Then rise unchanged, and be an angel still."
The present village of Butler's Marston,—a little group of cottages clustered upon the margin of a tiny stream and almost hidden in a wooded dell,—is comparatively new; for it has arisen since the time of the Puritan civil war. The old village was swept away by the Roundheads, when Essex and Hampden came down to fight King Charles at Edgehill, in 1642. That fierce strife raged all along the country-side, and you may still perceive there, in the inequalities of the land, the sites on which houses formerly stood. It is a sweet and peaceful place now, smiling with flowers and musical with the rustle of the leaves of giant elms. The clergyman farms his own glebe, and he has expended more than a thousand pounds in the renovation of his manse. The church "living" is not worth much more than a hundred pounds a year, and when he leaves the dwelling, if he should ever leave it, he loses the value of all the improvements that he has made. This he mentioned with a contented smile. The place, in fact, is a little paradise, and as I looked across the green and golden fields, and saw the herds at rest and the wheat waving in sun and shadow, and thought of the simple life of the handful of people congregated here, the words of Gray came murmuring into my mind:
"Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way."
The Grammar School, Stratford.
"Unregarded age, in corners thrown." Was that fine line suggested to Shakespeare by the spectacle of the almshouses of the Guild, which stood in his time, just as they stand now, close to the spot where he lived and died? New Place, Shakespeare's home, stood on the northeast corner of Chapel street and Chapel lane. The Guild chapel stands on the southeast corner of those streets, immediately opposite to what was once the poet's home. Southward from the chapel, and adjoining to it, extends the long, low, sombre building that contains the Free Grammar School, founded by Thomas Jolyffe in 1482, and refounded in 1553 by King Edward the Sixth. In that grammar school, there is reason to believe, Shakespeare was educated; at first by Walter Roche, afterward by Simon Hunt,—who doubtless birched the little boys then, even as the head-master does now; it being a cardinal principle[146] with the British educator that learning, like other goods, should be delivered in the rear. In those almshouses doubtless there were many forlorn inmates, even as there are at present,—and Shakespeare must often have seen them. On visiting one of the bedesmen I found him moving slowly, with that mild, aimless, inert manner and that bleak aspect peculiar to such remnants of vanishing life, among the vegetable vines and the profuse, rambling flowers in the sunny garden behind the house; and presently I went into his humble room and sat by his fireside. The scene was the perfect fulfilment of Shakespeare's line. A stone floor. A low ceiling crossed with dusky beams. Walls that had been whitewashed long ago. A small iron kettle, with water in it, simmering over a few smouldering coals. A rough bed, in a corner. A little table, on which were three conch-shells ranged in a row. An old arm-chair, on which were a few coarse wads of horsehair, as a cushion. A bench, whereon lay a torn, tattered, soiled copy of the prayer book of the church of England, beginning at the epiphany. This sumptuous place was lighted by a lattice of small leaded panes. And upon one of the walls hung a framed placard of worsted work, bearing the inscription, "Blessed be the Lord for His Unspeakable Gift." The aged, infirm pensioner doddered about the room, and when he was asked what had become of his wife his dull eyes filled with tears and he said simply that she was dead. "So runs the world away." The summons surely cannot be unwelcome that calls such an old and lonely pilgrim as that to his rest in yonder churchyard and to his lost wife who is waiting for him.
