FIRST VIEW OF STRATFORD-ON-AVON
Once again, as it did on that delicious summer afternoon which is for ever memorable in my life, the golden glory of the westering sun burns on the gray spire of Stratford church, and on the ancient graveyard below,—wherein the mossy stones lean this way and that, in sweet and orderly confusion,—and on the peaceful avenue of limes, and on the burnished water of silver Avon. The tall, pointed, many-coloured windows of the church glint in the evening light. A cool and fragrant wind is stirring the branches and the grass. The small birds, calling to their mates or sporting in the wanton pleasure of their airy life, are circling over the church roof or hiding in little crevices of its walls. On the vacant meadows across the river stretch away the long and level shadows of the pompous elms. Here and there, upon the river's brink, are pairs of what seem lovers, strolling by the reedy marge, or sitting upon the low tombs, in the Sabbath quiet. As the sun sinks and the dusk deepens, two figures of infirm old women, clad in black, pass with slow and feeble steps through the avenue of limes, and vanish around an angle of the church—that now stands all in shadow: and no sound is heard but the faint rustling of the leaves.
Once again, as on that sacred night, the streets of Stratford are deserted and silent under the star-lit sky, and I am standing, in the dim darkness, at the door of the cottage in which Shakespeare was born. It is empty, dark, and still; and in all the neighbourhood there is no stir nor sign of life; but the quaint casements and gables of this haunted house, its antique porch, and the great timbers that cross its front are luminous as with a light of their own, so that I see them with perfect vision. I stand there a long time, and I know that I am to remember these sights for ever, as I see them now. After a while, with lingering reluctance, I turn away from this marvellous spot, and, presently passing through a little, winding lane, I walk in the High Street of the town, and mark, at the end of the prospect, the illuminated clock in the tower of the chapel of the Holy Cross. A few chance-directed steps bring me to what was New Place once, where Shakespeare died; and there again I pause, and long remain in meditation, gazing into the enclosed garden, where, under screens of wire, are certain strange fragments of lime and stone. These—which I do not then know—are the remains of the foundation of Shakespeare's house. The night wanes; and still I walk in Stratford streets; and by and by I am standing on the bridge that spans the Avon, and looking down at the thick-clustering stars reflected in its black and silent stream. At last, under the roof of the Red Horse, I sink into a troubled slumber, from which soon a strain of celestial music—strong, sweet, jubilant, and splendid—awakens me in an instant; and I start up in my bed—to find that all around me is still as death; and then, drowsily, far-off, the bell strikes three, in its weird and lonesome tower.
Every pilgrim to Stratford knows, in a general way, what he will there behold. Copious and frequent description of its Shakespearean associations has made the place familiar to all the world. Yet these Shakespearean associations keep a perennial freshness, and are equally a surprise to the sight and a wonder to the soul. Though three centuries old they are not stricken with age or decay. The house in Henley Street, in which, according to accepted tradition, Shakespeare was born, has been from time to time repaired; and so it has been kept sound, without having been materially changed from what it was in Shakespeare's youth. The kind ladies, Miss Maria and Miss Caroline Chataway, who take care of it [1877], and with so much pride and courtesy show it to the visitor, called my attention to a bit of the ceiling of the upper chamber—the room of Shakespeare's birth—which had begun to droop, and had been skilfully secured with little iron laths. It is in this room that the numerous autographs are scrawled over the ceiling and walls. One side of the chimneypiece here is called "The Actor's Pillar," so richly is it adorned with the names of actors; Edmund Kean's signature being among them, and still legible. On one of the window-panes, cut with a diamond, is the name of "W. Scott"; and all the panes are scratched with signatures—making you think of Douglas Jerrold's remark on bad Shakespearean commentators, that they resemble persons who write on glass with diamonds, and obscure the light with a multitude of scratches. The floor of this room, uncarpeted and almost snow-white with much washing, seems still as hard as iron; yet its boards have been hollowed by wear, and the heads of the old nails that fasten it down gleam like polished silver.
You can sit in an antique chair, in a corner of this room, and think unutterable things. There is, certainly, no word that can even remotely suggest the feeling with which you are then overwhelmed. You can sit also in the room below, in the seat, in the corner of the wide fireplace, that Shakespeare himself must often have occupied. They keep but a few sticks of furniture in any part of the cottage. One room is devoted to Shakespearean relics—more or less authentic; one of which is a schoolboy's desk that was obtained from the old grammar-school in Church Street in which Shakespeare was once a pupil. At the back of the cottage, now isolated from contiguous structures, is a pleasant garden, and at one side is a cosy, luxurious little cabin—the home of order and of pious decorum—for the ladies who are custodians of the Shakespeare House. If you are a favoured visitor, you may receive from that garden, at parting, all the flowers, prettily mounted upon a sheet of paper, that poor Ophelia names, in the scene of her madness. "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance: and there is pansies, that's for thoughts: there's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue for you: there's a daisy:—I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died."
The minute knowledge that Shakespeare had of plants and flowers, and the loving appreciation with which he describes pastoral scenery, are explained to the rambler in Stratford, by all that he sees and hears. There is a walk across the fields to Shottery that the poet must often have taken, in the days of his courtship of Anne Hathaway. The path to this hamlet passes through pastures and gardens, necked everywhere with those brilliant scarlet poppies that are so radiant and so bewitching in the English landscape. To have grown up amid such surroundings, and, above all, to have experienced amid them the passion of love, must have been, for Shakespeare, the intuitive acquirement of ample and specific knowledge of their manifold beauties. It would be hard to find a sweeter rustic retreat than Anne Hathaway's cottage is, even now. Tall trees embower it; and over its porches, and all along its picturesque, irregular front, and on its thatched roof, the woodbine and the ivy climb, and there are wild roses and the maiden's blush. For the young poet's wooing no place could be fitter than this. He would always remember it with tender-joy.