"The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements."
New Place, Shakespeare's home at the time of his death and the house in which he died, stood on the north-east corner of Chapel Street and Chapel Lane. Nothing now remains of it but a portion of its foundations—long buried in the earth, but found and exhumed in comparatively recent days. Its gardens have been redeemed, through the zealous and devoted exertions of J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps and have been restored to what is thought to have been almost their condition when Shakespeare owned them. The crumbling fragments of the foundation are covered with screens of wood and wire. A mulberry-tree, a scion of the famous mulberry that Shakespeare is known to have planted, is growing on the lawn. There is no authentic picture in existence that shows New Place as it was when Shakespeare left it, but there is a sketch of it as it appeared in 1740. The house was made of brick and timber, and was built by Sir Hugh Clopton nearly a century before it became by purchase the property of the poet. Shakespeare bought it in 1597, and in it he passed, intermittently, a considerable part of the last nineteen years of his life. It had borne the name of New Place before it came into his possession. The Clopton family parted with it in 1563, and it was subsequently owned by families of Bott and Underhill. At Shakespeare's death it was inherited by his eldest daughter, Susanna, wife of Dr. John Hall. In 1643, Mrs. Hall, then seven years a widow, being still its owner and occupant, Henrietta Maria, queen to Charles the First, who had come to Stratford with a part of the royal army, resided for three days at New Place, which, therefore, must even then have been the most considerable private residence in the town. (The queen arrived at Stratford on July 11 and on July 13 she went to Kineton.) Mrs. Hall, dying in 1649, aged sixty-six, left it to her only child, Elizabeth, then Mrs. Thomas Nashe, who afterward became Lady Barnard, wife to Sir John Barnard, of Abingdon, and in whom the direct line of Shakespeare ended. After her death the estate was purchased by Sir Edward Walker, in 1675, who ultimately left it to his daughter's husband, Sir John Clopton (1638-1719), and so it once more passed into the hands of the family of its founder. A second Sir Hugh Clopton (1671-1751) owned it at the middle of the eighteenth century, and under his direction it was repaired, decorated, and furnished with a new front. That proved the beginning of the end of this old structure, as a relic of Shakespeare; for this owner, dying in 1751, bequeathed it to his son-in-law, Henry Talbot, who in 1753 sold it to the most universally execrated iconoclast of modern times, the Rev. Francis Gastrell, vicar of Frodsham, in Cheshire, by whom it was destroyed. Mr. Gastrell was a man of fortune, and he certainly was one of insensibility. He knew little of Shakespeare; but he knew that the frequent incursion, into his garden, of strangers who came to sit beneath "Shakespeare's mulberry" was a troublesome annoyance. He struck, therefore, at the root of the vexation and cut down the tree. That was in 1756. The wood was purchased by Thomas Sharp, a watchmaker of Stratford, who subsequently made the solemn declaration that he carried it to his home and converted it into toys and kindred memorial relics. The villagers of Stratford, meantime, incensed at the barbarity of Mr. Gastrell, took their revenge by breaking his windows. In this and in other ways the clergyman was probably made to realise his local unpopularity. It had been his custom to reside during a part of each year in Lichfield, leaving some of his servants in charge of New Place. The overseers of Stratford, having lawful authority to levy a tax, for the maintenance of the poor, on every house in the town valued at more than forty shillings a year, did not neglect to make a vigorous use of their privilege in the case of Mr. Gastrell. The result of their exactions in the sacred cause of charity was significant. In 1759 Mr. Gastrell declared that the house should never be taxed again, pulled down the building, sold the materials of which it had been composed, and left Stratford forever. He repaired to Lichfield and there died. In the house adjacent to the site of what was once Shakespeare's home has been established a museum of Shakespearean relics. Among them is a stone mullion, found on the site, which may have belonged to a window of the original mansion. This estate, bought from different owners and restored to its Shakespearean condition, became on April 17, 1876, the property of the corporation of Stratford. The tract of land is not large. The visitor may traverse the whole of it in a few minutes, although if he obey his inclination he will linger there for hours. The enclosure is an irregular rectangle, about two hundred feet long. The lawn is perfect. The mulberry is extant and tenacious, and wears its honours in contented vigour. Other trees give grateful shade to the grounds, and the voluptuous red roses, growing all around in rich profusion, load the air with fragrance. Eastward, at a little distance, flows the Avon. Not far away rises the graceful spire of the Holy Trinity. A few rooks, hovering in the air and wisely bent on some facetious mischief, send down through the silver haze of the summer morning their sagacious yet melancholy caw. The windows of the gray chapel across the street twinkle, and keep their solemn secret. On this spot was first waved the mystic wand of Prospero. Here Ariel sang of dead men's bones turned into pearl and coral in the deep caverns of the sea. Here arose into everlasting life Hermione, "as tender as infancy and grace." Here were created Miranda and Perdita, twins of heaven's own radiant goodness,—
"Daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
Or Cytherea's breath."
To endeavour to touch upon the larger and more august aspect of Shakespeare's life—when, as his wonderful sonnets betray, his great heart had felt the devastating blast of cruel passions and the deepest knowledge of the good and evil of the universe had been borne in upon his soul—would be impious presumption. Happily to the stroller in Stratford every association connected with him is gentle and tender. His image, as it rises there, is of smiling boyhood or sedate and benignant maturity; always either joyous or serene, never passionate, or turbulent, or dark. The pilgrim thinks of him as a happy child at his father's fireside; as a wondering school-boy in the quiet, venerable close of the old guild chapel, where still the only sound that breaks the silence is the chirp of birds or the creaking of the church vane; as a handsome, dauntless youth, sporting by his beloved river or roaming through field and forest many miles around; as the bold, adventurous spirit, bent on frolic and mischief, and not averse to danger, leading, perhaps, the wild lads of his village in their poaching depredations on the chace of Charlecote; as the lover, strolling through the green lanes of Shottery, hand in hand with the darling of his first love, while round them the honeysuckle breathed out its fragrant heart upon the winds of night, and overhead the moonlight, streaming through rifts of elm and poplar, fell on their pathway in showers of shimmering silver; and, last of all, as the illustrious poet, rooted and secure in his massive and shining fame, loved by many, and venerated and mourned by all, borne slowly through Stratford churchyard, while the golden bells were tolled in sorrow and the mourning lime-trees dropped their blossoms on his bier, to the place of his eternal rest. Through all the scenes incidental to this experience the worshipper of Shakespeare's genius may follow him every step of the way.
The old foot-path across the fields to Shottery remains accessible. Wild-flowers are blooming along its margin. The gardens and meadows through which it winds are sprinkled with the gorgeous scarlet of the poppy. The hamlet of Shottery is less than a mile from Stratford, stepping toward the sunset; and there, nestled beneath the elms, and almost embowered in vines and roses, stands the cottage in which Anne Hathaway was wooed and won. This is even more antiquated in appearance than the birthplace of Shakespeare, and more obviously a relic of the distant past. It is built of wood and plaster, ribbed with massive timbers, and covered with a thatch roof. It fronts southward, presenting its eastern end to the road. Under its eaves, peeping through embrasures cut in the thatch, are four tiny casements, round which the ivy twines and the roses wave softly in the wind of June. The western end of the structure is higher than the eastern, and the old building, originally divided into two tenements, is now divided into three. In front of it is a straggling garden. There is a comfortable air of wildness, yet not of neglect, in its appointments and surroundings. The place is still the abode of labour and lowliness. Entering its parlour you see a stone floor, a wide fireplace, a broad, hospitable hearth, with cosy chimney-corners, and near this an old wooden settle, much decayed but still serviceable, on which Shakespeare may often have sat, with Anne at his side. The plastered walls of this room here and there reveal portions of an oak wainscot. The ceiling is low. This evidently was the farm-house of a substantial yeoman, in the days of Henry the Eighth. The Hathaways had lived in Shottery for forty years prior to Shakespeare's marriage. The poet, then undistinguished, had just turned eighteen, while his bride was nearly twenty-six, and it has been foolishly said that she acted ill in wedding her boy-lover. They were married in November, 1582, and their first child, Susanna, came in the following May. Anne Hathaway must have been a wonderfully fascinating woman, or Shakespeare would not so have loved her; and she must have loved him dearly—as what woman, indeed, could help it?—or she would not thus have yielded to his passion. There is direct testimony to the beauty of his person; and in the light afforded by his writings it requires no extraordinary penetration to conjecture that his brilliant mind, sparkling humour, tender fancy, and impetuous spirit must have made him, in his youth, a paragon of enchanters. It is not known where they lived during the first years after their marriage. Perhaps in this cottage at Shottery. Perhaps with Hamnet and Judith Sadler, for whom their twins, born in 1585, were named Hamnet and Judith. Her father's house assuredly would have been chosen for Anne's refuge, when presently (in 1585-86), Shakespeare was obliged to leave his wife and children, and go away to London to seek his fortune. He did not buy New Place till 1597, but it is known that in the meantime he came to his native town once every year. It was in Stratford that his son Hamnet died, in 1596. Anne and her children probably had never left the town. They show a bedstead and other bits of furniture, together with certain homespun sheets of everlasting linen, that are kept as heirlooms in the garret of the Shottery cottage. Here is the room that may often have welcomed the poet when he came home from his labours in the great city. It is a homely and humble place, but the sight of it makes the heart thrill with a strange and incommunicable awe. You cannot wish to speak when you are standing there. You are scarcely conscious of the low rustling of the leaves outside, the far-off sleepy murmur of the brook, or the faint fragrance of woodbine and maiden's-blush that is wafted in at the open casement and that swathes in nature's incense a memory sweeter than itself.
Associations may be established by fable as well as by fact. There is but little reason to believe the legendary tale, first recorded by Rowe, that Shakespeare, having robbed the deer-park of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote (there was not a park at Charlecote then, but there was one at Fullbrooke), was so severely persecuted by that magistrate that he was compelled to quit Stratford and shelter himself in London. Yet the story has twisted itself into all the lives of Shakespeare, and whether received or rejected has clung to the house of Charlecote. That noble mansion—a genuine specimen, despite a few modern alterations, of the architecture of Queen Elizabeth's time—is found on the west bank of the Avon, about three miles north-east from Stratford. It is a long, rambling, three-storied palace—as finely quaint as old St. James's in London, and not altogether unlike that edifice, in general character—with octagon turrets, gables, balustrades, Tudor casements, and great stacks of chimneys, so closed in by elms of giant growth that you can scarce distinguish it, through the foliage, till you are close upon it.
