Shakespeare's England

by William Winter

CHAPTER VIII

FIRST VIEW OF STRATFORD-ON-AVON

Once again, as it did on that delicious summer afternoon which is for ever memorable in my life, the golden glory of the westering sun burns on the gray spire of Stratford church, and on the ancient graveyard 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, pointed, 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 hiding in little crevices of its walls. On the vacant meadows across the river stretch away the long and level shadows of the pompous elms. Here and there, upon the river's brink, are pairs of what 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—that 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 darkness, at the door of the cottage in which Shakespeare 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 this 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 vision. I stand there a long time, and I know that I am to remember these sights for ever, 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 the prospect, the illuminated 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 enclosed garden, where, under screens of wire, 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 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, in a general way, what he will there behold. Copious and frequent description of its Shakespearean associations has made the place familiar to all the world. Yet these Shakespearean 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 stricken with age or decay. The 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. The kind ladies, Miss Maria and Miss Caroline Chataway, who take care of it [1877], 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 room of Shakespeare's birth—which had begun to droop, and had been skilfully secured with little iron laths. It is in this room that the numerous autographs are scrawled over the ceiling and walls. One side of the chimneypiece here is called "The Actor's Pillar," so richly is it adorned with the names of actors; Edmund Kean's signature being among them, and still 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, and think unutterable things. There is, certainly, no word that can even remotely suggest the feeling with which you are then overwhelmed. You can sit also in the room below, in the seat, in the corner of the wide fireplace, 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 relics—more or less authentic; one of which is a schoolboy's desk that was obtained from the old grammar-school in Church Street in which Shakespeare was once a pupil. At the back of the cottage, now isolated from contiguous structures, is a pleasant garden, and at one side is a cosy, 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 that garden, at parting, all the flowers, prettily mounted upon a sheet of 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 with which he 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 that the poet must often have taken, in the days of his courtship of Anne Hathaway. The path to this hamlet passes through pastures and gardens, necked everywhere with those brilliant scarlet poppies that are so radiant and so bewitching in the English landscape. To have grown up amid such surroundings, and, above all, to have experienced amid them the passion of love, must have been, for Shakespeare, the intuitive acquirement of ample and specific knowledge of their manifold beauties. It would be hard to find a sweeter rustic retreat than Anne Hathaway's cottage is, even now. Tall trees embower it; and over its porches, and all along its picturesque, irregular front, and on its thatched roof, the woodbine 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: it formerly stood outside the door: and in the rude little chamber next the roof an antique, carved bedstead, that Anne Hathaway once owned. This, it is thought, continued to be Anne's home for several years of her married life—her husband being absent in London, and sometimes coming down to visit her, at Shottery. "He was wont," says John Aubrey, the antiquary, writing in 1680, "to go to his native country once a year." The last surviving descendant of the Hathaway family—Mrs. Baker—lives in the house now, and welcomes with homely hospitality 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 farewell clasp of that kind woman's hand, and who has never parted with her 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, 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 a 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 around him, and to feel that, at last, honoured and lamented, his ashes would be laid in the village church where he had worshipped—

"Among familiar names to rest,
And in the places of his youth."

It was in 1597, twelve 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. [J. O. Halliwell-Phillips says that it was in 1609: There is a record alleging that as late as that year Shakespeare still retained a residence in Clink Street, Southwark.] This mansion was altered by Sir Hugh Clopton, who owned it toward the middle of the eighteenth century, and it was destroyed by the Rev. Francis Gastrell, in 1759. The grounds, which have been reclaimed,—chiefly through the zeal of J. O. Halliwell-Phillips,—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 indicated; and a scion of his mulberry is growing on the spot where that famous tree once flourished. You can see a part of the foundation of the old house. It was made of brick and timber, it seems to have had gables, and no doubt it was fashioned with the beautiful curves and broken lines of the Tudor architecture. They show, upon the lawn, a stone of considerable size, that surmounted its door. The site—still a central and commodious one—is on the corner of Chapel Street and Chapel Lane; and on the opposite corner stands now, as it has stood for eight hundred years, the chapel of the Holy Cross, with square, dark tower, fretted parapet, pointed casements, and Norman porch—one of the most romantic and picturesque little churches in England. It was easy, when musing on that storied spot, to fancy Shakespeare, in the gloaming 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 whizzing 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 gray pavement of the chancel, near the altar, and his wife and one of his daughters are buried beside him. The pilgrim who reads upon the gravestone those rugged lines of grievous entreaty and awful imprecation that 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. Feeling and not manner would naturally have prompted that abrupt, agonised supplication and threat. Nor does such a pilgrim doubt, when gazing on the painted bust, above the grave,—made by Gerard Jonson, stonecutter,—that he beholds the authentic face of Shakespeare. It is not the heavy face of the portraits that represent it. There is a rapt, transfigured quality in it, that those copies 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 the copy of a mask from the dead face. One of the cheeks is a little swollen and the tongue, slightly protruded, is caught between the lips. The idle theory that the poet was not a gentleman of consideration in his own time and place falls utterly and for ever from the mind when you stand at his grave. No man could have a more honourable or sacred place of sepulture; and while it illustrates the profound esteem of the community in which he lived it testifies to the 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 Jesus Christ, my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting." So said Shakespeare, in his last Will, bowing in humble reverence the mightiest mind—as vast and limitless in the power to comprehend as to express!—that ever wore the garments of mortality.†

† It ought perhaps to be remarked that this prelude to Shakespeare's Will may not have been intended by him as a profession of faith, but may have been signed simply as a legal formula. His works denote a mind of high and broad spiritual convictions, untrammelled by creed or doctrine. His inclination, probably, was toward the Roman Catholic church, because of the poetry that is in it: but such a man as Shakespeare would have viewed all religious beliefs in a kindly spirit, and would have made no emphatic professions. The Will was executed on March 25, 1616. It covers three sheets of paper; it is not in Shakespeare's hand-writing, but each sheet bears his signature. It is in the British Museum.

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 gray gravestones 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 serpent 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, although his mortal part be but a handful of dust in yonder crypt, is a glorious angel beyond the stars.