* Words and Places, pp. 381-3.** Quoted inEnglish Forests and Forest Trees.
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This list is evidently far from complete. It may, however, serve to show the extent of unreclaimed land in England so recently as the sixteenth century. And here, it should be noted, that though, as a matter of fact, forest lands are generally woodlands also, this is not essential to the meaning of the word. A "forest," says Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood, * "is properly a wilderness, or uncultivated tract of country; but, as such were commonly overgrown with trees, the word took the meaning of a large wood. We have many forests in England without a stick of timber upon them." It is especially so in Scotland, as many a traveller who has ridden all the long day by the treeless "Forest of Breadalbane" will well remember.
*Dictionary of English Etymology.
The question has been recently much discussed whether our forests ought to be retained in their present extent. Economists have shown by calculation that forests do not pay. It is said that they encourage idleness and poaching, and thus lead to crime. Estimates have been made of the amount of corn which might be raised if the soil were brought under the plough. Yet few persons who have wandered through the glades of our glorious woodlands would be willing to part with them. Admit that the cost of maintenance is in excess of their return to the national exchequer; yet England is rich enough to bear the loss; and it is a poor economy which reduces everything to a pecuniary estimate. "Man shall not live by bread alone." In God's world beauty has its place as well as utility. "Consider the lilies."
"God might have made enough—enoughFor every want of ours,For temperance, medicine, and use,And yet have made no flowers."
"He hath made everything beautiful in his time;" and means that we should rejoice in His works as well as feed upon His bounty and learn from His wisdom. While by no means insensible to the charm of a richly cultivated district, where "the pastures are clothed with flocks, the valleys also are covered over with corn," yet let us trust that the day is far distant when our few remaining forests shall have disappeared before modern improvements and scientific husbandry.
To the lover of nature, forest scenery is beautiful at all seasons. How pleasant is it, in the hot summer noon, to lie beneath the "leafy screen," through which the sunlight flickers like golden rain; to watch the multitudenous life around us—the squirrel flashing from bough to bough, the rabbit darting past with quick, jerky movements, the birds flitting hither and thither in busy idleness, the columns of insects in ceaseless, aimless gliding motion—and to listen to the mysterious undertone of sound which pervades rather than disturbs the silence! Beautiful, too, are the woods when autumn has touched their greenery with its own variety of hue. From the old Speech House of the Forest of Dean we have looked out as on a billowy, far extending sea of glory—elm, oak, beech, ash, maple, all with their own peculiar tints, yet blending into one harmonious chord of colour in the light of the westering sun; whilst from among them the holly and the yew stood out like green islands set in an ocean of gold.
A little later in the year, and we tread among the rustling leaves, whilst over us interlaces in intricate tracery a network of branches, twigs, and sprays:—
"The ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang."
Return a few weeks afterwards, and surely it will be felt that forest scenery is never more fairy-like than when the bare boughs are feathered with snowflakes, or sparkle with icicles, that flash like diamonds in the wintry sunlight, or faintly tinkle overhead as they sway to and fro in the icy breeze. Never is the forest more solemn than when, with a sound like thunder or the raging sea, the wind tosses the giant branches in wild commotion. We cannot wonder that Schiller delighted to wander alone in the stormy midnight through the woods, listening to the tempest which raged aloft, or that much of his grandest poetry was composed amid scenes like these.
Nor must we forget the aspect of the woods in early spring, when Nature is just awaking from her winter's sleep. It needs a quick eye to trace the delicate shades of colour which then succeed each other—the dull brown first brightening into a reddish hue, as the glossy leaf-cases begin to expand, then a faint hint of tender green as the pale leaves burst from their enclosure one after another, tinging with colour the skeleton branches which they are soon to clothe with their beautiful mantle.
"Mysterious round! What skill, what force divine,Deep felt, in these appear! A simple train,Yet so delightful, mixed with such kind art,Such beauty and beneficence combined,Shade unperceived so softening into shade.And all so forming an harmonious whole,That, as they still succeed, they ravish still."
The New Forest claims precedence over all others, from its extent, its picturesque beauty, and its historical associations. Though greatly encroached upon since the time that the Conqueror "loved its red deer as if he were their father," and the Red King fell beneath the arrow of Sir Walter Tyrrell, it still contains long stretches of wild moorland, and mighty oaks which may have been venerable in the days of the Plantagenets. The red deer have entirely disappeared. About a hundred fallow-deer yet remain. They are very shy, hiding themselves in the least visited recesses of the Forest, and are rarely seen except during the annual hunt, which takes place every spring. In 1874 a pack of bloodhounds was brought down by Lord Londesborough, who owns a beautiful park near Lyndhurst. The sport, however, is said not to have been very good. Numerous droves of forest ponies run wild, and with the herds of swine feeding upon the acorns and beech-mast give animation to the scene. Amid the forest glades even pigs become picturesque.
Charming excursions may be made into the Forest from the towns on its borders, Southampton, Lymington, Christchurch, or Ringwood. But he who would fully appreciate its beauties must take up his quarters at Lyndhurst, in the very heart of its finest scenery. From this centre, walks or drives may be taken in every direction, and in almost endless variety. One of these, describing a circuit of about twelve miles, past the Rufus Stone and Boldrewood, claims especial mention. The road leads for a short distance through a richly-wooded and highly cultivated district. On a knoll to the left is a farm-house occupying the site of the Keep of Malwood, where William Rufus slept the night before his death. From this point vistas, locally known as "peeps," are cut through the trees, commanding noble views over the Forest, and extending southwards to Southampton Water, the Channel and the Isle of Wight. The soil now becomes more barren, and the trees more sparse and stunted. At the bottom of a steep descent stood a pyramidal stone, marking the spot where the king was slain, bearing on its three sides a record of the event. This has now been cased by an iron cylinder, with the original inscriptions in bold relief. To the left stretches a long bare ridge of moorland, from the summit of which the eye ranges over grand sweeps of fern, gorse, and heather, bounded by woodlands to the verge of the horizon.
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The road now passes through a succession of forest glades, over smooth green turf, beneath arches of beech and oak, with a luxuriant undergrowth of holly and yew. At Burley Lodge we reach some of the finest and oldest timber in the Forest. Here formerly stood twelve magnificent oaks, known as the "Twelve Apostles." Most of these have, disappeared, but two yet remain, which for size, beauty, and venerable antiquity are perhaps unequalled. A little farther on, a grove of beeches arrests the traveller by the grandeur and beauty of their forms, and is a favourite halting-place. Enthusiastic lovers of sylvan scenery, artists and others, not infrequently encamp here for days together, screened from wind and weather not only by the canvas of their tent, but by the impenetrable roof of foliage overhead. Bearing to the south, along an intricate labyrinth of woodpaths, through modern plantations alternated with clumps of primeval forest, we reach& the cultivated district, with smiling farms, stately mansions, and picturesque villages, returning thus to Lyndhurst.
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Before we bid a regretful adieu to this little forest town, we must by all means visit the new church. The noble fresco of the Ten Virgins by Leighton which forms the altar-piece, is understood to be the munificent gift of the artist. The look of sullen or of wild despair on the faces of the foolish virgins as they are rejected, and the expression of sternness blended with pity in that of the angel who repels them, may well awaken solemn thought:
"Too late! too late! ye cannot enter now!"
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The Forest of Dean, though less extensive than the New Forest, is hardly less beautiful;—
"The queen of forests all that west of Severn lie."—Drayton.
It occupies the high ground between the valleys of the Severn and the Wye. What Lyndhurst is to the one, the Speech House is to the other. The Foresters' Courts have been held here for centuries, in a large hall panelled with dark oak and hung round with deer's antlers. Here the "verderers," foresters, "gavellers," miners, and Crown agents meet to discuss in open court their various claims in a sort of local parliament. Originally the King's Lodge, it is now a comfortable inn, affording good accommodation for the lovers of sylvan scenery. The deer with which the forest once abounded diminished in numbers up to 1850, when they were removed. But, as in the New Forest, droves of ponies and herds of swine roam at large among the trees, giving animation and interest to the landscape. A different feeling is aroused by the sight of furnaces and coal-pits in different directions, indicative of the mineral treasures hidden beneath the fair surface of this forest. Ironworks have in fact existed here from very early times; the forest-trees having, as in the Weald of Sussex, afforded an abundant supply of fuel, though (thanks to the coal-beds beneath) without the same result in denuding the district of its leafy glories.
Savernake Forest, in Wiltshire, the property of the Marquis of Ailesbury, is the only English forest belonging to a subject, and is especially remarkable for its avenues of trees. One, of magnificent beeches, is nearly four miles in length, and is intersected at one point of its course by three separate "walks" or forest vistas, placed at such angles as with the avenue itself to command eight points of the compass. The effect is unique and beautiful, the artificial character of the arrangement being amply compensated by the exceeding luxuriance of the thick-set trees, and the soft loveliness of the verdant flowery glades which they enclose. The smooth bright foliage of the beech is interspersed with the darker shade of the fir, while towering elms and majestic wide-spreading oaks diversify the line of view in endless, beautiful variety. At one point, a clump of trees will be reached—the veterans of the forest, with moss-clad trunks and gnarled half-leafless branches; the chief being known as the King Oak, but sometimes called the Duke's, from the Lord Protector Somerset, with whom this tree was a favourite. The railway from Hungerford to Marlborough skirts this forest, the southern portion of which is known as Tottenham Park. An obelisk, erected on one of its highest points, in 1781, to commemorate the recovery of George III., forms an easily-recognisable landmark, and may also guide the wanderer in the forest glades, who might else be bewildered by the very uniformity of the lone lines of foliage. On the whole, if this Forest of Savernake has not the vast extent, or the wild natural beauty of some other forests, it has all the charm that the richest luxuriance can give, while some of its noblest I trees will be found away from the great avenues, on the gentle slopes or in the mossy dells, which diversify the surface of this most beautiful domain. Nor will the visitor in spring-time fail to be delighted by the great banks of rhododendron and azalea, which at many parts add colour and splendour to the scene.
Among our smaller woodlands, Burnham Beeches claim special notice. They are reached by a charming drive of five or six miles from Maidenhead. The road leads at first through one of the most highly cultivated and fertile districts in England, and then enters Dropmore Park, with its stately avenues of cedar and pine, and some of the finest araucarias in Europe. The Beeches occupy a knoll which rises from the plain, over which it commands splendid views, Windsor Castle and the valley of the Thames being conspicuous objects in the landscape. The trees are many of them of immense girth; but having been pollarded—tradition says by Cromwell's troopers—they do not attain a great height. They are thus wanting in the feathery grace and sweep which form the characteristic beauty of the beech; but, in exchange for this, the gnarled, twisted branches are in the very highest degree picturesque, and to the wearied Londoner few ways of spending a summer's day can be more enjoyable than a ramble over the Burnham Knoll, with its turfy slopes and shaded dells, or better still, a picnic with some chosen friends in the shadow of one or other of these stupendous trees.
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Space will not allow us to do more than refer to the forests of Epping and Hainault, Sherwood and Charnwood, Whittlebury and Delamere, with many others. The names recal the memories of happy days spent beneath their leafy screen, or in wandering over the wild moorlands on which they stand, with grateful thoughts, too, of—
"That unwearied loveWhich planned and built, and still upholds this world,So clothed with beauty for rebellious man."
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THE traveller who would enter into the full charm of "Shakspere's country" is recommended to start from the quaint and ancient city of Coventry, and to pursue the high road to Warwick, taking Kenilworth in his way. There is scarcely a walk in England more perfect in its own kind of beauty than the five miles from Coventry to Kenilworth. A wide, well-kept road follows, almost in a straight line, the undulations of the hills. Soon after leaving the city, a broad, flower-enamelled coppice, open to the road, is reached; then the hedgerows are flanked on both sides with noble elms, forming a stately avenue, through which glimpses are ever and anon obtained of purple wood-crested hills in the distance. Broad rolling pastures, and cornfields, rich in promise, stretch away on either hand; the grassy road-side and high hedge-banks, showing the deep red subsoil of the sandstone, or variegated clays of the red marls, are bright with wild flowers, and the air is musical with the song of birds. Travellers are few; the railway scream in the distance, to the left, suggests that all who are in a hurry to reach their destination have taken another route; if it be holiday time, parties of young men on Coventry bicycles are sure to flash past; but it is our delight to linger and enjoy. We are, as Thomas Fuller says, in the "Medi-terranean" part of England; and English scenery nowhere displays a more characteristic charm.
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Kenilworth old church and the castle at length are reached; the latter, a stately ruin. The visitor will duly note Cæsar's Tower, the original keep, with its walls, in some parts, sixteen feet thick; then the remains of the magnificent banqueting hall, built by John of Gaunt, and, lastly, the dilapidated towers erected by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, one part of which bears the name of poor Amy Robsart. No officious cicerone is likely to offer his services; a trifling gate-fee opens the place freely to all, either to rest on the greensward, or to climb the battered ramparts; to survey, at one view, the ancient moat, the castle garden, the tilt-yard, where knights met in mimic battle; the bed of the lake, where sea-fights were imitated for a monarch's sport—in short, the impressive memorials of a fashion in life and act that have long since yielded to nobler things. "The massy ruins," says Sir Walter Scott, "only serve to show what their splendour once was, and to impress on the musing visitor the transitory value of human possessions, and the happiness of those who enjoy a humble lot in industrious contentment." There are other lessons, too, national, as well as individual; and we turn away from old Kenilworth with thankfulness that the ruins of the nineteenth century will at least tell to our descendants no tales of feudal tyranny, of royal murders, or of sanguinary civil strife.
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The town of Kenilworth is of considerable size, containing, at the last census, more than 3,000 inhabitants. The traveller may rest here, or in a quaint little hostelry close to the castle gates, not forgetting to visit the ancient church—that at the other end of the town is modern, and need not detain him. After due refreshment, he will probably be in the humour for another five miles' walk, or drive, along a road almost equal in beauty to that by which he came, to Warwick, calling at Guy's Cliff by the way. He had better make up his mind, for the time at least, to believe in Guy, "the Saxon giant who slew the dun cow," and, after a life of doughty deeds, retired to a hermitage, here where the Avon opens into a lake-like transparent pool, at the foot of the exquisitely-wooded cliff. The cave of the giant's retreat may be seen; and the traveller will be charmed by the fair mansion on the one side overhanging the Avon, and on the other opening down a long avenue, flowery and verdant, to the high road.
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Warwick Castle is so frequently visited, that it needs little description. The winding road, cut out of the solid rock from the lodge to the castle gate, is a fitting approach to the stately fortress-palace, and well prepares the visitor for what is to follow. Some will prefer to roam the gardens, so far as watchful custodians permit, turning aside to the solid-looking Gothic conservatory to see the great Warwick vase, brought from fair Tivoli; others will follow the courteous housekeeper down the long suite of castle halls, poting the glorious views from the deep embayed windows, duly admiring the bed in which Queen Anne once slept, with the portrait of her majesty, plump and rubicund, on the opposite wall. The logs heaped up, as logs have been for centuries, in readiness for the great hall-fire, carry the mind back to olden fashions; the inlaid table of precious stones, said to be "worth" ten thousand pounds, excites a languid curiosity; the helmet of Oliver Cromwell, an authentic relic, suggests many a thought of the great brain which it once enclosed; and, while other items in the antique show pass as phantasmagoria before the bewildered attention, there are some portraits on the walls, to have seen which is a lasting pleasure of memory. It is a happy thing that these were spared by the fire of 1871; justly counted as a national calamity rather than a family misfortune. The traces of the conflagration are now almost wholly removed, although some priceless treasures have been irrecoverably lost.
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At the lodge, by the castle gate, there is a museum of curiosities, which will interest the believers in the great "Guy," and will amuse others. For there is the giant's "porridge pot" of bell-metal, vast in circumference and resonant in ring; with his staff, his horse's armour, and, to crown all, some ribs of the "dun cow" herself! What if, in sober truth, some last lingerer of a species now extinct roamed over the great forest of Arden, the terror of the country, until Sir Guy wrought deliverance?
Warwick itself need not detain us long; the church, however, demands a visit; and the Beauchamp Chapel, with its monuments, is one of the finest in England. But the pedestrian will probably elect to spend the night at Leamington, close by, before continuing his pilgrimage. A visit to the ever beautiful Jephson Gardens, with their wealth of evergreen oaks, soft turfy lawn, and broad fair water, will afford him a pleasant evening, and the next morning will see himen routefor Stratford-upon-Avon.
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Again let him take the road, drinking in the influence of the pleasant Warwickshire scene; quiet, rural loveliness varying with every mile, and glimpses of the silver Avon at intervals enhancing the charm. A slight détour will lead to Hampton Lucy, and Charlecote House and Park, memorable for the exploits of Shakspere's youth, and for the worshipful dignity of Sir Thomas Lucy, the presumed original of Mr. Justice Shallow. The park having been skirted, or crossed, the tourist proceeds three or four miles further by a good road, and enters Stratford-upon-Avon by a stone bridge of great length, crossing the Avon and adjacent low-lying meadows.
The bridge, which dates from the reign of Henry VII., has been widened on an ingenious plan, by a footpath, supported on a kind of iron balcony.
It is easy, however, to imagine its exact appearance when Shakspere paced its narrow roadway, or hung over its parapet to watch the skimming swallow or the darting trout and minnow.
This Warwickshire town has been so often and so exhaustively described, that we may well forbear from any minute detail. Every visitor knows, with tolerable accuracy, what he has to expect. He finds, as he had anticipated, a quiet country town, very much like other towns; neither obtrusively modern, nor quaintly antique—in one word, common-place, save for the all-pervading presence and memory of Shakspere. The house in Henley Street, where he is said to have been born, will be first visited, of course; then the tourist will walk along the High Street, noting the Shakspere memorials in the shop-windows, looking up as he passes to the fine statue of the poet, placed by Garrick in front of the Town Hall.
At the site of New Place, now an open, well-kept garden, with here and there some of the shattered foundations of the poet's house, protected by wire-work, on the greensward, the visitor will add his tribute of wonder, if not of contempt, to the twin memories of Sir Hugh Clopton, who pulled down Shakspere's house in one generation, and of the Rev. Francis Gastrell, who cut down Shakspere's mulberry-tree in another. Just opposite are the guild chapel, the guild hall, with the grammar-school where the poet, no doubt, received his education; and, after some further walking, the extremity of the town will be reached, where a little gate opens to a charming avenue of over-arching lime-trees, leading to the church.
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Before he enters, let him pass round to the other side, where the churchyard gently slopes to the Avon, and drink in the tranquillity and beauty of the rustic scene. Then, after gaining admission, he will go straight to the chancel and gaze upon those which, after all, are the only memorials of the poet which possess a really satisfying value, the monument and the tomb.
As all the world knows, the tomb is a dark slab, lying in the chancel, the inscription turned to the east. No name is given, only the lines here copied from a photograph:
"Good Frend for Jesvs sake forbeareTo DIGG THE DVST ENCLOASED HEAEE:Blest be ye man v'spares thes stones,And cvrst be he yl moves mv bones.
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To suppose these lines written by Shakspere himself, seems absurd. They are not, indeed, the only doggrel unjustly fathered upon him. The prostrate figure on a tomb in the east wall of the chancel, representing Shakspere's contemporary and intimate, John-a-Combe, suggests another stanza, even inferior in taste and diction. But we have no room now for such thoughts. Above us, on the left, is the monument of the poet, coloured; not content with "improving" the plays, caused the bust also to be improved by a coating of white paint, how the barbarism was removed in 1861, and the statue restored, is a tale often told. The effigy certainly existed within seven years of Shakspere's death, so that, in all probability, we have a faithful representation of the poet as his contemporaries knew him.
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The inscription is clumsy enough, but proves that the poet's greatness was not, as sometimes alleged, unrecognised in his own generation. The epitaph on Mistress Susanna Hall, a higher note. Thus it began
"Witty above her sex—but that's not all—Wise to salvation, was good Mistress Hall.Something of Shakspere was in that; but thisWholly of Him with Whom she's now in bliss."
It is to be regretted that this inscription has been effaced, to make room for the epitaph of some obscure descendant. That to Shakespere's widow, the wife of his youth, Anne Hathaway however remains placed over Her grave by her son; there is something in it pathetically and nobly Christian. It is in Latin, and may be rendered freely: "My mother: thou gavest me milk and life: alas, for me, that I can but repay thee with a sepulchre! Would that some good angel might roll the stone away, and thy form come forth in the Saviour's likeness! But my prayers avail not. Come quickly, O Christ! then shall my mother, though enclosed in the tomb, arise and mount to heaven!"
Before leaving the church we may note some monuments worth attention, at least in any other place; as well as a stained glass window, not yet complete, but intended to illustrate from Scripture Shakspere's Seven Ages of Man. Moses the infant, Jacob the lover, Deborah the Judge, and one or two other representations are finished, but the observer feels that the types of character are not Shakspere's.
The day's explorations are not yet over. The epitaph on Anne Hathaway's tomb, if nothing else, has quickened our desire to know something more of her surroundings in those days when Shakspere won and wooed her in her rustic home. Retracing our steps through the town, we are directed to a field-path bearing straight for Shottery, a village but a mile distant. It is not difficult to picture the youthful lover, perhaps, out here in the fair open country, among the wild flowers which line the walk, and which he has so well described, for there are few traditions of Stratford-upon-Avon better authenticated than that which represents this as Shakspere's walk in the clays when he "went courting." The village is a straggling one, with a look of comfort about its farmsteads and cottages; and, at the furthest extremity from Stratford, in a pleasant dell, opposite a willow-shaded stream, we find the cottage, not much altered, it may be, in externals, since the poet, then a lad of eighteen, there found his bride. The capacious chimney-corner, where no doubt the lovers sat, is genuine; and other antique relics, from a carved bed to an old Bible, carry the mind back, at least, to the era of the poet; while the garden and orchard, with the well of pure spring water, must be much as Shakspere saw them.
And now having returned to our comfortable hotel—where almost every room, by the way, is named after one of the dramas, ours being "All's well that ends well"—what was the net result of the visit in regard to the personality and history of the great poet? It may seem a strange thing to confess, but the effect of the whole was to put Shakspere himself further from us, and to deepen the mystery which every student of his life and works finds so perplexing. For, save the monument and the tomb, there was absolutely nothing to tell of the poet's life; no scrap of his writing, no book known to have been his, no original authentic record of his words and deeds, no contemporary portrait, no object, whether article of furniture, pen, inkstand, or other implement of daily use, associated with his name. Strange that a generation, which, as we have seen, so honoured his genius and character, should not have preserved the poorest or smallest memorial of his life among them! True, there is an old, worm-eaten desk in the birth-place, at which he may have, sat in the grammar-school; in a room in the town above the seed-shop there is a rude piece of carving, representing David and Goliath, which once ornamented a room of the house in Henley Street, and bears an inscription, "said to have been composed by Shakspere," A.D. 1606. Let our readers judge:
"Goliath comes with sword and spear,And David with his sling:Although Goliath rage and swearDown David doth him bring."
For the rest, the relics are evidently imported: an ancient bedstead, old-fashioned chairs, and the like; interesting in their way, but with nothing to tell us of the poet. He remains to the most zealous relic-hunter as great a mystery as Homer himself. Or if in anything here we see the poet, it is in those scenes of external nature which he has so vividly pictured. We find him among the flowers: beside the
"bank whereon the wild thyme blows,Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine."
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By a happy ingenuity the garden of the house in Henley Street, now prettily and daintily kept, has been planted to a great extent with Shakspere's flowers; "pansies for thoughts," "rosemary for remembrance," with "columbines," the "blue-veined violets," the wild thyme, woodbine, musk-rose, and many more. His works are his true monument; and of these there is, in the same house, a very large and noble collection, with a whole library of literature bearing upon them, gathered with admirable care. Yet how few autobiographical details do the volumes contain! How hopeless the task of constructing, even from the sonnets, a connected picture of his life and career! And of the half-dozen anecdotes which have in one way or other descended to us of his words and ways, who can say that any detail is true?
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It is, perhaps, from the portraits, after all, that we may gain the most trustworthy impression of the poet's individuality. That on the tomb is for obvious reasons the most valuable. There it has been, in the sight of all men, from the very days of Shakspere. The eyes of his widow and of their children must often have rested upon it; and there can be no doubt that it presents the true aspect of the man. The engravings of the bust, and even the photographs, seem to us to exaggerate the calm, serene expression of the countenance. Partly, it may be, from the effect of the colouring on the full and shapely cheeks, there is an air almost of joviality about the face. It is quite as easy to recognise the Warwickshire squire of New Place, as to feel the presence of the poet of all time. There is, in the Henley Street house, a portrait of extraordinary history; lately discovered. The antiquity of this portrait seems indubitable; but the face seems a copy, and, so far as we could judge without seeing the two side by side, of that on the monument. For the we naturally associate with Shakspere, we must go rather to the "Chandos portrait," now in the National Portrait Gallery, or to the terra-cotta bust, disinterred in 1845, from the site of the old theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and presented by the Duke of Devonshire to the Garrick Club. In a somewhat rough fashion, the Droeshout portrait, prefixed to the first folio edition of the plays, in 1623, gives a similar impression of power; and Ben Jonson, who knew Shakspere personally, testifies strongly to its correctness:
"This figure that thou here seest put,It was for gentle Shakspere cut;Wherein the graver had a strifeWith Nature, to outdo the Life."
But most of all is the greatness of Shakspere brought home to us by the simple record of the names of those who, from all quarters of the world, have come to this little Warwickshire town, to do homage to his memory. In all the world there is no shrine of pilgrimage like this, not only in the number of the visitants, but in their wonderful variety in character, temperament, and belief.
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The power of the spell shows the magician. The fading pencilled inscriptions which cover the walls of the chamber in Henley Street; the pages of the autograph books; the words in which visitors have recorded their impressions, attest the strange attractiveness and power of this one genius. Perhaps the most interesting of the autograph books is that which was removed from the house in Henley Street many years ago, and is now to be seen in the room over the seed-room, to which we have referred already. It seems to have been purchased and presented by an American gentleman, Mr. T. H. Perkins, of Boston, in 1812; and its pages contain the autographs of Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Miss Edge-a Baillie, James Professors Sedgarence," "Arthur, Duke of Wellington," with a host beside. A thoughtful hour may well be spent in turning the well-worn pages, and in meditating on "the vanity and glory of literature."
For there was one point in which even Shakspere failed, and the admiring reverence with which we join the throng of pilgrims to the shrine never passes intoworship. We mean, of course, such "worship" as a merely human being may supposably claim; and, in view of the highest possibilities of our nature, we mark in Shakspere a certain limitation on theheavenwardside of his genius. The point at which intellectual sympathy and admiring affection pass into adoration, is the point at which we are raisedbeyond ourselves, and made conscious of the infinite. Never will our moral nature consent to unite with our reason and our heart in yielding its deepest worth, reverence, until it is uplifted into that sphere in which we can only walk by faith, and from which we can look down upon earthly things dwarfed and humbled by the comparison with the illimitable beyond.
Now Shakspere's genius belongs essentially to the lower sphere. On earth he is the master. Every phase of nature, every subtilty of the intellect, every winding of the heart, is familiar to him. To use the comparison, often repeated because always felt to be so true, his wonderful mind was the mirror of all earthly shapes and various human energies. His own idiosyncracy never appears; the mirror is absolutely colourless and true. His genius is universal: in reading him we are but surveying the face of nature. To many a subtle criticism, the answer has been given, Shakspere surely never meant this! The reply may be, perhaps not, but nature meant it; and, therefore, we have a right to find it there! Such is the highest achievement ofliterature, whose business it is to reflect the facts of the world, of society, of the human heart—plentifully to declare the thing as it is, and compendiously to reduce this round world into the microcosm of a book. Here is Shakspere's transcendent power, and the secret of his supremacy among writers. He is simply the greatest literary man that ever lived. The transparency of the mirror, to return to the illustration, is maintained, not only by the absence of intrusive individuality, but by his perfect mastery over the instrument of expression. It is worth while to read his dramas over again, as a study of language alone. No writer has ever approached Shakspere in the precision, picturesqueness, and the finished, yet seemingly careless, beauty of his diction. His prose is even more marvellous than his poetry. In the sense in which we use the word "classic," his works may truly be called the foremost classic of the world.
What, then, is the defect which will for ever prevent Shakspere from receiving the entire homage of the heart of man? In a sentence, the mirror is turned towards earth alone, and in its very completeness hides heaven from the view. "It would be impossible," says a contemporary writer, "to find a more remarkable example of a genius wide as the world, yetnotin any senseabovethe world, than our great English poet's." And again, "it would be almost impossible to find any great Christian poet whose type of imagination is so entirely and singularlycontrastedwith that of the Bible, or in whom that peculiar faculty which, for want of a better term, we are forced to call the thirstfor the supernatural, is more remarkably absent."
This statement we accept, in full remembrance of the morals manifold, the theological references, and Scriptural parallels, which are scattered through the poet's writings. Bishop Wordsworth, of St. Andrew's, and others, have spent much labour, not altogether unprofitably, in showing that Shakspere knew his Bible: while, oddly enough, among the passages expunged by the estimable Bowdler, the Biblical references occupy a considerable place, as though it had been profanity to introduce them in such a connexion! The most is made of Shakspere's religiousness by the present Archbishop of Dublin, in a sermon preached at Stratford-upon-Avon at the Shakspere Tercentenary, in 1864.
He knew the deep corruption of our fallen nature, the desperate wickedness of the heart of man; else he would never have put into the mouth of a prince of stainless life such a confession as this: 'I am myself indifferently honest: but yet I could accuse one of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me.... with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in.' He has set forth the scheme of our redemption in words as lovely as have ever flowed from the lips of uninspired man:—