CHAPTER IX
HISTORIC NOOKS OF WARWICKSHIRE
Stratford-upon-Avon, August 20, 1889.—The traveller who hurries through Warwickshire,—and American travellers mostly do hurry through it,—appreciates but little the things that he sees, and does not understand how much he loses. The customary course is to lodge at the Red Horse, which is one of the most comfortable houses in England, and thus to enjoy the associations that are connected with the visits of Washington Irving. His parlour, his bedroom (number 15), his arm-chair, his poker, and the sexton's clock, mentioned by him in the Sketch Book, are all to be seen, if your lightning-express conductor will give you time enough to see them. From the Red Horse you are taken in a carriage, when you ought to be allowed to proceed on foot, and the usual round includes the Shakespeare Birthplace; the Grammar School and Guild chapel; the remains of New Place; Trinity church and the Shakespeare graves in its chancel; Anne Hathaway's cottage at Shottery; and, perhaps, the Shakespeare Memorial library and theatre. These are impressive sights to the lover of Shakespeare; but when you have seen all these you have only begun to see the riches of Stratford-upon-Avon. It is only by living in the town, by making yourself familiar with it in all its moods, by viewing it in storm as well as in sunshine, by roaming through its quaint, deserted streets in the lonely hours of the night, by sailing up and down the beautiful Avon, by driving and walking in the green lanes that twine about it for many miles in every direction, by becoming, in fact, a part of its actual being, that you obtain a genuine knowledge of that delightful place. Familiarity, in this case, does not breed contempt. The worst you will ever learn of Stratford is that gossip thrives in it; that its intellect is, with due exception, narrow and sleepy; and that it is heavily ridden by the ecclesiastical establishment. You will never find anything that can detract from the impression of beauty and repose made upon your mind by the sweet retirement of its situation, by the majesty of its venerable monuments, and by the opulent, diversified splendours of its natural and historical environment. On the contrary, the more you know of those charms the more you will love the town, and the greater will be the benefit of high thought and spiritual exaltation that you will derive from your knowledge of it; and hence it is important that the American traveller should be counselled for his own sake to live a little while in Stratford instead of treating it as an incident of his journey.
The Red Horse Hotel.
The occasion of a garden party at the rectory of a clerical friend at Butler's Marston gave opportunity to see one of the many picturesque and happy homes with which this region abounds. The lawns there are ample and sumptuous. The dwelling and the church, which are close to each other, are bowered in great trees. From the terraces a lovely view may be obtained of the richly coloured and finely cultivated fields, stretching away toward Edgehill, which lies southeast from Stratford-upon-Avon about sixteen miles away, and marks the beginning of the Vale of the Red Horse. In the churchyard are the gray, lichen-covered remains of one of those ancient crosses from the steps of which the monks preached, in the early days of the church. Relics of this class are deeply interesting for what they suggest of the people and the life of earlier times. A fine specimen of the ancient cross may be seen at Henley-in-Arden, a few miles northwest of Stratford, where it stands, in mouldering majesty in the centre of the village,—strangely inharmonious with the petty shops and numerous inns of which that long and straggling but characteristic and attractive settlement is composed. The tower of the church at Butler's Marston, a gray, grim structure, "four-square to opposition," was built in the eleventh century,—a period of much ecclesiastical activity in the British islands. Within it I found a noble pulpit, of carved oak, dark with age, of the time of James the First. There are many commemorative stones in the church, on one of which appears this lovely couplet, addressed to the shade of a young girl:
"Sleep, gentle soul, and wait thy Maker's will!