofed cottages close by the ruins of the old castle, in which con- tentment seems to have made her home. The ivy embowers them. The roses cluster around their little windows. The greensward slopes away, in front, from the big, flat stones that are embedded in the grassy sod before their doors. Down in the valley, hard by, your steps stray through an an- cient grave-yard — in which modern hands have built a tiny church, witli tower, and clock, and bell 62 The Trip to England. — and past the remains of a Priory, long since destroyed. At many anotlier point, on the roads betwixt Warwick and Kenilworth and Stratford, I came upon such nests of cosey, rustic quiet and seeming happiness. They build their country houses low, in England, so that the trees over- hang them, and the cool, friendly, flower-gemmed earth — parent, and stay, and bourne of mortal life ! — is tenderly taken into their companionship. Here, at Kenilworth, as elsewhere, at such places as Richmond, Maidenhead, Cookham, and the region round about Windsor, I saw many a sweet nook where tired life might well be content to lay down its burden and enter into its rest. In all true love of country — a passion which seems to be more deeply felt in England than anywhere else upon the globe — there is love for the literal soil itself : and that sentiment in the human heart is equally natural and pious which inspires and perpetuates man's desire that where he found his cradle he may also find his grave. Under a cloudy sky, and through a landscape still wet and shining with recent rains, the drive to Stratford was a pleasure so exquisite that at last it became a pain. Just as the carriage reached the junction of the Warwick and Snitterfield roads, a ray of sunshine, streaming through a rift in the clouds, fell ujjon the neiglibouring hill-side, scarlet with poppies, and lit the scene as with the glory of a celestial benediction. This sunburst, neither Wanc'ick and Kcnilworth. 63 growing larger nor coming nearer, followed all the way to Stratford ; and there, on a sudden, the clouds were lifted and dispersed, and " fair day- light " flooded the whole green country-side. The afternoon sun was still high in heaven when I alisrhted at the Red Horse Inn, and entered the little parlour of Washington Irving. They keep the room very much as it was when he left it ; for they are proud of liis gentle genius and grateful for his commemorative words. In a corner stands the small, old-fashioned hair-cloth arm-chair, in which he sat, on that night of memory and of musing which he has described in the " Sketch Book." A brass plate is affixed to it, bearing his name ; and the visitor observes, in token of its age and service, that the hair-cloth of its seat is considerably worn and frayed. Every American pilgrim to Stratford sits in this chair ; and looks witli tender interest on the old fire-place ; and reads the memorials of Irving that are hung upon the walls : and it is no small comfort there to reflect that our own illustri- ous countryman — whose name will be remembered with honour, as long as true literature is prized among men — was the first, in modern days, to discover the beauties and to interpret the poetry of the birth-place of Shakespeare. VII. STRATFORD-ON-AVON. /^NCE again, as it did on that delicious summer ^^ afternoon which is forever memorable in my life, the golden glory of the westering sun burns on the grey spire of Stratford Church, and on the ancient grave-yard below, — wherein the mossy stones lean this way and that, in sweet and orderly confusion, — and on the peaceful avenue of limes, and on the burnished water of silver Avon. The tall, arched, many-coloured windows of the church glint in the evening light. A cool and fragrant wind is stirring the branches and the grass. The small birds, calling to their mates, or sporting in the wanton pleasure of their airy life, are circling over the church roof, or Stratford on-Avon, 65 hidincj in little crevices of its walls. On the vacant meadows across the river stretch away the long and level shadows of the pompous elms. Mere and there, upon tlie river's brink, arc pairs of wliat seem lovers, strolling by the reedy marge, or sitting upon the low tombs, in the Sabbath quiet. As the sun sinks and the dusk deepens, two figures of infirm old women, clad in black, pass with slow and feeble steps through the avenue of limes, and vanish around an angle of the church — whicii now stands all in shadow : and no sound is heard but the faint rustling of the leaves. Once again, as on that sacred night, the streets of Stratford are deserted and silent under the star-lit sky, and I am standing, in the dim dark- ness, at the door of the cottage in whicli Shakes- peare was born. It is empty, dark, and still; and in all the neighbourhood there is no stir nor sign of life; but the quaint casements and gables of tliis haunted house, its antique porch, and the great timbers that cross its front are luminous as with a light of their own, so that I see them with perfect distinctness. I stand there a long time, and I know that I am to remember these sights forever, as I see them now. After a while, with lingering reluctance, I turn away from this marvellous spot, and, presently passing through a little, winding lane, I walk in the High street of the town, and mark, at the end of 5 66 The Trip to Eiigla7id. the prospect, the iHuminated clock in the tower of the chapel of the Holy Cross. A few chance- directed steps bring me to what was New Place once, where Shakespeare died ; and there again I pause, and long remain in meditation, gazing into the inclosed garden, where, under frames of glass, are certain strange fragments of lime and stone. These — which I do not then know — are the remains of the foundation of Shakespeare's house. The night wanes ; and still I walk in Stratford streets ; and by and by I am standing on the bridge that spans the Avon, and looking down at the thick-clustering stars reflected in its black and silent stream. At last, under the roof of the Red Horse, I sink into a troubled slumber, from which very soon a strain of celestial music — strong, sweet, jubilant, and splendid — awakens me in an instant, and I start up in my bed — to find that all around me is still as death ; and then, drowsily, far-off, the bell strikes three, in its weird and lonesome tower. Every pilgrim to Stratford knows beforehand, in a general way, what he will there behold. Copious and frequent description of its Shakes- pearean associations have made the place familiar to all the world. Yet these Shakes- pearean associations keep a perennial freshness, and are equally a surprise to the sight and a wonder to the soul. Though three centuries old, they are not yet stricken with age or decay. The Stratford-ott-Avon. 67 house in Henley street, in which, according to accepted tradition, Shakespeare was born, has been from time to time repaired ; and so it has been kept sound, without having been materially changed from what it was in Shakespeare's youth. Tiie kind old ladies who now take care of it, and, with so much pride and courtesy, show it to the visitor, called my attention to a bit of the ceiling of the upper chamber — the alleged room of Shakespeare's birth — which had begun to sag, and had been skilfully mended, with little laths. It is in this room that the numerous autographs are scrawled all over the ceiling and walls. One side of the chimney-piece here is called '■'■ The Actor's Pillar," so thickly is it covered with the names of actors ; Edmund Kean's signature being among them, and still clearly legible. On one of the window-panes, cut with a diamond, is the name of " W. Scott " ; and all the panes are scratched with signatures — making you think of Douglas Jerrold's remark on bad Shakespearean commentators, that they resemble persons who write on glass with diamonds, and obscure the light with a multitude of scratches. The floor of this room, uncarpeted, and almost snow-white with much washing, seems still as hard as iron ; yet its boards have been hollowed by wear, and the heads of the old nails, that fasten it down, gleam like polished silver. You can sit in an antique chair, in a corner of this room, if you 68 The Trip io England. ' like, and think unutterable tilings. There is, certainly, no word that can even remotely suggest the feeling with which you are there overwhelmed. You can sit, also, in the room below, in the very seat, in the corner of the wide fire-place, that Shakespeare himself must often have occupied. They keep but a few sticks of furniture in any part of the cottage. One room is devoted to Shakespearean curiosities — or relics — more or less authentic ; one' of which is a school-boy's form or desk, that was obtained from the old grammar school in High street, now modern in its appointments, in which Shakespeare was once a pupil. At the back of the cottage, now iso- lated from all contiguous structures, is a pleasant garden, and at one side is a cosey, luxurious little cabin — the home of order and of pious decorum — for the ladies who are custodians of the Shakespeare House. If you are a favoured visitor, you may receive from this garden, at parting, all the flowers, prettily affixed to a sheet of purple-edged paper, that poor Ophelia names, in the scene of her madness. '* There's rosemary, that's for remembrance : and there is pansies, that's for thoughts : there's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue for you : there's a daisy: — I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died." The minute knowledge that Shakespeare had of plants and flowers, and the loving appreciation Stratford-on-Avon. 69 with wliich lie describes pastoral scenery, are explained to the rambler in Stratford, by all that he sees and hears. There is a walk across the fields to Shottery — which the poet must often have taken, in the days of his courtship of Anne Hathaway — whereon the feet of the traveller are buried in wild flowers and furrow weeds. The high road to the hamlet, also, passes through rich meadows, and lands teeming with grain, flecked everywhere with those brilliant scarlet poppies which are so radiant and so bewitching in the English landscape. To have grown up amidst such surroundings, and, above all, to have e.xperi- enced amidst them the passion of love, must have been, with Shakespeare, the intuitive acquire- ment of most ample and most specific knowledge of their manifold beauties. It would be hard to find a sweeter rustic retreat than Anne Hathaway's cottage is, even now. The tall trees embower it ; and over its porches, and all along its picturesque, irregular front, and on its thatch-roof, the wood- bine and the ivy climb, and there are wild roses and the maiden's blush. For the young poet's wooing no place could be fitter than this! He would always remember it with tender joy. They show you, in that cottage, an old settle, by the fireside, whereon the lovers may have sat together ; and in the rude little chamber next the roof, an antique, carved bedstead, which Anne Hathaway once owned. This, it is thought, continued to be 70 The Trip to England. ' Anne's home, for many years of her married hfe — her husband being absent in London, and some- times coming down to visit her, at Shottery. " He was wont," says Aubrey, " to go to his native country once a year." The last surviving descend- ant of the Hathaway family — Mrs. Taylor — lives in the house now, and welcomes with homely hos'' pitality the wanderers, from all lands, who seek — in a sympathy and reverence most honourable to human nature ! — the shrine of Shakespeare's love. There is one such wanderer who will never forget the parting pressure of this good woman's hand, and who has never parted with her farewell gift of woodbine and roses from the porch of Anne Hathaway's cottage. In England it is living, more than writing about it, that is esteemed by the best persons. They prize good writing, of course ; but they prize noble living far more. This is an ingrained principle and not an artificial habit, and this principle, doubtless, was as potent in Shakespeare's age as it is to-day. Nothing could be more natural than that this great writer should think less of his works than of the establishment of his home. He would desire, having won his fortune, to dwell in his native place, to enjoy the companionship and esteem of his neighbours, to participate in their pleasures, to help them in their troubles, to aid in the improvement and embellishment of the town, to deepen his hold upon the affections of all Stratford on- Avon. 71 around him, and to feel that, at last, honoured and lamented, his ashes would be laid in the vil- lage church where he had worshipped — "Among familiar names to rest. And in the places of his youth." It was in 1597, about ten years after he went to London, that the poet began to buy property in Stratford, and it was about eight years after his first purchase that he finally settled there, at New Place. This mansion, as all readers know, was altered by Sir Hugh Clopton, who owned it about the middle of the eighteenth century, and was de- stroyed by the Rev. Mr. Gastrell, in 1757. There is a modern edifice on the estate now ; but the grounds, which have been reclaimed, — chiefly through the zeal of Mr. Halliwell, — are laid out according to the model they are supposed to have presented when Shakespeare owned them. His lawn, his orchard, and his garden are indi- cated ; and the grandson of his mulberry is growing on the very spot where that famous tree once flourished. You can see a part of the founda- tions of the old house. It seems to have had gables, and, no doubt, it was made of stone, and fashioned witli tlie beautiful curves and broken lines of the Tudor architecture. They show, upon the lawn, a stone, of considerable size, which surmounted its door. The site — still the most commodious in Stratford — is on the corner of 72 The Trip to England. ; High street and Cliapel street; and on the oppo- site corner stands now, as it has stood for eight hundred years, the chapel of the Holy Cross, with square, dark tower, and fretted battlement, and arched casements, and Norman porch — one of the most romantic and picturesque churches in England. It was easy, when standing on that storied spot, to fancy Shakespeare, in the gloam- ing of a summer day, strolling on the lawn, beneath his elms, and listening to the soft and solemn music of the chapel organ ; or to think of him as stepping forth from his study, in the late and lonesome hours of the night, and pausing to " count the clock," or note " the exhalations whiz- zing in the air." The funeral train of Shakespeare, on that dark day when it moved from New Place to Stratford Church, had but a little way to go. The river, surely, must have seemed to hush its murmurs, the trees to droop their branches, the sunshine to grow dim — as that sad procession passed! His grave is under the grey pavement of the chancel, within the rail, and his wife and two daughters are buried beside him. The pilgrim who reads, upon the grave-stone itself, those rugged lines of grievous entreaty and awful imprecation wliich guard the poet's rest, feels no doubt that he is listening to his living voice — for he has now seen the enchanting beauty of the place, and he has now felt what passionate affection it can inspire. Stralford-on-Avon. 73 Feeling and not manner would naturally have commanded tliat sudden agonized supplication and threat. Nor does such a pilgrim doubt, when gazing on the painted bust, above the grave, — made by Gerard Johnson, stone-cutter, — that he beholds the authentic face of Shakespeare. It is not the heavy face of tlie portraits that repre- sent it. There is a rapt, transfigured quality in it, which these do not convey. It is thoughtful, austere, and yet benign. Shakespeare was a hazel- eyed man, with auburn hair, and the colours that he wore were scarlet and black. Being painted, and also being set up at a considerable height on the church wall, the bust does not disclose what is sufficiently perceptible in a cast from it — that it is, in fact, the copy of a mask from the dead face. One of the cheeks is a little swollen, and the tongue is very slightly protruded, and is caught between the lips. It need not be said that the old theory — that the poet was not a gen- tleman of sreat consideration in his own time and place — falls utterly and forever from the mind, when you stand at his grave. No man could have a more honourable or sacred spot of sepulture ; and while it illustrates the profound esteem of the community in which he lived, it testifies to the high religious character by which that esteem was confirmed. " I commend my soul into the hands of God, my Creator, hoping, and assuredly believing, through the only merits of 74 Tlie Trip to England. ' , Jesus Christ, my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting." So said Shakespeare, in his last Will, bowing in humble reverence the might- iest mind — as vast and limitless in the power to comprehend as to express ! — that ever wore the garments of mortality. Once again there is a sound of organ music, very low and soft, in Stratford Church, and the dim light, broken by the richly stained windows,' streams across the dusky chancel, filling the still air with opal haze, and flooding those grey grave- stones with its mellow radiance. Not a word is spoken; but, at intervals, the rustle of the leaves is audible, in a sighing wind. What visions are these, that suddenly fill the region ! What royal faces of monarchs, proud with power, or pallid with anguish ! What sweet, imperial women, gleeful with happy youth and love, or wide-eyed and rigid in tearless woe ! What warriors, with ser- pent diadems, defiant of death and hell ! The mournful eyes of Hamlet; the wild countenance of Lear; Ariel with his harp, and Prospero with his wand ! Here is no death ! All these, and more, are immortal shapes ; and he that made them so,' though his mortal part be but a handful of dust in yonder crypt, is a glorious angel beyond the stars ! VIII. A GLIMPSE OF FRANCE. TDARIS, Aufjust 1st, 1877, — It was a beautiful -■- afternoon in July when first I saw the sliores of France. The British Channel — a most dis- tressful water when rough — had been in unusual pleasure, like King Duncan in the play, so that "observation with extended view," could look with interest, and without nausea, on the Norman coast, as it rose into sight across the surges. This coast seemed like the Palisade bank of the Hudson River, and prompted thoughts of home. It is high and precipitous, and on one of its windy hills a little chapel is perched, in picturesque loneliness, to the east of the stone harbour into which the arriving steamer glides. At Dieppe, 76 77/ /t; England. as at most of the Channel ports, a long pier projects into the sea, and this was thronged with spectators, as our boat steamed up to her moorings. The ride from Dieppe to Paris is charming. The road passes through Rouen and up the Valley of the Seine. The sky that day was as blue and sunny as ever it is in brilliaiTt America; tlie air was soft and cool; and the fields of Normandy were lovely with rich colour, and gen- erous with abundance of golden crops. Now and then we passed little hamlets, made up of thatched cottages clustered around a tiny church, with its sad, quaint place of graves. Sheaves of wheat were stacked, in careless piles, in the meadows. Rows of the tall, lithe Lombardy poplar — so like the willowy girls of France — flashed by, and rows of the tremulous silver-leaved maple. Sometimes I saw rich bits of garden grround, gorgeous with geraniums and with many of the wild flowers (neglected, for the most part, in other countries), which the French know so well how to cultivate and train. In some fields the reapers were at work; in others women were guiding the plough; in others the sleek cattle and shaggy sheep were couched in repose, or busy with the herbage ; and through this smiling land the Seine flowed peacefully down, shining like burnished silver. At Rouen I caught a glimpse of the round tower and two spires of the famous cathedral which is there — esteemed one of the best pieces of Gothic A Glimpse of France. 7 7 architecture in Europe ; and I thought of Cor- neille, who was there born, and of Jean Dare, who was tliere burned. Just beyond Rouen, on the eastern bank of the Seine, the hills take, and for many miles preserve, the shape of natural fortifications. Zigzag pathways wind up the faces of these crags. A chapel crowns one of the loftiest summits. Cottages nestle in the vales below. A few gaunt wind-mills stretch forth their arms, upon the distant hills. Every rood of the land is cultivated; and here, as in England, the scarlet poppies brighten the green, while cosey hedge-rows make the landscape comfortable to the fancy, as well as pretty to the eye, with a sense of human companionship. In the gloaming we glided into Paris, and before I had been there two hours I was driving in the Champs Elysees and thinking of the Arabian Nights. Nobody can know, without seeing them, how glorious and imperial the great features of Paris are. My first morning there was a Sunday, and it was made beautiful beyond expression by sunshine, the singing of birds, the strains of music from passing bands, and the many sishts and sounds which in every direction bespoke the cheerfulness of the people. I went that day to a fete in the Bois de Vincennes, where from noon till midnight a great throng took its pleasure, in the most orderly, simple, and child-like manner, and where I saw a "picture in little" 78 The Trip to England. ' of the manners of the French. It was a peculiar pleasure, while in Paris, to rise at a very early- hour and stroll through the markets of St. Honor^, in which flowers have at least an equal place with more substantial necessities of life, and where order and neatness are made perfect. It was impressive, also, to walk in the gardens of the Tuileries, in those lonely morning hours, and to muse and moralize over the downfall of the dynasty of Napoleon. These gardens, formerly the private grounds of the Emperor, are now opened to the public ; and streams of labourers, clothed in their blue blouses, pour through them every day. They are rapidly rebuilding that part of the Tuileries which was destroyed by the Commune ; and, in fact, though only six years have passed since [187 1] the last revolution devas- tated this capital, but little trace remains of the ravages of that wild time. The Arc de Triomphe stands, in solemn majesty; the Column Vendome towers toward the sky ; the golden figure seems still in act to fly, upon the top of the Column of the Bastile. I saw, in the church of Notre Dame, the garments — stained with blood and riddled with bullets — that were worn by the Archbishop of Paris, when he v/as murdered by the friends of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity; and I saw, with enthusiastic admiration, and not without a strong impulse to tears, the great Panorama of the Siege of Paris, by F. Phillipoteaux, which was A Glimpse of France. 79 exhibited in the rejjion of the Champs Elysdcs, and which is a marvel of faithful detail, true colour, spirited composition, and the action and suffering of war. But these were all the tokens that I chanced to see of the recent evil days of France. The more interesting sights of Paris are as- sociated with its older history and with the taste and luxury of its present period. Every person who visits it repairs presently to Les Invalides, to see the tomb of Napoleon Buonaparte. This is a structure that would inspire awe, even if it were not associated with that glittering name and that terrible memory. The gloom of the crypt in which it is sunk ; the sepulchral character of the mysterious, emblematic figures which surround it — "staring right on, with calm, eter- nal eyes ; " the grandeur of the dome which rises above it ; and its own vast size and deathly shape — all these characteristics unite to make it a most impressive object, apart from the thrilling fact that in this great, red-sandstone coffin rest, at last, after the stormiest of all human lives, the ashes of the most vital man of action who has lived in modern times. I was deeply impressed, too, by the sight of the tombs of Voltaire and Rousseau, in the vaults beneath the Pantheon. No device more apposite or more startling could have been adopted than that which assails you on tlie front of Rousseau's tomb. 8o The Trip to Eiigland. The door stands ajar, and out o£ it issues an arm and hand, in marble, grasping a torch. It was almost as if the dead had spoken with a living voice, to see that fateful symbol of a power of thought and jDassion which never can die — while human hearts remain human. There is a fine statue of Voltaire in the vault that holds his tomb. These mausoleums are merely com- memorative. The body of Voltaire, at any rate, was at once destroyed with quicklime, when laid in the grave, at the Abbey of Celleries, so that it might not be cast out of consecrated ground. Other tombs of departed greatness I found in Pcre la Chaise. Moliere and La Fontaine rest side by side. Racine is a neighbour to them. Talma, Auber, Rossini, De Musset, Desclee, and many other illustrious names, may here be read, in the letters of death. I came upon Rachel's tomb, in the Hebrew quarter of the cemetery. It is a tall, narrow, stone structure, with a grated door, over which the name of Rachel — and nothing else — is graven, in black letters. Looking in through the cratins; I saw a shelf on which were vases and flowers, and beneath it were fourteen immortelle wreaths. A few cards, left by mourners of the dead, or by pilgrims to this solemn shrine of genius and illustrious renown, were upon the floor. I ventured to add my own, humbly and reverently, to the names which thus gave homage to the memory of a great actress, and I gathered v) ^^^ \> r J 1 V ■^ V ^H9^^p^ JT' HPk^ A '''"-L NiU^ 1^'. ';ili...lii^ AL^. . • * , t ipf i*.' 1^ ■7. m ^ Glifnpse of France. S i a few leaves from the shrubbery tliat grows in front of her grave. It is a pity that this famous cemetery should be, as it is, comparatively desti- tute of flowers and grass. It contains a few avenues of trees ; but, for the most part, it is a mass of ponderous tombs, crowded close together upon a hot hill-side, traversed by little stony pathways sweltering in sun and dust. No sad- der grave-yard was ever seen. All the acute anguish of remediless suffering, all the abject misery and arid desolation of hopeless grief, is symbolized in this melancholy place. Workmen were repairing the tomb of Heloise and Abelard, and this, for a while, converted a bit of old romance to modern commonness. Still, I saw this tomb, and it was elevating to think that there may be " Words which are things, Hopes which do not deceive." The most gorgeous modern building in Paris is, undoubtedly, the Opera House. They are opening a street in front of this noble edifice, so as to place it at the end of yet another vista — as the usage is, in this magnificent city. There is no building in America that can vie with it in or- nate splendour. We do but scant justice to the solid qualities in the French character. Grant that the character is mercurial ; yet it contains elements of stupendous intensity and power ; and this you feel, as perhaps you may never have felt it before, 6 82 The Trip to England. when you look at such works as the Opera House, the Pantheon, the Madeleine, the Invaiides, the Louvre, the Luxembourg, and the stone embank- ments which, for miles, hem in the Seine on both its sides. The grandest old building in Paris — also a living witness to French power and purpose — is the church of Notre Dame. It will not dis- place, in the affectionate reverence of Americans, the glory of Westminster Abbey ; but it will fill an equal place in their memory. Its arches are not so grand ; its associations are not so near and dear. But it is so exceedingly beautiful in forms and in simplicity that no one can help loving it ; and by reason of certain windings, skilfully devised, in its avenues, it is invested with more of the alluring attribute of mystery. Some of its asso- ciations, also, are especially startling. You may there see the chapel in which Mary Stuart was mar- ried to her first husband, then Dauphin of France, and in which Henry the Sixth, of England, was crowned; and you may stand on the very spot on which Napoleon Buonaparte invested himself with the imperial diadem — ^ which, with his own hands, he placed on his own head. I climbed the tower of this famous cathedral, and, at the loftiest attain- able height, pictured in fancy the awful closing scene of " The Hunchback of Notre Dame." That romance seemed the truth then, and Claude Frollo, Esmeralda, and Quasimodo were as real as Richelieu. There is a vine growina: near the A Glimpse of Fiance. 83 bell-tower, and some children were at play there, on the stone platform. I went into the bell and smote upon it with a wooden mallet, and heard with delight its rich, melodious, soulful music. The four hundred steps are well worn that lead to the tower of Notre Dame. There are few places on earth so fraught with memories ; few that so well repay the homage of a pilgrim from a foreign land. IX. ENGLISH HOME SENTIMENT. '' I "HE elements of discontent and disturbance -*- which are visible in English society are found, upon close examination, to be merely su- perficial. Underneath them there abides a sturdy, unshakeable, inborn love of England. These croakings, grumblings, and bickerings do but denote the process by which the body politic frees itself from the headaches and fevers that embarrass the national health. Tlie Englishman and his country are one ; and when the English- man complains against his country it is not be- cause he believes that either there is or can be a better country elsewhere, but because his instinct of justice and order makes him crave English Home Sentiment. 85 perfection in liis own. Institutions and principles are, with liim, by nature, paramount to indi- viduals ; and individuals only possess importance — and that conditional on abiding rectitude — who are their representatives. Everything is done in England to promote the permanence and beauty of the home ; and the permanence and beauty of the home, by a natural reaction, augment in the English people solidity of character and peace of life. They do not dwell in a per- petual fret and fume as to the acts, thoughts, and words of other races : for the English there is absolutely no public opinion outside of their ow^n land : they do not live for the sake of working, but they work for the sake of living ; and, as the necessary preparations for living have long since been completed, their country is at rest. This, it seemed to me, is the secret of England's first, and continuous, and last, and all-pervading charm and power for the stranger — the charm and power to soothe. As long as the world lasts England will be England still. The efficacy of endeavouring to make a country a united, comfortable, and beautiful home for all its inhabitants, — binding every heart to the land by the same tie that binds every heart to the fireside, — is something well worthy to be con- sidered, equally by the practical statesman and the contemplative observer. That way, assuredly, lies the welfare of the human race, and all the 86 The Trip to England. - tranquillity that human nature — warped as it is by sin — will ever permit to this world. This endeavour has, through long ages, been steadily pursued in England, and one of its results — which is also one of its indications — is the vast accumulation of what may be called home treas- ures, in the city of London. The mere enume'ra- tion of them would fill large volumes. The description of them could not be completed in a life-time. It was this copiousness of historic wealth and poetic association, combined with the flavour of character and the sentiment of monastic repose, that bound Dr. Johnson to Fleet street, and made Charles Lamb such an inveterate lover of the town. Except it be to correct a possible insular narrowness, there can be no need that the Londoner should travel. Glorious sights, indeed, await him, if he journeys no further away than Paris ; but, aside from ostentation, luxury, gaiety, and excitement, Paris will give him nothing that he may not find at home. The great cathedral of Notre Dame will awe him; but not more than his own Westminster Abbey. The grandeur and beauty of La Madeleine will enchant him ; but not more than the massive solemnity and stupen- dous magnificence of St. Paul's. The embank- ments of the Seine will satisfy his taste, with their symmetrical solidity ; but he will not deem them superior, in any respect, to the embankments of the Thames. The Pantheon, tlie Hotel des English Home Sentiment. 87 Invalides, the Luxemboarg, the Louvre, the Tribunal of Commerce, the Opera House, — all these will dazzle and delight his eyes, arousing his remembrances of history, and firing his imagination of great events and persons ; but all these will fail to displace in his esteem the grand Palace of Westminster, so stalely in its simplicity, so strong in its perfect grace! He will ride through the exquisite Park of Monceau — one of the loveliest spots in France — and so onward to the Bois de Boulogne, witli its sump- tuous pomp of foliage, its romantic green vistas, its multitudinous winding avenues, its hill-side hermitage, its cascades, and its affluent lakes, whereon the white swans beat (he water with their gladsome w ings ; but his soul will still turn, with unshaken love and loyal preference, to the sweetly sylvan solitudes of tiie Gardens of Kew. He will marvel, in the museums of the Louvre, the Luxembourg, and Cluny; and, doubtless, he will freely concede that in paintings, whether ancient or modern, the French display is larger and finer than the English ; but he will still vaunt the British Museum as peerless throughout the world, and he will still prize his National Gallery, with its originals of Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Turner, its spirited, tender, and dreamy Murillos, and its matchless gems of Rembrandt. He will admire, at the The'atre Franqais, the somewhat unimaginative and photo- 88 The Trip to England. graphic perfection of French acting ; but he will be apt to reflect that English dramatic art, if it often lacks finish, sometimes possesses nature ; and he will certainly perceive tliat the play-house itself is not to be compared with either Her Majesty's Theatre or Covent Garden. He will luxuriate in the Champs Elysees, in the su- perb Boulevards, in the glittering pageant of pre- cious jewels that blazes in the Rue de Paix and the Palais Royal, and in that gorgeous panorama of shop-windows for which the French capital is unrivaled and famous ; and he will not deny that, as to brilliancy of aspect, Paris is prodigious and unequaled — the most radiant of cities — the very male sapphire in the crown of King Saul! But, when all is seen, either that Louis the Fourteenth created or Buonaparte pillaged, — when he has taken his last walk in the gardens of the Tuileries, and mused, at the foot of the statue of Cssar, on that Titanic strife of monarchy and democracy, of which France seems destined to be the perpetual theatre, — sated with the glitter of showy opu- lence, and tired with the whirl of frivolous life, he will gladly and gratefully turn again to his sombre, mysterious, thoughtful, restful old Lon- don ; and, like the Syrian captain, though in the better spirit of truth and right, declare that Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, are better than all the waters of Israel. X. LONDON NOOKS AND CORNERS. 'T^IIOSE persons upon wliom tlie spirit of tlie -*- past has power — and it has not power upon every mind! — are aware of tlie mysterious charm that invests certain famih'ar spots and objects, in all old cities. London, to observers of this class, is a never-ending delight. Modern cities, for the most part, reveal a definite and rather a common-place design. Their main ave- nues are parallel. Their shorter streets bisect their main avenues. They are diversified with rectangular squares. Their configuration, in brief, suggests the sapient, utilitarian forethought of the land-surveyor and civil engineer. The ancient British Capital, on the contrary, is the expression go T/ie Trip io England. » — slowly and often narrowly made — of many thousands of characters. It is a city that has happened — and the stroller through the old part of it comes continually upon the queerest imag- inable alleys, courts, and nooks. Not far from Drury Lane Theatre, for instance, hidden away in a clump of dingy houses, is a dismal littl'e grave-yard — the same that Dickens has chosen, in his novel of '■ Bleak House," as the sepulchre of little Jo's friend, the first love of the unfor- tunate Lady D^lock. It is a doleful spot, draped in the robes of faded sorrow, and crowded into the twilight of obscurity by the thick-clustering habitations of men. The Cripplegate church, — St. Giles's — a less lugubrious spot, and somewhat less difficult of access, is, nevertheless, strangely sequestered, so that it also affects the observant eye as equally one of the surprises of London. I saw it, for the first time, on a grey, sad Sunday, a little before twilight, and when the service was going on within its venerable, historic walls. The footsteps of John Milton were often on the thresh- old of the Cripplegate, and his grave is in the nave of that ancient church. A simple flat stone marks that sacred spot, and many a heedless foot tramples over that hallowed dust. From Golden Lane, which is close by, you can see the octagon tower of this church ; and, as you walk from the place where Milton lived to the place where his ashes repose, you seem, with a solemn, awe- London Nooks and Corners. «;i stricken emotion, to be actually following in liis funeral train. The grave of Daniel De Foe, for- ever memorable as the autlior of the great and wonderful romance of" Robinson Crusoe," is also in tlie Cripplcu-ate ; and at its altar occurred the marriage of Oliver Cromwell. I remembered — as I stood there and conjured up that scene of golden joy and hope — the place of the Lord Pro- tector's coronation in Westminster Hall ; the place, still marked, in Westminster Abbey, where his body was buried ; and old Temple Bar, on which [if not on Westminster Hall itself] his mutilated corse was finally e.xposed to the blind rage of the fickle populace. A little time — a very little time — serves to gather up equally the happiness and the anguish, the conquest and the defeat, the greatness and the littleness of human life, and to cover them all with silence. But not always with oblivion. These quaint churches, and many other mouldering relics of the past, in London, are haunted witii associations that never can perish out of remembrance. In fact, the whole of the old city impresses you as densely invested with an atmosphere of human experience, dark, sad, and lamentable. Walking, alone, in ancient quarters of it, after midnight — as I often did — I was aware of the oppressive sense of tragedies that have been acted, and misery that has been endured, in its dusky streets and melan- choly houses. They do not err who say that the 92 The Trip to England. * spiritual life of man leaves its influence in the physical objects by which he is surrounded. Night-walks in London will teach you that, if they teach you nothing else. I went more than once into Brook street, Holborn, and traced the desolate footsteps of poor Thomas Chatterton to the scene of his self-murder and agonized, pathetic, deplorr able death. It is more than a century [1770], since that "marvellous boy" was driven to suicide by neglect, hunger, and despair. They are tearing down the houses on one side of Brook street now, [1877] ; it is doubtful which house was No. 39, in the attic of which Chatterton died, and doubtful whether it remains : his grave — a pauper's grave, which was made in a work-house burial-ground, in Shoe Lane, long since obliterated — is unknown; but his presence hovers about that region ; liis strange and touching story tinges its squalour and its commonness with the mystical moonlight of romance ; and his name is blended with it forever. On another night I walked from St. James's Palace to Whitehall (the York Place of Cardinal Wolsey), over the ground that Charles the First must have traversed, on his way to the scaffold. The story of the murder of that king, always sorrow- ful to remember, is very grievous to consider, when you realize, upon the actual scene of his ordeal and death, his exalted fortitude and his bitter agony. It seemed as if I could almost hear his voice, as it sounded on that fateful morning, asking that his London Nooks and Corners. 93 body might be more thickly clad, lest, in the cold, January air, he should shiver, and so, before the eyes of his enemies, should seem to be trembling with fear. The Puritans, having brought this poor man to the place of execution, kept him in suspense from early morning till after two o'clock in the day, wliile tliey debated over a proposition to spare his life — upon any condition they might choose to make — which had been sent to them by his son, Prince Charles. Old persons were alive in London, not very long ago, who remembered having seen, in their childhood, the window, in the end of Whitehall, through which the doomed monarch walked forth to the block. It was long ago walled up, and the palace has undergone much alteration since tlie days of the Stuarts ; but the spot, in the rear of Whiteliall, where the king was butchered, is marked to this day, in a man- ner most tenderly significant. A bronze statue of his son, James the Second, stands in this place. It is by Roubiliac (whose marbles are numerous, in the Abbey and elsewhere in London, and whose grave is in St. Martin's Church), and it is one of the most graceful works of that spirited sculptor. The figure is slender, elegant, and beautifully modelled. The face is downcast and full of THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. [Reprinted from Harper's Magazine, for May, 1S79.] Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask ahd ask : thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knoudcdge. For the loftiest hill That to the stars uncrowns his majesty, Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea, Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place. Spares but the cloudy border of his base To the foiled searching of mortality. Aftd thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know. Self-schooled, self-scanned, self-honoured, self-secure, Didst walk on carih itnguessed at. Better sol All pains the immortal spirit must endure. All weakness thai impairs, all griefs that bow. Find their sole voice in that victorious brozu. — Matthew Arnold. XIII. THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. TT is the everlasting glory of Stratford-upon-Avon -*■ that it was the birth-place of Shakespeare. In itself, although a pretty and charming spot, it is not, among English towns, either pre-eminently beautiful or exceptionally impressive. Situated in the heart of Warwickshire, which has been called "the gar- den of England," it nestles cosily in an atmosphere of tranquil loveliness, and is surrounded, indeed, witli evervthing that soft and gentle rural scenery can afford, to soothe the mind and to nurture con- tentment. It stands upon a level plain, almost in the centre of the island, through which, between the low green hills that roll away on either side, the Avon flows downward to ancient Gloucester and the Severn. The country in its neighbourhood is under perfect cultivation, and for many miles I20 The Trip to England. ' around presents the appearance of a superbly ap- pointed park. Portions of the land are devoted to crops and pasture ; other portions are thickly wooded with oak, elm, willow, and chestnut; the meadows are intersected by hedges of the fra- grant hawthorn, and the whole region smiles with flowers. Old manor-houses, half hidden among the trees, and thatched cottages embowered with roses, are sprinkled through the surrounding landscape ; and all the roads which converge ujjon this point — from Warwick, Banbury, Bidford, Alcester, Eves- ham, Worcester, and many other contiguous towns — wind, in sun and shadow, through a sod of green velvet, swept by the cool, sweet winds of the Eng- lish summer. Such felicities of situation and such accessories of beauty, however, are not unusual in England ; and Stratford, were it not hallowed by association, though it might always hold a place among the pleasant memories of the traveller, would not have become a shrine for the homage of the world. To Shakespeare it owes its renown ; from Shakespeare it derives the bulk of its prosperity. To visit Stratford is to tread with affectionate ven- eration in the footsteps of the poet. To write about Stratford is to write about Shakespeare. More than three hundred years have passed since the birth of that colossal genius, and many changes must have occurred in his native town, within that period. The Stratford of Shakespeare's time was built principally of timber — as, indeed, it is now — The Home of Shakespeare. 121 and contained about fourteen hundred inhabitants. To-day its population numbers upward of ten thousand. New dwelHngs have arisen where once were fields of wheat, glorious with the siiimmering lustre of the scarlet poppy. The older buildings, for the most part, have been demolished or altered. Manufactories, chiefly of beer and of Shakespearean relics, have been stimulated into prosperous activity. The Avon has been spanned by a new bridge, of iron. The village streets have been levelled, swept, rolled, and garnished till they look like a Flemish drawins of the Middle Asjes. Even the Shakes- peare cottage, the ancient Tudor house in High street, and the two old churches — authentic and splendid memorials of a distant and storied past — have been "restored." If the poet could walk again through his accustomed haunts, though he would see the same smiling country round about, and hear, as of old, the ripple of the Avon murmur- ing in its summer sleep, his eyes would rest on scarce a single object that once he knew. Yet, there are the paths that Shakespeare often trod ; there stands the house in which he was born; there is the school in which he was taught ; there is the cottage in which he wooed his sweetheart, and in which he dwelt with her as his wife: there are the ruins and relics of the mansionin which he died; and there is the church that keeps his dust. so consecrated by the reverence of mankind " That kinds for such a tomb would wish to die." 122 The Trip to England. In shape the town of Stratford somewhat re- sembles a large cross, which is formed by High street, running nearly north and south, and Bridge street, running nearly east and west. From these, which are main avenues, radiate many and de- vious branches. A few of the streets are broad and straight, but many of them, particularly on tfie water side, are narrow and circuitous. High and Bridge streets intersect each other at the centre of the tow^n, and here stands the market-house; an ancient building, with belfry-tower and illuminated clock, facing eastward toward the old stone bridge, with fourteen arches, — the bridge that Sir Hugh Clopton built across the Avon in the reign of Henry the Seventh. From that central point a few steps will bring the traveller to the birth-place of Shakes- peare. It is a little, two-story cottage of timber and plaster, on the north side of Henley street, in the western part of the town. It must have been, in its pristine days, much finer than most of the dwellings in its neighbourhood. The one-story house, with attic windows, was the almost invaria- ble fashion of building, in all English country towns, till the seventeenth century. This cottage, besides its two stories, had dormer-windows above its roof, a pent-house over its door, and altogether was built and appointed in a manner both luxurious and sub- stantial. Its age IS unknown ; but the history of Stratford reaches back to a period three hundred years antecedent to William the Conqueror, and The Home of Shakespeare. 1 23 fancy, therefore, is allowed the amplest room to magnify its antiquity. It was bought, or at all events occupied, by Shakespeare's father in 1555, and in it he resided till his death, in 1601, when it descended by inheritance to the poet. Such is the substance of the somewhat confused documentary evidence and of the emphatic tradition which con- secrate this cottage as llic house in which Shake- speare was born. The point, as is well known, has never been absolutely settled John Shakespeare, the father, in 1564, was the owner not only of the house in Henley street, but of another in Greenhill street, and of still another at Ingon, about a mile and a half from Stratford, on the road to Warwick. William Shakespeare might have been born at either of these dwellings, and it is not impossible that several generations of the i)oet\s worshippers have been dilating with emotion in the wrong place. Tradition, however, has sanctified the Henley- street cottage ; and this, accordingly, as Shakes- peare's cradle, will doubtless be piously guarded to a late posterity. It has already survived serious perils and vicissi- tudes. By Shakespeare's will it was bequeathed to his sister Joan — Mrs. William Hart— to be held by her, under the yearly rent of twelvepence, during her life, and at her death to revert to his daughter Susanna and her descendants. His sis- ter Joan appears to have been living there at the time of his decease, in 1616. She is known to have 124 The Trip to England. » been living there in 1639 — twenty-three years later — and doubtless she resided there till her death, in 1646. The estate then passed to Susanna — Mrs. John Hall — from whom in 1649 it descended to her grandchild, Lady Barnard, who left it to her kinsmen, Thomas and George Hart, grandsons of Joan. In this line of descent it continued — sub- ject to many of those infringements which are inci- dental to poverty 7— till 1806, when William Shake- speare Hart, the seventh in collateral kinship from the poet, sold it to Thomas Court, from whose fam- ily it was at last purchased for the British nation. Meantime the property, which originally consisted of two tenements and a considerable tract of adja- cent land, had, little by little, been curtailed of its fair proportions by the sale of its gardens and orchards. The two tenements — two in one, that is — had been subdivided. A part of the building became an inn — at first called " The Maiden- head," afterward "The Swan," and finally "The Swan and Maidenhead." Another part became a butcher's shop. The old dormer windows and the pent-house disappeared. A new brick casing was foisted upon the tavern end of the structure. In front of the butcher's shop appeared a sign an- nouncing " William Shakespeare was born in this house. N. B. — A Horse and Taxed Cart to Let." Still later appeared another legend, vouching that " the immortal Shakespeare was born in this house." From 1793 till 1820 Thomas and Mary The Home of Shakespeare. 125 Hornby, connections by marriage witli the Harts, lived in tlie SlKii posed, often taken by Shakespeare. He would pass the old mill bridge (new in 1599), which still spans the Avon a little way to the south of the church. The quaint, sleepy mill — clad now with moss and ivy — which adds such a charm to the prospect, was doubtless fresh and bright in those distant days. More lovely to the vision, though, it never could have been than it is at present. The gaze of Shakespeare assuredly dwelt on it with pleasure. His footsteps may be traced, also, in fancy, to the region of the old college building (demolished in 1799), which stood in the southern part of Strat- ford, and was the home of his friend John Combe, factor of Fulke Greville, Earl of Warwick. Still another of his walks must have tended north- ward through Welcombe, where he was the owner of lands, to the portly manor of Clopton. On what is called the "Ancient House," which stands on the west side of High Street, not far from New Place, he may often have looked, as he strolled past to the inns of the Boar and the Red Horse. This building, dated 1596, survives, notwithstand- 148 The Trip to England. ing some modern touches of rehabilitation, as a beautiful specimen of Tudor architecture in one at least of its most charming features, the carved and timber-crossed gable. It is a house of three stories, containing parlour, sitting-room, kitchen, and several bedrooms, besides cellars and brew-shed ; and when sold at auction, August 23d, 1876, it brought £^06. There are other dwellings fully as old in Stratford, but they have been newly painted and otherwise changed. This is a genuine piece of antiquity, and vies with the grammar school of the guild, under whose pent-house the poet could not have failed to pass whenever he went abroad from New Place. Julius Shaw, one of the five witnesses to his will, lived in a house close by the grammar school ; and here, it is reasonable to think, Shakespeare would often pause for a chat with his friend and neigh- bour. In all the little streets by the river-side, which are ancient and redolent of the past, his image seems steadily familiar. In Dead Lane (now called Chapel Lane) he owned a little, low cottage, bought of Walter Getley in 1602, and only destroyed within the present century. These and kindred shreds of fact, suggesting the poet as a living man, and connecting him, howsoever vaguely, with our human, every-day experience, are seized on with peculiar zest by the pilgrim in Stratford. Such a votary, for example, never doubts that Shakespeare was a frequenter, in leisure and con- vivial hours, of the ancient Red Horse Inn. It The Home of Shakespeare. 149 stood there in his day as it stands now, on the right-hand side of Bridge street, westward from the Avon. There are many other taverns in the town — the Sliakespeare, the Falcon, the White Hart, the Rose and Crown, the old Red Lion, and the Cross Keys being a few of them — but the Red Horse takes precedence of all its kindred, in the fascinating, because suggestive, attribute of antiq- uity. Moreover, it was the Red Horse that har- boured Washington Irving, the pioneer of American worshippers at the shrine of Shakespeare ; and the American explorer of Stratford would cruelly sacri- fice his peace of mind if he were to repose under any other roof. The Red Horse is a rambling, three-story building, entered through a large arch- way, which leads into a long, straggling yard, adja- cent to many offices and stables. On one side of the hall of entrance is found the smoking-room and bar ; on the other are the coffee-room and several sitting-rooms. Above arc the chambers. It is a thoroughly old-fashioned inn — such a one as we may suppose the Boar's Head to have been, in the time of Prince Henry; such a one as untravelled Americans only know in the pages of Dickens. The rooms are furnished in plain and homely style, but their associations readily deck them with the fragrant garlands of memory. When Drayton and Jonson came down to visit "gentle Will" at Strat- ford, they could scarcely have omitted to quaff the glorious ale of Warwickshire in this cosey parlour. 150 The Trip to England. When Queen Henrietta Maria was ensconced at New Place, the Iionoured guest of Shakespeare's elder and favourite daughter, the general of the royal forces quartered himself at the Red Horse, and then doubtless there was enough and to spare of merry revelry within its walls. A little later the old house was soundly peppered by the Roundhead' bullets, and the whole town was overrun with the close-cropped, psalm-singing soldiers of the Com- monwealth. In 1742 Garrick and Mackhn lodged in the Red Horse, and hither again came Garrick in 1769, to direct the great Shakespeare Jubilee, which was then most dismally accomplished, but which is always remembered to the great actor's credit and honour. Betterton, no doubt, lodged here when he came to Stratford in quest of reminiscences of Shakespeare. The visit of Irving, supplemented with his delicious chronicle, has led to what might be called almost the consecration of the parlour in which he sat and the chamber in which he slept. They still keep the poker — now marked " Geoffrey Crayon's sceptre" — with which, as he sat there in long, silent, and ecstatic meditation, he so ruthlessly prodded the fire in the narrow, tiny grate. They keep also the chair in which he sat — a plain, straight-backed arm-chair, with a hair-cloth seat, much worn in these latter days by the incumbent devotions of the faithful, but duly marked, on a brass label, with his renowned and treasured name. Thus genius can sanctify even the humblest objects, \ The Home of Shakespeare. 1 5 1 " And shed a somethinc; of celestial li.;ht Round the familiar face of every day." To pass rapidly in review the little that is known of Shakespeare's life is, nevertheless, to be im- pressed not only by its incessant and amazing liter- ary productiveness, but by the quick succession of its salient incidents. The vitality must have been enormous that created in so short a time such a number and variety of works of the first class. The same "quick spirit" would naturally have kept in asitation all the elements of his dailv experience. Descended from an ancestor who had fought for the Red Rose on Bosworth Field, he was born to re- pute as well as competence, and during his early childhood he received instruction and training in a comfortable home. He escaped the plague, which was rasrintr in Stratford when he was an infant, and which took many victims. He went to school when seven years old, and left it when about four- teen. He then had to work for his living — his once opulent father having fallen into misfortune — and he became an apprentice to a butcher, or else a lawyer's clerk (there were seven lawyers in Strat- ford at that time), or else a school-teacher. Per- haps he was all three — and more. It is conjectured that he saw the players who from time to time acted in the Guildhall, under the auspices of the corporation of Stratford; that he attended the relig- ious entertainments which were customarily given in the neighbouring city of Coventry ; and that in 152 The Trip to England. ' particular he witnessed the elaborate and sumptuous pageants with which in 1575 the Earl of Leicester welcomed Queen Elizabeth to Kenilworth Castle. He married at eighteen ; and, leaving a wife and three children in Stratford, he went up to London at twenty-two. His entrance into tlieatrical life immediately followed — in what capacity it is impos- sible to judge. One dubious account says that he held horses for the public at the theatre door; another that he got employment as a prompter to the actors. It is certain that he had not been in the theatrical business long before he beiran to make himself felt. At twenty-eight he was known as a prosperous author. At twenty-nine he had acted with Burbage before Queen Elizabeth; and while Spenser had extolled him in the " Tears of the Muses," the envious Green had disparaged him in the " Groat's-worth of Wit." At thirty-three he had acquired wealth enough to purchase New Place, the principal residence in his native town, where now he placed his family and established his home, — himself remaining in London, but visit- ing Stratford at frequent intervals. At thirty-four he was heard of as the actor of Knowell in Ben Jonson's comedy, then new, of " Every Man in his Humour," and he received the glowing encomium of Meres in "Wit's Treasury." At thirty-eight he had written "Hamlet" and "As You Like It," and, moreover, he was now become the owner of more estate in Stratford, costing him ;^32o. At The Home of Shakespeare. 153 forty-one he made his larpjest purchase, buying for /440 the tithes of Stratford, Old Stratford, liishop- toii, and Wclconibe. In the mean time lie had smoothed the declining years of his fatiicr, and liad followed him with love and duty to the grave. Other domestic bereavements likewise befell him, and other worldly cares and duties were laid upon his hands, but neither grief nor business could check the fertility of his brain. Within the next ten years he wrote, among other great plays, " Othello," " Lear," " .Macbeth," and " Coriolanus." At about forty-eight he seems to have disposed of his shares in the two London theatres with which he had been connected, the Blackfriars and the Globe, and shortly afterward, his work as we pos- sess it being well-nigh completed, he retired finally to his Stratford home. That he was the comrade of all the bright spirits who glittered in "the spa- cious times " of Elizabeth, many of them have left their personal testimony. That he was the king of them all, is evidenced in his works. The Sonnets seem to disclose that there was a mysterious, almost a tragical, passage in his life, and that he was called to bear the secret burden of a great and perhaps a calamitous personal grief — one of those griefs, too, which, being germinated by sin, are end- less in the punishment they entail. Happily, how- ever, no antiquarian student of Shakespeare's time has yet succeeded in coming very near to the man. While he was in London he used to frequent the 154 The Trip to England. ' Falcon Tavern and the Mermaid, and he lived at one time in Bishopsgate street, and at another time in Clink street, in South wark. As an actor his name has been associated with his own characters of Adam, Friar Lawrence, and the Ghost of King Hamlet, and a contemporary reference declared him "excellent in the quality he professes." Many'of his manuscripts, it is probable, perished in the fire which consumed the Globe Theatre, in 1613. He passed his last days in his home at Stratford, and died there, somewhat suddenly, on his fifty-second birth-day. This event, it may be worth while to observe, occurred within thirty-three years of the execution of Charles the First, under the Puritan Commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell. The Puritan spirit, intolerant of the play-house and of all its works, must even then have been gaining formida- ble strength. His daughter Judith, aged thirty-two at the time of his death, survived him forty-six years, and the whisper of tradition says that she was a Puritan. If so, the strange and seemingly unaccountable disappearance of whatever play-house papers he may have left behind him at Stratford should not be obscure. The suggestion is likely to have been made before ; and also it is likely to have been supplemented with a reference to the great fire in London in 1666 — (which in consum- in"- St. Paul's Cathedral burned an immense quan- tity of books and manuscripts that had been brought from all the threatened parts of the city and The Home of Shakespeare. 155 heaped beneath its arches for safety) — as probably the final and effectual holocaust of almost every piece of print or writing that might have served to illuminate the history of Shakespeare. In his per- sonality, no less than in the fathomless resources of his genius, he baffles all scrutiny, and stands for- ever alone. " Others abide our question ; thou are free ; We ask, and ask ; thou smilest and art still — Out-topping knowledge." It is impossible to convey in words even an ade- quate suggestion of the prodigious and overwhelm- ing sense of peace that falls upon the soul of the pilgrim in Stratford church. All the cares and struggles and trials of mortal life, all its failures, and equally ail its achievements, seem there to pass utterly out of remembrance. It is not now an idle reflection that " the paths of glory lead but to the grave." No power of human thought ever rose higher or went further than the thought of Shake- speare. No human being, using the best weapons of intellectual achievement, ever accomplished so much. Yet here he lies — who was once so great ! And here also, gathered around him in death, lie his parents, his children, his descendants, and his friends. For him and for them the struggle has Ions since ended. Let no man fear to tread the dark pathway that Shakespeare has trodden before him. Let no man, standing at this grave, and see- 156 The Trip to England. inland feelinoftliat all the vast labours of that celes- tial senius end here at last in a handful of dust, fret and grieve any more over the puny and evanescent toils of to-day, so soon to be buried in oblivion ! In the simple performance of duty, and in the life of the affections, there may be permanence and solace. The rest is an " unsubstantial pageant." It breaks, it changes, it dies, it passes away, it is forgotten ; and though a great name be now and then for a little while remembered, what can the re- membrance of mankind signify to him who once wore it t Shakespeare, there is good reason to be- lieve, set precisely the right value alike upon re- nown in his own time and the homage of posterity. Though he went forth, as the stormy impulses of his nature drove him, into the great world of London, and there laid the firm hand of conquest upon the spoils of wealth and power, he came back at last to the peaceful home of his childhood ; he strove to garner up the comforts and everlasting treasures of love at his own hearth-stone; he sought an enduring monument in the hearts of friends and companions; and so he won for his stately sepulchre the garland not alone of glory, but of affection. Through the tall eastern window of the chancel of Holy Trinity Church the morning sunshine, broken into many- coloured light, streams in upon the grave of Shake- speare, and gilds his bust upon the wall above it. He lies close by the altar, and every circumstance of his place of burial is eloquent of his hold upon The Home of Shakespeare. 157 the affectionate esteem of his contemporaries, equally as a man, a Christian, and a famous poet. The line of graves beginning at the north wall of the chancel, and extending across to the south, seems devoted entirely to Shakespeare and his fam- ily, with but one exception. The pavement that covers them is of that bluish-gray slate or free- stone which in England is sometimes called black marble. Beneath it there are vaults which may have been constructed by the monks when this church was built, far back in the eleventh or twelfth century. In the first of these, under the north wall, rests Shakespeare's wife. The next is that of the poet himself, bearing the world-famed words of bles- sing and imprecation. Then comes the grave of Thomas Nashe, husband to Elizabeth Hall, the poet's granddaughter. Next is that of Dr. John Hall, husband to his daughter Susanna, and close beside him rests Susanna herself. The grave-stones are laid east and west, and all but one present in- scriptions. That one is under the south wall, and, possibly, covers the dust of Judith — j\lrs. Thomas Ouiney — the youngest daughter of Shakespeare, who, surviving her three children, and thus leaving no descendants, died in 1662. Upon the grave- stone of Susanna an inscription has been intruded commemorative of Richard Watts, who is not, how- ever, known to have had any relationship with either Shakespeare or his descendants. The remains of many other persons may perhaps be entombed in 158 The Trip to England. these vaults. Shakespeare's father, who died in 1661, and his mother, Mary Arden, who died in 1608, were buried somewhere in this church. His infant sisters Joan, Margaret, and Anne, and his brother Richard, who died, aged thirty-nine, in 161 3, may also have been laid to rest in this place. Of the death and burial of liis brother Gilbert there is rio record. His sister Joan, the second — Mrs. Hart — would naturally have been placed with her rela- tives. His brother Edmund, dying in 1607, aged twenty-seven, is under the pavement of St. Saviour's Church in Southwark. The boy Hamnet, dying be- fore his father had risen into much local eminence, rests, probably, in an undistinguished grave in the church-yard. The family of Shakespeare seems to have been short-lived, and it was soon extinguished. He himself died at fifty-two. Judith's children all perished young. Susanna bore but one child — Elizabeth — who, as already mentioned, became successively Mrs. Nashe and Lady Barnard, and she, dying in 1670, was buried at Abington. She left no children by either husband, and in her the race of Shakespeare became extinct. That of Anne Hathaway also has nearly disappeared, the last living descendant of the Hathaways being Mrs. Taylor, the present occupant of Anne's cottage at Shottery. Thus, one by one, from the pleasant gardened town of Stratford, they went to take up their long abode in that old church, which was ancient even in their infancy, and which, watching The Home of Shakespeare. 159 througli the centuries in its monastic solitude on the shore of Avon, has seen tlieir lands and houses devastated by flood and fire, the places that knew them changed by tiie tooth of time, and almost all the associations of their lives obliterated by the improving hand of destruction. One of the oldest and most interesting Shake- spearean documents in existence is the narrative, by a traveller named Dowdall, of his observations in Warwickshire, and of his visit on April 10, 1693, to Stratford church. He describes therein the bust and the tomb-stone of Shakespeare, and he adds these remarkable words: " The clerk that showed me this church is above eighty years old. He says that not one, for fear of the curse above said, dare touch his grave-stone, though his wife and daughter did earnestly desire to be laid in the same grave with him." Writers in modern days have been pleased to disparage that inscription, and to con- jecture that it was the work of a sexton, and not of the poet ; but no one denies that it has accomplished its purpose in preserving the sanctity of Shake- speare's rest. Its rugged strength, its simple pathos, its fitness, and its sincerity make it felt as unquestionably the utterance of Shakespeare him- self, when it is read upon the slab that covers him. There the musing traveller full well conceives how dearly the poet must have loved the beautiful scenes of his birth-place, and with what intense longing he must have desired to sleep undisturbed i6o The Trip to England. in the most sacred spot in their bosom. He doubt- less had some premonition of his approaching death. Three months before it came he drafted his will. A httle later he attended to the marriage of his younger daughter. Within less than a month of his death he executed the will, and thus set his affairs in perfect order. His handwriting in the three signatures to that paper conspicuously exhibits the uncertainty and lassitude of shattered nerves. He was probably quite worn out. Within the space, at the utmost, of twenty- five years, he had written his thirty-seven plays, his one hundred and fifty-four sonnets, and his two or more long poems ; had passed through much and painful toil and through many sorrows ; had made his fortune as au- thor, actor, and manager; and had superintended, to excellent advantage, his property in London and his large estates in Stratford and its neighbourhood. The proclamation of health with whicli the will begins was doubtless a formality of legal custom. The story that he died of drinking too hard at a merry meeting with Drayton and Ben Jonson is the merest hearsay and gossip. If in those last days of fatigue and presentiment he wrote the epitaph that has ever since marked his grave, it would naturally have taken the plainest fashion of speech. Such, at all events, is its character; and no pilgrim to the poet's shrine could wish to see it changed : — The Home of Shakespeare. 1 6 [ " Good frend for lesvs sake forbeare, To digg the dvst encloased hearc ; Blese be y« man y' spares thes stones And cvrst be he y' moves my bonis." It was once surmised that tlie poet's solicitucle lest his bones might be disturbed in death grew out of his intention to take with him into the grave a confession that the works which now "follow him'' were written by another hand. Persons have been found who actually believe that a man who was great enough to write " Hamlet " could be little enough to feel ashamed of it, and, accordingly, that Shakespeare was only hired to play at authorship as a screen for the actual author. It mi^ht not, perhaps, be strange that a desire for singularity, which is one of the worst literary fashions of this capricious age, should prompt to the rejection of the conclusive and overwhelming testimony to Shakespeare's genius which has been left by Shake- speare's contemporaries, and which shines out in all that is known of his life. It is stranjre that a doctrine should get itself asserted which is subver- sive of common reason, and contradictory to every known law of the human mind. This conjectural confession of poetic imposture, of course, has never been exhumed. There came a time in the present century when, as they were making repairs in the chancel pavement of the Holy Trinity (the entire chancel was renovated in 1834), a rift was acciden- tally made in the Shakespeare vault. Through this, II 1 62 The Trip to Eii gland. though not without misgiving, the sexton peeped in upon the poet's remains. He saw all that was there, and he saw nothing but a pile of dust. The antique font from which the infant Shake- speare must have received the sacred water of Chris- tian baptism is still preserved in this church. It was thrown aside and replaced by a new one about the middle of the seventeenth century. Many years afterward it was found in the charnel-house. When that was destroyed, it was cast into the church-yard. In later times the parish clerk used it as a trough to his pump. It passed then through the hands of several successive owners, till at last, in days that had learned to value the past and the associations connected with its illustrious names, it found its way back again to the sanctuary from which it had suffered such a rude expulsion. It is still a beautiful stone, though somewhat soiled and crumbled. On the north wall of the chancel, above his grave, and near to "the American window," is placed Shakespeare's monument. It is known to have been erected there within seven years after his death. It consists of a half-length effigy, placed beneath a fretted arch, with entablature and pedes- tal, between two Corinthian columns of black mar- ble, gilded at base and top. Above the entablature appear the armorial bearings of Shakespeare — a pointed spear on a bend sable, and a silver falcon on a tasselled helmet, supporting a spear. Over The Home of Shakespeare. 163 this heraldic emblem is a death's-head, and on each side of it sits a carven cherub, one holding a spade, the other an inverted torch. In front of the effigy is a cushion, upon which both hands rest, holding a scroll and a pen. Beneath is an inscription in Latin and English, supposed to have been furnished by the poet's son-in law, Dr. Hall. The bust was cut by Gerard Johnson, a native of Amsterdam, and by occupation a " tomb-maker.'' The material is a soft stone, and the work, when first set up, was painted in the colours of life. Its peculiarities indicate that it was copied from a mask of the features taken after death. Many persons believe that this mask has since been found, and busts of Shakespeare have tieen based upon it. both by W. R. O' Donovan and William Page. In September, 1746, John Ward, grandfather of Mrs. Siddons. having come to Strat- ford with a theatrical company, gave a performance of " Othello,'' in the Guildhall, and devoted its pro- ceeds to reparation of the Gerard Johnson effigy, then somewhat damaged by time. The original colours were then carefully restored and freshened. In 1793, under the direction of Malone, this bust, together with the image of John Combe — a recum- bent statue near the eastern wall of the chancel — was coated with white paint. From that plight it was extricated a few years ago by the assiduous skill of Simon Collins, who immersed it in a bath which took off the white paint and restored the col- ours. The eyes are painted of a light hazel, the hair 164 The Trip to England. and pointed beard of auburn, the face and hands of flesh-tint. The dress consists of a scarlet doublet with a rolling collar, and closely buttoned down the front, worn under a loose black gown without sleeves. The upper part of the cushion is green, the lower part crimson, and this object is ornamented with gilt tassels. The stone pen that used to be in the right hand of the bust was taken from it toward the end of the last century by a young Oxford student, and being dropped by him upon the pavement, was broken. A quill pen has been put in its place. This is the inscription be- neath the bust : — Ivdicio Pylivm, genio Socratem, arte Maronem, Terra tegit, popvlvs m^ret, Olympvs habet. Stay, passenger, why goest thov by so fast ? Read, if thov canst, whom enviovs Death hath plast Within this monvment : Shakspeare : with whonie Qvick Natvre dide ; whose name doth deck y' tombe Far more than cost ; sieth all y' he hath writt Leaves living art bvt page to serve his witt. Obiit Ano. Doi. 1616. ^tatis 53. Die. 23. Ap. The erection of the old castles, cathedrals, monas- teries, and churches of England must, of course, have been accomplished, little by little, in laborious exertion protracted through many years. Stratford church, probably more than seven centuries old, presents a mixture of architectural styles, in which Saxon simplicity and Norman grace are beautifully J The Home of Shakespeare. 165 mingled. Different parts of tlie structure were, doubtless, built at dilTerent times. It is fashioned in the customary crucial form, with a square tower, a si.x-sided spire, and a fretted battlement all around its roof. Its windows are Gothic. The approach to it is across an old church-yard thickly sown with graves, through a lovely green avenue of blossoming lime-trees, leading to a carven porch on its north side. This avenue of foliage is said to be the copy of one that existed there in Shakespeare's day. through which he must often have walked, and through which at last he was carried to his grave. Time itself has fallen asleep in this ancient place. The low sob of the organ only deepens the awful sense of its silence and its dreamless repose. Beeches, yews, and elms grow in the church-yard, and many a low tomb and many a leaning stone are there in the shadow, gray with moss and mouldering with age. Birds have built their nests in many crevices in the time-worn tower, round which at sunset you may see them circle, with chirp of greet- ing or with call of anxious discontent. Near by flows the peaceful river, reflecting the grey spire in its dark, silent, shining waters. In the long and lonesome meadows beyond it the primroses stand in their golden banks among the clover, and the frilled and fluted bell of the cowslip, hiding its single drop of blood in its bosom, closes its petals as the night comes down. Northward, at a little distance from the Church 1 66 The Trip to Ej} gland. of the Holy Trinity, stands, on the west bank of the Avon, the building which will henceforth be famous through the world as the Shakespeare Memorial. Its dedication, assigned for the 23d of April, 1880, has prompted this glance at the hallowed associations of Stratford. The idea of the Memorial was first suggested in 1864, incident- ally to the ceremonies which then commemorated the three-hundredth anniversary of the poet's birth. Ten years later the site for this noble structure was presented to the town by Charles E. Flower, one of its wealthy inhabitants. Contributions of money were then asked, and were liberally given. Ameri- cans as well as Englishmen gave larw sums. Two years ago, on the 23d of April, the first stone of the Memorial was laid. The structure comprises a theatre, a library, and a picture-gallery. In the theatre the plays of Shakespeare are from time to time to be represented, in a manner as nearly perfect as may be possible. In the library and picture-gallery are to be assembled all the books upon Shakespeare that ever have been published, and all the choice paintings that can be obtained to illustrate his life and his works. As the years pass this will naturally become the principal de- pository of Shakespearean relics. A dramatic college will grow up in association with the Shakespeare theatre. The spacious gardens which surround the Memorial will augment their loveli- ness in added expanse of foliage and in greater The Home of Shakespeare. 167 wealth of floral luxuriance. The mellow tinge of age will soften the bright tints of the red brick which mainly composes the building. On its cone- shaped turrets ivy will clamber and moss will nestle. When a few generations have passed, the old town of Stratford will have adopted this now youthful stranger into the race of her venerated antiquities. The same air of poetic mystery which rests now upon his cottage and his grave will diffuse itself around his Memorial ; and a remote poster- ity, looking back to the men and the ideas of to-day, will remember with grateful pride that English- speaking people of the nineteenth century, though they could confer no honour upon the great name of Shakespeare, yet honoured themselves in conse- crating this beautiful temple to his memory. University Press : John Wilson & Son, Cambridge. W5/ THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. 10m-13,'67(H6886s8)9482 ■I ^' .i^-Ai