Images of vernal brightness floated before the poet's mind, and feelings of youth, and hope, and joy were blended with the thoughts of her he loved: images such as Shakespeare could alone have conceived. And she who was the object of that love, as she listened to the sportive gaiety of his words, during this ramble, and as he called forth the elves and fairies of his brilliant imagination, she felt as if wandering in a magic grove and breathing the sweet odours of an elfin bower: and then, again, he peopled the glades with bright forms, fresh and lusty as in the first ages of the world. And when he himself parted from his fair companion on reaching the Hall, and he returned again through the plantations of Clopton, he sought out each spot which Charlotte had seemed most interested in, and dwelt upon each look, and tone, and word, she had uttered. 'Twas indeed a midsummer day's dream, a situation in which he was carried from the reality of the present, to the realms of fancy, a dream that haunted him in after years. The thoughts and imaginings which pervaded the mind of the youthful Shakespeare, during these moments, were what perhaps he himself would have failed in describing.
Few of us can convey in words the heavenly images which float in celestial ether, as it were, through the brain. We feel in the feeble attempt the unsufficing medium of language. Words are but the clayed embodiment of the swift thought. The thought itself is the essence of the soul—poetry unspeakable. We cannot word that which is divine. Language has no power to render again the shadowy dream—the musing reverie.
Whilst under the influence of feelings such as these, the society and the haunts of men were uncongenial to the poetic youth, and he usually sought out the wildest scenes of his native country. Over park, over pale, he bounded, and the keepers, who caught sight of him occasionally in their forest walks, failed in arresting him in his rambles.
CHAPTER XV.
CHARLECOTE.
In a former chapter we have seen the sharp and sententious Lawyer Grasp, in the act of girding up his loins and preparing to set forth upon a somewhat important mission: a matter, indeed, not likely to be effected without some little danger to all concerned in its execution. The shrewd lawyer, however, to say the least of him, was not altogether devoid of courage, and, albeit his valour was modified by a certain degree of discretion, he loved to be first when anything was to be gained by leading the van.
In the present instance he thought he spied a good chance of promotion, both as regarding his instrumentality in apprehending or gaining notice of a dangerous plot, but he also hoped to make a profitable intimacy with the proud owner of Charlecote: and, as he spurred his palfry onwards, visions of suits, and testaments, and title deeds, and strong boxes, pertaining to the domain he was entering, floated through his brain in rapid succession.
Plots and complots, conspiracies, and secret meetings to kill a queen, were, indeed, in his eye, as nothing, unless pertaining to the advancement of one small person who wrote himself attorney in the town of Stratford: and who hoped, one day, to be the richest and greatest man there. The world around was nothing: the covering sky was nothing; England was nothing, except as pertaining to Master Pouncet Grasp; nay, so long as the small circle of air around his own proper person was wholesome and fit for the purposes of respiration, it would have been all the same to him if the atmosphere in general were infected with the plague. He was, indeed, without question, the most selfish little caitiff that ever drove a quill upon parchment.
Charlecote, the residence of Sir Thomas Lucy, was one of those vast, irregularly built, but picturesque looking mansions, which gives impression, at first sight, of the architectural style of the Tudors. Redolent of red brick picked out with white, full of large bay windows, beetling balconies, twisted chimneys, gable ends, and gate-houses. A magnificent structure looking like a brick-built palace, situate in the midst of the most luxuriant foliage; which partially concealed its multitudinous offices, its falconries, its dog-kennels, and its thick-walled gardens.