Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 1 (of 2)

by William Howitt

'Called the world to worship on the banks
Of Avon, famed in song. Ah, pleasant proof
That piety has still in human hearts
Some place—a spark or two not yet extinct.
The mulberry-tree was hung with blooming wreaths,
The mulberry-tree stood center of the dance,
The mulberry-tree was hymn'd with dulcet airs,
And from his touchwood trunk the mulberry-tree
Supplied such relics as devotion holds
Still sacred, and preserves with pious care.
So 'twas an hallowed time. Decorum reign'd,
And mirth without offense. No few return'd
Doubtless much edified, and all refresh'd.'

Cowper's Task, b. vi.

"But it does not appear that Garrick and his fellow-worshipers troubled themselves at all about the descendants of the poet's sister; the object, in fact, seemed at the moment to be rather to worship Garrick than Shakspeare; how, then, could any ray of sympathy diverge from two 'demi-gods' to the humble relatives of one of them? And why should it? I hear honest utilitarians asking, why? What should lead the ragged descendants of poets and philosophers to forsake self-dependence, and look to the admirers of their ancestors for benefit? What a shocking thing, if they should, especially in a nation which ennobles whole lines forever, and grants immense estates in perpetuity for the exploit of some man who has won a battle that had better never have been fought! What! shall such men, and shall troops of lawyers, who have truckled to the government of the day, and become the tools of despotism in a country dreaming that it is free—shall men who have merely piled up heaps of coin, and purchased large tracts of earth, by plodding in the city dens of gain, or dodging on the Stock Exchange—shall such men be ennobled, and their line forever, and shall men who have left a legacy of immortal mind to their country leave also to their families an exclusive poverty and neglect? Will our very philosophical utilitarian tell us why this should be?

"It might, also, be whispered, that it would not be much more irrational to extend some of that enthusiasm and money, which are now wasted on empty rooms and spurious musty relics, to at least trying to benefit and raise in the scale of society beings who have the national honor to be relics and mementos of the person worshiped, as well as to old chairs, and whitewashed butchers' shops. Does it never occur to the votaries of Shakspeare, that these are the only sentient, conscious, and rational things connected with his memory which can feel a living sense of the honor conferred on him, and possess a grateful knowledge that the mighty poet of their house has not sung for them in vain, and that they only, in a world overshadowed with his glory, are not unsoothed by its visitings?"[3]

Seven years have gone over since this was written, and what has been the effect? The Shakspeare Club have gone down to Stratford, and feasted and guzzled in honor of Shakspeare, and the representatives of Shakspeare in the place have been left in their poverty. There seems to be some odd association of ideas in the minds of Englishmen on the subject of doing honor to genius. To reward warriors, and lawyers, and politicians, places, titles, and estates are given. To reward poets and philosophers, the property which they honestly, and with the toil of their whole lives, create, is taken from them, and that which should form an estate for their descendants to all posterity, and become a monument of fame to the nation, is conferred on booksellers. The copyright of authors, or, in other words, the right to the property which they made, was taken away in the reign of Queen Anne, "for the benefit of literature;" so says the act. Let the same principle, in God's name, be carried out into all other professions, and we shall soon come to an understanding on the subject. Take a lord's or a squire's land from him and his family forever, after a given number of years, for the benefit of aristocracy; take the farmer's plow and team, his harrows and his corn, for the benefit of agriculture; take the mill-owner's mills, with all their spinning-jennies, and their cotton, and their wool, and their silk, and their own new inventions, for the benefit of manufacturing; take the merchant's ships and their cargoes, the shopkeeper's shop and his stores, the lawyer's parchment and his fees, the physician's and surgeon's physic and fees, for the benefit of commerce, trade, law, and physic: and let the clergy suffer no injury of neglect in this respect; let their churches, and their glebes, and tithes, be taken for the benefit of religion; let them all go shares with the authors in this beautiful system of justice and encouragement, and then the whole posse will soon put their heads together, and give back to the author his rights, while they take care of their own.

But till this be done—so long as the children and descendants, and nearest successors of the author are robbed by the state, while the poet and philosopher crown their country with glory, and fill it with happiness, and their country in return brands their children with disgrace, and fills them with emptiness—while they go in rags, and the bookseller in broad-cloth—in leanness, and the bookseller, endowed by the state with the riches of their ancestors, in jollity and fat—so long let those who are anxious to do honor to the glorious names of our literature, honor them with some show of common sense and common feeling. Honor Shakspeare, indeed! Has he not honored himself sufficiently? What says John Milton, another glorious son of the Muse?

"What needs my Shakspeare for his honor'd bones,
The labor of an age in piled stones?
Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid
Under a star-ypointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame!
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hath built thyself a long-lived monument."

But if this honor be not needed, what needs there for our Shakspeare, the still weaker witness of his name, of guzzling and gormandizing? Is there any the remotest connection between the achievements of pure intellect and seven-gallon barrel stomachs of anniversary topers? Between the still labors of a divine imagination, and the uproarious riot of a public feed when half-seas over? Let mock turtle do honor to mock heroes; but what has Shakspeare, and the honor of Shakspeare, to do with the "hip! hips!" and the swilling of mere herds of literary swine? To become part and parcel of such a herd, were Dickens and Talfourd invited down to Stratford this very year. They wisely eschewed the honor.