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SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND
SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND
BY WILLIAM WINTER Crayon Drawing of the Author SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND BY WILLIAM WINTER Church Spire New Edition, Revised, with Illustrations New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1898 All rights reserved Copyright, 1892, BY MACMILLAN AND CO. ——— Illustrated Edition, COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY MACMILLAN AND CO. ——— First published elsewhere. Set up and electrotyped by Macmillan & Co., April, 1892. Reprinted November, 1892; January, 1893. Illustrated edition, revise
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PREFACE TO THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND
PREFACE TO THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND
——— The favour with which this book has been received, alike in Great Britain and America, is thought to warrant a reproduction of it with pictorial embellishment, and accordingly it is offered in the present form. I have revised the text for this reprint, and my friend Mr. George P. Brett, of the house of Messrs. Macmillan and Company,—at whose suggestion the pictorial edition was undertaken,—has supervised the choice of pictures for its adornment. The approval that the work has elicited is a s
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PREFACE
PREFACE
Beautiful and storied scenes that have soothed and elevated the mind naturally inspire a feeling of gratitude. Prompted by that feeling the present author has written this record of his rambles in England. It was his wish, in dwelling upon the rural loveliness and the literary and historical associations of that delightful realm, to afford sympathetic guidance and useful suggestion to other American travellers who, like himself, might be attracted to roam among the shrines of the mother land. Th
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
The coast-line recedes and disappears, and night comes down upon the ocean. Into what dangers will the great ship plunge? Through what mysterious waste of waters will she make her viewless path? The black waves roll up around her. The strong blast fills her sails and whistles through her creaking cordage. Overhead the stars shine dimly amid the driving clouds. Mist and gloom close in the dubious prospect, and a strange sadness settles upon the heart of the voyager—who has left his home behind, a
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
It is not strange that Englishmen should be—as certainly they are—passionate lovers of their country; for their country is, almost beyond parallel, peaceful, gentle, and beautiful. Even in vast London, where practical life asserts itself with such prodigious force, the stranger is impressed, in every direction, with a sentiment of repose and peace. This sentiment seems to proceed in part from the antiquity of the social system here established, and in part from the affectionate nature of the Eng
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
There is so much to be seen in London that the pilgrim scarcely knows where to choose and certainly is perplexed by what Dr. Johnson called "the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness." One spot to which I have many times been drawn, and which the mention of Dr. Johnson instantly calls to mind, is the stately and solemn place in Westminster Abbey where that great man's ashes are buried. Side by side, under the pavement of the Abbey, within a few feet of earth, sleep Johnson, Garrick, Sheridan,
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
All old cities get rich in association, as a matter of course and whether they will or no; but London, by reason of its great extent, as well as its great antiquity, is richer in association than any modern place on earth. The stranger scarcely takes a step without encountering a new object of interest. The walk along the Strand and Fleet Street, in particular, is continually on storied ground. Old Temple Bar still stands (July 1877), though "tottering to its fall," and marks the junction of the
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
If the beauty of England were only superficial it would produce only a superficial effect. It would cause a passing pleasure and would be forgotten. It certainly would not—as now in fact it does—inspire a deep, joyous, serene and grateful contentment, and linger in the mind, a gracious and beneficent remembrance. The conquering and lasting potency of it resides not alone in loveliness of expression but in loveliness of character. Having first greatly blessed the British islands with the natural
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
The American who, having been a careful and interested reader of English history, visits London for the first time, half expects to find the ancient city in a state of mild decay; and consequently he is a little startled at first, upon realising that the present is quite as vital as ever the past was, and that London antiquity is, in fact, swathed in the robes of everyday action and very much alive. When, for example, you enter Westminster Hall—"the great hall of William Rufus"—you are beneath o
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
All the way from London to Warwick it rained; not heavily, but with a gentle fall. The gray clouds hung low over the landscape and softly darkened it; so that meadows of scarlet and emerald, the shining foliage of elms, gray turret, nestled cottage and limpid river were as mysterious and evanescent as pictures seen in dreams. At Warwick the rain had fallen and ceased, and the walk from the station to the inn was on a road—or on a footpath by the roadside—still hard and damp with the water it had
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
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
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
Those persons upon whom the spirit of the past has power—and it has not power upon every mind!—are aware of the mysterious charm that invests certain familiar spots and objects, in all old cities. London, to observers of this class, is a never-ending delight. Modern cities, for the most part, reveal a definite and rather a commonplace design. Their main avenues are parallel. Their shorter streets bisect their main avenues. They are diversified with rectangular squares. Their configuration, in br
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
The Byron Memorial Loan Collection, that was displayed at the Albert Memorial Hall, for a short time in the summer of 1877, did not attract much attention: yet it was a vastly impressive show of relics. The catalogue names seventy-four objects, together with thirty-nine designs for a monument to Byron. The design that has been chosen presents a seated figure, of the young sailor-boy type. The right hand supports the chin; the left, resting on the left knee, holds an open book and a pencil. The d
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
It is strange that the life of the past, in its unfamiliar remains and fading traces, should so far surpass the life of the present, in impressive force and influence. Human characteristics, although manifested under widely different conditions, were the same in old times that they are now. It is not in them, surely, that we are to seek for the mysterious charm that hallows ancient objects and the historical antiquities of the world. There is many a venerable, weather-stained church in London, a
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CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XII.
It is the everlasting glory of Stratford-upon-Avon that it was the birthplace of Shakespeare. Situated in the heart of Warwickshire, which has been called "the garden of England," it nestles cosily in an atmosphere of tranquil loveliness and is surrounded with everything that soft and gentle rural scenery can provide to soothe the mind and to nurture contentment. It stands upon a plain, almost in the centre of the island, through which, between the low green hills that roll away on either side,
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
About the middle of the night the great ship comes to a pause, off the coast of Ireland, and, looking forth across the black waves and through the rifts in the rising mist, we see the low and lonesome verge of that land of trouble and misery. A beautiful white light flashes now and then from the shore, and at intervals the mournful booming of a solemn bell floats over the sea. Soon is heard the rolling click of oars, and then two or three dusky boats glide past the ship, and hoarse voices hail a
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
Sight-seeing, merely for its own sake, is not to be commended. Hundreds of persons roam through the storied places of England, carrying nothing away but the bare sense of travel. It is not the spectacle that benefits, but the meaning of the spectacle. In the great temples of religion, in those wonderful cathedrals that are the glory of the old world, we ought to feel, not merely the physical beauty but the perfect, illimitable faith, the passionate, incessant devotion, which alone made them poss
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
The mind that can reverence historic associations needs no explanation of the charm that such associations possess. There are streets and houses in London which, for pilgrims of this class, are haunted with memories and hallowed with an imperishable light—that not even the dreary commonness of everyday life can quench or dim. Almost every great author in English literature has here left behind him some personal trace, some relic that brings us at once into his living presence. In the time of Sha
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
To muse over the dust of those about whom we have read so much—the great actors, thinkers, and writers, the warriors and statesmen for whom the play is ended and the lights are put out—is to come very near to them, and to realise more deeply than ever before their close relationship with our own humanity; and we ought to be wiser and better for this experience. It is good, also, to seek out the favourite haunts of our heroes, and call them up as they were in their lives. One of the happiest acci
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
It is a cool afternoon in July, and the shadows are falling eastward on fields of waving grain and lawns of emerald velvet. Overhead a few light clouds are drifting, and the green boughs of the great elms are gently stirred by a breeze from the west. Across one of the more distant fields a flock of sable rooks—some of them fluttering and cawing—wings its slow and melancholy flight. There is the sound of the whetting of a scythe, and, near by, the twittering of many birds upon a cottage roof. On
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
Among the deeply meditative, melodious, and eloquent poems of Wordsworth there is one—-about the burial of Ossian—that glances at the question of fitness in a place of sepulchre. Not always, for the illustrious dead, has the final couch of rest been rightly chosen. We think with resignation, and with a kind of pride, of Keats and Shelley in the little Protestant burial-ground at Rome. Every heart is touched at the spectacle of Garrick and Johnson sleeping side by side in Westminster Abbey. It wa
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
In England, as elsewhere, every historic spot is occupied; and of course it sometimes happens, at such a spot, that its association is marred and its sentiment almost destroyed by the presence of the persons and the interests of to-day. The visitor to such places must carry with him not only knowledge and sensibility but imagination and patience. He will not find the way strewn with roses nor the atmosphere of poetry ready-made for his enjoyment. That atmosphere, indeed, for the most part—especi
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
One of the most impressive spots on earth, and one that especially teaches—with silent, pathetic eloquence and solemn admonition—the great lesson of contrast, the incessant flow of the ages and the inevitable decay and oblivion of the past, is the ancient city of Canterbury. Years and not merely days of residence there are essential to the adequate and right comprehension of that wonderful place. Yet even an hour passed among its shrines will teach you, as no printed word has ever taught, the me
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
Night, in Stratford-upon-Avon—a summer night, with large, solemn stars, a cool and fragrant breeze, and the stillness of perfect rest. From this high and grassy bank I look forth across the darkened meadows and the smooth and shining river, and see the little town where it lies asleep. Hardly a light is anywhere visible. A few great elms, near by, are nodding and rustling in the wind, and once or twice a drowsy bird-note floats up from the neighbouring thicket that skirts the vacant, lonely road
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
Midnight has just sounded from the tower of St. Martin. It is a peaceful night, faintly lit with stars, and in the region round about Trafalgar Square a dream-like stillness broods over the darkened city, now slowly hushing itself to its brief and troubled rest. This is the centre of the heart of modern civilisation, the middle of the greatest city in the world—the vast, seething alembic of a grand future, the stately monument of a deathless past. Here, alone, in my quiet room of this old Englis
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