By WILLIAM WINTER

Poet and Critic

THE MENTOR · DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL · JUNE 1, 1916

The Shakespeare[1] Country, Warwickshire, is situated nearly in the center of England, and the birthplace of Shakespeare, Stratford-upon-Avon, is situated in the southern part of Warwickshire. A pleasant way in which to enter the Shakespeare Country is to travel by rail from London to Warwick, and then drive from Warwick to Stratford. There are two roads for the drive, one twelve miles long, the other eight. Both are agreeable; but the longer is the better, because more can be seen by the way. The traveler is wise who lodges for a few days at Warwick, in order to visit Warwick Castle, St. Mary’s Church, the ancient Gates, and the hospital for twelve aged men founded in 1571 by Queen Elizabeth’s favorite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (the scene of Hawthorne’s singular posthumous romance, “Dr. Grimshawe’s Secret”), and incidentally to make excursions northward to Kenilworth and Coventry.

All those places, in themselves interesting, are associated with the Shakespeare Story, and a view of them gradually imparts to the observer’s mind a sympathetic comprehension of the environment in which Shakespeare was born and reared. The face of the country has, of course, been changed since his time, because little villages, fine villas, fertile farms, spacious parks, and blooming meadows now exist where once there was a woodland called the Forest of Arden (the indubitable forest, memories of which colored Shakespeare’s fancy when he wrote “As You Like It”), extending for many miles northward and westward from a point near Stratford and along the river Avon. Some things survive, however, which can be seen much as the poet saw them more than 300 years ago.

KENILWORTH AND WARWICK

When Shakespeare saw Kenilworth Castle he did not, indeed, see it as it now is, a picturesque mass of ruins,—the wreck made by Cromwell’s soldiers about 1643-45,—but as a stately structure, at once a fortress and a palace. Warwick Castle, on the contrary, was the same imposing structure to him that it is to the observer of today. In the modern part of that castle now the visitor is shown a sumptuous collection of paintings, including Van Dyck’s famous equestrian portrait of King Charles I, and such suggestive relics as the helmet and the death-mask of Cromwell; but those things impress the mind much less than does the building itself. That Shakespeare entered the Castle is not known; but that he saw it cannot be doubted, for CÆsar’s Tower—one of the older parts of it—which dominates the region around Warwick now has been grandly conspicuous there for more than 400 years, and in the poet’s time it must have been familiar to all inhabitants of Warwickshire. Kenilworth, Coventry, and Warwick figure in some of his historical plays, and his particular knowledge of all the surroundings of Stratford, and, indeed, of the whole of central England, through which the Wars of the Roses raged, is manifested in those dramas. He had ample opportunity of acquiring that knowledge.

The first twenty-one or twenty-two years of his life were passed by him in his native town. The next twenty-seven years he passed in London, visiting Stratford once a year. In his closing years, from about 1613 to his death in 1616, he dwelt in Stratford, in his house called New Place, bought by him in 1597, where he died. The traveler who visits the Shakespeare Country, viewing it exclusively with reference to its associations with the poet, should bear in mind these divisions of time. The larger part of Shakespeare’s work was done in London. It is mostly as a youth, though a little as a veteran, that personally he is connected with Stratford.

BLACKLOW HILL AND GUY’S CLIFF

In the course of the drive from Warwick to Stratford (either way) the traveler passes Ganerslie Heath and Blacklow Hill, places said to be haunted. On Blacklow Hill the corrupt Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall, unworthy favorite of that weak king, Edward II, was beheaded, June 20, 1312, by order of Guy, tenth Earl of Warwick, whom he had opposed and maligned, calling him “the Black Dog of Arden,” and some of the peasantry of the neighborhood entertain to this day an old superstitious notion that dismal bells have been heard to toll from that hill at midnight. The scene of Gaveston’s decapitation is marked by a monument. Another place of interest to be seen in the course of the drive is Guy’s Cliff, a secluded residence, beside the Avon, traditionally associated with an ancient, fabled Guy, Earl of Warwick, who, after performing prodigies of valor, retired to that place and lived and died a hermit. Camden, the antiquary, Shakespeare’s contemporary, whose “Britannia” (1586) he probably knew, thus happily describes it:

THE BEAUTY OF SHAKESPEARE’S COUNTRY

Those quaint words convey a just impression of the beauty of the Shakespeare Country. Its physical aspects are charming; its inhabitants and its products are characteristic; its historic associations are diversified and impressive. It is entirely worth seeing for its own sake, and it richly rewards the visitor who explores it in a sympathetic spirit and a leisurely way. But the great glory of Warwickshire consists in the fact that it was the birthplace of Shakespeare; the scene of all his youthful experience, his education, his courtship of Anne Hathaway (whose dwelling yet remains), his marriage, the birth of his three children, his death, and his burial.

A VISIT TO STRATFORD

I could never forget the emotion with which my mind was thrilled when first I took the drive from Warwick to Stratford (1877), and alighted at the old Red Horse Hotel. The day had been one of exceptional beauty. The long twilight had faded, and the stars were shining when that night, for the first time, I stood at the door of the birthplace of Shakespeare, and looked on its quaint casements and gables, its antique porch, and the massive timbers that cross its front. I conjure up the vision now, as I saw it then. I stand there for a long while, and feel that I shall remember these sights forever. Then, with lingering steps, I turn away, and, passing through a narrow, crooked lane, I walk in the High Street, and note at the end of the prospect the illuminated clock in a dark church-tower. 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 inclosed garden, where, under screens of wire, are fragments of mortar and stone. These—although I do not know it—are the remains of the foundations of Shakespeare’s house. The night wanes, but 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-clustered stars reflected in the dark 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 bed,—to find that all around me is as still as death; and then, drowsily, far off, the bell strikes three, in that weird, grim, lonesome church-tower which I have just seen.

THE RED HORSE HOTEL

Many times since that first night at Stratford I have rested in the old Red Horse, and nowhere, in a large experience of travel, have I found a more homelike abode. It is a storied dwelling, too; for it was an inn when Shakespeare lived. It is believed to have been known to those old poets Michael Drayton and Ben Jonson; Betterton is said to have lodged in it when he visited Stratford, to glean information about the great dramatist of whose chief characters his age esteemed him the supremely best interpreter; Garrick knew the house when he was in Stratford in 1769 to conduct the Shakespeare Jubilee; and in later years it has harbored scores of renowned persons from every part of the world. Washington Irving, revered as the father of American literature, was a lodger there in 1817, and wrote about it in his companionable “Sketch Book,” and the parlor that he then occupied has ever since borne his name and been embellished with picture and relic commemorative of his visit. The pilgrim loses much benefit and pleasure by carelessly speeding through the Shakespeare Country, as many excursionists do. It is far better to repose in the Red Horse, or some other cozy retreat, and spend many days in rambling about the neighborhood. To the lover of the works of Shakespeare the experience is one of the most profitable that life affords.

STONELEIGH AND CHARLECOTE

In driving from Warwick to Stratford the traveler obtains a distant glimpse of Stoneleigh Abbey, one of the fine baronial homes of England, the residence of Lord Leigh, and at a certain stile, near Charlecote House, the carriage is halted, so that the spacious park of Charlecote can be crossed on foot by a passenger who may wish to see the place where, as legend has long affirmed, Shakespeare killed the deer of Sir Thomas Lucy, thereby incurring enmity and punishment. The story lacks proof. No deer were kept by Sir Thomas at Charlecote,—though now they are numerous there,—but they were kept by him at Fullbrook, a park that he owned, not very far from Charlecote, and it is not impossible that Shakespeare and his comrades, in the wildness of frolicsome youth, did poach upon his preserves. Tradition, in all old English country places, has, when tested, often been found entirely worthy of credence.

STRATFORD OLD AND NEW

The Stratford of the sixteenth century, though then nearly 300 years old, was merely a village. The houses were chiefly of the one-story kind, made of timber. The inhabitants were in number about 1,400: indeed, the whole population of England was not so numerous as that of London is now. If Shakespeare could revisit his old haunts, though he would see the same green, rose-decked, and poppy-spangled countryside that once he knew, and hear the ripple of the Avon softly flowing between its grassy banks, he would miss many objects once familiar to him, and he would be conscious of much change,—in many ways for the better. Yet there are the paths in which he often trod; there is the school in which he was taught; there is the garden of the mansion that he once owned, and in which he died and there is the ancient church that enshrines his tomb.

The Birthplace, as it is now designated, is a two-story cottage made of timber and plaster, with dormer windows in its sloping, attic roof. It was originally a finer house than most of its neighbors. Its age is unknown. John Shakespeare, William’s father, bought it in 1556 and occupied it till his death, in 1601, when it became William’s property by inheritance. By him it was bequeathed to his sister, Joan, Mrs. William Hart. It has passed through many ownerships and has been materially changed; but parts of it remain as originally they were, particularly the room on the ground floor, in which there is a large fireplace, with seats in the brick chimney jambs, and also the one immediately above it, the best room in the house, in which, according to ancient tradition, the poet was born. In that room there is a chair, of the sixteenth century.

The original window remains, a threefold casement, containing sixty panes of glass, on which many visitors have scratched their names with diamonds. No writing, on window or walls, is permitted now; but in earlier times it was allowed, and it was customary. Sir Walter Scott scratched his name on the window,—“W. Scott.” Byron wrote on the ceiling, which is low, as also did Thackeray. Byron’s name has disappeared. Dickens wrote on one of the walls. The names of many actors, including those of Edmund Kean and Edwin Booth, are inscribed on the chimney-jamb at the right of the fireplace. Booth was specially requested to write his name there, “high up.” That jamb is called “The Actors’ Pillar.”

The Birthplace was purchased for the nation in 1847—the American museum and circus manager P. T. Barnum having alarmed England by proposing to buy and remove it to America. New Place and Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, at Shottery, about a mile west of Stratford, have since then been purchased, and those properties are now administered as a trust for the public.

New Place, the finest mansion in the town when Shakespeare bought it, was destroyed in 1759 by order of Rev. Thomas Gastrell, its owner at that time, who had been annoyed by many visitors, thronging to see his house and to sit under a mulberry tree in his garden, believed to have been planted and reared by Shakespeare. The tree was cut down by Mr. Gastrell; but a reputed “grandson” of it is growing there now. Nothing remains of the building except its foundation, long buried, but later exhumed, and now carefully preserved. The house was situated directly opposite the Guild Chapel, a relic of the thirteenth century, and one of the most venerable and pictorial of the towered churches of England. Shakespeare hired two sittings in that church, and when he lived in New Place he must have seen it almost continually. Next to the church is the Grammar School, established in 1482, which there is every reason to believe he attended in his boyhood. The building has been tastefully “restored” to its original condition: the schoolroom has not been altered.

ANNE HATHAWAY’S COTTAGE

The Hathaway Cottage, to which the flower-bordered path is an ancient “right of way,” through gardens and meadows that Shakespeare must often have traversed, is an exceptionally fine specimen of the timber-crossed, thatch-roofed dwelling of the Tudor period. It stands in a large garden, is shaded by tall trees, and is prettily clad with woodbine, ivy, wild roses, and maiden’s blush. In one of the upper chambers a large, antique, carved four-post bedstead is shown, as having been used by Anne Hathaway. It is possible that William and Anne lived in that cottage immediately after their marriage, which occurred in 1582. He was eighteen, she was twenty-six. The bond (a document required in those days to obtain authorization of wedlock) is preserved and may be inspected in the Edgar Tower at Worcester, where I saw it in 1889. The actual record of their marriage is supposed to have perished in a fire (before 1600) which, consuming the church of Ludington, a village near Shottery, destroyed the registers of that parish.

Shakespeare was poor, when (1585) he went to London, and I venture the conjecture that when he returned to Stratford he found his wife and children dwelling at either the Hathaway Cottage or the home of his friends Hamnet and Judith Sadler, after whom his latest born children, Hamnet and Judith, twins, were named. The Hathaway Cottage seems vitally associated with him, as is still another old timbered house, the home of his mother, Mary Arden, which may be seen on the outskirts of the village of Wilmcote, situated about four miles northwest of Stratford,—an easy, pleasant walk.

THE COUNTRY ROUND ABOUT

Indeed, there is scarce an end to the variety of pleasant walks feasible in the Shakespeare Country, and I have found it specially suggestive of agreeable thoughts and feelings to stroll in many directions and for many miles around Stratford, and to fancy the presence of Shakespeare himself rambling, as probably his custom was, over all the countryside. How else could he have gained the minute knowledge that is manifested in his plays of Warwickshire names, localities, characters, customs, and the many peculiarities of foliage and flower that distinguish the Warwickshire clime? The “palm” that Orlando finds in the Forest of Arden in “As You Like It” is not an oriental palm, but a tree so named that grows now and has always grown on the banks of the Avon. “Christopher Sly, of Burton Heath” and “Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot” are types of Warwickshire peasantry, which no doubt Shakespeare saw. Barton Heath and Wincot are places not distant from his home.

To trace the course of Shakespeare from his birth to his death, is to gain knowledge and wisdom. It is wisely written by the poet Tennyson that “Things seen are mightier than things heard.”

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

SHAKESPEARE’S ENGLAND	By William Winter
A most interesting and beautifully illustrated book.
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS IN SHAKESPEARE’S COUNTRY	By W. H. Hutton
With numerous illustrations by Edmund H. New.
THE WARWICKSHIRE AVON	By A. T. Quiller-Couch
Illustrated by Alfred Parsons.
SHAKESPEARE’S TOWN AND TIME	By H. S. Ward and C. W. B. Ward
SHAKESPEARE’S LONDON	By T. F. Ordish
SHAKESPEARE’S LOVE STORY	By A. B. McMahon
RELIQUES OF STRATFORD-UPON-AVON	Compiled by A. E. Way
SEEN AND UNSEEN AT STRATFORD-UPON-AVON	By W. D. Howells
SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD	By H. C. Shelley

? Information concerning the above books may be had on application to the Editor of the Mentor.

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