Shakespeare's England

by William Winter

They show you, in that cottage, an old settle, by the fireside, whereon the lovers may have sat together: it formerly stood outside the door: and in the rude little chamber next the roof an antique, carved bedstead, that Anne Hathaway once owned. This, it is thought, continued to be Anne's home for several years of her married life—her husband being absent in London, and sometimes coming down to visit her, at Shottery. "He was wont," says John Aubrey, the antiquary, writing in 1680, "to go to his native country once a year." The last surviving descendant of the Hathaway family—Mrs. Baker—lives in the house now, and welcomes with homely hospitality the wanderers, from all lands, who seek—in a sympathy and reverence most honourable to human nature—the shrine of Shakespeare's love. There is one such wanderer who will never forget the farewell clasp of that kind woman's hand, and who has never parted with her gift of woodbine and roses from the porch of Anne Hathaway's cottage.

In England it is living, more than writing about it, that is esteemed by the best persons. They prize good writing, but they prize noble living far more. This is an ingrained principle, and not an artificial habit, and this principle doubtless was as potent in Shakespeare's age as it is to-day. Nothing could be more natural than that this great writer should think less of his works than of the establishment of his home. He would desire, having won a fortune, to dwell in his native place, to enjoy the companionship and esteem of his neighbours, to participate in their pleasures, to help them in their troubles, to aid in the improvement and embellishment of the town, to deepen his hold upon the affections of all around him, and to feel that, at last, honoured and lamented, his ashes would be laid in the village church where he had worshipped—

"Among familiar names to rest,
And in the places of his youth."

It was in 1597, twelve years after he went to London, that the poet began to buy property in Stratford, and it was about eight years after his first purchase that he finally settled there, at New Place. [J. O. Halliwell-Phillips says that it was in 1609: There is a record alleging that as late as that year Shakespeare still retained a residence in Clink Street, Southwark.] This mansion was altered by Sir Hugh Clopton, who owned it toward the middle of the eighteenth century, and it was destroyed by the Rev. Francis Gastrell, in 1759. The grounds, which have been reclaimed,—chiefly through the zeal of J. O. Halliwell-Phillips,—are laid out according to the model they are supposed to have presented when Shakespeare owned them. His lawn, his orchard, and his garden are indicated; and a scion of his mulberry is growing on the spot where that famous tree once flourished. You can see a part of the foundation of the old house. It was made of brick and timber, it seems to have had gables, and no doubt it was fashioned with the beautiful curves and broken lines of the Tudor architecture. They show, upon the lawn, a stone of considerable size, that surmounted its door. The site—still a central and commodious one—is on the corner of Chapel Street and Chapel Lane; and on the opposite corner stands now, as it has stood for eight hundred years, the chapel of the Holy Cross, with square, dark tower, fretted parapet, pointed casements, and Norman porch—one of the most romantic and picturesque little churches in England. It was easy, when musing on that storied spot, to fancy Shakespeare, in the gloaming of a summer day, strolling on the lawn, beneath his elms, and listening to the soft and solemn music of the chapel organ; or to think of him as stepping forth from his study, in the late and lonesome hours of the night, and pausing to "count the clock," or note the "exhalations whizzing in the air."

The funeral train of Shakespeare, on that dark day when it moved from New Place to Stratford Church, had but a little way to go. The river, surely, must have seemed to hush its murmurs, the trees to droop their branches, the sunshine to grow dim—as that sad procession passed! His grave is under the gray pavement of the chancel, near the altar, and his wife and one of his daughters are buried beside him. The pilgrim who reads upon the gravestone those rugged lines of grievous entreaty and awful imprecation that guard the poet's rest feels no doubt that he is listening to his living voice—for he has now seen the enchanting beauty of the place, and he has now felt what passionate affection it can inspire. Feeling and not manner would naturally have prompted that abrupt, agonised supplication and threat. Nor does such a pilgrim doubt, when gazing on the painted bust, above the grave,—made by Gerard Jonson, stonecutter,—that he beholds the authentic face of Shakespeare. It is not the heavy face of the portraits that represent it. There is a rapt, transfigured quality in it, that those copies do not convey. It is thoughtful, austere, and yet benign. Shakespeare was a hazel-eyed man, with auburn hair, and the colours that he wore were scarlet and black. Being painted, and also being set up at a considerable height on the church wall, the bust does not disclose what is sufficiently perceptible in a cast from it—that it is the copy of a mask from the dead face. One of the cheeks is a little swollen and the tongue, slightly protruded, is caught between the lips. The idle theory that the poet was not a gentleman of consideration in his own time and place falls utterly and for ever from the mind when you stand at his grave. No man could have a more honourable or sacred place of sepulture; and while it illustrates the profound esteem of the community in which he lived it testifies to the religious character by which that esteem was confirmed. "I commend my soul into the hands of God, my Creator, hoping, and assuredly believing, through the only merits of Jesus Christ, my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting." So said Shakespeare, in his last Will, bowing in humble reverence the mightiest mind—as vast and limitless in the power to comprehend as to express!—that ever wore the garments of mortality.†

† It ought perhaps to be remarked that this prelude to Shakespeare's Will may not have been intended by him as a profession of faith, but may have been signed simply as a legal formula. His works denote a mind of high and broad spiritual convictions, untrammelled by creed or doctrine. His inclination, probably, was toward the Roman Catholic church, because of the poetry that is in it: but such a man as Shakespeare would have viewed all religious beliefs in a kindly spirit, and would have made no emphatic professions. The Will was executed on March 25, 1616. It covers three sheets of paper; it is not in Shakespeare's hand-writing, but each sheet bears his signature. It is in the British Museum.

Once again there is a sound of organ music, very low and soft, in Stratford Church, and the dim light, broken by the richly stained windows, streams across the dusky chancel, filling the still air with opal haze and flooding those gray gravestones with its mellow radiance. Not a word is spoken; but, at intervals, the rustle of the leaves is audible in a sighing wind. What visions are these, that suddenly fill the region! What royal faces of monarchs, proud with power, or pallid with anguish! What sweet, imperial women, gleeful with happy youth and love, or wide-eyed and rigid in tearless woe! What warriors, with serpent diadems, defiant of death and hell! The mournful eyes of Hamlet; the wild countenance of Lear; Ariel with his harp, and Prospero with his wand! Here is no death! All these, and more, are immortal shapes; and he that made them so, although his mortal part be but a handful of dust in yonder crypt, is a glorious angel beyond the stars.