yALe univeRSity LiBRARy Che gARVAn collection of books on iReLAnd estABLished in 1971 By f RAncis p. gARVAn, yALe 1897 in honoR of his pARents pAtRiCK gARVAn mARy carroLL gARVAn VISITS TO REMARKABLE PLACES: mn $alls, Battle ffiitm, AND SCENES ILLUSTRATIVE OF STRIKING PASSAGES IN ENGLISH HISTORY AND POETRY. BY WILLIAM HOWITT, AUTHOR OF " THE RURAL LIFE OF ENGLAND," " BOY'S COUNTRY BOOK," ETC. THE ILLUSTRATIONS DESIGNED AND EXECUTED BY SAMUEL WILLIAMS. SECOND EDITION. W0L3EY BLESSING CHILDREN. LONDON: LONGMAN, OltME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMANS. M.hCCC.XL. PRINTED UY IV\ LAN LONOON: MANNING ANH MASON. ;, I'ATKHNOSTKR HOV. ADVERTISEMENT. There is a passage in De Lamartine's " Pilgrimage to the Holy Land," which expresses very clearly the nature and object of this work. " I have always loved to wander over the physi cal scenes inhabited by men I have known, admired, loved, or revered, as well amongst the living as the dead. The country which a great man has inhabited and preferred, during his passage on the earth, has always appeared to me the surest and most speaking relic of himself: a kind of material manifesta tion of his genius — a mute revelation of a portion of his soul — a living and sensible commentary on his life, actions, and thoughts. When young, I passed many solitary and contem plative hours, reclining under olive trees which shade the gardens of Horace, in sight of the delightful cascades of the Tiber ; and often have I dropped to sleep in the evening, lulled by the noise of the beautiful sea of Naples, under the hanging branches of the vines, near the spot where Virgil wished his ashes to repose, because it was the most delicious site his eyes had ever beheld. How often, at a later period, have I passed mornings and evenings seated at the foot of the beautiful chestnut trees in the little valley of Charmettes, to which the remembrance of Jean Jaques Rousseau attracted me, and where I was retained by sympathy with his impressions, his reveries, his misfor tunes, and his genius. And I have been thus attracted with respect to several other authors and great men, whose names and writings were deeply engraven on my memory. I wished to study them; to become acquainted with them on the spot that had given them birth, or that had inspired them; and almost always a scrutinizing glance might discover a secret and profound analogy between the country and the individual who had graced it; between the scene and the actor; between nature and the genius which derived its inspirations therefrom." IV ADVERTISEMENT. These were exactly my feelings and ideas long before De Lamartine had thus penned them down; and who, indeed, has not experienced, more or less, the same impressions ? We need not visit the distant East to make the discovery; there is no country where the soil is more thickly sown with noble memories than our own, and those of the deeds, the sufferings and the triumphs of our own progenitors. It has long been my opinion that to visit the most remarkable scenes of old English history and manners, and to record the impressions thence derived in their immediate vividness ; to restore, as it were, each place and its inhabitants to freshness, and to present them freed from the dust of ages and heaviness of antiquarian rubbish piled upon them, would be a labour responded to with emphasis by readers of the present day. The general approval of the experiment made in " The Rural Life," by introducing visits to Newstead, Annesley, and Hardwicke, and the intimations of great interest in the announcement of this work, received from all quarters, convinced me that I was not mistaken. The field is a wide and a rich one. The present volume may be con sidered but as a precursor of others on this subject, in which I have long been engaged ; and the plan of which will shortly be announced. I have to present my warmest acknowledgments, not only to many private individuals for valuable hints and information, but also to the possessors of places visited, for the verv cordial and liberal manner in which they endeavoured to promote my object. The illustrations of this volume are all designed and exe cuted by Samuel Williams, except the Title-page Vignette, which was designed by my daughter. The Portrait of the Young Shakspeare, it should also be stated, is from an admirable sketch by Mr. Williams, but has been rendered hard, and un equal to the original, in the cutting. W. H. Usher, Dec. \m, 1830. CONTENTS. PAGE Visit to Penshuhst in Kent; the Ancient Seat of the Sidneys — Charac ter of the Sidney Family — of Sir Philip— of his Father Sir Henry— of Algernon— Shelley the Poet, a Sidney — present Aspect of Penshurst — Sir Philip's Oak — Saccharissa's Walk — Gamage's Bower — Ben Jonson's Description of Penshurst— the Old Banqueting Hall — a Suite of Ancient Rooms, with all their Antique Furniture and Paintings — Portraits of Sir Philip, Algernon, and the Countess of Pembroke, Saccharissa, Countesses of Leicester and Carlisle — the Gallery full of Historical Portraits — Sir Philip and his Brother Robert — Family MSS House hold Book — Locks of Hair of Sir Philip and Algernon — Church and Parsonage . . ...... 1 Visit to the Field of Culloden — Peculiar Interest of Battle Fields — Review of Events leading to the Battle of Culloden — Inverness, and walk to Culloden — present aspect of the Field — Tradition of the valiant Blacksmith — the Graves of the Slain — Burns's Visit to them, and his Feelings — Traditions of the Field — strange Adventures of the Chevalier Johnstone — his Account of the Atrocities of the Duke of Cumberland — Visit to a Cottage on the Field — Belief of the Cottagers that another Battle will be fought, founded on Visions of Second-sight — Wully Mackenzie entertains us with his Bagpipes . . .51 Visit to Stratfobd-on- Avon, and the Haunts of Shakspeahe — Aspect of the Country — visible signs of Shakspeare's Fame in Stratford ¦ — vindication of his Domestic Character — Ann Hathaway's Cottage — its Garden and Plants — Dewberries — Danger of the Cottage being pulled down — Present Condition of the Shakspeare Family — William Shakspeare Smith, a School-boy, descendant of Shakspeare's Sister Joan — Relics of Shakspeare in Stratford — Mr. Reason's Collection — Mary Humby's attempt to obliterate all the Names of Visiters to the Room of his Birth — the Shakspeare Albums — a sample of Inscriptions from them — Shakspeare's Tomb — Charlecote Park — odd local notion of Shakspeare derived from a Statue of Diana — present State and Appearance of the Park and House — Bust of Sir Thomas Lucy — local estimation of the present Family of the Lucys — Paintings — Monuments in the Church — Sir Thomas the Patron of Fox the Martyrologist — Character of Lady Lucy — misrepresented by Shak speare — Clopton Hall — the Cloptons of Clopton, the great Family of Stratford — Sir Hugh Clopton an admirer of Shakspeare — Lord Carew of Elizabeth's reign, married the Heiress of the Cloptons — splendid Tomb of himself and Countess — state of Clopton Hall some years ago — Traditions of the Tragic ends of Charlotte and Margaret Clopton — decay of the Family and sale of the Estate — Margaret's Well — Ireland's account of his visit there in quest of Shakspeare Papers . . 81 VI CONTENTS. PACE Visit to Combe Abkei, Warwickshire — Attempt to carry off from Combe Abbey Elizabeth of Bohemia, by the Gunpowder Plot Con spirators—singular fate of some of these Conspirators— tragic History of Sir Walter Smith—his Son juggled out of his Estate by Sir John Lyttleton— Fate of Sir John Lyttleton's Descendants— singular Search of Hendlip Hall— Elizabeth of Bohemia's subsequent connexion with Combe Abbey— the Portraits of the Stuart Family, and other Paintings brought hither by her from Germany — Fatality of her Ambition . 147 Visit to Lindisfarne, Flodden Field, and other Sceneby of Mar- m1on — Tact of the Poets in fixing the locality of their Poems in fine Scenery illustrated in Marmion — wild appearance of Holy Isle, as seen by us at twilight — beauty and strength of the Ruins of Lindisfarne — affecting character of Maritime Burying-grounds — approach to Flodden Field — its present appearance — singular fate of King James's remains 169 Visit to Bolton Priory — Men of Genius shewn to be the Practical Men — united effect of Poetry and Steam — Scenery of the White Doe op Rylston — Paradisiacal Beauty of Wharfdale — and Scenery round Bolton Priory — the Ruins — the Duke of Devonshire's Hunting-seat, the Strid — Barden Tower — Remarkable Persons who have lived there — the celebrated Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke — her singular Inscription — the Shepherd Lord — Walk over the Fells to Rylston — Norton Tower — Remarks on Wordsworth's Poem of the White Doe . 197 Visit to Hampton Court — The Palace and Gardens now thrown open to the Public — great resort there, and delight of the People — SL<_tch of the Character, Progress, and Fall of Wolsey — Wolsey's Tower at Esher — his Establishment and State at Hampton — Royal Festivities there — remarkable Events occurring there from Henry A" III. to the present time — peep into Bushy Park — Gardens and Wilderness of Hampton Court — Description of the Palace both in its ancient and present state — the suite of State Rooms, with all their Paintings, particularly the Beauties of the Courts of Charles II. and William III. — the Cartoous of Raffaelle — the Portrait Gallery — its numerous Historic Portraits singular Portrait of Queen Elizabeth . ... 233 Visit to Comiton-Winyates, Warwicksiiihi — Solitary and secluded situation of this old house, the properly of the Marquis of Northampton — impressions on approaching it — its general appearance curious Carving ou the Screen in the Hall — Royal Emblazoning: on Windows, Walls, and Ceilings — quaint and curious Carvings in the Chapel account of the Compton Family — unique Letter of the fust Countess of Northampton — Popish Chupel in the roof — Hiding-places of the Soldiers of the Civil Wars in I he roof — profound Solitude of the place 3ttj A Dawdiieam at Tintacii.i.— Wild situation of Tintagel Castle— Scene as it may be imagined in King Arthur's days — Chuims of old Romance and influence of Poetry on the National Character and Fortunes S-'n CONTENTS. Vll PAGE Visit to Staffa and Iona — A Voyage to the Western Isles, a great event a few years ago — now a matter of every day — wild Beauty of the Scenery on the Voyage — Scene in the Cave of Staffa — general aspect of Iona — Children on the Shore offering Shells and Green Pebbles — Ruins, Tombs of the Norwegian Kings, Crosses, and other Remains — curious Sculptures — Procession of Modern Pilgrims . . . 351 Visit to Edge-Hill — Scenery of Edge-Hill — solitary Inn of the Sun- rising — Round-Tower — Scene of the Battle — Battle Farm — the Grave Fields — account of the Battle — Bullet-hill — Anecdote of Cromwell — Traditions — Anecdote of King Charles on his way to the Battle meet ing Richard Shuckburgh hunting — the circumstance fatal to Richard Shuckburgh — tragio Love affair in the family of his descendants . 367 Visit to the Great Jesuits' College at Stonyhurst in Lancashire — Fine situation and picturesque Neighbourhood of Stonyhurst College — Whalley Abbey — Mitton Church — the Old Sexton, his attention to the last Rector's Tomb — the splendid Monuments of the Sherburnes — curious Monumental Records of the Sherburnes — Anecdote of the Village Sculptor — description of the College, its Paintings, Relics, and mode of Education — Gardens — Conversation of the peculiar position of the Jesuits there ....... 382 Visit to the Ancient City of Winchester — Historical Reminiscences — the Capital of the British and Saxon Kings — favourite City and Burial- place of Alfred — resort of many subsequent Monarchs — Remarkable Events there — General Aspect of the City — Fair of St. Giles' Hill — The Cathedhal — its Venerable Beauty — the Beauty of Gothic Architecture — Monuments of Joseph Warton and Bishop Hoadley — splendid Chantries of Wykeham, Beaufort, Fox and Waynflete — Tomb of William Rufus — Noble Choir — Chests containing the Bones of the Saxon Monarchs — Sonnet by Richard Howitt, on the Matin Service — Grave of Izaak Walton — Wykeham's College — William of Wyke- ham's Origin and Career — Account of the School — The Hospital of St. Cross — History and present State of it — its noble Norman Church — Concluding Remarks ...... 413 Visit to Wotton Hall, Staffordshire — Alfieri and Rousseau in England — Alfieri's Early Character and Conduct in England — the Arrival of Rousseau at Wotton — his Temporary Contentment there — his Acquaintance — his Flight — present Traditions of him at Wotton . 489 Sacrament Sunday at Kilmorac— Peculiar mode of administering the Sacrament in Scotland— administered in the Highlands every Summer in the Open Air — Description of such a Scene as witnessed by tbe Author at the Falls of Kilmorac . . ¦ • .517 ILLUSTRATIONS. Vignette — Wolsey, blessing little Children. Penshurst, the Ancient Seat of the Sidneys Tlie Sidney Oak ... ... Ancient Bell Banqueting Hall Old Oak Tables and Screen ... Portraits of Sir Philip Sidney and his Brother Robert Saccharissa's Walk ... The Garden Terrace Culloden — Battle-Field The Valiant Blacksmith Stratford-on-Avon— Hall at Charlecote Ann Hathaway's Cottage A Young School-boy Shakspeare House in which Shakespeare was born Shakespeare's Tomb Charlecote House — Seat of Sir Thomas Lucy Bust of Sir Thomas Lucy Shakspeare Writing on the Park Gale Flodden Field Lindisfarne Bolton Priory — The Strid Hampton Court Palace ... Wolsey's Tower, at Esher Cromwell and Fox meeting Wolsey's Well, at Esher The Compton Family at Mass COMPTON WlNYATES Tintagel Castle, in Arthur's Time ... Iona Edge-Hill — Meeting of Charles Land Richard Shuckburgh Winchester — The Cathedral Warton's Tomb Beaufort's Chantry ... Mortuary Chests of the Saxon Kings Wykeham's College The Trusty Servant Pillars of Saint Cross Wotion-IIai.i, ... ... ... Kilmorac I 13 2123 24 35 3949 516781 93 98 109112 118 122 130169 196197 2:t3245 27 1 ) 3J3 305 32S 329 351367 413 453 455 460 467 474479 4M9 517 VISIT TO PENSHURST IN KENT, THE ANCIENT SEAT OP THE SIDNEYS. Tread, As with a pilgrim's reverential thoughts, The groves of Penshurst. Sidney here was born, Sidney, than whom no gentler, braver man His own delightful genius ever feigned. Southey. England, amongst her titled families, can point to none more illustrious than that of Sidney. It is a name which carries with it the attestation of its genuine nobility. Others are of older standing in the realm. It is not one of those to be found on the roll of Battle Abbey. The first who bore it in England is 2 VISIT TO PENSHURST. said to have come hither in the reign of Henry III. There arc others, too, which have mounted much higher in the scale of mere rank ; but it may be safely said that there is none of a truer dignity, nor more endeared to the spirits of Englishmen. In point of standing and alliance, there is hardly one of our old and most celebrated families with which it will not be found to be connected. Warwick, Leicester, Essex, Northum berland, Pembroke, Carlisle, Burleigh, Sutherland, Rutland, Strangford, Sunderland, are some of the families united by blood or marriage with the house and fortunes of the Sidneys. The royal blood of England runs in the veins of their children. But it is by a far higher nobility than that of ancient descent, or martial or political power, that the name of Sidney arrests the admiration of Englishmen. It is one of our great watch words of liberty. It is one of the household words of English veneration. It is a name hallowed by some of our proudest historical and literary associations; identified in the very staple of our minds with a sense of high principle, magnanimity of sentiment, and generous and heroic devotion to the cause of our country and of man. When we would express in a few magical syllables all that we feel and comprehend of patriotism and genius, the names that rush involuntarily to our lips are those of Milton, Hampden, Sidney, and such men. It is a glorious distinction for one family to have given one such name to its country: but it is the happiness of the house of Sidney to number more than one such in its line, and to have enriched our literature with a brilliant constellation of names, both male VISIT TO PENSHURST. and female, that have been themselves poets, or the admired theme of poets; literary, or the friends of all the literary and learned of their times. They were not merely of the aristocracy of rank, but of the aristocracy of mind; and it is from that cause, and that alone, that their name is embedded like a jewel in the golden frame-work of the language. Of this distinguished line, the most illustrious and popular was unquestionably Sir Philip. The universal admiration that he won from his cotemporaries is one of the most curious cir cumstances of the history of those times. The generous and affectionate enthusiasm with which he inspired both his own countrymen and foreigners, has, perhaps, no parallel. The "admirable Crichton" is the only person who occurs to our minds as presenting anything like the same universality of knowledge and accomplishments; but Crichton was a meteor which blazed for a moment, and left only a name of wonder. Sir Philip still continues to be spoken of by all genuine poets and minds of high intellect with much of the same affectionate honour that he received from his own age. " He approaches," says Dr. Aikin, " more nearly to the idea of a perfect man, as well as of a perfect knight, than any character of any age or nation."* This perfection of character is shewn by these particulars : that from his boyhood he was eager for the acquisition of all possible knowledge, — language, philosophy, poetry, every species of art and science, were devoured by him ; yet he did * Annual Review, p. 919. 4 VISIT TO PENSHURST. not give himself up merely to the pursuit of knowledge; he never became a mere book-worm. He was equally fond of field sports and manly exercises. He was looked up to as the perfect model of a corn-tier, without the courtier's baseness of adulation. Elizabeth pronounced him the brightest jewel of her crown. He was deemed the very mirror of knighthood. In the camp he was the ardent warrior; he was sent on foreign embassage of high importance, and proved himself a dexterous politician. There was a universality of talent and of taste about him that markod him as a most extraordinary man. His facility of amassing information and putting on accomplishment was mar vellous. Yet he never seemed to have any mere worldly ambition. It was the pure love of glory that animated him ; and in striving for it, he never for a moment appeared capable of the common jealousies of emulation; on the contrary, he was the friend, and the warm and beloved friend of every one who was himself most distinguished. Sir Fulke Greville, after wards Lord Brooke, had it inscribed on his monument, as his peculiar glory, that he was the friend of Sir Philip Sidney. He was the friend of Sponsor, Dyer, Raleigh, Ben Jonson, Sir Henry and Sir Edward Wotton, the learned llur- bert Languet, and indeed of all the finest spirits of his aire ; yet it was, after all, less by the brilliancy of his intellect than by the warmth of his heart, that he won so singularly on the admiration of nil men. The grand secret of his unprecedented popularity lay in the nobility of his nature. Nothing could be more delightful than the high, unworldly, and incorruptible VISIT TO PENSHURST. character of his mind. It was this ardent, sunny, unselfish disposition which was so beautiful in all his family relations. His father, Sir Henry Sidney, himself one of the noblest characters in history, says of him, in a letter to his second son, Robert Sidney: "Follow the advice of your most loving brother, who in loving you is comparable with me, or exceedeth me. Imitate his virtues, exercises, studies, and actions. He is a rare ornament of his age; the very formula that all well- disposed young gentlemen of our court do form also their manners and life by. In truth, I speak it without flattery of him, or myself, he hath the most virtues that I ever found in any man." What a proud testimony from a father to a son ! But the same admirable affection constantly displayed itself towards his brother and sister. His letters to his brother Robert are full of the most delightfully gay, yet loving and wise spirit. Writing to him while on his travels, he declared, — what he invariably proved by his conduct, — " There is nothing I spend so pleaseth me as that which is for you. If ever I have ability, you will find it; if not, yet shall not any brother living be better beloved than you of me." His tender attachment to his sister, the celebrated Countess of Pembroke, is known to all the world. It was to Wilton that he betook himself during his temporary absence from court, on account of his difference with the insolent Earl of Oxford, to write his Arcadia. It was to her that he dedicated it, and more than dedicated it, calling it " Pembroke's Arcadia." 6 VISIT TO PENSHURST. It was to her that he sent it, sheet by sheet, when he was not present with her to read it to her ; living in her approbation of it, and seeking no other fame from it, for it was not pub lished till after his death. Such were the noble and endearing qualities that made Sir Philip Sidney the idol of his times in foreign countries as much as in his own; that induced Poland to offer him its crown; that covered his hearse with the laments of all the learned and poetical amongst his cotemporaries — three volumes of such funereal tributes in various languages being published on the occasion of his death; the two great English universities striving which should outdo the other in the number and inten sity of its " melodious tears." The evidences of Sir Philip Sidney's genius which have come down to us are to be found in his Arcadia ; his Astrophel and Stella; his Defence of Poesy; his Sonnets and Songs: and there have not been wanting those who assert that thev do not bear out by their merit the enthusiastic encomiums of his cotemporaries. Lord Orford has pronounced the Arcadia "a tedious, lamentable, pedantic, pastoral romance;'' and Hume Tytler, and others, have echoed the opinion. How many are there of our own age who arc prepared by actual perusal to sanction or disallow of this dictum? How many have read that poem of which every one speaks as a matter of knowledge— Spenser's Faery Queen? How uianv even, have waded through Paradise Lost ? Every poetical spirit which has qualiiicd itself to give an answer, must declare that VISIT TO PENSHURST. 7 the literary relics of Sir Philip Sidney, — writings thrown off rapidly in the midst of many pursuits and many distracting attentions, and before death at the early age of thirty-two, — must pronounce them well worthy of his fame. His poetry and prose too have all the marks of stiffness, and affected point of that period ; but every page of his com position abounds with sober and with brilliant thoughts. His sonnets are delightful testimonies to the inward beauty and tenderness of the man. Many readers have been made familiar with the fine opening of one of his sonnets, by Wordsworth introducing it as the opening of one of his : — With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the sky, How silently, and with how sad a face ! and every real lover of poetry, if he opens the volume of Sir Philip Sidney, will find much that will equally delight him, and generate within him trains of high and sober thought. But, in my opinion, it is the Arcadia which must stand as the best image of his " inner man." Whoever reads it, should read it with reference to the spirit of the age, and turn relent lessly over all the pastoral episodes, and he will then find a volume full of stirring interest, striking invention, and that living tone of high, pure, heroic spirit, which scorned every thing base; which is, in truth, the grand characteristic of Sidney; — a spirit which stands up by the low and cunning knowingness of our own day, like one of the statues of Greece by the wigged and sworded objects of modern sculpture. Such passages as the Prayer of Pamela are amongst the 8 VISIT TO PENSHURST. noblest specimens of impassioned eloquence in the language. Charles I. shewed how deeply that passage had touched him by adopting it as his own petition to the Supreme Being as he went to the scaffold ; and the closing portion of it shall close these passing remarks on Sir Philip Sidney's writings, as very expressive of his nature. — " Let calamity bee the exercise, but not the overthrow of my virtue. Let the power of my enemies prevail, but prevail not to my destruction. Let my greatness bee their prey ; let my pain bee the sweetness of their revenge ; let them, if so it seem good unto thee, vex me with more and more punishment : but, 0 Lord, let never their wickedness have such a hand, but that I may carry a pure mind in a pure body!" The death of Sir Philip Sidney, from a wound received on the field of Zutphen, has become celebrated by the circumstance continually referred to as an example of the most heroic mag nanimity — giving up the water for which he had earnestly implored to a dying soldier near — saying, " he has more need of it than I." But the whole of his behaviour from that time to the hour of his death, twenty-five days afterwards, was equally characteristic, — being spent amongst his friends in the exercise of the most exemplary patience and sweetness of tem per, and in the discussion of such solemn topics as the near view of eternity naturally brings before the spirit of the dyin" Christian. Algernon Sidney is as tine a character, though scon under another and a sterner aspect, lie was born to more troublous VISIT TO PENSHURST. 9 times and a less courtly scene. He had evidently formed him self upon a model of Roman virtue. He was a pure repub lican, placing public virtue before him as his guide, from which neither interest nor ambition were ever able to make him swerve; and that such was his life as well as his creed, has been nobly avowed by a great writer of very opposite political profession. Great men have been amongst us ; hands that penned And tongues that uttered wisdom, better none ; The later Sidney, Marvel, Harrington, Young Vane, and others who called Milton friend. These moralists could act and comprehend ; They knew how genuine glory is put on ; Taught us how rightfully a nation shone In splendour ; what strength was that would not bend But in magnanimous weakness. Wordsworth. We see in his portraits the firm and melancholy look of a man who had grown up for political martyrdom, and the times afforded him but too much opportunity to arrive at it. The words of one of his letters to his father. Lord Leicester,* are more demonstrative of his character than the most laboured exposition of it by any other man can be. — "I walk in the light God hath given me : if it be dimme or uncertaine I must beare the penalty of my errors. I hope to do it with patience, and that noe burthen should be very grievous to me except sinne and shame ! God keepe me from these evils, and in all things else dispose of me according to his pleasure." They were singular coincidences, that these two great men of one * Blencowe's Sidney Papers. 10 VISIT TO PENSHURST. family died young — one in the field and the other on the scaffold ; and that each had a sister celebrated for their charms by the poets, and one herself a poet — the Countess of Pem broke, "Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother;" and Waller's Saccharissa. In thus noticing the exalted principles and splendid cha racters of these Sidneys, it is a very natural and important question, what were the influences under which such men and women sprung up from one stock? Ben Jmi-on, in his visit to Robert Sidney, Sir Philip's brother, when Earl of Leicester, can partly let us into the secret: They are and have been taught religion. Thence Their gentle spirits have sucked innocence. Each morne and even they are taught to pray With the whole household, and may every day Reade in their virtuous parents' noble parts, The mysteries of manners, arms, and arts. The Forrest, ii. Sir Philip Sidney grew under the most favourable auspices. His mother was Mary Dudley, the daughter of the Duke of Northumberland, and sister of Lord Guildford Dudlev, the husband of Lady Jane Grey. The tragedies which the en thronement of Lady Jane brought into her family, made her retire from the world, and devote herself to the careful educa tion of her children. His father, Sir Henry Sidnev, was, as I have already obsencil, one of the noblest and best o( men, and one who, had he not been eclipsed by the glory of his descendants, must have occupied more of the attention of the VISIT TO PENSHURST. 11 English historian than he has done. In his arms expired the pious young prince, Edward VI., who entertained the warmest friendship for him ; and his conduct in the government of Ireland, of which he was thrice Lord Deputy, and all his recorded sentiments, exhibit him a rare example of integrity and wisdom. Such were some of the Sidneys of other days ; and, as if poetry were destined to break forth with periodical lustre in this family, it has now to add Percy Bysshe Shelley to its en during names; for Shelley was a lineal Sidney. The present Sir John Shelley Sidney being his paternal uncle, and his cousin Philip Sidney, Lord de L'Isle, being the present pos sessor of Penshurst. In these preliminary pages I have traced some of the causes which must throw a lasting and peculiar interest around Penshurst, let us now hasten thither at once. Having received from Lord de L'Isle an order to see every thing of public interest at Penshurst, accompanied by an expectation that he would himself be there, and ready to give me all the information in his power, I went there on Tuesday September 25th, 1838. I took coach to Tunbridge on Monday, and after breakfast on Tuesday morning walked on to Penshurst, through a de lightful country; now winding along quiet green lanes, and 12 VISIT TO PENSHURST. now looking out on the great beautiful dale in which Tun bridge stands, and over other valleys to my left. Green fields and rustic cottages interspersed amongst woods ; and the pic turesque hop-grounds on the steep slopes and in the hollows of the hills, now in their full glory; and all the rural popula tion out and busy in gathering the hops, completed just such scenery as I expected to find in the lovely county of Kent. The whole road as I came from town was thronged with huge wagons of pockets of new hops, piled nearly as high as the houses they passed, a great quantity of these going up out of Sussex ; and here, at almost every farm-house and group of cottages, you perceived the rich aromatic odour of hops, and saw the smoke issuing from the cowls of the drying kilns. The whole county was odoriferous of hop. The first view which I got of the old house of Penshurst, called formerly both Penshurst Place and Penshurst Castle,* was as I descended the hill opposite to it. Its grev walls and turrets, and high-peaked and red roofs rising in the nudst of them ; and the new buildings of fresh stoue, mingled with the ancient fabric, presented a very striking and venerable aspect. It stands in the midst of a wide valley, on a pleasant eleva tion; its woods and park stretching away beyond, northwards ; and the picturesque church, parsonage, and other houses of the village, grouping in front. Prom whichever side you view the house, it strikes you as a fitting abode of the noble Sidneys. Valleys run out on every * Originally l'enccstcr. VISIT TO PENSHURST. 13 side from the main one in which it stands ; and the hills, which are everywhere at some distance, wind about in a very pleasant and picturesque manner, covered with mingled woods and fields, and hop-grounds. The park ranges northward from the house in a gently-ascending slope, and presents you with many objects of interest, not merely in trees of enormous growth, but in trees to which past events and characters have given an everlasting attraction ; especially Sir Philip Sidney's Oak,. Saccharissa's Walk, and Gamage's Bower. Southey and Waller have both celebrated the Sidney oak. Southey says, — That stately oak, Itself hath mouldered now : Zouch, in his life of Sir Philip, on the contrary, says it was cut down in 1768. It is probable that both statements are erroneous ; for the oak which tradition ha3 called " the Sidney Oak," and "the Bear's Oak," no doubt in allusion to the THE SIDNEY OAK, 14 VISIT TO PENSHURST. Bcar-and-raggcd-staff in the Leicester arms, is still standing. Probably the one cut down, was what Ben Jonson calls " the Ladies' Oak." Amongst the many tributes of respect to Penshurst, none are so graphic and complete as that of Ben Jonson. This is to the life. You sec in every line that the stout old dramatist had walked over the ground, and beheld the house and the people which he describes. We shall have speedy reason to recur to this description to shew how true to the fact it is. Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show Of touch, or marble; nor canst boast a row Of polished pillars, or a roofe of gold : Thou hast no lantherne whereof tales are told ; Or stayre, or courts ; but standst an ancient pile, And these grudged at, art reverenced tbe while. Thou joyst in better markes, of soyle, of ayre, Of wood, of water : therein thou are faire. Thou hast thy walkes for health as well as sport ; Thy Mount to which the Dryads do resort, Where Pan and Bacchus their high feasts have made, Beneath the broad beech and the chestnut shade. That taller tree, which of a nut was set At his great birth where all the Muses met. There, in the writhed bark are cut the names Of many a sylvane token with his flames. And thence the ruddy Salvres oft provoke The lighter Fawncs to reach thy Ladies' O.ike. Thy copps, too, named of Gamage, thou hast there, That never fails to serve thee seasoned decrc, When thou wouldst least, or exercise thv friends. The lower land, that to the river bends, Thy sheepe, thy bullocks, kino and calves do feed ; The middle ground thy mares and horses bleed. liach baukc doth yield thee coneys; and the topps, I'ci tile of wood, Ashore and Sidney's copps, VISIT TO PENSHURST. 15 To crowne thy open table doth provide The purpled pheasant with the speckled side ; Thy painted partrich lyes in every field, And for thy messe is willing to be killed ; And if the high-swoln Medway faile thy dish, Thou hast thy ponds that pay thee tribute fish ; Fat, aged carps, that runne into thy net, And pikes, now weary their owne kinde to eat, As loth the second draught, or cast to stay, Officiously, at first, themselves betray. Bright eels that emulate them, leape on land Before the fisher, or into his hand. Thou hast thy orchard fruit, thy garden flowers, Fresh as the ayre, and new as are the hours. The early cherry with the later plum, Fig, grape, and quince, each in his time doth come. The blushing apricot and woolly peach Hang on thy walls that every child may reach. And though thy walls be of the country stone, They're reared with no man's ruin, no man's grone. There's none that dwell about them wish them downe; But all come in, the farmer and the clowne, And no one empty-handed, to salute Thy lord and lady though they have no suite. Some bring a capon, some a rural cake, Some nuts, some apples ; some that think they make The better cheeses, bring 'hem ; or else send By their ripe daughters, whom they would commend This way to husbands ; and whose baskets beare An emblem of themselves in plum or peare. But what can this (more than express their love) Adde to thy free provisions, far above The need of such ? whose liberal boord doth flow With all that hospitalitie doth know ! Where comes no guest but is allowed to eate Without his feare, and of thy lord's owne meate ; Where the same beere, and breade, and self-same wine That is his Lordship's shall be also mine. And I not faine to sit (as some this day At great men's tables) and yet dine away. 1(> VISIT TO PENSHURST. Here no man tells my cups ; nor standing by, A waiter doth my gluttony envy : But gives me what I call, and lets me cate ; He knows below, he shall find plentie of meate. Thy tables hoard not up for the ncxte day, Nor when I take my lodging need I pray For fire, or lights, or livorie; all is there, As if thou, then, wert mine, or I reigned here. There 's nothing I can wish, for which I stay. This found King James when hunting late this way, With his brave sonne the prince; they saw thy fires Shine bright on every hearth, as the desires Of thy Penates had been set on flame To entertaine them, or the country came With all their zeale to warme their welcome here. What great (I will not saye but) sodayne cheare Didst thou then make 'hem ! and what praise was heaped On thy goode lady then ! who, therein, reaped The just reward of her high housewifry ; To have her linen, plate, and all things nigh When she was farre ; and not a roome but drest As if it had expected such a guest! These, Penshurst, are thy praise; and yet not all. Thy lady's noble, fruitfull, chaste withall. His children, thy great lord may call his owne ; A fortune in this age but rarely knowne. They are and have been taught religion ; thence Their gentler spirits have sucked innocence. Each morn and even they are taught to pray, With the whole household, and may, every day, Reade, in their vertuous parents' noble parts The mysteries of manners, arms, and arts. Now, Penshurst, they that will proportion thee With other edifices, when they see Those proud, ambitious heaps, and nothing else, May say, their lords have built, but thy lord dwells. Ben Jonson. — The Forrest, ii VISIT TO PENSHURST. 17 The house now presents two principal fronts. The one facing westward, formerly looked into a court, called the Presi dent's Court, because the greater part of it was built by Sir Henry Sidney, the father of Sir Philip, and Lord President of the Council established in the Marches of Wales. The court is now thrown open, and converted into a lawn surrounded by a sunk fence, and overlooking a quiet valley of perhaps a mile in length, terminated by woody hills of great rural beauty. Tbis court will eventually be laid out in a flower garden ; Lord de L'Isle having fitted up the suite of rooms in this, and the north front, for the family use, including dining and drawing rooms, library, and other rooms, which have been done under the superintendence of Mr. Rebecca, of Piccadilly, in the very best taste ; exhibiting, at once, a striking unity with the general character of the old pile, and yet possessing all the elegance and convenience required by modern habits. Oak wainscoting has been introduced, yet not in such heaviness and profusion as to take away from that sense of finish and of comfort that we now look for in a place of family abode ; and the ceilings, with fcheir cornices and compartments, partake of the same character. They display true keeping and good sense. You meet with none of that extravagance and broken-up-ness of design which offend you in many attempts to restore the ancient mansion, and to adapt it to present uses. You do not, as you advance, find yourself at this moment in a Chinese room, in the next in an Egyptian, and then in an Italian or a French one. All is English, and English of the right date, which is rarer ]# visit to i-ENsiirnsT. still. The oniameiits arc taken from the family arms; and while they continually remind you that you are in the abode of the Sidneys and the Lciecsters, you arc also reminded by the freshness of all the finishings, that you arc there too in the days of tlicir polished descendants. This front, as well as the northern one, is of great length. It is of several dates and styles of architecture. The facade is of two stories, and battlcmcntcd. The centre division, which is of recent erection, has large windows of triple arches, with armorial shields between the upper and lower stories. The south end of the facade is of an ancient date, with smaller mullioned windows; the northern portion with windows of a similar character to those in the centre, but less and plainer. Over this facade shews itself the tall gable of the ancient ban queting hall which stands in the inner court. At each end of this facade projects a wing, with its various towers of various bulk and height; some square, of stone, others octagon, of brick, with a great diversity of tall, worked chimnevs, which, with steep roofs, and the mixture of brick-work and stone work all through the front, give a mottled, but yet very vener able aspect to it. The north and principal front, facing up the park, has been restored by its noble possessor, and presents a battlcmcntcd range of stone buildings of \arious projections, towers, turrets, and turrcted cliiiimcys, whicli, when the windows are put in, which is not yet fully done, will ha\e few superiors amongst the castellated mansions of Kii^iaiul, VISIT to penshurst. 19 The old gateway tower remains, and still forms the carriage entrance. On its front was fixed aloft, a hatchment quartering the royal arms with those of the Sidneys, denoting the death of Lady de L'Isle, the daughter of the late king. Over the door is a stone tablet with this inscription : — The most religious and renowned Prince Edward the Sixth Kinge of England France and Ireland gave this house of pencester with the mannors landes and appurtenances ther unto belonginge unto his trustye AND WEL-BELOVED SERVANT SyR WlLLIAM SyDNY KNIGHT BANNARET SERVINGE HIM FROM THE TYME OF HIS BIRTH UNTO HIS CORONATION IN THE OFFICES OF CHAMBERLAYNE AND STUARDE OF HIS HOUSHOLD IN COMMEMORATION OF WHICH MOST WORTHIE AND FAMOUS KlNGE SlR HeNRIE Sydney knight of the most noble order of the garter Lord President of the council established in the marches of Wales sonne and heyre of the afore named Syr William caused this tower to be buylded and that most excellent princes arms to be erected anno domini 1585. The royal arms are accordingly emblazoned in stone on another tablet beneath. Immediately on the right hand of this gateway, as you front it, remains a piece of ancient brick front with its armorial escut cheons, tall octagon brick tower, and cross-banded chimneys. The rest, with the exception of the stone tower terminating the 2 c 20 VISIT TO PENSHURST. western end, is all new; containing another entrance arch, with the family arms emblazoned above it, and which, with its Elizabethan windows, corbels, and shields, is in excellent keep ing with the old portion. From the eastern end of this front runs a fine avenue of limes, and at a short distance in the park is Carnage's Bower, now a mere woody copse, as represented by Ben Jonson. In the centre of the inner court stands the old Banqueting Hall, a tall gabled building with high red roof, surmounted with the ruins of a cupola, erected upon it by Mr. Perry, who married the heiress of the family, but who does not seem to have brought much taste into it. On the point of each gable is an old stone figure — the one a tortoise, the other a lion couchant ; — and upon the back of each of these old figures, so completely accordant with the building itself, which exhibits under its eaves and at the corners of its windows numbers of those grotesque corbels which distinguish our buildings of an early date, both domestic and ecclesiastical, good Mr. Perry clapped a huge leaden vase which had probablv crowned afore time the pillars of a gateway, or the roof of a garden-house. It is to be hoped that Lord de L'Isle will not long delay his intention of having these monstrosities pitched from their undeserved elevation.* With these exceptions, this hall, of which [ shall have more to say anon, bears externally every mark of a very ancient building. * Since the above was written the cupola and vases have been removed. VISIT TO PENSHURST. 21 The south side of the house has all the irregularity of an old castle, consisting of various towers, projections, buttresses, and gables. Some of the windows shew tracery of a superior order, and others have huge common sashes, introduced by the tasteful Mr. Perry aforesaid. The court on this side is sur rounded by battlemented walls, and has a massy square gate house, leading into the old garden, or pleasaunce, which sloped away down towards the Medway, but is now merely a grassy lawn, with the remains of one fine terrace running along its western side. In this court, opposite the door of the Banqueting Hall, hangs a large bell, on a very simple frame of wood. The whole has a genuine look of the ancient time when hunters came hungry from the forest, and needed no gilded belfry to summon them to dinner. On the bell is inscribed, in raised letters : Robert Earl of Leicester, at Penshurst, 1649. VISIT TO PENSHURST. The old banqueting hall is a noble specimen of the baronial hall of the reign of Edward III., when both house and table exhibited the rudeness of a martial age, and both gentle and simple revelled together, parted only by the salt. The floor is of brick. The raised platform, or dais, at the west-end, advances sixteen feet into the room. The width of the hall i» about forty feet, and the length of it about fifty-four feet. On each side are tall gothic windows, much of the tracery of which has been some time knocked out, and the openings plastered up. At the east-end is a fine large window, with two smaller ones above it ; but the large window is, for the most part, hidden by the front of the music gallery. In the centre of the floor an octagon space is marked out with a rim of stone, and within this space stands a massy old dog, or brand-iron, about a yard and half wide, and the two upright ends three feet six inches high, having on their outer sides, near the top, the double broad arrow of the Sidney arms. The smoke from the fire, which was laid on this jolly dog, ascended and passed out through the centre of the roof, which is high, and of framed oak, and was adorned at the spring of the huge groined spars with grotesque pro jecting carved figures, or corbels, which arc now taken down, being considered in danger of falling, and are laid in the music gallery. The whole of this due old roof is, indeed, in a very deeaved VISIT TO PENSHURST. 23 state, and unless repaired and made proof against the weather, must, ere many winters be over, come down; a circumstance extremely to be regretted, being said to be the oldest speci men of our ancient banqueting hall remaining. The massy oak tables remain. That on the dais, or the lord's table, is six yards long, and about one wide; and at this simple board no doubt Sir Philip and Algernon Sidney, the Countess of Pembroke, Saccharissa, Waller, Ben Jonson, and though last mentioned, many a noble, and some crowned heads, 1 VISIT TO PENSHURST. have many a time dined. What a splendid group, indeed, may imagination summon up and set down at this rude table, where unquestionable history will warrant us in placing them. At one time the gentle and pious Edward VI.; at another his more domineering and shrewd sister Elizabeth, with her proud favourite, Leicester or Essex, Cecil or Warwick, all allied to, or in habits of intimacy with, the lord of tbe house. James the First, and Charles, then prince, no doubt took their seats here, at that unlooked-for visit of which Ben Jonson speaks; and the paintings in the gallery and rooms above, will shew us many a high-born beauty, and celebrated noble and gentleman who have graced this old hall with their presence, and made its rafters echo to their wit and merriment. The tables down the sides of the hall, at which the yeomen retainers, and servants sate, are seven yards long, and of a construction several degrees less in remove from the common trestle. At the lower end of the hall is a tall wainscot screen sup porting the music gallery, the plainness and e\en rudeness of VISIT TO PENSHURST. 25 its fashion marking the earliness of its date. The space betwixt it and the end of the hall, forms a passage from one court to the other, and serves also to conceal the entrances to the kitchen, larder, and other similar offices. The entire screen would present this appearance. Most of the wainscot and doors of this part of the house are of split oak, never touched with a plane, but reduced to their proper dimensions only by the chisel and the hatchet; sufficient proof of their antiquity. The arched passages and door-ways from the courts to the hall are nevertheless of excellent style and workmanship. At the back of the music-gallery, and up to the very top of the hall, hang shields, matchlocks with their rests, steel caps, banners, and different pieces of armour; but much the greater portion of those trophies has fallen down, and they lie in the music-gallery, or some of the disused rooms. On each side of the dais, as in our old colleges, ascends a 2ti VISIT TO PENSHURST. flight of loo stairs ; one leading to the old apartments of the house, the other into a sort of little gallery, out of which the lord could look into the hall, and call his wassailers to order if any unusual clamour or riot was going on, or to call any of his retainers, bells not then being introduced. On the right hand of the dais, is the entrance into the cellar; an odd situation to our present fancy, but then, no doubt, thought very convenient for the butler to bring up the wine to the lord's table. Passing this cellar door to the right of the dais, and ascending the loo stairs, you find yourself in the ball-room : a large room, with two ancient lustre chandeliers surmounted with the crown-royal, and said to have been the first made in England, and presented by Elizabeth to the Earl of Leicester. In this room are several columns of verde-antique, giallo, and porphyry from Italy ; antique burial-urns, and old tables of mosaic marble. There are four large frescoes bv Vanderbrecht : — the Triumph of Cupid; Venus risincr from the Sea; Europaon the Bull; and Cupid trying his Bow. Amoiurst some indifferent portraits is one of Ladv E. Sidncv, and an other of Lady Egerton. In the pages' room are numerous paintings. Amongst them are the Duke of St. Albans, Nell Cwynn's son, a boy of about eight or ten years of age, in a rich murrey-coloured doublet and breeches, with roses at his knees and on his shoes; an excellent painting. Head of John Dudley Duke of Northumberland, 15 15: the father of Lord Guildford Dudlev ; of the Kalis of Warwick and Leicester; and of Mary Dudley, the mother of VISIT TO PENSHURST. 27 Sir Philip Sidney. Head of the Duchess of Portsmouth : small full-length of Algernon Percy Earl of Northumberland : the Egerton family, three children : head of old Parr, who died at the age of one hundred and fifty-two : Catherine Cecil, Countess of Leicester, of whom there are several other portraits in the house : head of Algernon Sidney, in a defective state : Duns Scotus : supposed portrait of General Leslie. There is a small recumbent statue of Cleopatra from Hercu- laneum, here ; and the bridle of the Duke of Buckingham, the favourite of James I., hangs by one of the windows. The front, martingal, and the bosses of the bits, gilt and much orna mented. Queen Elizabeth's Room. — It is said that Elizabeth, when visiting Sir Henry Sidney, the father of Sir Philip, furnished this room. The chairs are fine, tall, and capacious ones, the frames gilded, and the drapery yellow and crimson satin, richly embroidered. They must have been very splendid when in their full glory. The walls of each end of the room are covered with similar embroidered satin, said, as in all such cases, to have been worked by the queen and her attendants. Here stand the three most interesting portraits in the house. Those of Sir Philip, Algernon, and Mary Sidney, the Countess of Pembroke. Sir Philip Sidney is here apparently not more than two or three and twenty years of age. His dress is a rich laced doublet of pale crimson ; ruff, and scarlet mantle hanging loosely from his shoulder. He is standing reading, with a staff of office in his 28 VISIT TO PENSHURST. hand, and with his armour about him. It is a lively portrait, very much resembling that belonging to the Duke of Bedford, from which Lodge's engraving is taken ; and also that in V ar- wick Castle ; but of a younger aspect than either. It perhaps does not come up to your idea of the knightly beauty and grace of Sir Philip Sidney; for few indeed of the portraits of the great men of that wonderful era do realize your conceptions of them; but it has all the truth and light-heartedness of youth about it, and breathes of that high-minded nobility and generous en thusiasm for whatever was heroic and just, which distinguished him. You cannot look long on the high forehead, clear earnest eyes, and smooth features, without feeling that they belonged to the youthful poet, and gallant and unselfish hero. His hair is cut short behind, and turned aside from his forehead, and what is perhaps most unlooked for, its colour is of a ruddy brown. It is not red hair of the common hue, nor chestnut, but a duskv red, or ruddy brown, and which is proved by a circumstance to which I shall soon advert, to have really been the colour of Sir Philip's hair. His complexion is also that of a person who has a tinge of the red in his hair. The same tinge is visible in the hair of many of the Sidneys, both as seen in their portraits and in locks which are preserved. Lodge's portrait of the Countess of Pembroke is a very good transcript. Algernon Sidney is also here represented as we see him in the engravings; — standing by a column, leaning on a folio book labelled lhuihtas. lie is in a bull' coat embroidered, a scarlet VISIT TO PENSHURST. 29 sash, and steel cuirass. The tower where he was beheaded is in view, and the axe of the executioner behind. His long dark- brown hair is combed over his shoulders ; his nose is Roman ; and the expression of the whole countenance stern and melan choly. From the emblems of his fate about him, it is evident that this painting was done after his death. The original like ness is in the gallery. Near these is Lord Lisle, the son of Lady Egerton, by Lely: Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, the husband of Saccharissa: Col. Thomas Sidney, his wife and child, the father and mother of Mrs. Perry, the grandmother of Sir John Shelley Sidney. The Earl of Leicester, 1618 : Robert, Earl of Leicester, 1632, by Vandyke: Philip, Lord Lisle, Earl of Leicester, 1678: his mother, again, Lady Elizabeth Sidney (a Bridgewater Eger ton) : and the present Lord de L'Isle. Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth's Earl of Leicester, by Gerard : Ambrose Dudley, his brother, Earl of Warwick ; Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, by Vandyke. A large family-piece — Barbara Gamage, Countess of Leicester, 1596, and her six children, all in the formal dress of the time. In this room are various other family portraits, and George III. and Queen Charlotte, by Gainsborough. There is a sleeping Venus, by Titian ; a Charity, by Guido ; and perhaps, as a painting, the most attractive piece of all is a Vandyke, Philip Lord Lisle — a boy with his dog, and his hunting-pole upon his shoulder. He has on an embroidered scarf and buskins, richly worked with gold. He appears to be advancing through a wood, and his attention is arrested by something in the trees before 30 VISIT TO PENSHURST. him. The whole figure is full of youthful buoyancy, and the countenance of grace and nature. Tapestry Room.— Full-lengths of William and Mary: William IV., by Sir Thomas Lawrence: Edward VI., by Holbein, an excellent portrait : Sir Henry Sidney, the president, in a black velvet cap and robe; a portrait in keeping with his character as a high-minded gentleman. The most curious painting in this room is however, perhaps, one containing the portraits of the two celebrated sisters, Lady Dorothy Percy, Countess of Leicester, and Lady Lucy Percy, Countess of Carlisle. These laches, daughters of the Duke of Northumberland, so well known in their own day, are well known too by their portraits in Lodge. Here they are given together, and the variation of their characters is obvious in their persons. The Countess of Leicester is a woman of that bold beauty which answers to what we know of her; a woman who seemed born to command and to be admired. She had quick passions and a strong will, but she knew both her own nature, and was quick to see that of all who came about her. She had great self- command, and could fascinate, or repel by a cool air of dignitv, at her pleasure. Her husband has left us in his letters, a very touching account of her death-bed farewell of him. She was the mother of Algernon Sidney, and looking on her fine, but firm, and high-spirited face, we recognise at once the source of his lofty and unbending qualities. The Countess of Carlisle was a woman of similar character in many points, but more devoted to political intrigue. " Lady VISIT TO PENSHURST. 31 Carlisle," says Miss Aikin in her Memoirs of the Reign of Charles I., "was a distinguished beauty, wit, and political intriguer, nor is her memory free from the suspicion, at least, of gallantry; no court lady of her time was equally celebrated or conspicuous. She was flattered in French by Voiture, and in her native tongue by almost all the contemporary wits and poets, and more especially by Waller in verse, and in prose by that singular and mysterious person Sir Toby Matthew; who composed an elaborate character of her, which is sufficiently hyperbolical to wear some appearance of irony, especially in the eulogium which he seems to bestow upon that arrogant scorn with which it was her practice to treat persons of every rank. . . She was early appointed to a high office in the household of the queen; and notwithstanding occasional quarrels, such as could scarcely fail to arise between two ladies so distinguished for high spirit, she long enjoyed and singularly abused the favour and confidence of Henrietta." Wentworth is supposed at one period to have stood high in her good graces, and even Laud paid homage at her shrine. Here are besides, heads of William and Mary: Nell Gwynn, by Lely, as a Venus lying on a couch with a child standing by her; a strange picture, but beautifully executed. Some family pictures : a sea-piece, by John Tennant, a fisherman looking out with a spying-glass: a curious old piece, a music party: a head of a female, by Giorgione, full of strong character; and St. Peter delivered out of Prison, by Steenwick. There are on the walls two large pieces of Gobelin tapestry; Eolus unbarring the 32 VISIT TO PENSHURST. winds ; and the triumph of Ceres. A card table stands here, given by Queen Elizabeth, the middle of which is covered with needlework embroidery of the very kind now so much worked by our young ladies. Picture Closet. — Algernon Percy as high-admiral of Eng land: Titian's Mistress, by himself; a soft, fattish woman with yellow hair, but beautifully painted : Madonna and sleeping Christ, by Guido; the face of the Madonna full of expression, and the light thrown upon it with fine effect: head of a Saint, by Giorgione, in a praying attitude with clasped hands, the colour of the flesh is of a rich deep yellow, as if the saint were the inhabitant of a sultry country : a Crucifixion : Bandits, by Spagnoletto; and various small pieces by good masters. The Gallery. — A Flemish Woman, by Peter Thoue, 1560, with fruit, very good : a curious old piece, a Madonna and Child, probably brought from some ancient shrine : full-length of Lady Mary Dudley, wife of Sir Henry, and mother of Sir Philip Sidney, with a guitar, and in a rich embroidered gown and Elizabethan ruff, her hah- frizzled close to her head : the original portrait of Algernon Sidney, by Verres : Languet, Sir Philip Sidney's friend: Bacchanals, by X. Poussin : piece on marble, a Woman with her Distaff, and a Shepherd playing on his pipe, with sheep and cattle about: James Stuart, Duke of Richmond, by Vandyke : Dying Mother, probably copied from Murillo : Abraham offering up Isaac, a large piece, by Gucrcino da Cento : a Procession, by Rubens, evidently a piece full of life and grace from what little can be seen of the VISIT TO PENSHURST. 33 figures, but neai'ly invisible from want of cleaning : Telemachus in the island of Calypso. Dorothea, Countess of Sunderland, by Hoskins, that is, Saccharissa after her marriage : on the other side of the gallery is Saccharissa before her marriage — Dorothea Sidney, by Van dyke. She is represented as a shepherdess in a straw hat, the brim of which is lined with blue satin, her hair is disposed in ringlets on each side of the face, leaving the crown of the head smooth and round in the favourite fashion of the time. Like that of the Sidneys in general, it has a ruddy, or in her case, rather golden tinge. For beauty, the portrait of Hoskins, done after her marriage, has the highest claim ; but though there is great softness of figure and complexion about this lady, we are led by the praises of Waller, to look for more striking charms than we immediately perceive in Saccharissa. As in Sir Philip Sidney, so in this celebrated female of his race, there were un doubtedly those fascinations of manner and spirit, which, though visible to all beholders, have escaped the hand of the painter. Virgin, Child, and St. John, said to be a copy from Rafaelle, but admirably painted. Joseph's wrinkled face, full of atliniring devotion, and the brunette beauty of Mary, are equally excellent ; the dark eye and rich lips of the Madonna, are full of maternal satisfaction, and deep holy joy : Maleager and Atalanta, a large piece, indistinct from want of cleaning : the scourging of Christ, by Spagnoletto, the same : Holy Family, by Bassano, the same : a boy's head, by Carracci : Christ crowned with thorns, a large piece, of great merit, but artist not D 3.J, VISIT TO PENSHURST. named : a very large family-piece of the Perrys, including the wife of Bysshc Shelley, and mother of Sir John Shelley Sidney: head of Thomas, Earl of Surrey : Ann Percy, Lady Stanhope, by Nestchcr: Bacchanals, by N. Poussin: Endymion, by Bar- tolomeo: a modern country coquette, by Wyatt : Abbot, Arch bishop of Canterbury: T. Fitzallen, Archbishop of Canterbury, a curious old piece : Thomas Wentworth, constable of Queen- borough Castle in the first of Richard III. : a drunken gondoher, by Rubens : Apollo and the Muses, after Vandyke. In this part of the gallery stands an ebony cabinet, with small brass figures in little niches and paintings on the panels, which was given by James I. to the first Earl of Leicester. Head of William Paulet, Marquis of Winchester, a very old man : Sir William Sidney, to whom Penshurst was given by Edward VI., by Lucas de Heer : Madonna and Christ, by Andrea del Sarto. The most curious piece in the gallerv, and indeed in the house, is one of Sir Philip Sidney, and his brother Robert, afterwards first Earl of Leicester of this line. Sir Philip, a youth of perhaps sixteen, is standing arm in ami with Robert, a boy of about thirteen or fourteen. Thev are in a court dress, both exactly alike, a sort of doublet and collar. The collar is just the boy's collar of the present day, except that it is fringed with lace. The doublet, is buttoned down the front with close set buttons, it is fitted exactly to the body with very- close sleeves, and turned up with lace cutis. The colour of the doublet is French grey. They have trunk-hose, very full indeed, of crimson figured satin, stockings and garters of the same colour VISIT TO PENSHURST. 35 as the doublet, with roses at the knees, and on the shoes. Their shoes are of leather, with tan-coloured soles, and are cut high in the instep ; having much the look of listing shoes of the present day : then- swords complete their costume. Their hair is cut short behind and turned aside on the forehead. There is a hat of white beaver lying on a table close to the elbow of Sir Philip, with a stiff upright plume of ostrich feathers with edges dyed crimson. The lads have a strong likeness as brothers, and bear the same likeness to the portrait of Sir Philip in Queen Elizabeth's room. Philip has something of an elder-brother, patronising air, and is full of a frank, ardent spirit, such as we may imagine marked the boyhood of such a man. When we recollect, too, d 2 ;!(', VISIT TO PEN'SIHItST. the strong affection be always shewed to this brother, we see plainly that the union of the two in one picture was rather the result of that known affection, than the act of the painter. This curious family and national picture bears about it every mark of its authenticity, and has never yet been engraved. Amongst the remaining pictures, are— Philip, the fifth Karl of Leicester, by Kncller : Elizabeth, daughter of Col. Sidney, and wife of W. Perry, Esq., the same lady who figures in the lai-o-e Perry family-piece just mentioned : Robert, Earl of Leices ter, 1702, by Sir P. Lely: Elizabeth Egerton, Lady Leicoter again, with a child, afterwards Lord Lisle, both by Lely: another Lady Leicester, a very fine, fair woman, with a profusion of brown hair : Christ at Emmaus, a large and good piece, by Jan Steen: Jane Wroth, Countess of Rochford, said to be by Xetscher, quere by Lely ? a fine woman, in Lely's style, with dark hair, hazel eyes, and large oval face, with an air of aristocratic dignity : Madonna and Chdd, by Leonardo da Vinci : portrait of a man, by Holbein, most capital and life-like : heads of Christ and Madonna, from the collection of Charles I., by Simon Mercati : rich man and Lazarus, by Bassan : several small family-pieces on copper, by Verelst : Flemish women, by Terburgh, excellent : Sir Thomas More, by Holbein: St. Lucia holding her eyes in a vase: the Flood, by Bassan: Holy Family, by Annibal Carrara: Barbara Gamage, first Countess of Leicester • Venus reclining, by Titian : head of a monk, by Pcrino del Vaga, with stron black hair, and features that would suit the Clerk of Co hurst: carving on wood, a saint at prayer, very excellent: Venus nnan- VISIT TO PENSHURST. 37 attired by the Graces, copied from Guido, by Lely : portrait of a lady, a lovely fair woman : martyrdom of St. Sebastian, a large piece, that wants cleaning: a small head of Martin Luther. Such are the names of the greater number of the paintings at Penshurst. There are a good many, both family portraits and other paintings, by good masters, which are not, however, here mentioned; some few, too, were gone to be cleaned. I have desired to enumerate the majority, that persons of taste may be more aware, than has been the case, of the treasures of art hoarded in this venerable old house of the Sidneys : to attempt to discuss their respective merits is beyond the limits of this article ; but it may be an additional inducement to those who would wish to visit Penshurst, from their reverence for those of its former inhabitants, who have done and suffered so much for the literature and the liberties of England, to know that they will not merely tread the same ground, and gaze on the same scenes as these patriots and heroes, but that these noble spirits have themselves collected for their recreation, works of art which would make the spot one of strong attraction, even if it were not hallowed by their memories, and embellished by all that remains of their presence — their pictured forms. Few, I suspect, are aware how easy of access this interesting- place is from the metropolis. In about three hours, and for a few shillings, a coach three times a week will set you down at an excellent inn on the very spot. From Tunbridge Wells, a few miles distant, this is now a favourite -excursion, and the ;(H VISIT TO I'l'.NSIIUltsT. Dover Railway will, ere long, run through the vale of Tunbridge, so that we feel assured that Penshurst, standing as it does, in one of the most lovely districts of Kngland, will be resorted to by a great multitude of our countrymen. At present, it is true, this interesting collection of paintings is in a state of much confusion. Both they and the building have evidently suffered seriously, not merely from time, but from neglect. In the great national changes, which since the days of the First Charles have passed over England, the great families and their houses have necessarily undergone ruinous changes too. Many such houses, at this moment, stand roofless and ivy-grown, never again to be restored. Others have only been recovered by the outlay of princely fortunes ; and others still, though inhabited by the descendants of their ancient lords, bear about them, and will to the last, the mai'ks of the scath and ravages which they have suffered. Penshurst is one of these ; and no one who treads its silent park, and beholds its huge trees shattered by the tempests, — its grass-grown pleasaunce and its grey walls, — but will feel that it derives a stronger interest from these circumstances. It is not in a scene of entire modern gaiety and splendour that we would wish to come upon the domestic haunts of the Sidneys. Such a scene would violate all our ideas of the past, and disturb those feelings which drew us to the spot. We know that the days of the Arcadia are gone by; we know that Sir Philip Sidney died young on the field of Zutphen, and Algernon's blood flowed on the scaffold for the love of civil liberty; and a place which bears on its face evi- VISIT TO PENSHURST. 39 dences of a kindred fate, is just that which accords with our humour at the moment, and deepens our impressions of the past. We do not expect to meet Ben Jonson strolling through the park; or Waller and Saccharissa bandying compliments beneath the noble beeches, now called Saccharissa's Walk; much less do we expect to find Sir Philip pacing the broad terrace of the garden, with his admired sister Pembroke, and Edmund Spenser, deep in dreams of chivalry and poetry, which no sound of steam-engines, nor bruit of reform and registrations, nor arrival of morning paper, in those days disturbed. All these things are of the past, and of the fashion of the past which can never be revived, and we love the spot which makes us feel it. Nothing, therefore, is more delightful than to see the care which, in restoring this fine old fabric, has been taken by its noble possessor, to preserve as much of its antiquity as possible, 10 VISIT TO PENSHUHST. and to build in the spirit of it. Lord de L'Isle is a worthy descendant of the House of Sidney, and seems fully conscious of the honour of such ancestry; it is therefore to be hoped, that in the course of improvement and restoration, a great deal will be done which yet needs it. I have already expressed the hope that the roof of the old banqueting hall will be repaired, and the hall thus be preserved to future generations, which, without speedy attention, will not outlast this. It will be a worthy labour too, both as it regards the public and the works themselves, to have the paintings thoroughly cleaned, and disposed to best advantage. The family portraits should be arranged in chronological order ; and when it is con sidered that the whole family is, with scarcelv an exception, complete, it may be imagined how much the interest of the whole will be increased. When this is done, it will be difficult to call to mind a suite of ancient apartments, commencing with the old hall and terminating with the gallery, that -will more com pletely transport the spectator into the stirring times of Eliza beth and the Commonwealth. But there are other relics of the family at Penshurst. There are the MSS. In a cabinet, in one of the front rooms, is pre served a considerable collection of these. Some of their con tents have been published, particularly those of a more political nature, in Collins's two volumes of the Sidney Papers. Mr. Blcncowe has also published, in another volume, under the same name, the Journal of Hubert, Earl of Leicester, father of Algernon, who spent the troublous times of the civil wars and VISIT TO PENSHURST. 41 commonwealth here, and regularly entered down the passing events. We have also, in the same volume, some letters of Algernon to his father and others, all bearing the impress of the same high and unbending spirit, perhaps the most perfect image of Roman virtue that any modern state has produced. Yet I have no doubt that a steady inquest through those papers would discover much matter that would interest the general reader. It is not within the scope of such a work as this that such materials could be comprehended. I can only indicate their existence. It may, however, give some idea of what might be found, to mention one or two things that my eye casually fell upon. One was a MS. with this title — An. Dom. 1583. Inventory of Household Furniture, etc. at Kenilworth Castle, belonging to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leycester. An. Dom. 1583. What a volume this would have been for Sir Walter Scott when writing his romance of Kenilworth ! Here we have a thorough and particular account of the whole furnishing and household array of Kendworth, at the very time at which Leicester gave his entertainment to the Queen. There is every article in the house from roof to cellar, and from the lady's bower to the stable. With this MS. before him, Sir Walter might have given us a portraiture of Kenilworth, not only as graphic as was his wont, but as true as if he had been at the 1,2 VISIT TO PENSHURST. entertainment himself. As it is, it is a most valuable exposition of the real state and fashion of a princely house in the reign of Elizabeth. There arc also two volumes of the Household Book of the Sidneys remaining. They are those of Algernon Sidney's father, and are thus entitled — 1621. Household Expenses of the Right Honorable Lo. vicont Lisle, at London and Pencehurst,* from the xiii of Aprill unto xxi of March. Expenses In Kitchens, Larders, Buttrie, Sellers, Brewhouse, Laundreys, Stables, fewell, and in other places, As here-after may appeare. In this book, as in the Household Book of the Percys, which has been published, there is a most exact and well-kept account of all expenses throughout the entire establishment. Of the methodical and business habits of our great famdies in the days of tilting and court revelry, nothing can give more ample proof. Every thing is entered, and every thing is valued. The accounts are not only clear and minute, but they are set down in the most leisurely and precise hand. Such accounts were, no doubt, of the greatest value in their own day, and to us they are not a whit the less so. They are standing evi- • Still pronounced thus by the people thereabouts, evidently from the original name, Tencester. VISIT TO PENSHURST. 43 dences, not only of what was the consumption of a great house, and what were the kind of articles used, but they give us the value of every article of life at this period, and become data for any calculation of the change of value in money and goods between that day and this. We have meat, flour, eggs, fish, fowls, turkeys, pigs, wheat, oats, hay, brushes, mops, cloths, etc. etc. all in their separate identity. There is no lumping them in sundries. You see too what was the peculiar style of serving the several tables kept in the house, for the old days of all dining in hall were over; there were, therefore, separate entries for every day and every room where a table was set. There was the lord's table; the table in the hall, probably for the steward, yeomen, and retainers; the kitchen for the kitchen servants; the nursery; and Algernon's room. We find continual entries in 1625, "for Algernone," of puddings, birds, mutton, etc. If Algernon was born in 1622, as it has been asserted, he would now only be three years old, and would be in the nursery; but if in 1617, as is more pro bable, he would be eight, and thus at a more suitable age to be advanced to the dignity of a separate table. Whatever be the fact, these, however, and such, are the entries. We find also that one day there is veal in the kitchen, mutton in the hall, and a capon in the nursery; the same general dishes seldom appearing at the different tables on the same day. Lord de L'Isle's eldest daughter, a fine lively girl of eleven, hearing us mention the nursery, was curious to know what the children of the family had two hundred years ago, and 44 VISIT TO PENSHURST. was amused to find that it was just what they themselves had had that day — a fowl. In these books are duly entered the names of all the guests, so that by looking through them we can tell who were the visitants and associates of the famdy for those years. Many of these entries are very curious, as they regularly note how many attendants the guests brought, and how long they stayed. We may give a few samples, which are sufficiently indicative of the whole. Thus — 1624 — Monday, 14th March. — At dinner, Lo. Percie and La. Percie; La. Carlisle; La. Maners; Sir Henry Lea; Mrs. Coulston. At supper, Lord Percie, Ladie Delawar, and remaining a week. Wednesday 16th, Lo. and La. went to Syon. 1625 — 12th of November. — Breakfast for La. Percie and La. Carlisle, and people going away- Soon after occurs — Ladie Carlisle, with ten attendants, who staid fourteen days. — Lord Wallingford; Lord Vauze; Sir Thos. Neville; Sir Antho. Forester; Lord Arundell ; Sir Francis Smith; and their attendants after dinner. — Thirty neighbours at dinner. 1625 — 30th December. — Sir Geo. and John Byvcrs, and their La.; Mr. Geo. Ryu-rs; Justice Dixon; Justice Selliard and his brethren; and Lord Cruckendon ; Anthony Cambridge ; and about thirty others at dinner. VISIT TO PENSHURST. 45 Prices of expenses for this weeke. — Kitchen, for flesh, fish, poultrie, butter, eggs, groceries, 29/. 17s. 10d.; Pantry and seller, in bread, beere, sack, claret, etc. 14/. 13s. 10d.; Brewhouse Laundrie, soape and starge, Is. lid.; Stables, for hay and oats, 1/. 14s. 8d.; Fewell, in charcoal and billets, 31. 9s. This, it must be confessed, was jovial housekeeping, amount ing to about 50/. for the week, or 2500/. the year, for mere eating and drinking, when a good pig was worth Is. 8^., and every thing in proportion. These are striking testimonials to the truth of Ben Jonson's description in the poem already quoted, of the liberal and un grudging hospitality of the Sidneys. Towards the alleviation of this cost we find continual entries of gifts from friends and tenants, — another fact also mentioned by Ben Jonson : All come in, the farmer and the clowne, And no one empty handed. The singularity of the entry is, that even these gifts have a value attached to them, as thus, in 1625 : — Gifts to the Lo. of Leycester : from the Earl of Dorset, 1 stag, 21. — from Goodman Edmunds, 1 pig, Is. 8d. There were also "Provision Rents," or rents which pro bably small tenants paid in kind, which came pouring in weekly, and must have proved very comfortable apparitions to the cook, when lords and ladies, with their troops of attendants, rode clattering into the court. These provision rents are also regu- 46 VISIT TO PENSHURST. larly entered, and consisted of all kinds of country produce, — bacon, fowls, turkeys, geese, mutton, pigs — fat and sucking, fruits, corn, cheese, butter, and such good things. Besides these household books, and the volumes of historical journals, political and literary, already mentioned, there are some relating entirely to family affairs, which must be very curious. I observed a sort of summary of the historical reading of one of the earls, and a "Catalogue of the Officers in the Army of the Netherlands." This was probably made by Robert Sidney, Sir Philip's brother, who served in that army for some time. I opened, too, "An Account of the Ceremonials at the Courts of Princes," evidently being a sort of guide-book of one of the family while on foreign embassage ; probably that of the second earl, whose journal is published, and who was ambassador to France in the early part of Charles I.'s reign ; with others which in the same manner indicate the countries and emplov- ments in which the writers or transcribers were engaged. There is one entitled, "The Meditations of the Countess of Bridge- water on eight chapters of Scripture." This was, no doubt, brought here by her daughter, Lady Elizabeth Egcrton, the fourth Countess of Leicester. These are all interesting peeps into the lives and characters of the various members of an ancient line, of some of whom no other memorial remains except the portrait on the wall. What can be more delightful than for the descendant of an old house to be able thus to unveil and make acquaintance with the thoughts and domestic feelings of his buried ancestors ? We VISIT TO PENSHURST. 47 must not, however, leave this cabinet without noticing another article of its contents. Of most of the distinguished personages of this family, a lock of hair has been carefully preserved, and they are here kept in little boxes. They have been severed from the head at various ages of the individual. Some have the infantine lightness of hue and silkiness of texture, and some are blanched with age. It was, however, a great pleasure to me to see locks of the hah: of Sir Philip and Algernon, cut in the strength of their manhood, for they so exactly agreed, both in character and colour with that of their portraits in the house, as to give one the most satisfactory idea of the scrupulous fidelity of the painters. We must here close our visit to Penshurst; only adding, that in the church which stands near the house, are to be found monu ments of the Sidneys. The remains of Sir Philip lie in St. Paul's Cathedral. It may be interesting too, to lovers of our history, to know that in the present parsonage, now inhabited by the Rev. Philip Dodd and his daughter, once dwelt Dr. Hammond, one of the chaplains of Charles I., and author of various works of a polemic or religious nature. In fact, the church, the parsonage, the rustic churchyard — which is entered by an old-fashioned gateway through the very middle of a house, and has some of its graves planted with shrubs and flowers in the manner which John Evelyn says was common in his time in Surrey, the village, and the old mansion itself, are all so pleasantly grouped on their gentle eminence, and surrounded 48 VISIT TO PENSHURST. by so delightful a country, that were there no other cause of attraction, it would be difficult to point out a spot where the lovers of a rural excursion, and a social party, could spend a day more to their heart's desire. Who then would not the more love to visit this spot for the recollections that cling to it ? Are days of old familiar to thy mind, O reader? Hast thou let the midnight hour I';iss unperceived, whilst thou in fancy lived With high-born beauties and enamoured chiefs, Sharing their hopes, and with a breathless joy Whose expectation touched the verge of pain, Following their dangerous fortunes? If such love Hath ever thrilled thy bosom, thou wilt tread, As with a pilgrim's reverential thoughts, The groves of Penshurst. Sidney here was born. .Sooth Ei'. Yes, in these scenes you seem to make human acquaintance, even though ages and death and decay are between you, with spirits that were before unto you merely after the fashion of Ariel, — coming, indeed, at your call, from the fairy-land of books, and singing to you unearthly melodies, but having no local habi tation. Here you have before you the traces aud evidences of their humanity. Here you see Sir Philip Sidnev, as the boy and the man ; you walk under his oak ; you tread with Ben Jonson beneath the mighty chestnuts still crowning the hills of the park ; you pace under the stupendous beeches of Saccha rissa' s Walk, now battered with time and tempests; you see Algernon Sidney, not merely as the stern patriot, planning the overthrow of monarchy, but as the delicate child of a stately line daintily fed in his separate chamber; vou recognise the VISIT TO PENSHURST. 49 Fair Pembroke as a daughter of this house ; and every where tokens of the visits and favoui* of Edward VI., of Elizabeth, and James, bring us back in spirit to those remarkable reigns. Numbers of portraits of those who figured most eminently on the political stage then, complete the impression ; and we can not bid adieu to the venerable pile of Penshurst without feeling that it has not merely afforded us a deep satisfaction, but has stimulated us to a closer acquaintance with some of the proudest characters and most eventful times of English history. ¦¦'¦¦^¦'•rSSS THE OARDEN TERRACE. VISIT TO THE FIELD OP CULLODEN. There are few things more interesting than a visit to an old battle-field. The very circumstance impresses indelibly on your mind the history connected with it. It awakes a more lively interest about the deeds done there, than the mere meet ing with them in a book can. It kindles a curiosity about all the persons and the events that once passed over it ; and when you have inquired, the living knowledge which you have gained of the place and its localities, fixes the facts for ever in your memories. e 2 .r)2 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. Besides that, old traditions linger about the field and its vicinity, which in the excitement of the main transaction never found their way into the record. There are passages and glimpses of personages, that the historian did not learn, or did not deign to place on his page, which have nevertheless a vivid effect on the heart and the imagination of him who wanders and muses there in after time. You see, even long ages afterwards, evidences of the wrath and ravages of the moment of contention, and touching traces of those human sufferings, which, though they make the mass of instant misery and the most fruitful subject of subsequent reflection, are lost in the glare of worldly glory, and the din of drums and trumpets. You see where the fierce agency of fire and artillery have left marks of their rage — where they have shivered rocks and shattered towers, laid waste dwellings and blown up the massy fortresses of the feudal ages. Nature, with all her heal ing and restoring care, does not totally erase or conceal these. There are grey crumbling walls, weed-grown heaps, grassy mounds shrouding vast ruins; and even at times, of the slaugh tered hosts, still The graves are green ; they may be seen. Of the battle-fields in this country, I know none which have more interested my imagination than those of Flodden and Culloden. Both were peculiarly disastrous to Scotland: in one the king was slain with nearly all his nobility, in the other the regal hopes of his unfortunate descendants were VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 53 extinguished for ever. These circumstances have made them both themes of poetry and romance of the highest quality which Scotland has produced. No one can read the pathetic ballad — The flowers of the forest are all wede away, without feeling a strong interest in Flodden; and the vast influence which the battle of Culloden has had on the fortunes of this country, render the spot on which it was fought one of peculiar note to Englishmen. It was there that the fate of the Stuart dynasty was sealed. It was there that it was demonstrated beyond dispute, that any chance of that family — so unfortunately attached to principles of government and religion which the bulk of the empire rejected and abjured, — to regain the throne of these kingdoms, was gone for ever. It was there that popery and regal despotism, as regnant powers in Great Britain, were destroyed. It was there that not only was Protestantism made triumphant, but that the empire was consolidated far more than by the formal Act of Union itself. Whfle the Highlands continued the stronghold of Jacobitism, there was a weak place in the kingdom which France and Spain were only too well acquainted with; and on any recurrence of hostility with them, we were threatened with invasion and insurrection at once. The course of the rebellion of 1745, which was terminated at Culloden, by shew ing the hopelessness of such attempts, put an end to them. It was found that the Highlanders alone, out of the immense population of the realm, could be roused to assert the claims 54 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. of the old dynasty, and the battle of Culloden laid the High lands at the feet of the conquerors, and they were crushed into passive obedience. Henceforward all parties, English and Scotch, Highlanders and lowlanders, have felt so vitally the advantages of union ; of one common empire, and one common interest; and such has been the manifest progress in wealth, and power, and knowledge, of Britain — sound, and whole, and healthy in all its members, and with the same political and commercial advantages accessible to all its children, that every one must rejoice in the course which events have taken. Instead of internal divisions and squabbles about the crown, laying her open to attacks from without, Britain by her union has advanced to an eminence amongst the nations, mo>t glorious in itself, and to a prospect of political dominion and moral influence that have no parallel, and that are too vast even for the strongest imagination to embrace. On the other hand, putting out of view these considerations and consequences, history has few things so striking as the trans actions that terminated at Culloden. We see an ancient dynastv driven from the throne of a splendid empire, striving to regain it, and that particular race from which it sprang, adhering with inviolable devotion to its fortunes; and ready, in the face of millions, and the vast resources of England, to stand to the death for its claims. Nothing can be more picturesque and heroic than the Highlanders, as seen in this history. Then- magnificent mountaiii-laml, their peculiar costume, their clanship, their whole life and character, so different to those of the rest of the empire VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 55 all add their effect to that romantic valour which, on the appear ance of Prince Charles, burst forth over the vales of England, struck terror into the heart of the metropolis, and then, as suddenly retreating, expired in one melancholy blaze on the Field of Culloden. It is no wonder that the struggles of the exiled Stuarts and the exploits of the Highlanders have produced such a multitude of Jacobite songs, and such romances as those of Scott; and, as thousands of our countrymen and countrywomen now traverse every summer the very scenes inhabited by these heroic clans, and where the principal events of the last rebellion took place, it may be as well, before describing the visit to Culloden, to take a hasty glance at the events that so fatally terminated there. The moment that our summer tourists enter the great Cale donian Canal, one of the most magnificent, and now one of the most accessible routes which they can take, they are in the very cradle of the Rebellion of forty-five. Right and left of those beautiful lochs over which they sail, in the glens and recesses of the wild hills around them, dwell the clans that carried such alarm into England. The fastnesses of Lochabar, Moidart, and Badenoch, sent forth their mountaineers at the first summons of their Prince. Not a splintered mountain towers in view, nor a glen pours its waters into the Glen More nan Albin, or Great Glen of Scotland, but bears on it some trace or tradition of those times. Fort William, Fort Augustus, the shattered holds of Inverlochy, Invergary, Glen Moriston, all call them to your remembrances. It 56 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN'. was here that Lochicl called them around the standard of Charles; it was here they gathered in their strength, and drove out every Saxon, except the garrison of Fort Wilham; and it was here that the troops of the bloody Duke of Cumberland came at his command, and blasted the whole region with fire and sword. It is wonderful how nature, in ninety years, can so completely have reclothed the valleys with wood, and turned once more that black region of the shadow of death into so smiling a paradise. When you ascend to the justly celebrated Fall of Foyers, you are again reminded of forty-five, by passing the house of Frazer of Foyers; and as you approach Inverness, you only get nearer to the startling catastrophe of the drama. Your whole course has been through the haunts of the Camerons, the Macdonalds, the Grants, the Macphersons, and Frazers, the rebel clans of forty-five, — and it leads you, as it did them, to the Muir of Culloden. From the first commencement of the troubles of the house of Stuart to the last effort in their behalf, the Highlanders were their firm, and it may be said almost their only friends. The lowland Scots, incensed at the attempt of Charles I. to impose the English liturgy upon them, were amongst the earliest to pro claim the solemn league and covenant, and to join the English parliament against him; but the Highlanders, under Montrose, rose in his cause, and created a powerful diversion in his favour. Again, when Charles the 11. attempted a similar measure and aroused a similar spirit in the lowlands, the Highlanders, under I be celebrated Claverhouse, maintained the royal ordinance; and VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 57 again, under the same commander, fought for James II. against his successful rival Wilham III. In George I.'s reign, in 1715, they once more, under the Earl of Mar, set up the standard of the Pretender, part of them marching as far as Preston in Lancashire, where they were compelled to lay down their arms, while the remainder were defeated by the Duke of Argyle. Finally, they made their most brilliant but ultimately fatal attempt, in 1745, under Prince Charles Edward. Thus, for upwards of a hundred years they maintained their attachment, and were ready to shed their blood, for the fallen race of their ancient kings. So desperate, as it regarded all other aid, was become the Stuart cause, that Charles, when he landed on the west coast of Scotland in 1745, was attended only by seven men. If the hand of Providence was ever revealed against the success of any cause, through the agency of the elements, it was most signally against that of the Stuarts. Great was the admiration at the destruction of the Spanish armada in the reign of Eliza beth, chiefly by a tempest; but scarcely, for more than a century, did a ship or a fleet issue from the ports of Spain or France, to further the designs of the Stuarts on England, but it was struck upon the rocks, or blown adrift and scattered by a storm, or instantly encountered by a hostile force. In 1715, a vessel, with arms and money, sent by the French king to the aid of the Highlanders under Mar, was wrecked and totally lost on the coast of Scotland. In 1719, a fleet of ten ships of the line, with several frigates, having on board 6000 troops and 12,000 stand of arms, was sent out from Cadiz by the court of Spain, to 58 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. assert the claim of the Pretender in England — it was completely dispersed by a violent storm off Cape Finisterre ! In the beginning of the year 171 4, Charles was summoned from Rome to accompany Marshal Saxe, with a French army of 13,000 men, to England. The court and people of England were greatly alarmed;* and not without cause, for most of the British troops were in Flanders; the grand fleet of England was in the Mediterranean ; and there were only six ships of the line ready for sea, lying at Spithead. But the elements once more rose against the Stuarts. As Marshal Saxe and the young Pretender were busy embarking their troops, the wind changed to the east and blew a storm : several transports were wrecked ; a good many troops and seamen perished ; a great quantity of warlike stores were lost; an English fleet was mustered from the different ports of the Channel, and the enterprise was abandoned. Spite of this warring of the elements against his family, in the following spring he embarked in a frigate of sixteen guns, called the Doutelle, accompanied by an old man-of-war, the Elizabeth, of sixty guns. They had not saded far when thev met an English man-of-war, the Lyon, which engaged the Elizabeth, and so disabled her as to compel her to put back to port, and Charles proceeded in his little frigate, with seven adventurers and a sum of money somewhat less than 4000/. He reached the Western Isles, but was refused aid by the chiefs. * Home's History of (lie Rebellion, vol. i. p. G2. VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 59 He landed at Moidart; erected his standard in Glen-Finnan; the Highlanders rose around him, and soon set forward with him on the most daring and adventurous enterprise that ever was undertaken, — no other than to hurl his Hanoverian rival from the British throne, and set his own father upon it. Their success speedily astonished all Europe. They marched to Edinburgh and took possession of it. The Prince took up his quarters in Holyrood, the ancient palace of his ancestors, and proclaimed his father king. He marched out, and defeated the English forces at Preston-Pans with a facility and a total rout that appeared miraculous. His victorious army, amounting to less than 6000 men, marched forward to invade England. The people of London soon heard with consternation and amaze ment that they had taken Carlisle, occupied Penrith, Kendal, Lancaster, Manchester ; and finally, in only thirteen days from their leaving Edinburgh, were quartered in Derby. Nothing could exceed the terror of the metropolis. The moneyed men were struck with a deadly panic; numbers got together what property they could aud fled into the country ; several vessels lay at the Tower quay, ready to convey the king and his trea sures to Hanover ; the Duke of Newcastle, the prime minister, shut himself up alone for two days, deliberating whether he should avow himself for the Stuart line, or not. It is true that an army of 30,000 men, chiefly of militia, lay at Finchley, and the Duke of Cumberland, with another army, was hovering near the Highlanders on the edge of Staffordshire ; but such was the opinion of the desperate valour of the Scots, and such were the 60 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. spirits of the Scots themselves, that the Chevalier Johnstone, who was in the Prince's army, and commonly blames him for rashness, expresses his persuasion that had he then pushed on to London, the Finchley army would have melted away, and the crown might now have been on a Stuart's head. But such was not the fortune of that line. The chiefs, struck with a sense of their own temerity, and with the fact that none of the English joined them, resolved to retreat northward, to the cruel chagrin of both Prince and soldiers. They made a retreat as extraordinary as their march had been. With the Duke of Cumberland now hotly pursuing, they yet pushed on without loss or molestation, except at Clifton in Cumberland, where they speedily repulsed the Duke's troops. They reached Falkirk, and there mustering 8000 men, they attacked and completely routed the English army under General Hawley, 13,000 in number. The chiefs, still deeming it pru dent to retreat, contrary to the Prince's judgment, they now reached Inverness, doomed to be the scene of the termination of this most extraordinary and meteorlike adventure. Prince Charles has been charged both by friends and foes with rashness and cowardice. The history of Home, who served in the army opposed to him, certainly does not warrant any charge of cowardice; and if that of rashness be better founded, it should be recollected that Charles Edward had been for years amused with promises of assistance from France to regain the crown — promises that euded in nothing; that the prize aimed at was a noble otic ; that he had seen nothing but victory VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 61 attend him, and the throne at one moment apparently all but achieved. That he had been irritated — being forced on retreat after retreat by his own officers, over four successive fields of victory — and that now they proposed a further retreat into the mountains. These must be taken as palliatives; yet his con duct now was rash to madness, and cost him the destruction of his cause. The troops were worn out with their long and wonderful march. They were famished for want of provisions. They had had no pay for six weeks ; and the bulk of them were dispersed, seeking rest and refreshment amongst their friends and families. These circumstances all pointed to the course which his chiefs counselled, to avoid a general engagement, and assume a strong position in the mountains. The evil angel of the Stuart race prevailed. Charles harassed his men by a miserable night march in a vain attempt to surprise Cumberland's camp; and when the worn-out and starving soldiers had just thrown themselves down in the neighbouring woods, and under the walls on Culloden Moor to sleep, the Duke was upon them. It is melancholy to imagine those brave men, who had shewn such unparalleled devotion, and had performed such wonders, thus forced to go into battle, faint with want of food, of rest, and sleep, with scarcely half of their numbers assembled.* The English artillery swept them down by whole ranks, and they were speedily seen flying in all direc tions. The fate of the Stuart dynasty was sealed for ever, * The number of Highlanders in the battle of Culloden was about 5000 ; of the king's troops nearly double that amount. 62 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. and the bloody butcheries of the monster Cumberland were then to begin. Thinking and talking over "this strange eventful history," we set out from the interesting town of Inverness,* to walk to Culloden Moor, on Thursday the 11th of August, 1836— just ninety years and about three months after the occurrence of that memorable battle, it being fought on the 16th of April, 1746. We found it a pleasant ramble of about four miles ; partly amid pleasant cultivated fields, with their corn ripe for the harvest ; partly along the shore of the Murray Frith ; and partly through woods of Scotch fir. As we approached Culloden, we asked many of the peasantry living near the wood whether we were in the right direction, but not one could speak English. The ground gradually ascended as we advanced, and when we came in sight of the Moor, we found a sort of observatory tower built by the gentleman who now lives in Culloden House, and a number of old cannons lying about, evidently intended to give the place a fortified air; one of those whims which so frequently seize people in picturesque situations, but of which the interest * Inverness is one of the most delightful and interesting places in the king dom. Delightful from its fine situation, on the margin of the Murray Frith, and surrounded by mountain regions of the greatest beauty. It is interesting by its numerous poetical and historical associations. Being the capital of the Highlands, it is full of clan history. Almost every object on which your eve fulls has its peculiar recommendation— such as the old castle of Macbeth, where he murdered the king ; Craig Phadric, a wild hill crowned with one of those vilrified forts that have so much puzzled the antiquaries; Tomnaheurich or the Hill of the I'niries, a very singular bill, said to bo the burial-place of Thomas the Rhymer, etc. etc. VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 63 dies before the object is finished. We were now speedily on the Moor, and were at a loss whether to admire more the black and blasted aspect of this fatal spot, or the magnificent scenery of which it is the melancholy centre. To the south, beyond the river Nairn, rose wild ranges of hills which run into the moun tains of Badenoch ; to the north lay at our feet the Murray Frith, to the right shewing Fort George, built on a narrow promontory pushing into it from the southern shore, and on the opposite shore Fort Rose; to our left lay the dark woods and green hills between us and Inverness, and all before us one wide and splendid prospect, — the mountain regions of Rosshire, with Ben Wyvers lifting his cloudy bulk far above the rest. Between us and the Murray Frith ran a narrow strip of cultivated country, and just below us appeared, shrouded in its solemn woods, Culloden House, at the time of the Rebellion the residence of the celebrated Lord Forbes of Culloden, President of the Court of Session; a man whose advice, had it been taken, would, in all probability, have prevented the Rebellion, and whose exertions actually broke it of so much of its force that its defeat may be attributed to him more than to any other cause.* The Moor itself, on which we stood, we found as Robert Chambers in his Picture of Scotland has correctly stated, " a vast table- * The heavy Dutch and Hanoverian kings whom it was the fortune of this kingdom to have subsequently to the expulsion of the Stuarts, never seemed to have the slightest conception that their rule might be made popular by conciliation and kindness. The Highlanders, who were the most to be feared in case of any attempt of the Smarts to regain the crown, were treated uniformly with contempt or asperity. In 1738, Lord Forbes, when a war with Spain was expected, repre sented to Sir Robert Walpole, through Lord Milton and the Earl of Hay, that 64 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. land covered with heath, over which are scattered a few wretched cottages." These cottages, however, are chiefly sprinkled over that side of the Moor nearest to Inverness, with their httle patches of corn and potatoes, and give some aspect of life and cultivation to the scene ; but the site of the battle itself, and the heath far beyond, are as free from the marks of culture as they could be in the days of Adam. In the words of the same worthy and indefatigable authority, " the whole plain is as desolate and blasted in appearance as if it suffered under a curse, or were conscious of the blood which it had drank." It is, in fact, in strict poetical keeping with our feelings on visiting such a place. Culloden Moor ought to be Culloden Moor ; not a mere common place tract of pasturage or corn-field. Old battle-fields are the property of the nation ; they are spots bearing evidence to the changes of our dynasties, and the conflicts, good or evil, through which England has passed to what she now is. How ever, therefore, farmers and country squires, and pohtical econo mists may rave at our folly, we cannot help being jealous of the rooting out with the plough and the spade, the identifying marks of our national battle-fields. The greater part of the scenes of these great conflicts, of which we read in English his tory, we find, on visiting, so exactly like the other fields of hay the first thing which Spain would do, would be to excite the Highlanders ; but that all that danger might be most easily prevented by raising four or five High land regiments, and giving commissions in them to their chiefs. Sir Robert expressed his admiration of the plan, wondered that it had never before occurred to any one, and warmly recommended it in council. The scheme was rejected, and in seven years after came the Rebellion. VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 65 and corn around them, that we have a difficulty in realizing to ourselves that these are actually the sites of those great actions that stand so prominently in our annals. Even Flodden is a corn-field; and the hill on which James V. posted himself, is at present fast disappearing to mend the roads. But Culloden is every thing that the poet or the antiquary would wish it to be. It i3 solemn and melancholy as the imagination of the most sympathetic visiter can desire: and who does not sympathise with the fate of so many brave men, who had burst forth in so romantic an enterprise for the restoration of their fallen kings, and had done such extraordinary deeds in it ? Who can avoid sympathising in the last vain efforts of a high-spirited people to maintain their independence against a nation of such overwhelming power as England, notwithstanding the mis- government of the Stuarts, and the clear demonstration, from that day to this, that their removal from the throne was one of the most auspicious events that ever happened to this kingdom ? Though ninety years have passed since the battle of Culloden, the field is covered with the marks of that day. The moment you set foot on the scene of action, you recognise every position of the contending armies, and the objects which surrounded them. The night before the battle, Prince Charles and his officers lodged in Culloden House. There stands Culloden, restored and beautified since then, but occupying the same site and surrounded by the same wood. The battle took place be tween this house and an extensive inclosure on the Moor, the north wall of which screened the right flank of the Highland 66 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. army. This wall the English troops partly pulled down, and raked the flank of the rebels with such a murderous fire of artillery as cut down almost every man, and caused the almost instantaneous rout of the right wing. The mouldering remains of that old and shattered wall stdl stretch across the Moor in the very course laid down in the original plans of the battle. In the centre of the place of action the ground was hollow and boggy. The ground is now sound, but you see plainly the hollow extent of the morass. To the 30uth-west stood, at that day, a large farm-house, called Balvraid: to this house the right wing of the rebels retreated; here great numbers of their comrades gathered to them, and in a body made good, and indeed without pursuit, their way into Badenoch. The house stands there yet. On the northern edge of the battle field, near the extremity of the left wing, is marked the site of a hut : this was unquestionably the hut of a blacksmith, the only house then standing precisely on the battle field. This smith, so says the current tradition of the place, was a stalwart fellow, but not at all desirous to take part in the fray, but the Highlanders compelled every man that they found in the vicinity to come forth to their help. Their numbers were diminished by absence, and their strength by starvation and excessive fatigue ; they needed all aid that they could command, and they insisted on the jolly smith taking arms. The smith was very loath and very dogged, but, snatching uj) the shaft of a cart that was reared against the wall of his smithy, he tooh bis post beside them. When, however, he saw VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 67 the havoc made by the English cavalry amongst his countrymen, his blood was up, and rushing into the thickest of the fray, he laid about him with his tremendous weapon, knocking down the troopers from their horses, and levelling all that he came near. The exploits of this son of Vulcan turning the attention of the cavalry on him, he was beset by overwhelming numbers, and after performing prodigies of valour, and laying low many with his cart shaft, he was at length compelled to fly. He took the road towards Inverness, the direction which the greater number of the fugitives were taking, and after turning repeatedly on his pursuers, and bringing down several of them, he was at length killed, not far from the mill, about a mile from Inverness, where the last bodies were found. The country people yet tell the spot where the sturdy blacksmith dropped. His smithy stood from year to year on the fatal field, deserted and gradually f 2 68 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN'. falling to decay. It remained a heap of mouldering ruin tdl within these few years, when several fresh huts springing up on the Moor not far off, the people gradually conveyed away the stones of the walls to construct their own habitations. It is said that the forge, the tools, and heaps of rusty iron, were found beneath the ruins of the roof, which had fallen in. Such had been the horror connected with that fatal field, that none had cared to carry them away. When we saw the place every stone was grubbed up to the bottom of the foundations, and a pool of water nearly filled the hollow; but you had only to turn up any part of the floor which was bare, and you found it to consist of the cinders and smithy-slack of the brave old blacksmith's forge. A road has been cut across the Moor since the battle, which passes right through the centre of the scene of action, and runs close past the site of the smith's forge ; and it passes, too, amid what are the most striking and conspicuous objects on the field — the graves of the slaughtered soldiers. Nothing can be more impressive than these graves. The whole Moor besides is one black waste of heath ; but these graves arc grassy mounds of clear green, the only green spot within the whole compass of the melancholy Moor. They lie right and left of the road, but principally on the south side. The road, as we have observed, having been cut across the heath since the battle, and passing directly across the place of graves, has no doubt covered some of them for ever from our view, but has brought the remainder under the very eye of all that travel through Culloden. Burns VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 69 once looked on these green hillocks in his northern ramble, and described his own and the popular feeling in THE LOVELY LASS OF INVERNESS. The lovely lass o' Inverness, Na joy nor pleasure can she see ; For e'en and morn she cries alas ! And ay the saut tear hlins her e'e : — " Drumossie Moor,* Drumossie day, A waefu' day it was to me ! For there I lost my father dear, My father dear and brethren three. " Their winding-sheet the bloody clay, Their graves are growing green to see ; And by them lies the dearest lad That ever blest a woman's e'e ! " Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord, A bloody man I trow thou be ; For many a heart thou hast made sair, That ne'er did wrang to thine or thee.'' That we might not miss any information connected with the spot, we entered a hut not very far from the old smith's forge, and to our great satisfaction found a family that could speak English. They were, a widow of the name of Mackenzie, and her son and daughter, both grown up. They appeared very intelligent, and took a warm interest in every thing relating to the field of battle. They told us that some of their family had lived on this spot from the day of the contest. That, besides the smith's hut, this was the only one in the * Drumossie was the old name of Culloden. 70 VISIT TO THE FIELD OI CULLODEN. immediate vicinity of the field. That it had been called Stable Hollow ever since, from a number of the English troopers after the fight putting up their horses in the shed belonging to it, while they went to strip the slain. That their ancestors, the occupiers of the cottage, all made their escape, with the excep tion of one young man who was compelled by the Highlanders to go into the battle. That such was his horror and frenzy, when he saw the flight and bloody havoc that took place, that he flew across the field without knowing whither he was going, and was not heard of for more than two months, when he most unexpectedly again made his appearance wasted almost to a skeleton. They had supposed him killed in the battle. They afterwards learned that he had been roving amongst the hills of Badenoch, in a state of apparent idiocy ; and only saved from starvation by the pity of the inhabitants. Of this, however, he himself could give no account, nor did he ever afterwards regain his former tone of mind. William, or as they called him, Wully Mackenzie, the widow's son, was a short strong-built youth of about twentv years of age ; he was a gardener by trade, and as well informed as Scotch gardeners generally are. We were particularly pleased with the openness and intelligence of his countenance, and on his part he offered with great evidence of pleasure to conduct us over the field, lie pointed out to us a large stone, not far from their cottage; i.e. on the north side of the scene of action, and on the left wing of the Highland army, where tradition said that a French engineer had posted his artillery VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 71 and committed considerable havoc on the English line. When we reached the graves, he directed our attention to a little stream that wandered through the heath near them, and a spring which was before the battle particularly admired for its delicious water. During the contest a number of the wounded crawled to it to assuage their thirst; and amongst them an officer who, as he was just raising his head, again was struck with a ball, and fell with his head into the spring. There, after the battle, he was found ; the fountain itself per fectly choked up with the stiffened corses of himself and the heaps of combatants that had fallen there. From that day to the present, he said, nobody would ever drink from that spring; and in truth it was nearly overgrown with long grass and weeds, that testified to its not being disturbed by visitants. As we sate on the greensward of one of these battle-graves, we observed that in many places the turf had been broken up by digging ; and our young guide told us that scarcely a party came there but was desirous to carry away the fragment of a bone as a relic. " What," said we, " are the bones soon come at ?" " Yes," he replied, " in some places they lie within a foot of the surface." These graves have been dug into in hundreds of places, yet you can scarcely turn a turf but you come upon them. He dug out a sod with his knife, and throwing out a little earth, presently came to fragments of the crumbling bones of the skeletons of 1746. He told us that in one instance, a quantity of bones which had been car ried off by a traveller, had been sent back at a great expense, 72 VISIT TO THE FIF.LII OF CULLODEN. and buried again; the person who conveyed them away being continually tormented by his conscience, and his dreams, till that was done ; " and the next visiter," added Wully Mackenzie, " would most probably carry them off once more." Balls and portions of military accoutrements are still not unfrequently found about the heath. We picked up as we walked across it, a leaden bullet, flattened by having struck against some hard body, and rendered quite white with age. " Many a clever fellow lies here !" said young Mackenzie, as he was busy turning up the sod in quest of some appearance of bones; and indeed what a contrast was that quiet seeuc, with the sun and breeze of August playing over it, to what it was ninety years before, when these dry bones hved ! In such situations we often, and very naturally, wish that we could call up some of the dead to tell us what were their thoughts and feelings in that moment of wrath and confusion ; but we had no need of that here. All those who were now reduced beneath our feet to dust and mouldering bones, had left their representatives behind them, to tell us not only what they had suffered, but what the surviving Highlanders suffered. Many who fought in that battle, have left more or less some written account of it; but remarkably enough, an officer of each contending army has been the historian of the whole war. Home in the king's army, aud the Chevalier Johnstone in that of the prince, have left us vivid records of the field of Culloden and all that led to it, and all that followed it. The escape, and wanderings of Prince Charles for more than five months VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 73 through the Highlands, with the king's soldiers after him, with the price of 30,000/. set upon his head, and the peremptory orders of the Duke of Cumberland to put him to death the instant he was found — his living in the cave in the wild mountain Coramhian, with the seven Macdonalds — his escape by Captain Mackenzie personating him, and sacrificing his life for him; the adventure of Flora Macdonald, the proto type of Scott's Flora Mac Ivor, who rescued him from his pursuers in one of the Western Isles, by conveying him away disguised as her Irish maid Betty Burke, — all these things, from then' own romantic nature, and the rank of the person concerned, have been made familiar to all readers. The narrative of the escape of the Chevalier Johnstone, however, as written by himself, is to the full in my opinion, as interest ing, because it may be considered as the recital of one out of the multitude of those who fled from Culloden for their lives — some to escape by a hair's-breadth, but many more to perish by the sword of the pursuer, or the scaffold, as Kilmarnock, Balmerino, old Lovat, and their fellows, whose heads so long dried in the winds on Temple Bar and London Bridge.* • The Chevalier Johnstone's history is a romance of real life, to the full as interesting, and abounding with hair-breadth escapes, as the tales of the author of Waverley ; and, indeed, frequently reminds you of his characters and incidents. Tbe chevalier was the only son of James Johnstone, merchant in Edinburgh. His family, by descent and alliance, was connected with some of the first houses in Scotland. His sister Cecilia was married to a son of Lord Rollo, who suc ceeded to the title and estate in 1765. The chevalier moved in the best society of the Scottish capital, and was treated by the then cclehiated Lady Jane Douglas with the tenderness of a parent. Educated in Episcopalian and Jacobite 74 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. One cannot even now, nearly a century after its enactment, traverse this last field of the Jacobite wars, without a strong feeling for all the human suffering in which this bloody drama closed ; but still stronger is that of indignant contempt for that principles, on the first intelligence of the landing of Prince Charles Edward, he made his escape from Edinburgh to the seat of Lord Rollo, near Perth, where he waited the arrival of the Prince, and was one of the first low-country gentle men that joined his standard. He acted as aid-de-camp to Lord George Murray, and also to the Prince; and after the battle of Preston-Pans, he received a captain's commission, and bore a part in all the movements of the rebel army till the defeat at Culloden. From Culloden, he escaped with the utmost peril to Killi- huntly, where Mrs. Gordon, the lady of the house, offered to build him a hut in the mountains, and give him a few sheep to look after, so that he might pass for a shepherd ; but the uneasiness of his mind would not allow him to adopt such a life. He fled to Rothiemurchus, where the young laird advised him lo sur render himself to the government, as he had advised others, particularly Lord Balmerino; advice which, had he adopted it, would have caused his destruction, as it did theirs. From house to house, and place to place, he escaped by the most wonderful chances and under all sorts of disguises. He passed continually amongst the English soldiers busy at their work of devastation, his blood boiling with fury at the sight, but instant death his fate if he gave one sign of his feel ings. Seventeen days he remained in the house of a very poor peasant, called Samuel, in Glen-Prossen ; Samuel's daughter watching at the entrance of the glen. He was determined to reach Edinburgh if possible, and thence escape to England, and so to the Continent; but the chances were a hundred to one against him. Every part of the country was overrun with soldiers, every outlet was watched, and heavy penalties denounced on any boatman who conveved a rebel across the Tay and Forth. He prevailed, however, with two youno- ladies to ferry him over the Tay; but after a dreadful journey on foot into Fifeshire he found the utmost difficulty in getting across the Forth to Edinburgh. The account of all his negotiations and disappointments at Duhbiesides, where no lisherman would carry him over; but where he did at length get carried over by a young gentleman and a drunken fisher, is very much in the Waverley manner. After being concealed with an old nurse at Lcith, and partly with Lady Jane Douglas at Drumsheagh — lie set out for England as a Scotch pedlar, on a pony. On his way he encountered a Dick Tuipin sort of gentleman, and again a mysterious pcisunnge, who enteied the inn where he was near Stamford .sealed himself at table uitli him, and alter playing away heartily at a piece of VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 75 monster Cumberland. It was impossible not to reflect what was the shocking barbarity with which he treated many of those whose bones now mouldered beneath our feet. "The Duke of Cumberland," says the Chevalier Johnstone, "had the cruelty to allow our wounded to remain amongst the dead on the field of battle, stript of their clothes, from Wednesday, the day of our unfortunate engagement, till three o'clock on Friday, when he sent detachments to kill all those who were still in life ; and a great many, who had resisted the effects of the continual rains which fell all that time, were then dispatched. He ordered a barn, which contained many of the wounded Highlanders, to be set on fire; and having stationed soldiers round it, they with fixed bayonets drove back the unfortunate men who attempted to save themselves, into the flames ; burning them alive in this horrid manner, as if they had not been fellow-creatures."* This was a fitting commencement of those dreadful atrocities which he perpetrated in the country of the rebellious clans. The burnings, massacres, violations, and other demoniacal outrages with which cold veal, began lo interrogate him about the rebels in Scotland. Escaping from this fellow by the sacrifice of some India handkerchiefs, he got to London, where he lay concealed for a long time amongst his friends — fell into a very interesting love adventure — and saw many of his comrades pass his window on their way to execution. On one occasion he was invited by his landlord as a relaxation, to go and see two rebels executed on Tower Hill, Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino! He finally escaped to Holland, in the train of his friend Lady Jane Douglas; entered into the service of France, went to Louisbourg in America, and returned to France to poverty and old age ! Such is one recorded life of a Jacobite of the expedition of forty-five, — how many such, and even more wretched, passed unrecorded ! * Memoirs of the Rebellion, p. 146. 76 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. he laid waste some of the most beautiful regions on the globe ; deeds which will make his name infamous while there is a human feeling, or the power to record it in the world. As we left the field, we gave, with our thanks, a small gra tuity to our intelligent young guide, Wully Mackenzie, which seemed to him so much beyond his services, that, in the height of his gratitude, he was quite uneasy that he could not shew us some further good office. "Was there nothing more that he could do ? Would we go in, and sit down to rest us awhile ? Would wre like a tune on the bagpipes?" As it is always a pleasure to gratify a generous feeling, in we went, and took our seats in their little hut, a regular Highland habitation, with smoky rafters, while Wully produced his pipes, and began to put them in order. There is something very delightful to sit in the simple cabin of these mountaineers, and sec them converse with an easy and unembarrassed air, and with a mixture of intelligence and local superstition nowhere else to be found. We observed that the beds, and various parts of the roof, were canopied with birch boughs, which had dried with all their leaves on. These, they assured us, were a certain protection from the plague of flies, for not a fly would go near the birch. This, wc suppose, is a fact which experience has taught them, and if so, is a valuable one. Wc had a long talk with these good people, about the battle-field and its traditions. They told us that the name of Drumossie was not now used for that Moor — Culloden had superseded it; but was retained on a wild track at its extremity in the direction of Badenoch. Thev assured us, with VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 77 the utmost gravity, that a battle would some day be fought there. We inquired how they knew that. They replied, because it had been repeatedly seen. On a summer's evening, people going across that moor had suddenly on various occasions found them selves in the very midst of the smoke and noise of a battle. They could see the various clans engaged, and clearly recognise them by their proper tartans ; and on all these occasions the Laird of Culdethel, a neighbouring gentleman, was conspicuous on his white horse. One woman was so frightened and bewildered by this strange spectacle that she fainted away, and on coming to herself, found all traces of the battle gone, and made the best of her way home again without proceeding on her original object. We told them that these must be strong impressions left on the imaginations of the people by the memory of the old battle, but they only shook their heads. They were perfectly satisfied that a battle was to be fought on Drumossie, and that the Laird of Culdethel would be in it — though with whom the clans would fight, and for what, they could not pretend to tell. Having finished our discussion on this singular second-sight sort of superstition, Wully Mackenzie struck up on his pipes. The pipes are the true instrument of the Highlands, as the harp is that of Wales, or the guitar of Spain. We never felt so strongly their power as on this occasion. Our musician was, as I have said, a short, stout Highlander. He was clad in coarse blue cloth, every thread of which his mother had spun, and which, when woven, had been made up too by his mother and sister in this very cabin ; yet, as he stood playing his native airs, he 78 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. seemed quite inspired, and wc could not help being struck with the manliness of his attitude, and of his whole bearing. We never heard the music of the bagpipe in perfection till then. He played the tune with which the Highlanders were said to have marched into the battle of Culloden. We could see the gallant bands pass over the heath on which we were gazing through the open door. We could see the glimmer of their weapons, and the fluttering of their tartans, and feel, peaceful people as we are, the romantic spirit of heroism which had led them on their expedition into England, and now brought them here to destruction. Our gallant piper never seemed weary of playing ; and as it was a treat to sit in a Highland hut, and hear such a musician, we got him to play all the interesting airs that we could recollect. There scarcely was one that he was not the master of ; and oil no occasion did we ever listen to music that so powerfully and variously affected us. He played pibroehs and marches, and spite of our better judgments, we could not help kindling into the admiration of clan warfare ; but the celebrated dirge, of which he related the origin, with which Highlanders march to the shore when they are about to embark as emigrants to some distant clime* — Cha till, cha till, cha till, mi tuitle. Wc return, we return, we return no more ! — it was impossible to listen to it without tears. Let no one * This is called Mackrimmon's Lament. Sir Walter Scott has written words to this air, and gives the following as the origin of it : " Mackrimmon, hereditary VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 79 despise the droning of the bagpipe that has not heard it as we heard it that day. We took leave of this simple, intelligent, and kind-hearted famdy, and walked back, on a delicious evening, a nearer way over the fields to Inverness ; having passed one of the pleasantest days of our life on the Field of Culloden.* piper to the laird of Macleod, is said to have composed this lament when the clan was about to depart on a distant and dangerous expedition. The minstrel was impressed with a belief, which the event verified, that he was to be slain in the approaching feud, and hence the Gaelic words : — ' Cha till mi tuille ; ged thilles lUacleod, cha till Mackrimmon.' I shall never return ; although Macleod returns, yet Mackrimmon shall never return." Wully Mackenzie had a different version of the tradition. — That there was a cave in the isle of Sky which had never been explored to its termination ; that Mackrimmon and another bard, Macleod, dared each other to explore it; and that Mackrimmon composed this lament on the occasion, and went playing it into the cave, from which neither of the bards reappeared. * For a most singular history of the fortunes of the present laird of Culloden — which, if one half of it be true, shews the laws and the lawyers of Scotland to be ten times worse even than those of England — see Tait's Magazine for May of the present year. HATL OF CHARLECOTT3. VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON, AND THE HAUNTS OF SHAKSPEARE. The country about Stratford is not romantic, but extremely pleasant. The town stands in a fine open valley. The Avon, a considerable stream, winds past it through pleasing meadows. The country is well cultivated, and the view of wooded uplands and more distant ranges of hills, gives spirit to the prospects. The town itself is a good, quiet, country town, of perhaps four or five thousand inhabitants. In Shakspeare's time it could be nothing more than a considerable village; for by the census of 1801 the total of its inhabitants was but 2418. In that day, 82 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. the houses were, no doubt, built of wood or of framework, such as the dwelling of Shakspeare's parents still remains. Fires appear, by the history of the place, to have been frequent and destructive. In the 36th and 37th of Elizabeth two furious fires occurred, and so reduced the property of the inhabitants as to compel them to petition parliament for a remission of subsidies and taxes, and for a portion of 36,000/., which had been granted for the relief of decayed cities and towns. The residence of Shakspeare himself narrowly escaped. Stratford appears now to live on the fame of Shakspeare. You see mementos of the great native poet wherever you turn. There is the Mulberry-tree Inn; the Imperial Shakspeare Hotel; the Sir John Falstaff; the Royal Shakspeare Theatre : the statue of Shakspeare meets your eye in its niche on the front of the Town-hall. Opposite to that, a large sign informs you that there is kept a collection of the rehcs of Shakspeare, and not far off you arrive at another sign, conspicuously projecting into the street, on which is proclaimed, — " in this house the im mortal bard was born." The people seem all alive to the honour of their town having produced Shakspeare. The tailor will descend from his shopboard, or the cobbler start up from his stall, and volunteer to guide you to the points connected with the history of the great poet. A poor shoemaker, on my asking at his door the nearest way to the church containing Shakspeare's tomb, immediately rose up aud began to put on his coat. I said, " No, my friend, I do not want you to put your self to that trouble; go on with your work — 1 only want you VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 83 to say whether this way be the most direct." " Bless you, sir," said the man, taking up his hat, " I don't want anything for shewing a gentleman the way to Shakspeare's tomb; it is a pleasure to me. I am fond on't; and a walk, now and then, does me good." The old man bustled along, holding forth with enthusiasm in the praise of Shakspeare, and coming up to the sexton's house, and knocking, — " There," said he, " I have saved you ten minutes' walk: — don't forget to look at old Johnny Combe!" and was turning off highly pleased that he had done something to the honour of Shakspeare, and reluctant to re ceive even the value of a glass of ale for his services. The Royal Shakspeare Club annually celebrate the birth of Shakspeare on the 23d of April, and even Washington Irving- is held in great honour for having recorded in his Sketch-Book his visit to his tomb. At one of the inns they shew you Wash ington Irving's room and his bed. In the Red Horse, at which I stayed, my room was adorned with his sole portrait, and all the keepers of Stratford albums take good care to point out to you the signature of Washington Irving, the American, who spoke so highly of Shakspeare. It is 'pleasing to find the prophet enjoying so much honour in his own country; and yet I shall have a fact or two presently to mention, which will require the serious attention of the people of Stratford, if they do not mean all this show of zeal for the poet's memory to appear empty and inconsistent. One of the first places which I hastened to visit was the birth-place of Shakspeare's wife; the rustic cottage where he g 2 K'l VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. wooed, and whence he married her. Millions, perhaps, have visited the house where he was born; tens of thousands have certainly inscribed their names on the walls of that simple chamber where he is said to have first seen the light; but not so many have visited, or known of, or inquired after the house where his modest, faithful, and affectionate wife, Ann Hathaway, she hath a way, was born, and lived, and became the wife of Shakspeare when he was nineteen, and she twenty-seven. Shakspeare seems to have had no personal ambition. If he had, we should have had more account of the incidents of his existence. He seems to have thrown off his inimitable dramas, rich with passion and poetry, more from the very enjoyment of the act, than from the glory to be derived from them. So, too, in his youth, he married the first humble object of his affections; and after having seen all the fascinations of London life, after having conversed with the most celebrated beauties and wits of Elizabeth's splendid court, he retired with a competence to the quiet uneventful town of Stratford, the quiet haunts of his youth, and to domestic peace with his true Ann Hathaway. There is nothing more wonderful in the character of Shak speare than the perfect indifference shewn to the fate of his inimitable dramas. For thirteen years after his retirement from the stage, and those years the very prime of his existence — for he died at the early age of fifty-two— he continued to live, and that in a great degree in the perfect leisure of Stratford, without VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 85 apparently taking the slightest means to secure a correct edition of his works. He threw them off with the greatest imaginable ease and rapidity, the "Merry Wives of Windsor" being said only to have occupied a fortnight in the composition, and to have left them to the care of the public as stoically as the ostrich leaves its eggs to the sun. It could not be that he was insensible to their merit, for in his sonnets he gives us repeated assurances of the immortality of his muse; but it would seem as if, satisfied with the consciousness that he had done enough to secure his eternal fame, he followed his natural bent for the enjoyment of domestic life, and the entire forgetfulness of public concerns in which he was absorbed by it, testifying that there lay his entire happiness. That he spent the greater portion of the last sixteen years of his life at Stratford there is every reason to believe, having purchased for his residence one of the best houses of his native town, in 1597, which, having repaired and improved, he named New Place; nor is any other trace of him discoverable, independent of his literary exertions, from that year, except that in 1602 he was at Stratford, adding a new purchase of one hundred and seven acres of land to his former purchase of New Place. Not all the havoc committed by players and publishers on the sense and diction of his great dramas could rouse him from his domestic rest. " He made," says Johnson, " no collection of his works, nor desired to rescue those that had been already published from the depravations that obscured them, or to secure to the rest a better destiny by giving them to the world in their genuine state. . . . They 86 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. were transcribed for the players by those who may be supposed to have seldom understood them; they were transmitted by copiers equally unskilful, who still multiplied errors; they were, perhaps, sometimes mutilated by actors, for the sake of shorten ing the speeches, and were, at best, printed without corrections of the press." All this were enough to have roused, one would have thought, any author that had but sufficient ambition to write, but it disturbed not Shakspeare, and it must appear that the astonishing power displayed in his dramas was not the most wonderful quality of his nature. He had a mind that could not only achieve what was beyond the fame of other men, but a calm indifference even for his own fame, that more resembled the elevation of a divine nature than the nervous temperament of humanity. How different is this, even to the sensitiveness of his own youth, when the insult which he supposed himself to have received from Sir Thomas Lucy stung him to the quick, and induced him to gibbet him in ballads, and rim for miles to fix them on his park-gate; an irritability so lasting that it revived and issued to the light again in the " Merry Wives of Windsor." That Shakspeare valued the enjoyments of domestic life, beyond both the brilliant life of successful literature in London and beyond the fame of his works, his long quiet retirement at Stratford sufficiently proves. There have not beeii wanting those who have accused him of indifference or infidelity towards his wife; but, whatever might be the occasional dissipations m VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 87 which he might indulge during his London sojourn, he has himself left the most triumphant testimonies of his strong and changeless affection to his Ann Hathaway,* and that it was in the depth of domestic existence that he found his real happiness. Nothing can be more beautiful than those of his sonnets which refer to these subjects: Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love That alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. 0 no! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests, and is never shaken. It is the star of every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error, and upon me proved, — / never writ, nor no man ever loved. There never were fourteen lines which so deeply and eter nally express the sentiment clearly springing from the bottom of the poet's soul, of the unchangeableness of true affection. * The author of the beautiful and able romance of " The Youth of Shak speare'* has, contrary to his usual sagacity, and without any sufficient historic evidence, and contrary, moreover, to the evidence of Shakspeare himself, here produced, unfortunately fallen into the former opinion, that of his alienation from her whom the writer himself thus describes in Shakspeare's days of court ship: — "To him every thing was Ann Hathaway; but especially all wisdom, goodness, beauty, and delight, took from her their existence, and gave to her their qualities. She was, in brief, the sun round which the rest of creation must needs take its course." — vol. ii. p. 183. SS VISIT TO STRATI'OUD-ON-AVOX. That one sonnet is enough to cast to the winds every malignant slander against the true heart of Shakspeare. That he, like other men, had fallen into errors, he was the first most earnestly and eloquently to avow; but where was the man, that after having won the fame that he had, and passed through the Cir- ccan enchantments of metropolitan beauty, and splendour, and wit as he had, ever gave so marvellous a proof that his heart of hearts was not in them, but that his only hope and idea of true happiness was in his native fields, and in the home of his wedded affection? What accuser could venture to stand up against such a man, after reading the very next sonnet, the continuation, in fact, of the former ? Accuse me thus, — that I have scanted all, Wherein I should your great deserts repay ; Forgot upon your dearest love to call, Whereto all bonds do tie me, day by dav; That I have frequent been with unknown minds. And given to time your own dear-purchased right; That I have hoisted sail to all the winds, Which should transport me farthest from your sight. Book both my wilfulness and errors down ; And on joint proof surmise accumulate ; Bring me within the level of your frown, But shoot not at me in your wakened hate: Since my appenl says, I did strive to prove The constancy and virtue of vour love. That his long absence, for it docs not appear that his wife ever left Stratford to reside with him in town, had occasioned some misunderstanding and estrangement between her and him self, would appear from sexeral of his sonnets, which arc the VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 89 only records which he has left of his life and internal feelings ; but the sorrow and repentance which he expresses are more than enough to unbend the brow of the sternest judge, much more of a tender and loving wife. O, never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seemed my flame to qualify! As easy might I from myself depart, As from my soul which in thy heart doth lie. That is my home of love .• if I have ranged, Like him that travels, I return again ; Just to the time, not with the time exchanged ; So that myself bring water for my stain. Never believe, though in my nature reigned All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, That it could so preposterously be stained, To leave for nothing all thy sum of good : For nothing this wide universe I call Save thou my rose, in it thou art my all. Alas ! 'tis true I have gone here and there, And made myself a motley to the view; Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offences of affections new. Most true if is that I have looked on truth Askance and strangely; but, by all above, These blenches gave my heart another youth, And worst essays proved thee my best of love. Now all is done, save what shall have no end : Mine appetite I never more will grind On newer proof to try an older friend, A god in love to whom I am confined. Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, Even to thy pure, and most, most loving breast. O for my sake do you with fortune chide, The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds. That did not better for my life provide Than public means, which public manners breeds. DO VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, And almost thence my nature is subdued To what it works in, like the dyer's hand: 1'ily me then, and wish I were renewed ; Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink Potions of eysell* 'gainst my strong infection, No bitterness that I will bitter think, No double penance to correct correction. 1'ity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye Even that your pity is enough to cure me. In these sonnets we have not only the most touching con fession of his errors, but some clue afforded to that neglect and contempt of his dramatic works which we have already noticed. He clearly regarded his profession of an actor as a degradation, as no doubt it was considered in the eye of those times. He probably regarded his dramas as mere compositions written to advance his fortune, and as standing testimonies to that mode of life which he regarded with aversion. This, it is probable, was the cause why he so entirely neglected them, and turned, as it were, his very thoughts from them, as reminding him of many things, during the period of then- production, which he would fain forget for ever. The very next sonnet, and the only one which I shall here indulge myself in transcribing, most strongly expresses this feeling, and the formation of that resolution to which he so inflexibly adhered to the day of his death. Your love and pity doth the impression fill, Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow: For what care I who calls me well or ill, So you o'ergrecn my bad, my good allow f » Vincnur. VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 91 You are my all-tlie-world, and I must strive To know my shames and praises from your tongue; None else to me, nor I to none alive That my steeled sense, or changes, right or wrong. In so profound abysm I throw all care Of others' voices, that my adder's sense To critic, and to flatterer stopped are. Mark how with my neglect I do dispense : — You are so strongly in my purpose bred That all the world beside, methinks they are dead. Impressed with the feelings and the history conveyed in these sonnets, I must confess that there was no spot connected with Shakspeare at Stratford that so strongly interested me as Shottry, the little rustic village where Ann Hathaway was born, and where Shakspeare wooed, and whence he married her. The house in which he was born is turned into a butcher's shop; his birth there was a mere accident, and the accidents of time have not added to the intrinsic interest of the place ; the house which he built, or improved for himself, and in which he spent the last years of his life, was pulled down, and dispersed piecemeal by the infamous parson Gastrell, who thus " doomed himself to eternal fame" more thoroughly than the fool who fired the Temple of Diana; but the birth-place and the marriage-place of Ann Hathaway, is just as it was ; and, excepting the tombs of Shakspeare and herself, the only authentic and unchanged traces of their existence here. I therefore hastened away to Shottry the very first moment that I could get out of the inn. It is but a short walk to it across some pleasant meadows, and I pleased myself with thinking as I strode along, with what delight Shak- 92 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. spearc in his youth trod the same path on his way to see his fair Ann Hathaway; and how often, in his latter years, when < he had renounced public life, and she was his " all-the-world," they might, led by the sweet recollections of the past, often stroll that way together, and perhaps visit some of their kindred under the same rustic roof. The village is a real rustic village indeed, consisting of a few farm-houses, and of half-timbered cottages of the most primitive construction, standing apart, one from the other, in their old gardens and orchards. Nothing can exceed the simphcity and quiet of this rustic hamlet. It is the beau ideal of Goldsmith's Auburn. The village public-house is the " Shakspeare Tavern," a mere cottage, like the rest. No modern innovations, no im provements, seem to have come hither to distm-b the image of the past times. The cottages stand apart from each other, in their gardens and orchard-crofts, and are just what the poets delight to describe. The country around is pleasant, though not very striking. Its great charm is its perfect ruralitv. Ann Hathaway's cottage stands at the farther end of this scattered and secluded hamlet, at the feet of pleasant uplands, and from its rustic casements you catch glimpses of the fine breezy ranees of the Ilmington and Meon hills, some mdes southward; and of Stratford church spire eastward peeping over its trees. The cottage is a long tenement of the most primitive character ; of timber framing, filled up with brick and plaster work. Its doors are grey with age, and have the old-fashioned wooden latches, with a bit of wood nailed on the outside of the VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-.VVON. 93 door to take hold of while you pull the string; just such a latch as, no doubt was on the door of Little Red Riding - Hood's grandmother, when the wolf said to the little girl, " pull the string, and you'll get in." sr\ ANN HATHAWAY'S COTTAGE. The antiquity of the house is testified by the heads of the wooden pins which fasten the framing, standing up some inches from the walls, according to the rude fashion of the age, never having been cut off. The end of the cottage comes to the village road; and the side which looks into the orchard is covered with vines and roses, and rosemary. The orchard is a spot all knolls and hollows, where you might imagine the poet, when he came here a-wooing, or in the after-days of his renown, when he came hither to see his wife's friends, and to indulge in day-dreams of the past, as he represents the king of Denmark Sleeping within mine orchard, My custom always of the afternoon — 91 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. lying on the mossy turf, and enjoying the pleasant sunshine, and the flickering shadows of the old apple-trees. The orchard extends up the slope a good way; then you come to the cottage garden, and then to another orchard. You walk up a little narrow path between hedges of box, and amongst long grass. All the homely herbs and flowers which grow about the real old-English cottage, and which Shakspeare delighted to intro duce into his poetry — the rosemary, celandine, honeysuckle, marigold, mint, thyme, rue, sage, etc., meeting your eye as you proceed. The commentators on Shakspeare have puzzled themselves wonderfully about some of the plainest matters of his text, and about none more than the identity of the dewberry. In the Midsummer Night's Dream, Titania tells the fairies to be kind to Bottom: Be kind and courteous to this gentleman ; Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes; Feed him with apricocks and dewberries, With purple grapes, figs, and mulberries ; The honey-bags steal from the humble bees, etc. These same dewberries have cost the expounders of his text a world of trouble. As apricots, grapes, and tigs are very good things, they could not bring their fancies to believe that the fairies would feed Bottom on ought less dainty, even though he yearned hungrily after gootl oats and a bundle of hay. All kinds of fruits were run over in the scale of delicacies, and not finding any of the finer sorts which ever bore the name of VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 95 dewberry, they at last sagely concluded that it must be a gooseberry, because the gooseberry is only once mentioned as a gooseberry in all his dramas. A wise conclusion! What a pity that those laborious and ingenious commentators would but step occasionally out of their studies, and go into Shak speare's own neighbourhood, and hear the peasantry there talk. They would not only have long ago discovered what a dewberry is, but might hear many a phrase and proverb, that would have thrown more light on the text of Shakspeare, than will ever stream in through a library window in half a century. A dewberry is a species of blackberry, but of a larger grain, of a finer acid, and having upon it a purple bloom like the violet plum. It is a fruit well known by that name to botanists {rubus casius), and by that name it has always been well known by the common people in the midland counties. As I walked round the orchard of Ann Hathaway, I was quite amused to see it growing plentifully on the banks ; and taking up a sprig of it with some berries on it, I asked almost every countryman and countrywoman whom I met during the day, what they called that fruit. In every instance, they at once replied, " the dewberry." While I was in that neighbourhood I repeatedly asked the peasantry if they knew such a thing as a dewberry. In every case, they replied, " To be sure, it is like a blackberry, only its grains are larger, and it is more like a mulberry." A very good description. " Yes," said others, " it grows low on the banks; it grows plentifully all about this country." So much for all the critical nonsense about the dewberry. 96 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. I could not avoid noticing many such little touches of natural imagery with which Shakspeare has enriched the poetical portion of his text, as I strolled about this garden and orchard. In the Midsummer Night's Dream, Act iv., Shakspeare says, The female ivy so Enrings the barky fingers of the elm. Why the barky fingers of the elm ? Because the young shoots of the elm and those of the maple cover themselves with a singular corky bark, which rises in longitudinal ridges, of frequently more than a quarter of an inch high, and presenting a very singular appearance. It is a curious fact that the elm is the great natural growth of the country about Stratford, and must have been particularly familiar to Shakspeare's eye, and in this very orchard he must have seen plenty of the very images he has used. I pleased myself with imagining the quiet happiness which he had enjoyed with his Ann Hathaway in this very spot, while these rural images and happy illustra tions silently flowed into his mind from the things around him. There was an old arbour of box, the trees of which had grown high and wild, having a whole wilderness of periwinkle at their feet; and upon the wooden end of a shed forming one side of this arbour, grew a honeysuckle, which seemed as though it might have grown in the very days of Shakspeare, for it had all the character of a very old tree ; little of it shew ing any life, and its bark hanging from its stem in filaments of more than a foot long, like the tatters and beard of an ancient VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. beggar. At the door looking into this orchard is a sort of raised platform up three or four steps with a seat upon it, so that the cottagers might sit and enjoy at once the breeze and the prospect of the orchard and fields beyond. There is a passage right through the house, with a very old high-backed bench of oak in it, said to have been there in Shakspeare's time, and old enough to have been there long before. The whole of the interior is equally simple and rustic. I have been more particular in speaking of this place, because perhaps at the very moment I write these remarks this interesting dwell ing may be destroyed, and all that I have been describing have given way to the ravages of modern change. The place is sold, and perhaps the cottage of Ann Hathaway is now no more. A Mr. Barns, a farmer of the neighbouring hamlet of Luddington, has bought the whole property for 3001., and talks of pulling down the house at spring. He has already pulled down some of the neighbouring cottages, and built up a row of red staring ones in their places; and already he has made an ominous gap into Ann Hathaway's orchard ! The Taylors, the old pro prietors, who have lived in the cottage for many years, were gone, the very morning I was there, to Stratford, to sign the conveyance. 98 VISIT TO STIIA'1TOIU>-OS-AVON. A YOUNG SHAKSPEAHE IN THE SHAPE OF A SCHOOLBOY. PRESENT CONDITION OF THE SHAKSPEARE FAMILY. As I went to Shottry, I met with a httle incident which inte rested me greatly by its unexpectedness. As I was about to pass over a stile at the end of Stratford into the fields leading to that village, I saw the master of the national school muster ing his scholars to their tasks. 1 stopped, being pleased with the look of the old man, and said, "You seem to have a. considerable number of lads here.; shall you raise another Shak speare from amongst them, think you?" " Why," replied the VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 99 master, " I have a Shakspeare now in the school." I knew that Shakspeare had no descendants beyond the second genera tion, and I was not aware that there was any of his family remaining. But it seems that the posterity of his sister Joan Hart, who is mentioned in his will, yet exist ; part under her marriage name of Hart, at Tewkesbury, and a family in Strat ford, of the name of Smith. "I have a Shakspeare here," said the master with evident pride and pleasure. " Here, boys, here !" He quickly mar shalled his laddish troop in a row, and said to me, " There now sir, can you tell which is a Shakspeare ? I glanced my eye along the hne, and instantly fixing it on one boy, said, " That is the Shakspeare." "You are right," said the master; "that is the Shakspeare: the Shakspeare cast of countenance is there. That is William Shakspeare Smith, a lineal descendant of the poet's sister." The lad was a fine lad of, perhaps, ten years of age ; and certainly the resemblance to the bust of Shakspeare, in the church at Stratford, is wonderful, considering he is not de scended from Shakspeare himself, but from his sister, and that the seventh in descent. What is odd enough is, whether it be mere accident or not, that the colour of the lad's eyes, a light hazel, is the very same as that given to those of the Shakspeare bust, which it is well known was originally coloured, and of which exact copies remain. I gave the boy sixpence, telling him I hoped he would make as great a man as his ancestor (the best term I could lay h 2 100 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. hold of for the relationship, though not the true one), or, at all events, a good man. The boy's eyes sparkled at the sight of the money, and the healthful joyous colour rushed into his cheeks; his fingers continued making acquaintance with so large a piece of money in his pocket, and the sensation created by so great an event in the school was evident. It sounded oddly enough, as I was passing along the street in the evening, to hear some of these same schoolboys say to one another, " That is the gentleman who gave Bill Shakspeare sixpence." Which of all the host of admirers of Shakspeare, who has plenty of money, and does not know what to do with it, will think of giving that lad, one of the nearest living representatives of the great poet, a good education and a fair chance to raise himself in the world? The boy's father is a poor man, — if I be not fanciful, partaking somewhat of the Shakspeare physiognomy,* but who keeps a small shop, and ekes out his profits by making his house a " Toni-and- Jerry." He has other children, and complained of misfortune. He said that some years ago Sir Richard Phillips had been there, and promised to interest the public about him, but that he never heard any more of it. Of the man's merits, or demerits, I know nothing; I only know that in the place of Shakspeare's birth, and where the town is full of "signs" of his glory, and where Garrick made that pompous jubilee, hailing Shakspeare as a "demi- * Ireland, when, in 170:1, making collections for his '¦ Views on the Avon,' was muoh struok with the likeness to this bust in Thomas Hart, one of this family, who then lived in Shakspeare's house. VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 101 god," and calling him " the god of our idolatry," and where thousands and even millions flock to do homage to the shrine of this "demi-god," and pour out deluges of verse of the most extravagant and sentimental nature in the public albums ; there, as is usual in such cases, the nearest of blood to the object of such vast enthusiasm are poor and despised : the flood of public admiration at its most towering height, in its most vehement current, never for a moment winds its course in the slightest degree to visit them with its refreshment, nor, of the thousands of pounds spent in the practice of this poetic devotion, does one bodle drop into their pockets. Garrick, as I have observed, once • called the world to worship on trie banks Of Avon, famed in song. Ah, pleasant proof That piety has still, in human hearts, Some place, — a spark or two not yet extinct. The mulberry-tree was hung with blooming wreaths; The mulberry-tree stood centre of the dance; The mulberry-tree was hymned with dulcet strains ; And, from his touchwood trunk, the mulberry-tree Supplied such relics as devotion holds Still sacred, and preserves with pious care. So 'twas a hallowed time ; decorum reigned, And mirth without offence. No few returned, Doubtless much edified, and all refreshed. Cowper's Task, B. vi. But it does not appear that Garrick and his fellow-worshippers troubled themselves at all about the descendants of the poet's sister. The object, in fact, seemed, at the moment rather to worship Garrick even than Shakspeare. How then could 102 VISIT TO STRATI OKD-ON-AVON. any ray of sympathy diverge from two " demi-gods " to the humble relatives of one of them ? And why should it ? I hear learned utilitarians asking — why ? What should lead the ragged descendants of poets and philosophers to forsake self-dependence and look to the admirers of their ancestors for benefit ? What a shocking thing if they should; especially in a nation which ennobles whole lines for ever, and grants immense estates in perpetuity for the exploit of some man, who has won a battle which better never had been fought ! What ! shall such men and shall whole troops of lawyers, who have truckled to the government of the day, and become the tools of despotism in a country dreaming that it is free — shall men who have merely piled up heaps of coin, and purchased large tracts of earth, by plodding in the city dens of gain, or dodging on the Stock Exchange, — shall such men be ennobled, and their line for ever, and shall the men who have left a legacy of immortal mind to their country, leave also to their families an exclusive poverty and neglect ? Will our very philosophic utilitarians tell us why this should be ? It might also be whispered that it would not be much more irrational to extend some of that enthusiasm and money, which is now wasted on empty rooms and spurious musty relics, on at least trying to benefit and raise in the scale of society, beings who have the national honour to be relies and mementos of tbe person worshipped, as well as old chairs, and whitewashed butchers' shops. Does it never occur to the votaries of Shak speare, that these are the only sentient, conscious, and rational VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 103 things connected with his memory which can feel a living sense of the honour conferred on him, and possess a grateful know ledge that the mighty poet of their house has not sung for them in vain, and that they only in a world overshadowed with his glory are not unsoothed by its visitings?* But the poetic veneration of the public need not yet be reduced to this severe trial — there are plenty of relics of Shakspeare (so called) for them to wonder and exclaim over. RELICS OF SHAKSPEARE IN STRATFORD. In front of the Town-hall, in a niche, stands the full-length figure of Shakspeare, cast for the jubilee, and presented by Garrick to the corporation ; at which time this Town-hall, a new erection, was dedicated also by Garrick to the memory of Shak speare. " The bard," to use the words of Wheeler, the historian of Stratford, "is represented in a graceful attitude, as on his monument in Westminster Abbey, resting upon some volumes placed on a pedestal, ornamented with three busts, viz. Henry * It appears from the town records and inscriptions in the church, that the Hathaways were very respectable people at Shottry for generations after Shak speare's time; and that the Smiths were amongst the principal people of the town. One, cotemporary with Shakspeare, was three times mayor. Three of them appear in inscriptions as benefactors to the town ; and others as witnesses and trustees, both in deeds executed by Shakspeare, and also by his granddaughter Lady Bernard, his last descendant; so that u family friendship was evidently maintained to the last. 104 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. the Fifth, Richard the Third, and Queen Elizabeth. Upon a scroll, to which he points, are the following lines, judiciously selected from his own Midsummer Night's Dream : — The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes; and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. Upon the pedestal beneath, are these words from Hamlet : — ¦ take him for all in all, We shall not look upon his like again. Within the hall is a painting of Shakspeare, bv Wdson, wherein he is represented sitting in an antique chair, and upon the ground lie several books and MSS., as Xorth's Plutarch's Lives, Hollinshed's Chronicles, Cynthio's Novels, etc., being some of the authors which Shakspeare consulted. Opposite to this Town-hall is a house occupied by a Mr. Reason, who has a sign in front of it, announcing that there is kept a collection of articles which were in the house where the poet was born, and remained there till Mary Hornby, the mother of the present Mrs. Reason, was obliged to leave it, on account of the proprietor raising the rent so much in consequence of the numerous visits to it. She at first gave ten, then twenty, then forty pounds a-year for it; but the tide of visiters increasing (he demand of the landlord still rose with it, till either the man outvalued the income, or the patience of Mary Hornby o-avc VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 105 way. She gave notice to quit the house, and another person immediately took it. A violent feud arose between the out going and the incoming exhibitor. Mary Hornby, of course, stripped the house of every article that had been shewn as Shakspeare's. But she did not stop there. She deliberately, or perhaps, as will appear probable, rather hastily, took a brush and a pail of whitewash, and washed over all the millions of inscribed names of adoring visiters on the walls ! At one fell swoop, out went the illustrious signatures of kings, queens, princes, princesses, ambassadors and ambassadresses, lords, ladies, knights, poets, philosophers, statesmen, tragedians, comedians, bishops, lord chancellors, lord chief justices, privy counsellors, senators, and famous orators ; all the sweet tribe of duchesses, countesses, baronesses, honourables and dishonour- ables, — out went they altogether, with as little remorse as if death himself had been wielding the besom of destruction, instead of Mary Hornby her whitewash brush ! Mary Hornby, having executed this sublime extinction of so many dignities, marched out with a lofty sense of the vacuum she left behind, carrying away with her the Albums into the bargain. The new tenant on entering was struck with a speech less consternation ! In " the immortal bard's" own words, all the precious relics had Vanished like the baseless fabric of a vision, And left not a wreck behind. Nothing at all but four bare walls ! What was to be done ? It was still Shakspeare's birth-place— but it was a very naked 106 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. one indeed, — all the imposing relics were gone, and a rival shop was set up with them 1 She looked upon herself as swindled. She had a higher rent to pay, with a diminished stock and a formidable rival, and she accordingly raised a loud clamour in the ears of the landlord. The landlord began to bluster with Mary Hornby, and claimed the goods as heirlooms, — as part and parcel of the property; but the lawyers told him a different story. He then claimed the Albums, and commenced proceed ings to recover them, but with no better success. Money was then offered for them, but money could not buy them ; so it was absolutely necessary to commence a-new with blank walls and blank books. It was a melancholy coming dowui. Where was the chair called Shakspeare's chair, which had stood in a niche in the room, and the arms of which alone had been sold for twenty-three guineas ? Where were those two fine old high- backed chairs which were said to be given to Shakspeare by the Earl of Southampton, with the Earl's coronet and supporters (animals having an odd look, between lions and men, with big heads) upon them ? Where was the little chair of the same kind, called Hamnet's chair — the son of Shakspeare, who died when twelve years old ? Where was that precious old lantern made of the glass of the house where Shakspeare died ? The bust, taken and coloured accurately from the bust in the church? The portrait of a boy, with a curious high-laced cap on his head and an embroidered doublet, called John Hathaway, the brother of Ann Hathaway? The painting said to be done by Shakspeare's nephew, William Shakspeare Hart, representing VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 107 Shakspeare in the character of Petruchio ? The cup, and the knotted walking-stick made from the crab-tree under which he slept in Bidford Fields ? * Where the various pieces of carving from his bedstead ? That old basket-hilted sword which looked as though it had lain buried for a century or two on the field of Edge-hill or Worcester, but which was, in fact, no such thing, but the veritable sword with which Shakspeare performed in Hamlet, and which the Prince Regent had wanted so much to buy in 1815, saying — "he knew the family very ivell that gave it to Shakspeare ? Where was that ? Ay, and still more, where was that grand old piece of carving which used to be over the mantelpiece, coloured and gilt, and representing David fighting with Goliath between the adverse armies ; and over their heads, on a flying label or garter, this inscription, said, and sufficiently testified by the splendour of the verse, to be written by "the immortal bard " himself ? — • Bidford is a village about six miles from Stratford, where it is 6aid in Shak speare's time was a set of rustic topers who were in the habit of challenging the residents of neighbouring places to drinking matches, and that on one occasion Shakspeare was amongst the young men of Stratford who accepted such a chal lenge. That, on returning homewards defeated, the Stratfordians lay down under a crab-tree still standing by the road-side, about half a mile from Bidford, where they slept from Saturday night till Monday morning, when they were roused by workmen going to their labour. Shakspeare was the last to wake; and when his companions urged him to return, and renew the contest, he exclaimed — " No ! I have enough. I have drank with Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston, Haunted Hillbro', Hungry Grafton, Dudging Exhull, Papist Wickford, Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bidford. 108 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. Goliath comes with sword and spear, And David with his sling; Although Goliath rage and swear, Down David doth him bring. Samuel 17th. An. Dom. 1606.' The iron box that held the poet's will ; Shakspeare's bench ; pieces of his mulberry-tree; the box given to him by the Prince of Castile ; a piece of the very matchlock with which he shot the deer ; the portraits of Sir John Bernard and his lady Elizabeth, the granddaughter of Shakspeare; the portrait of Charlotte Clopton in her trance; the pedigree, and the will — where were they all ? Carried off by the indignant and vindictive Mary Hornby, who was too selfish to pay more than 40/. a-year for the house in which so great a genius was born; for all the great names of all the illustrious people, from all quarters of the world, written by the blacklead pencils of every known manufactory, and all these precious rehcs to boot, — such a collection as was never yet seen on this side of Loretto. But the ravages of this modern Goth and Vandal, Mary Hornby, could not be entirely repaired — they might, however, be in some degree mitigated ; and as the disconsolate successor ruminated on the means — lo ! a most happy and inspired idea occurred to her. Mary Hornby had been in a passion, and per haps she had forgotten to put any size into her whitewash. A brush was instantly applied to the walls,— the hope became at once a certainty !— Mary Hornby had omitted the size, and by gentle and continued friction of the brush, the millions of pen- * Tins was there at the time of Inland's visit. VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 109 cilled names once more appeared in all their original clearness ! The relics were at once pronounced— humbug; new Albums were opened, and the Shakspeare show-room was restored to its ancient value. In fact, this house, which was some years ago purchased of Joan Shakspeare's descendants, the Harts, with other property, for 250/., is now said to be worth 2000/. THE HOUSE IN WHICH SHAKSPEARE WAS BORiST, THE SHAKSPEARE ALBUMS. Amongst the innumerable signatures on the walls, the woman points you out that of Schiller as that of the Schiller, but it is written in Roman and not German hand. She also points out about a yard from the floor that of Edmund Kean, in a large hand, and tells you that he kneeled down to write it, saying, — "that as most people were ambitious to place their names as high as possible, he would place his low, and thus it would be 110 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. the longer uncncroached upon." It is now covered all over with a mob of names, and even written over and over. Indeed, the whole surface of the walls, from top to bottom, all round the room, nay, even the ceiling is covered thick with names upon names, which, if transcribed, would fill many large volumes. There is nothing more curious than the signatures and the characteristic combinations of signatures which albums kept at such places present. I generally copy a few of the mo>t striking as I turn them over; and here is a sample, from those in the albums both at the house where Shakspeare was bora, and those formerly carried off thence by Mary Hornby, and now at the house of her daughter, Mrs. Reason. 1813. March 5th.— John Howard Payne, New York. Aug. 13th. — Dr. Rees. Sept. 3rd. — Henry, Bishop of London. Lord Cowper. Mrs. Opie. Oct. 1st.. — Wilham Rathbone, Liverpool. 1815. July 27th. — Washington Irving. Aug. 17th.— George P. R. and Col. M'Mahon. 26th. — William, Duke of Clarence. Arthur, Duke of Wellington. 1816. Aug. 22nd.— Duke and Duchess of St. Albans, etc. 28th— Byron. 1821. Aug. Mr. W. Stewart Rose. VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. Ill Mr. W. Lockhart. Sir Walter Scott, etc. 1821. Oct. 14th. — William Jerdan, Brompton, London. To Nature, sages in the earlier time — To Nature, men, even in each savage clime, Before revealed a God, all bowed the knee ; Here where the High-Priest lived, oh, be it mine To breathe one prayer, that fervent one be thine, And Shakspeare, next to Nature, given to thee ! — W. J. 1827. Prince Piickler Muskaw. 1829. Due de Chartres. 1831. April 22nd. — Helena, Grand Duchess of Russia. Countess of Nesselrode. Prince Gagarin, and suite. 1831. July 19th. — James Montgomery. 1832. June 25th.— A. Sedgwick. W. Whewell. 1835. Sept. 18th.— Jane Porter. N. P. Willis. Oct. 1st. — Countess Guiccioli. Dr. Dionysius Lardner. 1836. June 26th.— Prince of Orange. Alexander, Prince of the Netherlands. 1837. July 1st.— Edwin Forrest. Catherine Norton Forrest. 1838. Aug. 28th. — Countess of Blessington. Comte d'Orsay. 30th.— Charles Matthews. E. Vestris. IU VISIT TO KTH \TMIRD-ON-A VON, SHAKSPEAIE'; After all, the church is the most interesting place in Strat ford connected with Shakspeare, because you have here proofs of him and his family connexions beyond all question. There is the well-known bust of him in a niche close to the communion rail, on the north wall of the chancel, placed on a cushion, holding a pen in his right hand, and his left upon a scroll. Above his head are his arms, and on each side of them a small sitting figure ; one holding in his right hand a spade, the other, wdiose eyes are closed, to indicate mourning, has one hand upon a skull, and in the other an inverted torch. Beneath the cushion is ciurravcd this distich -ILIDICIO l'Vl.IUM, t:i':NIO SOLMIWKM, AKTf MAllONKM. l'KIt II A TKU1T, POl'ULUS MII'IUT, OlYMl'lS II VHP!'. VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 113 And on a tablet underneath, these lines — Stay, passenger, why goest thou by so fast ! Read if thou canst, whom envious death hath plast Within this monument, Shakspeare, with whome Quicke Nature dide ; whose name doth deck ye tombe Far more than coste; sicth all ytt he hath wrilt Leaves living art but page to serve his witt, Obiit Ano. Doi. 1616, .Etatis 53. Die 23. Ap. This monument is said to have been raised very soon after Shakspeare's death. Wheeler thinks it probable that it was erected by Dr. John Hall, his son-in-law and executor, or rela tions, at a time when his features were perfectly fresh in every one's memory, or, perhaps, with the assistance of an original picture, if any such ever existed. He adds, that some verses by Leonard Digges, a cotemporary of the poet, prove that it was here before 1623 ; that is, within seven years of his death. Sir Wdliam Dugdale, in his Diary, states the artist to have been Gerard Johnson, "a Hollander, a tombe-maker, who lived in St. Thomas's Apostells." It is undoubtedly the most authentic representation of him that we possess, and we have some addi tional argument for its resemblance to the original in its like ness to the print in the folio edition of his works printed in 1623, which Ben Jonson, in his verses under it, plainly asserts to be a great likeness. Yet, when we call to mind how little notice was attracted to this spot for years after Shakspeare's decease, and how easily satisfied are country people in a piece of monumental art, we cannot entertain too sanguine notions 114 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. that wc have a very characteristic representation of Shakspeare before us. The head must fulfil and confirm all the faith of the phreno logists ; it is a noble structure, but the remarkable gravity and massiness of the features do not answer to our notion s of that soul of mirth, and whim, and passion, which must have shone through the outer veil of Shakspeare. The character is that of a sensible, grave, and benevolent man. It is well known that the bust was originally painted to resemble life; that the eyes were light hazel; the hair and beard auburn. The dress consisted of a scarlet doublet, over which was a loose black gown, without sleeves ; the lower part of the cushion before him was crimson, and the upper green, with gOt tassels. In 1748 this monument was carefully repaired, and the original colours of the bust restored, the expense being defrayed by the receipts of the acting of Othello at the old Town Hall, which were given by Mr. Ward, the manager, grandfather of Mrs. Siddons. In 1 793 the bust and figures above it, together with the tomb of John a Combe, were, to correct the false taste of the erectors, by the perpetration of the worse taste of altering an original monument of so much consequence, painted white, at the request of Mr. Malone. Below, and in front of the monument, we have, facing the communion-rail, a row of inscribed flags, covering the remains of himself, his wife Ann Hathaway, his daughter Susanna, and her husband, Dr. John Hall. We see the rude sculpture of that characteristic and awful warning which he left to be placed over his remains. VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 115 Goon FitENn rou Jesus SAKE forhearc To niGG T — E nusT encloased HERE Blese be T— E Man I spares T— E S stones And curst be He - moves my Bones. That this hearty malediction was not unnecessary; that Shakspeare knew the freedoms that the worthy churchwardens, in their ignorant authority, were accustomed to use with the dead in his native place, is strikingly proved by the disgraceful hberty taken with the tomb of his daughter Susanna. Besides . her arms, Hall impaling Shakspeare, and the following inscrip tion stdl remaining : — Here lyeth ye body of Susanna, wife to John Hall, gent., the daughter of William Shakspeare, gent. She deceased ye 11th July a. d. 1649, aged 66,— there was originally this epitaph : Witty above her sexe ; but that's not all ; Wise to salvation was good Mistris Hall ; Something of Shakespere was in that, but this Wholly of him with whom she's now in bliss. Then passenger, ha'st ne're a teare. To weepe with her that wept with all? That wept, yet set herselfe to chere Them up with comforts cordiall. Her love shall live, her mercy spread, When thou hast ne're a teare to shed. These verses were long ago obliterated to make way for another inscription, carved on the same stone, for Richard Watts of Ryhm Clifford, a person in no way related to the Shakspeare family, and who, no doubt, was buried in the grave of Mrs. Hall. Thus it is probable that had not Shakspeare taken care of his bones in his lifetime, they would long ago have been dug i 2 116 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. up, and added to the enormous pile which used to lie in the charnel-house, and which was seen, so late as the year 1793, by Mr. Ireland. After reading the Latin verses on the tomb of Ann Hath away, wc glance into the eastern corner, just by, and lo ! the tomb of John a Combe, with his effigy stretched upon it. It is said that this man was a thorough-paced usurer. He resided at Welcome Lodge, and afterwards at the College; that is, a mansion so called, which, at the time that Stratford church was a collegiate church, was the residence of the chanting priests and choristers. This, after the dissolution by Henry VIII. , was granted to the Earl of Warwick, afterwards Duke of Nor thumberland, and at his attainder by Queen Mary, was resumed by the crown; then let to Richard Coningsby, esq., and finally sold to John Combe, esq., who died there without family in 1614, two years before Shakspeare. It is said that, during Shakspeare's residence in the later years of his life at Stratford, John Combe and he were on very sociable terms, and Combe, presuming on Shakspeare's good-nature and his own moneyed importance, frequently importuned the poet to write him an epitaph, which, to the old gentleman's vast indignation, he did thus : — Ten in the hundred lies here engraved, 'Tis a hundred to ten if his soul be saved. If any one asks who lies in this tomb — " O ho !" quoth the devil, " 'tis my John a Combe !" As if to obviate the effect of the witty sarcasm of the in exorable poet, who would not give him any other passport to VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 117 posterity than what he justly deserved, we find emblazoned not only on John a Combe's tomb, but on the gold-lettered tablets of the church, that he left by will, annually to be paid for ever : 1/. for two sermons to be preached in this church; 61. 13s. 4