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