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Copyright Firsl published 191 3 PRINTED AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS LONDON ?K CONTENTS CHAPTER I : THE BIRTHPLACE PAGE I II : NEW PLACE >, 49 III : THE CHURCH „ 87 IV : THE TOWN » 133 V : THE SHAKESPEARE VILLAGES „ 170 NOTES FOR THE TOURIST » 199 For permission to utilize the manuscript of the auction address of Edmund Robins, the author desires to express his grateful acknoiuledgment to the Trustees of Shake- speare's Birthplace LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS SHAKESPEARE'sToMB Frontispiece Shakespeare's Birthplace, Henley Street Fatingpagc 24 New Place and Nash's House „ 51 Inside the Site of New Place „ 85 Holy Trinity Church „ 97 The Avon at Stratford „ 124 The Clopton Bridge „ 141 Grammar School and Guild Chapel „ 143 Harvard House „ 153 The Red Horse Hotel (Washington Irving's Hotel) „ 156 The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre „ 160 The Shakespeare Memorial Fountain „ 168 Entrance to Charlecote Park „ 174 The Shakespeare Cottage at Snitterfield „ 192 Mary Arden's Cottage, Wilmcote „ 194 Anne Hathaway's Cottage, Shottery „ 197 CHAPTER I : The Birthplace WASN'T he foxy to choose a cute little place like that in which to write his plays ? " Perhaps it is hardly necessary to explain that the questioner was a daughter of Uncle Sam, but for the sake of elucidation it is needful to add that the " cute little place " referred to was a trim, half-timbered building in Henley Street, Stratford- on-Avon, and that the " he " was none other than William Shakespeare. It must be noted, however, that the picturesque question was not in accordance with knowledge or tradition. There is nothing to support the implied theory that " Hamlet " and the other plays were written in the Henley Street cottage, nor do any of the many legends clustering around that structure claim for it so high an honour. But to credit Shakespeare with the deliberate choice of a literary workshop is all of a piece with the uncertainty in which so much of his life-story is involved. SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD Most pilgrims to Stratford-on-Avon have a clearer notion of what they seek when they turn their footsteps in the direction of Henley Street. Following the order of nature, their first desire on reaching Shakespeare's town is to gaze upon the shrine of his nativity, and for more than a century and a half tradition has declared that the three-gabled cottage on the north side of the street in question is the birthplace. But is it ? As it ill becomes the Shakespearean to " worship shadows and adore false shapes," the question should be faced boldly and regardless of consequences. Let it be admitted, then, even though such honesty is rare, that there is an older tradition which is fatal to the claims of the Henley Street house. A late echo of that tra- dition sounded in the ears of Washington Irving, for did not the old sexton express " a doubt " as to the genuineness of the birthplace ? It is true that the kindly Geoffrey Crayon, in keeping with his character as a " Gent.," explained the sexton's suspicion on the score of envy, but if he had been acquainted with the lore of the learned and in- dustrious William Oldys he would have realized 2 THE BIRTHPLACE that the sexton had good reason for his scepticism. Oldys, in fact, in the first quarter of the eigh- teenth century had recorded a tradition to the effect that Shakespeare was born in a house near the churchyard, and this legend persisted until the nineteenth century. " A house near the river," as the laborious J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps wrote, " called the Brook House, now pulled down, was some years since asserted to have been the birth- place of Shakespeare." What makes matters still worse for the Henley Street shrine is that the earliest visitors who were drawn to Stratford-on-Avon by the fame of Shakespeare entirely ignored its existence. One of the most curious and unnoticed facts in the biography of the dramatist is that he had been dead some seven years before his connexion with Stratford-on-Avon was recorded in print. Of course his name had appeared in contemporary literature long prior to 1616. So much emphasis has been laid upon our shadowy knowledge of the poet that it is often forgotten that his name is of frequent occurrence in prose and verse from 1592 onwards. The year just named was the date of 3 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD Robert Greene's splenetic and envious reference to the young dramatist as " the only Shakescene in a countrie," but three years later he was christened " Sweet Shakespeare," and thence- forward the chorus of his praise constantly swelled in volume. And yet not one of the numerous references has any allusion to Stratford. Undoubtedly his fellow players and poets were well aware that Shakespeare was a native of Stratford, and yet it was not until 1623, when he had been dead seven years, that his name was associated with the town on the Avon. That topo- graphical service was rendered by Leonard Digges, one of the four poets who contributed com- mendatory verses to the famous First Folio, which marked the earliest attempt to give the world a complete edition of Shakespeare's plays. The volume was published in 1623, and it was not until that date that the reading public, through Leonard Digges's assertion that Shakespeare's plays would be alive when " Time dissolves thy Stratford monument," learnt the meagre fact that the poet was buried in that Warwickshire town. 4 THE BIRTHPLACE Such a casual reference, however, may easily have been overlooked by those curious in bio- graphical details, and hence it is highly probable that until the appearance of Sir William Dug- dale's monumental work on the antiquities of Warwickshire in 1656 few were aware of Shake- speare's close connexion with Stratford. To Dugdale, then, belongs the credit of advertising the association in an authoritative manner, for in concluding his notice of Stratford he wrote : " One thing more, in reference to this ancient town, is observable, that it gave birth and sepulture to our late famous poet, Will. Shake- speare." And the antiquary did not confine him- self to that brief reference ; in his account of the tombs in Holy Trinity Church he quoted the inscription on the poet's grave and monument, and presented his readers with a sketch, more imaginary than accurate, of the " Stratford monu- ment " mentioned by Digges. But, and this is the significant fact, Dugdale made no reference to the house in which the poet was born. He visited the town three years before his book was published — that is, in 1653 — 5 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD and at that time, only thirty-seven years after Shakespeare died, there were of course many Stratfordians who could have pointed out the dramatist's birthplace. Perhaps, however, the antiquary was not interested in such matters, and that indifference seems to have been shared by many subsequent visitors. In fact, a diligent examination of old records, printed and in manuscript, yields the result that all through the seventeenth century there is no reference to any one specific building as the actual birthplace of Shakespeare. Indeed, one traveller of the late seventeenth century wrote up his diary without mentioning Shakespeare at all. Stratford, he noted, was " well built, with fair streets and good inns," possessed " one good church " and a " long and well-built bridge " ; but he wrote never a word about its most famous son. And that was in 1682. Such visitors, however, who were of a more literary turn of mind contented themselves for many years with paying their devotion at the poet's grave. Thus a diarist named Dowdall, who passed through Stratford in 1693, confined 6 THE BIRTHPLACE his record to the church and grave ; and another pilgrim, William Hall by name, who visited the town the following year, had much to relate of the poet's burial-place, but, like Dowdall and the others, made no reference to the house in which he was born. Even Horace Walpole, who did not usually overlook much, explored Stratford in the summer of 1 751 without discovering the birthplace. Still later, indeed — that is, in 1760, and only nine years before Garrick's spectacular "Jubilee " — a noteworthy visitor was wholly silent as to the dramatist's natal shrine. Yet it would be unjust to the Mecca in Henley Street not to admit that by about the middle of the eighteenth century it had begun to rival the attraction of the tomb in Holy Trinity Church, and that by 1769, the year when Garrick exploited himself at Shakespeare's expense, the cottage was firmly established in popular favour as the veritable scene of the poet's nativity. How the earlier tradition referred to above — that which located the event in the Brook House near the river — was supplanted in favour of Henley Street is a mystery which will probably never be solved. 7 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD Unfortunately, too, the perplexities of those who do not wish to " worship shadows and adore false shapes " are not exhausted by the rival claims of the Brook House and Henley Street. There are problems native to Henley Street qua Henley Street. When Nathan Drake, in 1817, made the confident assertion that " the very roof that sheltered Shakespeare's infant innocency can still be pointed out," he postulated a credulity which is no longer possible. Waiving for the moment the question as to whether Henley Street is the correct locality, it is indubitable that while some of the timber framework and fragments of the plaster of the birthplace may have survived from the second half of the sixteenth century, the actual roof of John Shakespeare's house dis- appeared many years ago. No other conclusion is possible from the various drawings which were made of the building from 1762 onward. Several stages in the history of the appearance of the birthplace are illustrated by drawings exhibited in one of the rooms of that building. The earliest of these is a pencil sketch made in 1788, which was founded on a drawing executed 8 THE BIRTHPLACE in 1769. Both these bear a strong likeness to the picture of 1762 which Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps reproduced in one of his books. In fact, all the oldest illustrations have several features in common. They show a modest building consist- ing of two houses, each having its own doorway, but the structure on the east is distinguished from that on the west by having two gables to its companion's one. And the western cottage has a penthouse over its doorway as compared with the unsheltered entrance of the other. In each the surface of the wall is broken up with those massive beams of timber which were so picturesque a feature of houses built in the sixteenth century. It should be added that the right-hand upstair window of the eastern house was in the form of a projecting bay. When, however, the drawings made in the early nineteenth century are examined it will be observed that the most notable features of the eighteenth-century pictures have disappeared. The penthouse of the western house has given place to two projecting windows, while the bay of the eastern cottage has become a flat window of 9 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD four lights. By 1849, too, in the unerring testimony of a photograph, other changes had taken place, including the bricking over of a part of the front wall. In all these later illustrations, moreover, the most striking difference is the aspect presented by the roof, for the three gables of the two houses have been entirely demolished. An ingenious attempt has been made to explain this transformation as having been caused by the window tax, but such a theory ignores the fact that the window tax was first imposed in 1697, and that it was only levied on houses having more than six windows. The more probable explanation of the alterations in the outward appearance of the birthplace is that they were rendered necessary as repairs to the original structure. When the structure was restored it was natural that the architect and builder should closely follow the oldest drawings, and hence its aspect to-day is a trim replica of the sketches of the second half of the eighteenth century. Having disentangled the history of the objective aspect of the birthplace, the labours of the seeker after truth are by no means at an end. There 10 THE BIRTHPLACE remains the vital question of deciding in which of the rooms Shakespeare was born. If one could accept the confident statement of the official leaflet, that question would be answered as soon as asked. But that is impossible. One reason is provided by the itinerary of a Rev. R. Warner who visited Stratford in 1801. "On inquiring for the birthplace of our great poet," he wrote, " we were not a little surprised to be carried through a small butcher's shop into a dirty back room." And yet it is a front room upstairs which is shown as the actual birth-chamber ! Nor does that exhaust the mystery. While it seems probable that the " dirty back room " into which Mr. Warner was shown was situated in the western half of the birthplace, and while the upstairs front room which is now pointed out as the scene of the poet's nativity is in the same portion, there can be no question that if Shake- speare was born in either of the Henley Street cottages he was born in a room of the eastern and not the western building. It is nothing to the purpose that the walls of the alleged birth-room are covered with the autographs of credulous 11 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD pilgrims ; they were all inscribed prior to the discovery of those documents which have thrown light on John Shakespeare's connexion with the two Henley Street houses. What, then, are the facts ? Briefly, that while John Shakespeare became the owner of the eastern cottage in 1556, it was not until 1575 that he obtained possession of the western building. That is to say, William Shakespeare was eleven years old before his father owned or occupied the build- ing in which his birth-room is so confidently located ! When Washington Irving paid his first visit to Stratford in 18 1 5 he was in no such critical mood as is common with the pilgrim of the twentieth century. " I am always," he confessed, " of easy faith in such matters, and am willing to be deceived, where the deceit is pleasant and costs nothing. I am therefore a ready believer in relics, legends, and local anecdotes of goblins and great men; and would advise all travellers who travel for their gratification to be the same. What is it to us whether these stories be true or false, so long as we can persuade ourselves into the 12 THE BIRTHPLACE belief of them, and enjoy all the charm of the reality ? There is nothing like resolute good- humoured credulity in these matters." Easy faith of a bygone day ! But the scientific historian has rendered such confidence impossible. Then the sum of the matter is this. Bearing in mind the priority of the Brook House legend, and remembering that John Shakespeare's purchase of the eastern cottage in Henley Street does not necessarily imply that he required it for a resi- dence, it is feasible that the birth of William Shakespeare in April 1564 took place in that long- demolished cottage near the river, for in such a country town as Stratford an early tradition out-values a volume of learned speculation. If an explanation is asked as to how it came to pass that the Henley Street building, and above all the western portion of that structure, has been since 1 759 known as the poet's birthplace, Sir Sidney Lee supplies the answer. " The fact of its long occupancy by the poet's collateral descendants accounts for the identification of the western rather than the eastern tenement with his birthplace." 13 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD But are not all these cold facts fatal to the ardour of hero-worship ? By no means. If it were definitely proved that not even the eastern cottage in Henley Street has any claim to being the birthplace of the dramatist, nothing can rob it and its companion of the distinction which attaches to both buildings as having been the childhood home of Shakespeare. Here, then, by the time the future poet had attained his eleventh year, the family home was located, and it is probable that thenceforward William Shake- speare knew no other abode in Stratford until he left his native town for that adventure in London which was to have such momentous results. John Shakespeare's purchase in 1575 of the western cottage in Henley Street seems to have marked the zenith of his fortunes. Up to that year he had been eminently successful in the practical affairs of life. A native of the adjacent village of Snitterfield, where his father was a farmer in easy circumstances, John Shakespeare appears to have removed to Stratford about 1551 and set up in business as a general dealer in agricultural products. He has been described as 14 THE BIRTHPLACE a butcher, a glover, a husbandman, a corn-dealer, a wool merchant, and so on, but such occupations must not be regarded as contradictory or as exclusive of each other. To the present day the general store of rural England is an emporium of bewildering resource, and hence it is not sur- prising that a tradesman of the sixteenth century should have dealt in so many articles as were pur- veyed by John Shakespeare. That in the sum total of his various occupations the father of the poet reaped substantial profit may be inferred from the fact that in 1556 he is found purchasing some real estate, and the following year effected a marriage with Mary Arden, the daughter of a prosperous farmer of Wilmcote. From the latter date, too, he began to take a prominent position in the life of Stratford, for in 1557 he was appointed one of the four ale-tasters of the town, men whose duty it was to sample the wares of the local brewers and see that the ale and beer were alike good, wholesome, and reasonable in price. John Shakespeare evidently approved him- self a competent assayer of malt liquors, for in the following year he was chosen one of the four 15 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD petty constables of the town, and thus was clothed with still larger authority over the daily life of Stratfordians. During the next decade, too, he was elected to four other municipal offices of increasing importance, one of which, that of chamberlain or treasurer, he filled for two terms. His crowning honour as a townsman came in 1568, when he was voted to the position of high bailiff — that is, mayor — of Stratford. Four years earlier — that is, in the month of April 1564 — there had been born to him that son William who was to make the name of Shakespeare illustrious in the literary annals of the world. The actual date of his birth is not known. Such an assertion may surprise those who rely upon calen- dars and the confident statements of biographical dictionaries, in which April 23 is cited as the birthday. But that date rests solely upon inference and tradition. The inference is deduced from the record of the poet's baptism on April 26 in the register of Holy Trinity Church. It was customary, so the theorists argue, to baptize a child on the third day after its birth, and hence, as Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, he must 16 THE "BIRTHPLACE have been born on the 23rd. Perhaps in the average baptisms may have followed births at a three days' interval ; but, as countless exceptions could be cited, and as there was no secular or ecclesiastical law on the subject, the inference in Shakespeare's case is not valid. He may have been a weakling like Addison, who, on that account, was baptized on the actual day of his birth, or circumstances may have delayed his baptism a week or even ten days. But the theorists support their case by legend as well as by inference. It is established, they claim, that Shakespeare died on April 23, and that it was an early tradition that he passed away on his birth- day. The claim may be allowed ; he did die on April 23 ; but the tradition as to the coincidence has no more value than any of the many other legends associated with Shakespeare's name. If inference is to have any weight, De Quincey's theory in favour of April 22 as the actual birth- day has most in its favour, "Shakespeare's sole granddaughter, Lady Barnard, was married on April 22, 1626, ten years exactly after the poet's death ; and the reason for choosing this day b 17 SHAKESPEARE »AND STRATFORD might have had a reference to her illustrious grandfather's birthday, which, there is good reason for thinking, would be celebrated as a festival in the family for generations. Still, this choice may have been an accident, or governed merely by reason of convenience." In the end De Quincey grew out of favour with his own theory, and advised acquiescence in the legendary April 23, with the reservation that we cannot do wrong if we drink to the poet's memory on both days. Wherever John Shakespeare was residing during the year he was high bailiff of Stratford, his term of office was marked by an event which must have impressed the imagination of his son William. For, suggestively enough, John Shakespeare's occupancy of the post of high bailiff coincided with the two earliest visits of strolling players of which there is any record in the annals of the town. His term of office began in the September of 1568 and terminated in the same month of the following year, and it is written in the accounts of Stratford that in 1 569 the " Quene's players " were awarded a sum of nine shillings and the 18 THE BIRTHPLACE "Erie of Worcester's pleers " the sum of twelve pence. When read in the light of the manners of the times these entries are full of interest. They postulate, for one thing, a keen interest in the drama in John Shakespeare, for the strolling players of those days could not act in a town without the permission of the mayor, and it was to him they looked for the remuneration of their first performance. The first performance, then, was known as the Mayor's play, and he, as the chief patron, would see to it that the members of his family and his own special friends were not the least favoured among the spectators. On two different occasions, then, in 1569 the Queen's players and the Earl of Worcester's players set up their stage in Stratford town, and it is not carrying probability far to conclude that on each occasion the audiences included the lad who was destined to become the chief glory of the English drama. It is true he was only in his sixth year at the time, but that that was not too tender an age for a playgoer in the sixteenth century is proved by the parallel case, cited by Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, of the six-year-old son of J 9 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD the mayor of Gloucester, who stood between his father's knees and " saw and heard very well ' while a company of strolling players performed "The Cradle of Security." How moving an event a child's first experience of a theatrical performance may be has been described once for all by Charles Lamb, and what was true of his own emotions on such an occasion was doubt- less anticipated in the case of the youthful Shakespeare. But to return to the two cottages in Henley Street. Whatever may have been John Shake- speare's connexion with the eastern tenement prior to 1575, it is beyond question that from that year he was the owner and occupier of both buildings. And it is also a fact that the two structures remained in the possession of his descendants until 1806. Why John Shakespeare needed both cottages is explained partly by his multifarious occupations and partly by the ample proportions of his family. According to the present ground plan, the com- bined buildings contained twelve rooms, but it is probable that the annex to the rear of the western 20 THE BIRTHPLACE cottage was in the poet's time a mere lean-to of inconsiderable accommodation. If that were the case, the rooms were but eight in number, and of those the two on the ground floor of the eastern tenement seem to have been used for commercial purposes, leaving six apartments for domestic use. Then, as now, there was doubtless an interior communication between the two houses, but it seems probable that within a few years after John Shakespeare's death in 1601 the interior doorway was built up so that the houses might be once more occupied as separate dwellings. And it was in the western portion the descendants of John Shakespeare lived for the long period noted above, the eastern cottage being let for various purposes and finally transformed into an inn known as the Maidenhead, then as the Swan and Maidenhead, and latterly as the Swan. During the eighteenth century the front room of the western cottage was turned into a butcher's shop, and it still retained traces of such an establish- ment when visited by Nathaniel Hawthorne about the middle of the last century. As has been shown above, up to the middle of 21 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD the eighteenth century none of the pilgrims to Stratford seem to have been curious about the poet's birthplace. For nearly a century and a half, then, its whereabouts and identity were treated with indifference. Then came a change, the chief cause of which must be sought in that over-decorated festival known as Garrick's " Shakespearean Jubilee." As the year of that three days' celebration was 1769, the use of the word "jubilee" was a misnomer, for it did not coincide with either the birth or death year of the dramatist. And the whole affair had so many ridiculous features that Samuel Foote, who did not love Garrick, had an easy task in satirizing its principal events. "A jubilee," he wrote, "as it hath lately appeared, is a public invitation, circulated and urged by puffing, to go post with- out horses, to an obscure borough without repre- sentatives, governed by a mayor and aldermen who are no magistrates, to celebrate a great poet, whose own works have made him immortal, by an ode without poetry, music without melody, dinners without victuals, and lodgings without beds ; a masquerade where half the people appeared 22 THE mRVHPLvfCE barefaced, a horse-race up to the knees in water, fireworks extinguished as soon as they were lighted, a gingerbread amphitheatre, which, like a house of cards, tumbled to pieces as soon as it was finished." Foote's reference to Stratford as " an obscure borough " was hardly more uncomplimentary than Garrick's description of it as " the most dirty, unseemly, ill-pav'd, wretched -looking town in all Britain," a verdict which was a replica of Horace Walpole's opinion, penned eighteen years earlier, to the effect that it was the " wretchedest old town ' : he had ever seen. Garrick, however, reserved his opprobrium for a private letter; in his public character as the laureate of the "Jubilee " he was prolific of adulatory adjectives. And yet even in his " Ode" he made no reference to the birthplace cottages. But they were not neglected, for the records of the time tell how the humble buildings in Henley Street were adorned with a huge emblematic transparency. If there is one day in the early history of those cottages which should be marked with a red letter it is the day when they were muffled in the 2 3 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD gorgeous transparency of the Garrick "Jubilee." That distinction established a precedent which with every passing year would tend to the oblitera- tion of the Brook House tradition, and con- sequently, if there is an explanation of how Henley Street usurped the Brook House, it must be sought in the " Jubilee " festivities of 1769. Some years, then, before the close of the eighteenth century the western cottage was accepted as the natal shrine of Shakespeare, and by the opening years of the following century it was visited by the forerunners of that band of pilgrims which has now swollen to an annual army of some forty thousand. The first care- taker or cicerone of whom there is any record was that poetical widow, Mary Hornby by name, who did the honours of the cottage to Washington Irving. When he was shown over the house Mrs. Hornby had had twenty-two years' experience in entertaining credulous devotees, and had grown, as Irving noted, somewhat " garrulous." His picture of the widow is more vivid than the sil- houette which now hangs in the house she exploited for twenty-seven years. " A garrulous old lady," 24 THE BIRTHPLACE Irving wrote, " in a frosty red face, lighted up by a cold blue anxious eye, and garnished with artificial locks of flaxen hair, curling from under an exceedingly dirty cap. She was peculiarly assiduous," he continued, "in exhibiting the relics with which this, like all other celebrated shrines, abounds. There was the shattered stock of the very matchlock with which Shakespeare shot the deer on his poaching exploits. There, too, was his tobacco-box, which proves that he was a rival smoker to Sir Walter Raleigh ; the sword also with which he played Hamlet ; and the identical lantern with which Friar Laurence discovered Romeo and Juliet at the tomb ! There was an ample supply also of Shakespeare's mulberry-tree, which seems to have as extraordinary powers of self-multiplica- tion as the wood of the true Cross." Such were some of the relics; as to the building in which they were treasured the author of " The Sketch- Book " noted that it was "a small, mean-looking edifice of wood and plaster." Washington Irving was not the first American to make a " poetical pilgrimage " to that un- pretentious house. Three years earlier, namely, 2 5 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD in 1 8 12, he had been anticipated by a fellow- countryman named Perkins, who had signalized his pilgrimage by presenting Mrs. Hornby with an album for the recording of visitors' names. That seems to have been the first visitors' book kept at the birthplace, and when its pages were filled it was succeeded by others, for at the sale of the property in 1847 ^ ve such volumes were bought by one bidder for the sum of seventy guineas. Mr. Perkins's gift had a result which he little anticipated. That visitors' book inspired Mary Hornby with poetic ambitions. Irving, it will be remembered, in his good-humoured credulity, went so far as to accept the claims of his cicerone to a lineal descent from Shakespeare, when, luckily for his faith, she handed him a play of her own composition, "which set all belief in her consanguinity at defiance." But Mrs. Hornby had begun her poetic career on a less ambitious scale. Observing that many who inscribed the visitors' book were impelled to express their emotions in the form of verse, she was prompted to emulate their example, and for result was duly 26 THE BIRTHPLACE delivered of the following " Invitation to Shake- speare's Spring " : " Come, drink of the fountain where Shakespeare was born, hike me shed a tear that from earth he was torn, Tet his name will outlive all the tyrants of earth, All princes and heroes that ever had birth, For tyrants and princes and heroes at best By man are evaded, by man are oppressed ; With them nature's beauties incessant are marr'd — While the poet loves nature, 'tis God makes the bard." In justification of the poetic widow it should be recorded that her wretched doggerel was not out of place in the visitors' book. None of the early nineteenth-century pilgrims were dis- tinguished for poetic inspiration, and hence the little volume which Mrs. Hornby compiled from their and her own effusions, and published in i 8 17 at a shilling a copy, is not exactly a treasure-house 27 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD of immortal verse, even though some of the lines were, on the authority of her title-page, written by " people of Genius." But the chief interest of that collection of "Extemporary Verse " is that it bears witness to the result of Washington Irving's visit to Henley Street. Shakespeare's town owes a large debt to the American essayist, for his graceful sketch of Stratford-on-Avon gave an immense impetus to the pilgrim traffic and is to this day the inspiration of countless visitors. Little did Mrs. Hornby realize that the caller to whom she confided her belief in her Shakespearean ancestry was to be the inadvertent cause of her losing her profitable post as cicerone of the birthplace, and yet no other conclusion is possible from the plaintive prose note she inserted in that book of " Ex- temporary Verses." It was a breathless note, devoid of any punctuation, and read thus: "If I Mary Hornby widow should be obliged to quit this house in a short time it is my intention to take the relics that remain belonging to the immortal Shakespeare to the nearest house I can get for the amusement of those Ladies and Gentle- 28 THE "BIRTHPLACE men that shall please to favour me with their company." What had happened ? Briefly, another case of the unearned increment of genius. The birthplace had been " discovered." Thanks to Washington Irving and other causes, the pilgrims to Shake- speare's shrine constantly increased in numbers. All this was to the pecuniary profit of widow Hornby ; she not only had more purchasers of her "works" — the "ExtemporaryVerses,""The Battle of Waterloo," and " The Broken Vow " — but the " tips " of the devotees represented a considerable revenue. Now it was unfortunate for the poetical widow that she was not the owner of that lucrative birthplace ; on the contrary, she was merely a tenant paying at first the modest rent of ten pounds and then twenty pounds a year. What she made from the donations of the pilgrims she declined to disclose ; but the owner of the cottage came to the conclusion that twenty pounds a year was too small a proportion for her share and announced her intention of raising the rent to forty pounds. This was the juncture at which the cicerone penned that comma-less notice 29 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD quoted above. The relics of the "immortal Shakespeare ' were her own property, and she seems to have entertained the notion that without them the birthplace would be in a more desperate case than ' k Hamlet " without the Prince of Denmark. Perhaps she was right. The scientific spirit had not been born in those days ; it is quite probable that most of the pilgrims shared Irving's "easy faith " and were more impressed by the relics than by Shakespeare's birth-chamber. Certainly Mrs. Hornby had gathered together an awe-inspiring collection. Irving's inventory was almost criminally meagre. Happily another visitor was more copious, even if not exhaustive. In 1819, then, the various " articles of Shake- speare's property " comprised the following mis- cellaneous items : " His chair in the chimney-corner ; the match- lock with which he shot the deer ; his Toledo and walking-stick, which seemed of vine, and was elegant in its form ; a small bugle-horn ; his read- ing glass ; the bench and table near his bedside where he wrote ; the glass out of which he drank 30 THE BIRTHPLACE without rising in his bed in his last illness; a cup and basin ; his christening bowl ; his child's chair ; a superb table-cover, embroidered in gold, given him by Queen Elizabeth; his easy-chair; his bed complete ; the images that seem to have been posts, and four panels of a triangular form which appear to have made a half-tester, though no longer part of the bedstead ; his lantern ; his coffer, with some money ; his pencil-case ; his wife's shoe ; a bolt taken from the door of the room ; a portrait of him put together from fragments by Dr. Stort, Bishop of Killala." Such was the inventory made in 1 8 19 by Miss Hawkins, who, with the curiosity of her sex, cross-questioned the widow Hornby as to her income from the donations given by grateful pilgrims for the sight of such precious relics. But, as hinted above, the astute cicerone refused to be drawn ; the question of increased rent for the cottage was still in dispute, and she may have suspected her visitor as being in collusion with her exacting landlady. The following year, however, the landlady did finally carry into effect her threat to raise the rent of the birthplace to forty 3i SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD pounds a year, with the result that Mrs. Hornby gave up her tenancy and carried off her relics to another house for the "amusement of those Ladies and Gentlemen ' : who took pleasure in such souvenirs. As already stated, the Henley Street cottages remained in the possession of descendants of the Shakespeare family until 1806, in which year they were purchased by Thomas Court. When he died twelve years later he bequeathed the property to his wife, and hence it was by a sister widow that Mrs. Hornby was practically driven from the custodianship of the birthplace. From 1820, then, there were two Richmonds in the field. And it seems probable that for several years the widow Court had good reason to regret the removal of widow Hornby and her relics. For the poetical cicerone had rightly diagnosed the situation ; her various " articles of Shakespeare's property " secured her a liberal share of the pilgrim patronage, and to make matters worse for the extortionate widow Court, the new custodian of the birthplace appears to have sadly neglected her charge. Hence a visitor to Stratford 32 THE BIRTHPLACE in 1824 described the Henley Street shrine as "the worst house in the town," which would have been passed by in disgust had it not been for the board outside bearing the legend, " The immortal Shakespeare was born here." That same visitor, however, bore testimony to the increased vogue of the poet, for he said he " met Shakespeare everywhere. The print and book shops have him in all forms." Three years later there happened an event which did much to reinstate the birthplace in popular favour. This was another of those Shakespeare "Jubilees' 1 which were made fashionable by Garrick's experiment, and once more the term "jubilee" was a misnomer, for the date, 1827, did not correspond to either the natal or death year of the poet. Owing its initiation to the Shakespearean Club of the town, the festival of April 23, 1827, was planned on a gorgeous scale, with an imposing procession of Shakespeare characters impersonated by the members of a theatrical company which was playing in Stratford. Several characters from fourteen of the plays, numbering upwards of forty without counting the c 33 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD attendant witches, satyrs, and fairies, marched in the pageant, with Melpomene at the head of the tragic section and Thalia leading on the comedy troupe. There were banners, too, and bands, and St. George on horseback in armour, and a brave array of the Shakespearean Club members marching four abreast and liberally decorated with medals struck for the occasion. A glittering cavalcade, indeed, for the quiet streets of Stratford, which, after perambulating the principal thoroughfares, finally halted before the birthplace, where a hustings had been erected for the climax of the pageant, the crowning of a bust of Shakespeare by Melpomene and Thalia to the accompaniment of an eloquent oration. Thenceforward the Henley Street shrine had nothing to fear from the competition of widow Hornby's miscellaneous collection. But for many years it was an exceedingly bare shrine in which the pilgrims paid their devotions. That was the condition in which Hawthorne found it in the early years of the second half of the nineteenth century. He reported that the birth-chamber and the entire house were white- 34 THE "BIRTHPLACE washed and exceedingly clean, but the only objects on view were " various prints, views of houses, and scenes connected with Shakespeare's memory, together with editions of his works and local publications about his home and haunts." Hawthorne's cicerone was a worthy successor of the widow Hornby, an old lady with the " manners and aspect of a gentlewoman," who talked with "somewhat formidable knowledge and appreciative intelligence about Shakespeare." As compared with the account penned by his fellow-countryman, Washington Irving, Haw- thorne's description of the appearance of the birthplace as he saw it about 1856 is full of minute detail. The house he found almost smaller and humbler than any account would prepare the visitor to expect, while the basement apartment still preserved the butcher's stall with its cleaver-hacked counter. " This lower room," he added, " has a pavement of grey slabs of stone, which may have been rudely squared when the house was new, but are now all cracked, broken, and disarranged in a most unaccountable way. One does not see how any ordinary usage, for 3S SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD whatever length of time, should have so smashed these heavy stones ; it is as if an earthquake had burst up through the floor,which afterwards had been imperfectly trodden down again." Ascend- ing to the upper floor, Hawthorne was ushered into the room " in which Shakespeare is supposed to have been born ; though, if you peep too curiously into the matter, you may find the shadow of an ugly doubt on this, as well as most other points of his mysterious life. It is," he continued, " the chamber over the butcher's shop, and is lighted by one broad window containing a great many small, irregular panes of glass. The floor is made of planks, very rudely hewn, and fitting together with little neatness ; the naked beams and rafters, at the sides of the room and overhead, bear the original marks of the builder's broad-axe, with no evidence of an attempt to smooth off the job. Again we have to reconcile ourselves to the smallness of the space enclosed by these illustrious walls — a circumstance more difficult to accept, as regards places that we have heard, read, thought, and dreamed much about, than any other dis- enchanting particular of a mistaken ideal. A few 36 THE 'BIRTHPLACE paces — perhaps seven or eight — take us from end to end of it. So low is it that I could easily touch the ceiling, and might have done so with- out a tiptoe-stretch, had it been a good deal higher ; and this humility of the chamber has tempted a vast number of people to write their names overhead in pencil. Every inch of the side walls, even into the obscurest nooks and corners, is covered with a similar record ; all the window-panes, moreover, are scrawled with diamond signatures, among which is said to be that of Walter Scott ; but so many persons have sought to immortalize themselves in close vicinity to his name that I really could not trace him out." Between the " Jubilee " of 1827 and the visit of Hawthorne some twenty-nine years later an im- portant event had transpired in the history of the Henley Street cottages. The widow Court died in 1846, and the question of the future ownership of the premises at once began to engage public attention. This was the juncture at which the fortunes of the birthplace were threatened by the ubiquitous 37 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD Phineas T. Barnum. That enterprising American showman crops up in the legends of most historic buildings in England. He is credited with a desire to buy them all at some time or other, with the sinister purpose of transplanting them bodily to United States soil. That he had designs upon the famous shrine at Stratford seems beyond dispute ; it would have been the greatest " scoop ' : of his spectacular career if he could have secured possession of the Shakespeare house and trans- planted it to America. And there were some who credited him with the actual achievement of that fact, for some twenty years ago it was confidently affirmed that the birthplace had been removed and was then " somewhere in the United States of America." But that was an assertion founded on inadequate knowledge. The " somewhere " proved its falsity. Barnum was not the man to hide such an acquisi- tion under a bushel. And as so many erroneous statements have been made concerning the last purchase of the Henley Street property, it may be interesting to give an outline of the true history of that event. 38 THE "BIRTHPLACE For the construction of such a history there are two records of first-hand value : one is a copy of the sale-book used by the auctioneer, Edmund Robins, on the day when the property was dis- posed of, with an interleaved manuscript draft of his speech on that occasion ; the other the detailed report of the auction which was printed in the Morning Post for September 17, 1847. A com- parison of these records with the innumerable accounts hitherto given of the sale of the birth- place shows that, as in so many other matters, first-hand information has been strangely neg- lected. It appears, then, that the heir to widow Court's estate at her death in 1846 was a minor, and that his trustee, acting under legal advice, came to the conclusion that he would best serve the interests of his ward by selling the property. A similar trans- action had been carried out in 1806 without exciting the outside world ; by 1846, however, the value of the birthplace as a literary shrine had been materially enhanced, and it was improbable that it would change owners again for the modest sum — £260 — which Thomas Court invested forty 39 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD years earlier. No sooner, then, was it rumoured that the Shakespeare cottages were to be offered for sale than a committee was formed with the object of raising a fund for their purchase on behalf of the nation. To-day such a committee would have an easy task ; sixty-five years ago it was not a light undertaking. For there were sceptics in the land then, obstinate questioners who did not share the " easy faith " of Washington Irving. Consequently when a member of the London Court of Common Council proposed that that body should vote a sum of money towards the purchase of " Shakespeare's House," the reference of the seconder of the motion to the building as "the house in which he was born" was greeted with an emphatic " No, no ! " and the proposal was defeated by sixty-nine votes to thirty- eight. On that very day, at the Mart in London, the sale of the property was completed. It had been announced to take place at " twelve for one precisely," but a few minutes after eleven o'clock the Mart doors were besieged by an excited crowd, and at noon the auction-room was packed "almost 40 THE BIRTHPLACE to suffocation. ' : So dense was the crowd, indeed, that an adjournment had to be made to a larger hall, where Mr. Robins began the sale at " one precisely." His opening address had been care- fully prepared and was pitched in a high key appropriate to the occasion. The interest ex- cited by the event, he declared, had not been equalled in the annals of auctions, and he claimed that instead of the contemplated sale being made the subject of reproach it was a matter for con- gratulation that an opportunity was being openly afforded for the acquisition of " the birthplace of the immortal bard " by the nation. Mr. Robins further protested that he and those for whom he was acting were determined that their conduct in such an important transaction should be thoroughly honourable and as much above suspicion as Cassar's wife, and he appealed to the Committee to meet them in the same spirit. " As I feel it my duty," he added, "to announce that no fictitious bidding whatever will be made by the vendor or on his behalf, still I claim for him to make, in his capacity of guardian, one bidding during the auction. Should, however, the Com- 4i SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD mittee by their agent at their first bidding, which I hope they will do, name the sum they are dis- posed to give for the property, and should it exceed that which the trustee is advised to bid, I shall at once state the fact and leave the matter in the hands of the public." Having thus unburdened himself of his lofty- spirited exordium, Mr. Robins descended to more mercenary matters. Apart from its asso- ciations with Shakespeare, the property was of considerable commercial value as mere buildings and freehold land ; while as a literary shrine its constantly enhancing value was demonstrated by the fact that the yearly total of visitors was ever on the increase. Many of those visitors had " paid large sums for the privilege of sleeping in the room." Thus far Mr. Robins had been heard with patience and interest ; but when he proceeded to dwell upon the authenticity of the birth-room and described it as the veritable chamber in which the illustrious poet "first drew the breath of life" his eloquence was rudely interrupted. In the words of the Morning Post reporter, " an individual 42 THE BIRTHPLACE wearing a very formidable pair of moustachios, and whose name was stated to be Jones, here called upon Mr. Robins to prove that Shakespeare was born in that identical room." With ready wit the auctioneer retorted that such a demand reminded him of the story of the person who went to Stratford to see the midwife who officiated at the birth of the poet, and the rejoinder so amused the audience that when the gentleman in the "formidable pair of moustachios" made a second attempt to bring Mr. Robins back to the point, he was shouted down with cries of " To business ! " To business, accordingly, the auctioneer pro- ceeded. And, so far as the buildings were concerned, it was exhausted in three bids. The first offer, which was made apparently by the trustee, was for a thousand pounds ; the second, tendered by a Mr. Butler, was for double that sum. But where was Barnum ? Was Mr. Butler acting for the famous showman, or was he present in person in the guise of the individual "whose name was stated to be Jones " ? This is another Shakespearean mystery which awaits solution. 43 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD In any case, no sooner had Mr. Butler, whether acting for himself or Barnum, made his bid of two thousand pounds than a memorandum was handed to Mr. Robins stating that the Committee was prepared to give three thousand pounds for the property. "Immense cheers," recorded the Morning Post reporter, " followed the reading of this document, coupled with derisive laughter at the expense of the gentleman in moustachios, who afterwards offered two thousand pounds." With- out waiting for further bids, Mr. Robins clinched the offer of the Committee with the fall of his hammer, and with that resounding tap on September 16, 1847, the Henley Street home of Shakespeare passed for all time into the possession of the British nation. Sixty-five years, then, have elapsed since the Stratford shrine became national property. And if Hawthorne could revisit it to-day he would have much difficulty in recognizing in the smoothly restored and trimly kept building the original of that humble edifice which he described in "Our Old Home," while Washington Irving would utterly fail to identify it with the " mean- 44 THE "BIRTHPLACE looking " cottage of his pilgrimage, and the diarist of 1824 could no longer describe it as "the worst house in the town." What is true, too, of the exterior appearance of the birthplace may also be affirmed of the interior. The various rooms are no longer "squalid" or merely whitewashed ; and the vacuity noted by Hawthorne has given place to a somewhat bewildering collection of objects which are aptly characterized as " miscellaneous " by Sir Sidney Lee. Unfortunately few of those three hundred and fifty objects have more than an allusive connexion with Shakespeare. Although the present trustees of the birthplace exercise considerable discrimina- tion in their purchases and acceptance of additions, their earliest predecessors were little disposed to look a gift-horse in the mouth. Not that any relic now shown makes so severe a strain on credulity as some of the objects shown by the widow Hornby, such as the poet's christening bowl or his wife's shoe ; but candour prompts the wish that the trustees were less confident in their official ascriptions of some of their treasures. There is that ring, for example, in the Museum 45 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD which is catalogued as " Shakespeare's gold finger- ring," but of which the most that can be said is that it is probably a gentleman's ring of the Elizabethan period. There is not a particle of solid evidence to prove that it was once the property of the poet. More reticence, too, is desirable on the part of those cicerones who point to an oak desk from the Grammar School as "Shakespeare's desk," for there again adequate authority is lacking, just as there is nothing to establish the authenticity of the " round oak box made of wood from Shakespeare's pew." Many of the objects shown in the Museum, however, have the attractive quality of atmosphere. That is, they date indubitably from the England of Shakespeare's days. Among such are the cast of the face of Sir Thomas Lucy from his monu- ment in Charlecote Church, the various coins of Elizabeth's reign, and the collection of early editions of the plays. But it is the documents, the deeds and wills and conveyances and records of lawsuits, and the private letters which make least demand on the "easy faith " which is more rare to-day than in the credulous age of Washing- 4 6 THE BIRTHPLACE ton Irving. Those time-stained scraps of vellum or paper are their own evidence, and among them all the one of most absorbing interest is that brief epistle from Richard Quyney to his "Loveinge good Frend and countreymann mr. Wm. Shacke- spere " which is the only letter addressed to the poet of which there is any knowledge. When, then, all deductions have been made, and the scientific spirit placated to the full, the residuum of interest attaching to the Henley Street cottages is sufficient to warrant the devotion of literary pilgrims. In one or other of those buildings Shakespeare undoubtedly spent the years of his boyhood and early manhood ; wherever he was born, it was in Henley Street he had his home before setting out on his high adventure in London ; and it is no meagre satisfaction for the hero-worshipping instinct that the rooms which once echoed to his childish laughter contain several of those quarto editions of his plays which were printed in his own lifetime. And for the rest, the peaceful little garden in the rear of the poet's house is richly sown with descendants of those fruits and flowers which have acquired 47 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD an added fame through many allusions in his deathless lines. His memory is enshrined for ever in "the lily's white" and "the deep vermilion of the rose." 4 8 CHAPTER II : New Place WASHINGTON IRVING was so fascinated by Stratford-on-Avon that six years after the poetical pilgrimage described in his " Sketch-Book " he paid a second visit to the town. It was on that occasion he penned the lines the original autograph of which is preserved among the treasures of the birth- place : " Of mighty Shakespeare s birth the room we see ; That where he died in vain to find we try. Useless the search : — -for all Immortal He y And those who are Immortal never die''' Six years, then, had wrought no change in his " easy faith " ; he still accepted the apartment in the Henley Street cottage as the veritable birth- chamber of the poet ; and his allusion to the scene of Shakespeare's death seems to suggest that he knew nothing of New Place and its interesting associations. In the " Sketch-Book," indeed, Irving recorded how he passed from the d 49 SHiJKESPEeSRE ^ND STRATFORD birthplace of the poet to his grave, with never a reference to the site of that house which was connected with the fruition of his fortunes and was the place of his death. Strangely enough, too, Stratford's other famous American pilgrim, Nathaniel Hawthorne, was guilty of the same oversight nearly half a century later, for he also wrote that " from Shakespeare's house the next step, of course, is to visit his burial-place.'' And yet such an order of pilgrimage ignores the most interesting spot in Stratford — that vacant plot of ground where once stood the building in which the poet spent the last few years of his life as an honoured and wealthy citizen of his native town. No doubt the grave of Shakespeare is a firm fact for which, amid so much shifting ground, the pilgrim must be duly grateful ; but, as compared with the conflicting legends of the birthplace, the documentary evidence which con- nects the dramatist with New Place is of such an assured nature that even its houseless site is a haunt of surpassing interest. Such, no doubt, Irving and Hawthorne would have thought it had they been aware first of its 5° NEW PL^CE existence and then of the memories it suggests. They may not have been ignorant of the first ; of the second they were naturally oblivious, seeing that at the time of their visits J. O. Halliwell- Phillipps had not given to the world that pains- taking volume in which, at the cost of so much zealous research, he was able to set forth the full extent of Shakespeare's association with New Place. Although the poet's ownership of the house naturally overshadows every other incident of its history, its annals prior and subsequent to that event were more remarkable than is usually the case with a modest mansion in a quiet country town. All told, that history embraced a period of nearly three centuries, for the original building makes an appearance in documentary records so long ago as 1483, and its successor was not finally demolished until 1759. For the pilgrim of to-day, then, the objective next in order to the birthplace is that vacant lot at the corner of Chapel Street and Chapel Lane where the New Place mansion once stood. The frontage, which is somewhat narrow, is on Chapel 51 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD Street, and is adjoined to the north by an ancient building known as Nash's House ; in its depth the site extends eastward down Chapel Lane for a considerable distance. The whole is shut off from the public thoroughfares by an ornamental iron railing, which is, however, broken by a gateway a little distance down Chapel Lane. That gateway marks approximately the dividing line between the small garden at the rear of the house and the great garden which stretched eastward in the direction of the Avon. And another feature of the gateway in the garden of New Place is that it is the only entrance to a Shakespeare shrine in the town which may be passed without paying a monetary toll. Such an exception deserves to be recorded in letters of gold. A small Stratford boy who accompanied the present writer on some of his wanderings bore unconscious testimony to the spirit of the place. " I don't agree," said he, " with all the fuss people make about that Shakespeare." " Why ? " " Well, look at the lot of money he gets ! " That he was astonished when he learnt that the aforesaid Shakespeare was dead does not blunt the 5 2 NEW PLtACE point of his impeachment. Certainly a " lot of money" is demanded in the name of the poet. All who have a sense of the fitness of things must rejoice to learn that a discerning American has christened Stratford as " the sixpenny town." There is no getting away from that sixpenny fee. If the pilgrim wishes to visit the birthplace the charge is sixpence ; if he desires to inspect the museum under the same roof he must hand out another sixpence ; if he would walk over the site of New Place the cry is still sixpence ; if he would enter the Memorial Theatre he cannot do it under sixpence ; if he wanders out to Anne Hathaway's cottage the sixpenny tribute pursues him still. It is not the amount, but the constant iteration which is so wearisome. If the fee must be retained, why cannot the trustees come to an arrangement whereby each pilgrim will be able to purchase the freedom of the town for a specific sum and be rid of the whole sordid business in one transaction ? Even New Place, as noted above, is tainted by the blight of that sixpenny toll to a certain extent ; that is, the small and great gardens at the rear are divided by a fence running parallel to the 53 SHAKESPEARE AND STRATFORD gateway on Chapel Lane, and the ground to the west of that fence may not be trodden unless the sixpenny tribute is forthcoming. But, that justice may be done, let it be admitted that, so far as the grounds of New Place are concerned, the pilgrim who pays nothing has the advantage of him who pays sixpence. He can, an he list, overlook the site of Shakespeare's last home to his heart's content, carefully con the broken outlines of its foundations, note the position of the poet's well, and, if he have the gift of imagination, conjure up a vision of the sweet bard of Avon in his sunset days ; and then he can turn away to wander at his will along the trim paths and among the shaven lawns and radiant flower-beds which represent to-day that leafy pleasance which was once the dramatist's great garden. It is an ideal retreat for an hour's meditation. From various points of view the eye catches glimpses of quaint gables of ancient houses or the old grey tower of the Guild Chapel, while the shrubs and trees and flowers might be the lineal descendants of those planted by Shake- speare's own hand. Nay, on the edge of one 54 NEW PL