10. CHAPTER X.
VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON—SHAKSPERE.
One of the first visits in the neighborhood was naturally
to Stratford-on-Avon. It lay some ten miles
south of us, and I drove down, with the distinguished
literary friend I have before mentioned, in the carriage
of our kind host, securing, by the presence of
his servants and equipage, a degree of respect and attention
which would not have been accorded to us in
our simple character of travellers. The prim mistress
of the “Red Horse,” in her close black bonnet and
widow's weeds, received us at the door with a deeper
courtesy than usual, and a smile of less wintry formality;
and proposing to dine at the inn, and “suck the
brain” of the hostess more at our leisure, we started
immediately for the house of the wool-comber—the
birthplace of Shakspere.
Stratford should have been forbidden ground to
builders, masons, shopkeepers, and generally to all
people of thrift and whitewash. It is now rather a
smart town, with gay calicoes, shawls of the last pattern,
hardware, and millinery, exhibited in all their
splendor down the widened and newer streets; and
though here and there remains a glorious old gloomy
and inconvenient abode, which looks as if Shakspere
might have taken shelter under its eaves, the gayer
features of the town have the best of it, and flaunt their
gaudy and unrespected newness in the very windows
of that immortal birthplace. I stepped into a shop to
inquire the way to it.
“Shiksper's 'ouse, sir? Yes, sir!” said a dapper
clerk, with his hair astonished into the most impossible
directions by force of brushing; “keep to the
right, sir! Shiksper lived in the wite 'ouse, sir—the
'ouse, you see beyond, with the windy swung up, sir.”
A low, old-fashioned house, with a window suspended
on a hinge, newly whitewashed and scrubbed,
stood a little up the street. A sign over the door informed
us in an inflated paragraph, that the immortal
Will Shakspere was born under this roof, and that an
old woman within would show it to us for a consideration.
It had been used until very lately, I had been
told, for a butcher's shop.
A “garrulous old lady” met us at the bottom of the
narrow stair leading to the second floor, and began-not
to say anything of Shakspere—but to show us the
names of Byron, Moore, Rogers, &c., written among
thousands of others on the wall! She had worn out
Shakspere! She had told that story till she was tired
of it! or (what, perhaps, is more probable) most
people who go there fall to reading the names of the
visiters so industriously, that she has grown to think
some of Shakspere's pilgrims greater than Shakspere.
“Was this old oaken chest here in the days of
Shakspere, madam?” I asked.
“Yes, sir, and here's the name of Byron—here with
a capital B. Here's a curiosity, sir.”
“And this small wooden box?”
“Made of Shakspere's mulberry, sir. I had sich a
time about that box, sir. Two young gemmen were
here the other day—just run up, while the coach was
changing horses, to see the house. As soon as they
were gone I misses the box. Off scuds my son to the
`Red Horse,' and there they sat on the top looking as
innocent as may be. `Stop the coach,' says my son
`What do you want?' says the driver. `My mother's
mulberry-box!—Shakspere's mulberry-box!—One of
them 'ere young men's got it in his pocket.' And
true enough, sir, one on 'em had the imperence to
take it out of his pocket, and flings it into-my son's
face; and you know the coach never stops a minnit for
nothing, sir, or he'd a' smarted for it.”
Spirit of Shakspere! dost thou not sometimes walk
alone in this humble chamber! Must one's inmost
soul be fretted and frighted always from its devotion
by an abominable old woman? Why should not such
lucrative occupations be given in charity to the deaf
and dumb? The pointing of a finger were enough in
such spots of earth!
I sat down in despair to look over the book of visiters,
trusting that she would tire of my inattention.
As it was of no use to point out names to those who
would not look, however, she commenced a long story
of an American who had lately taken the whim to
sleep in Shakspere's birth chamber. She had shaken
him down a hed on the floor, and he had passed the
night there. It seemed to bother her to comprehend
why two thirds of her visiters should be Americans—
a circumstance that was abundantly proved by the
books.
It was only when we were fairly in the street that I
began to realize that I had seen one of the most glorious
altars of memory—that deathless Will Shakspere,
the mortal, who was, perhaps (not to speak profanely),
next to his Maker, in the divine faculty of creation
first saw the light through the low lattice on which
we turned back to look.
The single window of the room in which Scott died
at Abbotsford, and this in the birth-chamber of Shakspere,
have seemed to me almost marked with the
touch of the fire of those great souls—for I think we
have an instinct which tells us on the spot where
mighty spirits have come or gone, that they came and
went with the light of heaven.
We walked down the street to see the house where
Shakspere lived on his return to Stratford. It stands
at the corner of a lane, not far from the church where
he was buried, and is a newish un-Shaksperian looking
place—no doubt, if it be indeed the same house, most
profanely and considerably altered. The present proprietor
or occupant of the house or site took upon
himself some time since the odium of cutting down
the famous mulberry-tree planted by the poet's hand
in the garden.
I forgot to mention in the beginning of these notes
that two or three miles before coming to Stratford we
passed through Shottery, where Anne Hathaway lived.
A nephew of the excellent baronet whose guests we
were occupies the house. I looked up and down the
green lanes about it, and glanced my eye round upon
the hills over which the sun has continued to set and
the moon to ride in her love-inspiring beauty ever
since. There were doubtless outlines in the landscape
which had been followed by the eye of Shakspere
when coming, a trembling lover, to Shottrey—doubtless,
teints in the sky, crops on the fields, smoke-wreaths
from the old homesteads on the high hillsides,
which are little altered now. How daringly the
imagination plucks back the past in such places!
How boldly we ask of fancy and probability the thousand
questions we would put, if we might, to the magic
mirror of Agrippa? Did that great mortal love timidly,
like ourselves? Was the passionate outpouring
of his heart simple, and suited to the humble condition
of Anne Hathaway, or was it the first fiery coinage of
Romeo and Othello? Did she know the immortal
honor and light poured upon woman by the love of
genius? Did she know how this common and oftenest
terrestrial passion becomes fused in the poet's bosom
with celestial fire, and, in its wondrous elevation
and purity, ascends lambently and musically to the
very stars? Did she coy it with him? Was she a
woman to him, as commoner mortals find woman—capricious,
tender, cruel, intoxicating, cold—everything
by changes impossible to calculate or foresee? Did
he walk home to Stratford, sometimes, despairing, in
perfect sick-heartedness, of her affection, and was he
recalled by a message or a lover's instinct to find her
weeping and passionately repentant?
How natural it is by such questions and speculations
to betray our innate desire to bring the lofty
spirits of our common mould to our own inward level—
to seek analogies between our affections, passions, appetites,
and theirs—to wish they might have been no more
exalted, no more fervent, no more worthy of the adorable
love of woman than ourselves! The same temper
that prompts the depreciation, the envy, the hatred,
exercised toward the poet in his lifetime, mingles, not
inconsiderably, in the researches so industriously prosecuted
after his death into his youth and history. To
be admired in this world, and much more to be beloved
for higher qualities than his fellow-men, insures to
genius not only to be persecuted in life, but to be
ferreted out with all his frailties and imperfections
from the grave.
The church in which Shakspere is buried stands
near the banks of the Avon, and is a most picturesque
and proper place of repose for his ashes. An avenue
of small trees and vines, ingeniously overlaced, extends
from the street to the principal door, and the
interior is broken up into that confused and accidental
medley of tombs, pews, cross-lights, and pillars, for
which the old churches of England are remarkable.
The tomb and effigy of the great poet lie in an inner
chapel, and are as described in every traveller's book.
I will not take up room with the repetition.
It gives one an odd feeling to see the tomb of his
wife and daughter beside him. One does not realize
before, that Shakspere had wife, children, kinsmen,
like other men—that there were those who had a right
to lie in the same tomb; to whom he owed the charities
of life; whom he may have benefited or offended;
who may have influenced materially his destiny, or
he theirs; who were the inheritors of his household
goods, his wardrobe, his books—people who looked
an him—on Shakspere—as a landholder, a renter of a
pew, a townsman; a relative, in short, who had claims
upon them, not for the eternal homage due to celestial
inspiration, but for the charity of shelter and bread
had he been poor, for kindness and ministry had he
been sick, for burial and the tears of natural affection
when he died. It is painful and embarrassing to the
mind to go to Stratford—to reconcile the immortality
and the incomprehensible power of genius like Shakspere's,
with the space, tenement, and circumstance
of a man! The poet should be like the sea-bird, seen
only on the wing—his birth, his slumber, and his
death, mysteries alike.
I had stipulated with the hostess that my baggage
should be put into the chamber occupied by Washington
Irving. I was shown into it to dress for dinner
—a small neat room, a perfect specimen, in short, of
an English bedroom, with snow-white curtains, a looking-glass
the size of the face, a well-polished grate
and poker, a well-fitted carpet, and as much light as
heaven permits to the climate.
Our dinner for two was served in a neat parlor on
the same floor—an English inn dinner—simple, neat,
and comfortable, in the sense of that word unknown in
other countries. There was just fire enough in the
grate, just enough for two in the different dishes, a
servant who was just enough in the room, and just
civil enough—in short, it was, like everything else in
that country of adaptation and fitness, just what was
ordered and wanted, and no more.
The evening turned out stormy, and the rain pattered
merrily against the windows. The shutters were
closed, the fire blazed up with new brightness, the
well-fitted wax lights were set on the table; and when
the dishes were removed, we replaced the wine with a
tea-tray, and sent for the hostess to give us her company
and a little gossip over our cups.
Nothing could be more nicely understood and defined
than the manner of English hostesses generally
in such situations, and of Mrs. Gardiner particularly
in this. Respectful without servility, perfectly sure
of the propriety of her own manner and mode of expression,
yet preserving in every look and word the
proper distinction between herself and her guests, she
insured from them that kindness and ease of communication
which would make a long evening of social
conversation pass, not only without embarrassment on
either side, but with mutual pleasure and gratification.
“I have brought up, mem,” she said, producing a
well-polished poker from under her black apron, before
she took the chair set for her at the table—“I
have brought up a relic for you to see, that no money
would buy from me.”
She turned it over in my hand, and I read on one
of the flat sides at the bottom—“GEOFFREY CRAYON'S
SCEPTRE.”
“Do you remember Mr. Irving,” asked my friend,
“or have you supposed, since reading his sketch of
Stratford-on-Avon; that the gentleman in number
three might be the person?”
The hostess drew up her thin figure, and the expression
of a person about to compliment herself stole
into the corners of her mouth.
“Why, you see, mem, I am very much in the habit
of observing my guests, and I think I may say I knows
a superior gentleman when I sees him. If you remember,
mem” (and she took down from the mantlepiece
a much-worn copy of the Sketch-Book), “Geoffrey
Crayon tells the circumstance of my stepping in
when it was getting late, and asking if he had rung.
I knows it by that, and then the gentleman I mean
was an American, and I think, mem, besides” (and she
hesitated a little, as if she was about to advance an
original and rather venturesome opinion)—“I think
I can see that gentleman's likeness all through this
book.”
A truer remark or a more just criticism was perhaps
never made on the Sketch-Book. We smiled,
and Mrs. Gardiner proceeded:—
“I was in and out of the coffee-room the night he
arrived, mem, and I sees directly by his modest ways
and timid look that he was a gentleman, and not fit
company for the other travellers. They were all young
men, sir, and business travellers, and you know, mem,
ignorance takes the advantage of modest merit, and after
their dinner they were very noisy and rude. So, I
says to Sarah, the chambermaid, says I, `That nice
gentleman can't get near the fire, and you go and light
a fire in number three, and he shall sit alone, and it
shan't cost him nothing, for I like the look on him.'
Well, mem, he seemed pleased to be alone, and after
his tea, he puts his legs up over the grate, and there
he sits with the poker in his hand till ten o'clock.
The other travellers went to bed, and at last the house
was as still as midnight, all but a poke in the grate
now and then in number three, and every time I heard
it, I jumped up and lit a bed-candle, for I was getting
very sleepy, and I hoped he was getting up to ring for
a light. Well, mem, I nodded and nodded, and still
no ring at the bell. At last I says to Sarah, says I,
`Go into number three, and upset something, for I am
sure that gentleman has fallen asleep.'—`La, ma'am,'
says Sarah, `I don't dare.'—`Well, then,' sayd I, `I'll
go.' So I opens the door, and I says, `If you please,
sir, did you ring?'—little thinking that question would
ever be written down in such a beautiful book, mem.
He sat with his feet on the fender poking the fire, and
a smile on his face, as if some pleasant thought was
in his mind. `No, ma'am,' says he, `I did not.' I
shuts the door, and sits down again, for I hadn't the
heart to tell him that it was late, for he was a gentleman
not to speak rudely to, mem. Well, it was past
twelve o'clock, when the bell did ring. `There,' says
I to Sarah, `thank Heaven he has done thinking, and
we can go to bed.' So he walked up stairs with his
light, and the next morning he was up early and off
to the Shakspere house, and he brings me home a box
of the mulberry-tree, and asks me if I thought it was
genuine, and said it was for his mother in America.
And I loved him still more for that, and I'm sure I
prayed she might live to see him return.”
“I believe she did, Mrs. Gardiner; but how soon
after did you set aside the poker?”
“Why, sir, you see there's a Mr. Vincent that
comes here sometimes, and he says to me one day—
`So, Mrs. Gardiner, you're finely immortalized. Read
that.' So the minuit I read it, I remembered who it
was, and all about it, and I runs and gets the number
three poker, and locks it up safe and sound, and by-and-by
I sends it to Brummagem, and has his name
engraved on it, and here you see it, sir—and I wouldn't
take no money for it.”
I had never the honor to meet or know Mr. Irving,
and I evidently lost ground with the hostess of the
“Red Horse” for that misfortune. I delighted her,
however, with the account which I had seen in a late
newspaper, of his having shot a buffalo in the prairies
of the west; and she soon courtesied herself out, and
left me to the delightful society of the distinguished
lady who had accompanied me. Among all my many
loiterings in many lands, I remember none more intellectually
pure and gratifying, than this at Stratford-on-Avon.
My sleep, in the little bed consecrated by
the slumbers of the immortal Geoffrey, was sweet and
right; and I write myself his debtor for a large share
of the pleasure which genius like his lavishes on the
world.
