The verse catches something of the music of the throstle and the lark, of the woosel "with golden bill" and the nightingale with her tender strains, as he tells of these Warwickshire birds, and of the region with "flowery bosom brave" where they breed and warble; but in Shakespeare the same birds sing with a finer music—more like that to which we may still listen in the fields and woodlands along the lazy-winding Avon.
WARWICK CASTLE AND SAINT MARY'S CHURCH.
Warwickshire is the heart of England, and the country within ten miles or so of the town of Warwick may be called the heart of this heart. On one side of this circle are Stratford and Shottery and Wilmcote—the home of Shakespeare's mother—and on the other are Kenilworth and Coventry.
In Warwick itself is the famous castle of its Earls—"that fairest monument," as Scott calls it, "of ancient and chivalrous splendor which yet remains uninjured by time." The earlier description written by the veracious Dugdale almost two hundred and fifty years ago might be applied to it to-day. It is still "not only a place of great strength, but extraordinary delight; with most pleasant gardens, walls, and thickets such as this part of England can hardly parallel; so that now it is the most princely seat that is within the midland parts of this realm."
WARWICK CASTLE
The castle was old in Shakespeare's day. Cæsar's Tower, so called, though not built, as tradition alleged, by the mighty Julius, dated back to an unknown period; and Guy's Tower, named in honor of the redoubted Guy of Warwick, the hero of many legendary exploits, was built in 1394. No doubt the general appearance of the buildings was more ancient in the sixteenth century than it is to-day, for they had been allowed to become somewhat dilapidated; and it was not until the reign of James I. that they were repaired and embellished, at enormous expense, and made the stately fortress and mansion that Dugdale describes.
But the castle would be no less beautiful for situation, though it were fallen to ruin like the neighboring Kenilworth. The rock on which it stands, washed at its base by the Avon, would still be there, the park would still stretch its woods and glades along the river, and all the natural attractions of the noble estate would remain.
We cannot doubt that the youthful Shakespeare was familiar with the locality. Warwick and Kenilworth were probably the only baronial castles he had seen before he went to London; and, whatever others he may have seen later in life, these must have continued to be his ideal castles as in his boyhood.
It is not likely that he was ever in Scotland, and when he described the castle of Macbeth the picture in his mind's eye was doubtless Warwick or Kenilworth, and more likely the former than the latter; for