Class Book Copyrights COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. GRAY DAYS AND GOLD TINTERN ABBEY— NAVE A ruined temple! yet no ruin this, That fills the mind with thought, The soul with bliss! GRAY DAYS AND GOLD BY WILLIAM WINTER it Whether in cloud or sun, on England's Isle Immortal Memory sheds her radiant smile New York MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 1911 'V ■V Copyright, 1893, 1911, by WILLIAM WINTER All Bights Beserved Published, February, 1911 ©CI.A283274 I "i To My Dear Daughter VIOLA WINTER STILSON, With Loving Thought of Her Gentle Spirit, Goodness, and Grace, I Dedicate These Word Pictures Of Our Ancestral Home My child, — for a child you will always remain, — Let me link your dear name with this gossamer chain Of some roses of England, if so I may say, That were gathered and saved on my wandering way, With the wish that as long as they bloom on their stem That name will be blended with beauty and them. PREFACE This book relates to the gray days of an American traveller in the mother-land and to the gold of thought and fancy that can be found there. In its prede- cessor, Shakespeare's England, an attempt was made to describe, in a simple, unconventional manner, lovely scenes which are inseparably intertwined with the name and memory of Shakespeare, and also to reflect the charm of that English scenery which, to an imaginative mind, is, and must always be, impressive by reason of its gentle beauty, venerable antiquity, and romantic association, — a charm which has inspired much of the best English Poetry, of which Shakespeare is the fountain head. This book continues the same treat- ment of kindred themes, taking them as they chanced to occur, and commenting on them in a sympathetic spirit, with no thought of assuming to be mentor or guide. In its original form, — Edinburgh, 1889, New York, 1892, — Gray Days and Gold comprised, besides the chapters on England and English themes, several pa- pers on the land of Burns and Scott. My first visit to Scotland was made in 1888, and was limited to 9 10 PREFACE the Lowlands, but since then I have had the privilege of making many Highland rambles, and, in particular, of passing thoughtful days in the wild and lovely Island of Iona, one of the most interesting places in Europe. It has seemed desirable that all my sketches of Scot- land should form a single group, and those readers who care to keep me company beyond the limits of this work will find the sketches which have been withheld from this, the final form of Gray Days and Gold, together with other memorials of my travel in that country, coordinated in my new book, a companion to this one, called Over the Border. To supply the place of the chapters thus withdrawn I have inserted several papers of mine, on English themes, first published in my Old Shrines and Ivy, now long out of print, and therewith have incorporated other sketches of mine which have not hitherto been collected: I have also used a short paper recording impressions on the occasion of my first visit to France, made not long after the close of the war between that country and Germany. Before submitting this book to public consideration I have, furthermore, rewritten a considerable part of its con- tents and revised the rest, so that now it is entirely a new work in form and largely so in substance. In its first shape Gray Days has passed through more PREFACE 11 than fifteen large editions. Its success, abroad as well as at home, — and, indeed, the success that has attended all my publications, — is deeply gratifying to me, the more so that I did not expect it. That which has pleased many and pleased long must, we are assured by one of the wisest of men and greatest of writers, be held to possess merit, and surely no author can rightly be censured for vanity who is pleased because he has given pleasure while endeavoring to adhere, in literary expression, to the requirements of truth, simplicity, and beauty. My sketches of travel are the spontaneous creations of genial impulse, and, in as far as I thought about them at all, I did not suppose that they would endure beyond the hour. If I had expected the remarkably cordial approba- tion which has been accorded to my humble studies of British scenery and life, I should have tried to make them better, and especially I should, from the first, have taken scrupulous care to verify every date and every statement of fact set forth in my text. That precaution I did not invariably take, except in my critical and biographical work, but, as my mood was that of contemplation and reverie, so my method was that of the dreamer who drifts carelessly from one attractive place to another, uttering what- 12 PREFACE ever thoughts happen to come to him. In later editions of my sketches of travel, however, and particularly in preparing the text for the final editions of Shake- speare's England, Gray Days, and Over the Bor- der, / have made conscientious and diligent en- deavor to remove every defect and to correct every error, and if any errors have crept into my text I shall be grateful to such readers as may be kind enough to bring them to my attention. If it should be thought presumptuous on my part that I have tried to celebrate the beauties of our an- cestral home I can only plead, in extenuation, an ir- resistible impulse of reverence and affection for them. My presentment of them should not give offence, and perhaps it will be found sufficiently vital, various, and sympathetic to awaken and sustain a momentary in- terest in the minds of those readers who love to muse and dream over relics and records of the past. If by happy fortune it should do more than that, — if it should help to impress my countrymen, so many of whom annually travel in Great Britain, with the super- lative importance of adorning the physical aspect and refining the material civilization of America by a re- production within its borders of whatever is valuable m the long experience and whatever is noble, tranquil, and PREFACE 13 beautiful in the domestic and religious spirit of the British Islands, — my labor will not have been vain. The supreme need of this time is a practical conviction that progress does not consist merely in material pros- perity, but largely in spiritual advancement. Use has long been almost exclusively worshipped. The wel- fare of the future lies in the worship of Beauty. This idea might, perhaps, to the sociologist or the political economist, seem fantastic, but if each member of a community were insistent to live a beautiful life, to be companioned by faith and hope, to diffuse kindness, and, as far as possible, to be surrounded by objects and influences of beauty, the community would be bene- fited by that insistence. To the worship of beauty these pages, — and all other pages that my pen has written, — are devoted, with all that it implies of sym- pathy with the good instincts and faith in the high destiny of the human race. W. W. July 15, 1910. CONTENTS I. Southampton II. Salisbury and Stonehenge III. Haunts of Moore . IV. Bath and Bristol . V. The Faithful City . VI. Lichfield and Dr. Johnson VII. Bosworth and King Richard VIII. Old York IX. Stratford Gleanings X. The Childs Fountain . XI. The Shakespeare Church XII. Rambles in Arden . XIII. On the Avon . XIV. Hereford and Tintern Abbey XV. Tennyson XVI. Stratford to Nottingham XVII. Nottingham and Newstead XVIII. Byron .... XIX. Hucknall-Torkard Church XX. Haunts of Wordsworth XXI. Gray and Arnold . XXII. Through Surrey and Kent XXIII. A French Vignette XXIV. From London to Edinburgh PAGE 40 53 76 87 101 117 133 150 182 192 202 220 228 241 251 260 279 288 310 330 343 354 363 ILLUSTRATIONS Tintern Abbey.— The Nave Ruins of Netley Abbey Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain — Looking to the West . Thomas Moore Moore's Home — Sloperton Cottage — Bromham .... Bath Abbey— West Front Church of St. Mary Redcliffe— Bristol Worcester Cathedral — from South west Lichfield Cathedral— West Front York Minster — West Front . York Minster — the Choir: Looking East York Minster — from Southeast The Mary Arden Cottage — Wilmcote In Sherwood Forest Ruins of Chepstow Castle The Wyndcliff of the Wye— Near Chepstow .... 17 . Frontispiece ^ Facing Page 26 ^ 48 S 62 i 74 78 82 94 • 102^ 134 i- 142 -" 160'' 166^ 190^ 206^ " 234 ^ 18 ILLUSTRATIONS Ruins of Tintern Abbey . . Facing Page 240 ^ Alfred Tennyson " " 250 " Castle-Rock and Museum, Not- tingham " " 262 ^ Hucknall-Torkard Church: Byron's Grave " "294^ William Wordsworth ..." " 312^ Wordsworth's Home: Rydal Mount — Grasmere " " 320^ Robert Southey " " 328 / The Shakespeare Cliff — Dover . " " 354 ' Durham Cathedral — from Southwest " " 368 ' "Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. . . . All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune car- ries him to worse he may learn to enjoy it." Dr. Johnson. "There is given, Unto the things of earth which time hath bent, A spirit's feeling; and where he hath leant His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power And magic in the ruined battlement, For which the palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower." Byron. "The charming, friendly English landscape! Is there any in the world like it? To a traveller re- turning home it looks so kind, — it seems to shake hands with you as you pass through it." Thackeray. I. SOUTHAMPTON. Early in the morning of a brilliant day the Scilly Islands came into view, and I could see the great waves breaking into flying masses and long wreaths of snowy foam on their grim shores and in their rock-bound chasms. Yet a little while and the steep cliffs of Corn- wall glimmered into the prospect, with the double towers of the Lizard Light, and I knew that my voyage was accomplished. Then followed the lovely, varied panorama of the Channel Coast, — lonely Eddystone, keep- ing its sentinel watch in solitude and mystery; the green pastures of Devon; the crags of Portland, gray and emerald and gold, shining, changing, and fading in silver mist; the shelving fringes of the Solent; the sandy coves and green hills of the beautiful Isle of 21 22 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD Wight; and then, at last, placid Southampton Water, with its little lighthouses and its crescent town, vital with incessant enterprise of the Present and rich with splendid associa- tions of the Past. The gloaming had begun to fade into night when I landed, and in the sleepy stillness of the vacant streets and of the quiet inn I was soon conscious of that feeling of peace and comfort which is the first sensation of the old traveller who comes again into England. It is the sensation of being at home and at rest, after long wander- ing and much vicissitude, and seldom elsewhere is it found. If the old city of Southampton were not, as to the majority of ramblers it is, merely a port of entry and departure, if the traveller were constrained to seek it as a goal instead of treating it as a thoroughfare, its uncommon physical beauty and its antiquarian interest would be more widely appreciated and more highly prized than now they appear to be. Objects that are viewed as incidental are seldom comprehended as important. Traffic, SOUTHAMPTON 23 with its attendant bustle, imparts to South- ampton an habitual air of turbulence and often of commonness. The spirit of the age, notwithstanding that there is a newly awak- ened feeling of reverence actively at work in many places, makes slight account of pic- turesque accessories and does little either to perpetuate or to create them. In Southamp- ton, for example, as in ancient Warwick, a tramcar jolts and jangles through the grim arch of a gray stone gate of the Middle Ages, and thus the Present forces its contrast with the Past. Yet here as everywhere the Present and the Past are inseparably associated, the one being the con- sequence and inheritor of the other, and in no better way can the student of social develop- ment pursue his study than in rambling through the streets and among the structures that To-day has built amid the ruins and the relics of Yesterday. A walk in breezy South- ampton is full of instruction. There was a merry multitude on the lovely green Common, when first I saw it; a band was playing in 24 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD its pavilion, and twittering birds were circling around the tree-tops, in the light of the evening sun; but as I stood there and watched the happy throng and listened to the martial music, the scene seemed suddenly to change, and I beheld the armored cohorts of bold King Henry the Fifth, and heard the trumpets blare, and saw the gallant warrior, upon his mail-clad charger, riding downward to the sea, — for Agincourt, and the laurel of everlasting fame. Many days might pleasurably be spent in Southampton and its charming neighborhood. When there you are at the mouth of the Itchen, the river of Isaak Walton, who lived and died at venerable Winchester, only a few miles away. The ruin of Netley Abbey is close by, — that venerable remnant of an ecclesiastical structure of about the thirteenth century, in which the superb framework of the large western window and the graceful shapes of several lancets, together with many clustered columns, bear witness to the deep devotional spirit and the delicate taste of the SOUTHAMPTON 25 pious monks who built it. On every side, indeed, there is something to stimulate the fancy and awaken remembrance of romance and of historic lore. King John's house is extant, in Blue Anchor Lane. King John's Charter can be seen, in the Audit House. The Bridewell Gate still stands, that was built by King Henry the Eighth, and in Bugle Street is the Spanish prison that was used in the time of Queen Anne. At the foot of High Street stood King Canute's palace, and upon the neighboring beach that monarch spoke his vain command to stay the advancing waves, and made his memorable submission to the Power that is greater than kings. In Porter's Lane there is a remnant of his palace, utilized now as a stable. In St. Michael's Square stands an ancient, red-tiled house, made of timber and brick, in which Anne Boleyn once lodged, and which, to this day, bears her name. It is a two-story building, surmounted by four large gables, the front curiously diversified with a crescent pent and with four large diamond-latticed casements; and gazing on it 26 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD I could not fail to conjure up a vision of that dark-eyed, golden-haired beauty whose fascination played so large a part in shaping the religious and political destiny of England. There, at those windows, she may have stood and looked forth on the grim, gloomy Norman church that still frowns on the lonely square and would make a darkness even at noon. A few steps from St. Michael's will bring you to a relic of a different kind, fraught with widely different associations, — the birthplace of the pious hymnist, Isaac Watts. The house stands in French Street, a little back from the side- walk, on the east side, and it is a two-story, red-brick dwelling, having eight windows and two doors in the front of it. Between the house and the street there is a garden, which, when I saw it, was brilliant with the blazing yellow of a mass of blooming marigolds. A tall iron fence encloses the garden, within which are six poplar trees, growing along the margin, and if you stand at the gate and look along French Street you can discern Southampton Water, at no great distance. o Q SOUTHAMPTON 27 They venerate the memory of Dr. Watts in Southampton, and they have not only built a church in his honor (it stands near Bar Gate), but have set up a statue of him in the Park, — the figure of the apostolic bard as he appeared when preaching. That piece of sculpture, the pedestal of which is faced with medallions illustrative of the life and labors of Watts, was dedicated by the Earl of Shaftesbury, in July, 1861. Leaving the birthplace of the old divine you have only to turn a neighboring corner and proceed a short distance to find an effect of contrast still more remarkable, — the rem- nant of the Domus Dei, in Winkle Street, the burial place of the noblemen, Scrope, Gray, and Cambridge, who lost their lives for con- spiracy to assassinate King Henry the Fifth. That edifice, founded in the reign of King Richard the First, was an almshouse in the time of King Harry. All that remains of the original building is the chapel, and that has been restored — a small, dark, oblong structure, partly Norman and partly Early 28 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD English. Queen Elizabeth assigned that church for the use of Huguenot refugees who fled from the persecution of the Spanish tyrant, Alva, so perniciously active in the Low Countries, from 1567 to 1573. Service is still performed in it, in the French language. Under its chancel rest the ashes of the false friends, dismissed to their death nearly five centuries ago, who would have slain their king and imperilled their country, and upon the south wall, near to the altar, there is a tablet of gray stone, inscribed with black, indented letters, bearing this record of their fate: BICHARD, EARL OF CAMBRIDGE, LORD SCROPE OF MASHAM, SIR THO. GRAY OF NORTHUMBERLAND, CONSPIRED TO MURDER KING HENRY V. IN THIS TOWN AS HE WAS PREPARING TO SAIL WITH HIS ARMY AGAINST CHARLES THE SIXTH, KING OF FRANCE, FOR WHICH CONSPIRACY THEY WERE EXECUTED AND BURIED NEAR THIS PLACE IN THE YEAR MCCCCXV SOUTHAMPTON 29 As you stand by that sepulchre you will remember with a new interest and emotion the noble, pathetic speech, — as high a strain of pure eloquence and lofty passion as there is in our language, — with which Shakespeare makes the heroic prince, at the same instant, deplore and rebuke the treachery of the friend- ship in which he had entirely believed and trusted. Those lords were beheaded just out- side of Bar Gate. Near to their burial-place, leaning against the wall, is a fine old brass, — ■ the full-length figure, in profile, mounted upon an oak board, of a French cleric of the time of Queen Elizabeth, the head being of marble, while the person is of the dark green hue that old brasses so often acquire, and that seems to enhance at once their interest and their opulence of effect. In Southampton, as in many other parts of England, the disposition to preserve the relics of a romantic past is stronger at present than it was a hundred years ago, and for this the antiquarian has reason to be grateful. His constant regret, indeed, is that this gentle 30 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD impulse did not awaken earlier. The old Castle of Southampton, where King Stephen dwelt, was long ago destroyed, but frag- ments of the walls remain, and these, it is pleasant to observe, are guarded with scrupu- lous care. As you stroll along the shore your gaze will wander from the gay and busy steamboats, — alert for the Channel Islands and for France, and seeming like brilliant birds that plume their wings for flight, — and will rest on grim towers and bastions of the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries, over which the ivy hangs, in dense draperies of shining foliage, and against which copious flowers of geranium and nasturtium blaze in scarlet and gold. One of those citadels, peace- fully occupied now by the Harbor Board, bears record of a time, in 1482, when gun- powder was used there, to repel a night attack made by the French. A straggling procession of belated travellers, bearing bags, rushed wildly by, as I stood before that gray remnant of feudal magnificence, and an idle youth in the gateway, happily provided with a SOUTHAMPTON 31 flageolet, gayly performed upon it "The Girl I Left Behind Me." Nothing can exceed, in mingled strangeness and drollery, the use of such quaint places as this for the business and pleasure of the passing hour. Roaming through the narrow, squalid little thorough- fare of Blue Anchor Lane, amid the pic- turesque foundations of what was once the royal palace of King John and of King Henry the Third, now a mass of masonry that has outlasted the storms and ravages of almost a thousand years, I looked at dingy lodging- houses that are scarcely more than holes in a wall, and threaded a difficult way among groups of ragged children, silenced for a moment by the presence of a stranger, but soon loud again in their careless frolic over the degraded grandeur of forgotten kings. Blue Anchor Lane leads to the Arcade in the west wall of the city, which, with its nineteen splendid arches, is surely as fine a specimen of true Norman architecture as can be found in the kingdom. Bar Gate, at the top of High Street, is also a noble relic of Norman 32 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD taste and skill, but Bar Gate has been some- what modernized by changes and restoration, and the statue, upon its south front, of King George the Third, in the dress of a Roman Emperor, mars its venerable, antique char- acter by suggestion of ludicrous incongruity. Charles Dibdin, who wrote the best sea-songs in our language, was a native of Southampton. Millais, the painter, was born there, as also was the heroic General Gordon. The name of that daring soldier, the eccentric Earl of Peterborough, is associated with the place, for once he owned an estate in its neighborhood, called Bevoir Mount, whither the illustrious Voltaire came, as a visitor, and where can be seen a stately cedar tree beneath which the French cynic often sat. There is a rapid way of looking at the world, with which many travellers appear to be content, but it can be doubted whether the rapid way is often the wise way. Places no doubt there are through which the pilgrim should pass with convenient speed, but, as a rule, almost every place, in an old country, SOUTHAMPTON 33 is a place of interest, and that is especially true of England, where so much has been lost and won, so much done and suffered, such hallowing charms of poetry and such wealth of historic action diffused, that every region has its traditions, every temple its relics, and every city, town, and hamlet its legends, asso- ciations, and romance: and certainly every place has its surprises, — as I could not choose but think when, in the course of a lonely walk in Southampton, I found, in the lane called Back of the Walls, the burial-place of that cheery dramatist, John O'Keeffe. He was a blithe spirit, and even to come near his ashes was to be reminded of the joy and sunshine that are in the world, and how idle it is not to rejoice while yet the light endures. John O'Keeffe was a pioneer in the reaction against the sentimental drama in England which culminated with the success of Goldsmith, Colman the younger, and Sheridan, and, as a lover of the dramatic art, I felt that I had come upon the shrine of a benefactor. Many remember "Wild Oats," but few know that the 34 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD author of that gay comedy, and of about fifty others, rests in an obscure corner of South- ampton. He was born in Dublin, in 1747; he had his career as actor and author; he became blind, about 1800; he enjoyed a small pension during the last few years of his life, and he died in 1833, in his eighty-sixth year, and was buried in All Saints' ground, in the parish of St. Lawrence. I had passed many days in solitary rambling about Southampton, and had carefully explored it, yet even then I stumbled upon a novelty, and there is a pleasure in discoveries, such as the routine spectacles do not impart. O'Keeffe's sepulchre is somewhat difficult of access, the cemetery of All Saints, long ago disused, being situated in a squalid region and enclosed within a high wall. The key to the place was obtained from the neighboring abode of a butcher, some of whose sheep were grazing among the graves. The least of those animals was so tame that he came to me and thrust his nose into my hand. "I keep that there one," SOUTHAMPTON 35 the serious butcher said, "to lead the others to death." No arrangement, surely, could be more harmonious with those grim sur- roundings. The graves in that forlorn yard are numerous, and each one is not only marked by a tall, perpendicular stone but also covered with a flat slab, the inscription being indented, and painted black. O'Keeffe's grave is close to the wall, near a large wooden gate, in the southeast corner of the enclosure. The environment of shops and stables, the absence of foliage and flowers, and the presence of rubbish invested it with an air of extreme desolation; but all sepulchres, however they may be beautified, are unspeak- ably dreary, when you consider their stony silence and muse on the humor, grace, and joy that were hushed and hidden in their depths. The mourners for the sprightly dramatist have long since followed him to rest, and here, as elsewhere, charitable, con- soling Time turns all things to peace. The inscription upon the tombstone, once viewed through tears, is read without a sigh: 36 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD WITHIN THIS GEAVE ARE DEPOSITED THE MORTAL REMAINS OF JOHN o'KEEFFE ESQ, A PIOUS MEMBER OF THE HOLY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE IN THE 86TH YEAR OF HIS AGE. HE WAS BORN IN DUBLIN, IRELAND, THE 24th OF JUNE, 1747, AND DIED AT SOUTHAMPTON THE 4TH OF FEBRUARY, 1833. BLESSED BE HIS SPIRIT IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. THE ABOVE INSCRIPTION WRITTEN AND THIS STONE PLACED TO HIS BELOVED MEMORY BY HIS ONLY DAUGHTER AND SURVIVING CHILD ADELAIDE o'KEEFFE. Many excursions are practicable from South- ampton. One of the prettiest of them is the drive westward, by the Commercial Road and Romsey Lane, to the village of Millbrook, where there is an old church, and where, in the cemetery, an obelisk of granite marks the rest- SOUTHAMPTON 37 ing place of Robert Pollok, author of "The Course of Time," — a poem much read and admired by pious persons long ago. The New Forest, ten miles from the city, is readily accessible, where the visitor will see the pic- turesque, ivy-clad ruin of Beaulieu Abbey, a religious house founded, 1204, in the reign of King John, and, in a dell called Canterton Glen, the spot, duly marked, where King William the Second was slain by the arrow of Sir Walter Tyrrell, in August, 1100. Another excursion, which can be made on foot, is the ramble along the Avenue to Southampton Common, and so, beneath oaks, elms, and lime- trees, and through a tangle of shrubbery, to a beautiful cemetery, in which haw- thorns, evergreens, and a radiant profusion of flowers have made a veritable bower for the awful silence and inscrutable majesty of death. I went there to look upon the burial-place of my old friend Edward A. Sothern, the once famous comedian, and I came to it in an afternoon that was all sunshine and fragrance, — like the days of careless mirth that once 38 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD we knew together. There never can have been a more whimsical spirit. I have not known an actor who added to the faculty of eccentric humor a more subtle perception of character or a more neat artistic skill in the display of it. Few players have made as much laughter or given as much innocent pleasure. But Sothern, who could not bear prosperity, lived too much for enjoyment, and so, pre- maturely, his bright career ended. A simple cross of white marble marks the place of his last sleep, and the leaves of a sturdy oak rustle over it, and as I turned away from that place of peace I saw the shimmering roses all around, and heard the cawing of rooks in distant elms and felt that in this slumber there are no dreams and that with the dead all is well. Artemus Ward died in Southampton. It seems but yesterday since those lords of frolic were my companions, but the grass has long been growing over them and the echo of their laughter has died away. Historic association dignifies a place, but it is personal associa- SOUTHAMPTON 39 tion that makes it familiar. In Southamp- ton Bay the Pilgrim Fathers, nearly three hundred years ago, prepared to set sail to found another England in the western world. Many memories haunt the town, but to one dreamer its name will ever, first of all, bring back the slumberous whisper of leaves that ripple in a summer wind, and the balm of flowers that breathe their blessing on a com- rade's rest. II. SALISBURY AND STONEHENGE. A pleasant course, if you would drift from the Channel coast into the Midlands, is to go from Southampton, by either Winchester or, less directly, by Salisbury, to Basingstoke, and thence northward by Reading and Oxford. Another good way is to loiter along the west of England, taking the track of the Cathedral Towns, and viewing whatever of historic interest can be observed in those places and in the memorable regions that environ them. There should be no inexorable route, for the chief charm of travel is liberty to indulge fancy, and, in England, whichever way you turn you will surely find some peculiar beauty to reward your quest. My path traversed Salisbury, Amesbury, Stonehenge, Glaston- bury, Wells, Cheddar, Bristol, Gloucester, 40 SALISBURY AND STONEHENGE 41 Worcester, and Evesham, and all the while it seemed to wind through a fairy realm of flowers and dreams. Each part of England has its charming peculiarities, but the general characteristic of English scenery is loveliness. The cities are the workshops; the rest is a garden of diversified beauty. As you range through the country you gaze on wooded hills glimmering in the distance, dark or bright beneath skies of cloud or sun, — never one thing long, but changeful, like a capricious girl, whose loveliness is the more bewitching because of her caprice. Green fields, in which cattle are grazing and sheep are couched beneath the trees, fill the foreground of the prospect. Here and there stately manor houses gleam in lordly groves. Little cottages, picturesque with thatched roofs and tiny lat- ticed windows, nestle by the roadside. Some of the fields have been gleaned and ploughed, so that the bare earth, in rich brown squares, presents a lively contrast to meadows of brilliant grass and masses of rippling barley. Now and then you see a comely mare, with her 42 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD awkward little colt, reposing in the shadow of a copse. Yellow haystacks, artfully trimmed, attract the eye, and circular clumps of trees upon the hill-slopes attest the wise care of the gardener of an earlier day. The land is gently undulating, and in the valleys there are rows of pollard willows, by which you can trace the current of a hidden stream. Far away or near at hand sometimes suddenly appears a gray spire or a grim tower, suggesting thought of monastic seclusion or historic antiquity. White roads, often for many miles devoid equally of vehicles and pedestrians, wind through the plains and over the ridges of lonely hills. Rivers gleam in the landscape, some rapid and some tranquil. Rain-clouds frequently drift over the scene, but only serve to make it more sweetly beautiful. The countryside is a continuous pageant, softly blending wood and meadow, park and com- mon, church and castle, lawn and pasture, clouds that are like bronze, and earth that is clad in scarlet and green, — while over the broad expanse of this various loveliness, in SALISBURY AND STONEHENGE 43 which the fresh garlands of Nature deck with bloom the crumbling relics of an historic architectural grandeur, the skies of summer bend with a benediction of smiling grace. "Once more I came to Sarum Close." It is many a year since I read "The Angel in the House," — that chivalric, tender poem by Coventry Patmore, — but it came freshly into my thoughts, as I walked again along the familiar avenue, and approached the beautiful Cathedral of Salisbury. No fitter environ- ment could be found for a representative love-story of the fastidious order, and seldom in poetical literature has scenery been so deftly blended with sentiment as it is in Patmore's melodious pages. Among the cities of Eng- land none can excel Salisbury in opulent refinement. The White Hart, near the Cathedral, is a desirable, convenient inn, and from that point it is easily possible to visit many scenes of interest and delight. A walk of two miles, mostly through fields, will bring you to Bemerton, and then you are in the valley where George Herbert lived some part 44 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD of his saintly life and wrote some of his exquisite devotional poetry. St. Andrew's, the tiny church of Bemerton, nestles deep in the bosom of a green vale, forming the apex of a small churchyard, full of roses and cedar trees, and over it broods the blessing of perfect repose. Chief among the inscriptions within its walls are the sacred words of promise and com- fort, "In this place will I give peace," and no words could better express the spirit and influence of Herbert's temple. I entered the church at evening, when it was all in shadow, when birds were calling to their mates, when the children in the neighboring rectory were singing a vesper hymn, and when, at the approach of night, the summer breeze was heavy with the scent of roses and of new- mown hay; and very sweet it was, there to meditate upon the pure spirit, gentle life, and exquisite art of the poet and preacher whose presence once made it a shrine for many lov- ing worshippers, and whose name has hal- lowed it forever. Herbert died at Bemerton, in 1633, and his dust reposes near the altar SALISBURY AND STONEHENGE 45 of his church. That church is only fifty feet long, by fourteen wide, and it is said to have been built in 1408, by an Abbess of Wilton, — which then was a convent, and on the site of which now stands Wilton House, the splendid abode of the noble family of Pembroke. The chancel, — once repaired by Herbert, to whom the church was precious, — was rebuilt in 1866. Another pleasant walk from Salisbury, going southward about two miles, along the bank of the Wiltshire Avon and through green meadows softly shaded by elm trees and vocal with song of thrush and cawing of rooks, will bring you to Britford church, a relic of the fourteenth century, and notable to the Shakespeare antiquary as containing the tomb of that Duke of Buckingham whom King Richard the Third, with such sanguinary precipitation, sends to the block, alike in his- tory and play. The tomb is a low, rec- tangular structure, covered by a flat stone, and it stands against the north wall of the chancel. Its sides are richly chased with figures and symbols of saints, and over it 46 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD impend a carved arch and cross, while beneath the arch, upon a brass plate, appears the inscription: "Henricus Stafford, Dux Buck- ingham, decapitatus apud Salisbury, 1 Ric. III., A. D. 1483." Doubt has been cast upon the authenticity of that burial, — it being alleged that the remains of the Duke were conveyed to London and buried at Gray- friars; but, since at that time Lionel Wood- ville, brother-in-law of the Duke, was Bishop of Salisbury, it seems not unlikely that the interment would have been made by him, speedily and without ostentation, near to his episcopal seat. In Britford, at any rate, stands the tomb, reputed to be that of Buckingham, and as I think of it I see again the silent church, the sunlight streaming in colored rays upon the chancel floor, the mural tablets and the vacant pews, while upon the walls outside there is a faint rustle of ivy leaves, and all is peace. More than four hundred years have passed since that ambitious, scheming, unlucky nobleman was suddenly laid low by the dangerous monarch against whom he had SALISBURY AND STONEHENGE 47 raised his rebellious hand, yet in the fresh vitality of Shakespeare's page it seems but a thing of yesterday. In that tomb are the ashes of as proud an ambition as ever filled the breast of man, and in that tomb is buried the key to a terrible mystery, — the historic secret of Richard's reign: for Buckingham aspired to wear the crown of England, and Buckingham, there is reason to believe, knew the truth about the Princes in the Tower. They show you, in the Market Place of Salis- bury, a building that stands nearly upon the spot where the Duke was beheaded, — a build- ing situated on the north side of the square, near St. John's Street, and now devoted to trade. There, in King Richard's time, stood the Blue Boar Inn, and the yard of that inn was the place of the execution. To visit Salisbury is to visit Stonehenge, and on the drive to Stonehenge the traveller will not omit to pause both at Old Sarum and at Amesbury. The former is only an earthwork now, but its massive heights abundantly exemplify the formidable char- 48 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD acter of ancient fortifications, and on its breezy slopes the long grass ripples in the wind, and myriads of buttercups brighten the green meadow with a sheen of gold. Close by there is an old habitation called the Castle Inn, and if you are in quest of a refuge from the ills and worries of conventional life, I know not where you could more certainly find it than in that quaint dwelling, — with all of Old Sarum for your pleasure ground, and with the distant spire of Salisbury Cathedral, towering, noble and clear, on the southern horizon, for your silent monitor, pointing to heaven. In Amesbury once stood the nunnery, dear to the lover of Tennyson's "Idylls of the King" as the haven and last refuge of poor Guinevere, in her shame, remorse, and peni- tence. Nothing now remains of it, but you will see, in the church wall, a remnant of the ancient ecclesiastical building, and, entering the park of Sir Edmund Antrobus, you will obtain a glimpse of fields whereon, perhaps, Guinevere may have wandered, and of the sequestered Avon on which her sad gaze may x .2 .-5* "" *" *3 « • -2 " SALISBURY AND STONEHENGE 49 many a time have rested, in those sad years before she drifted away, "to where, beyond these voices, there is peace." The ancient nunnery was converted into a dwelling by Somerset, the Protector, and afterward it passed through various hands and suffered many changes. The Duke of Queensberry owned it, in Queen Anne's time, and the poet Gay, signally befriended by the sprightly Duchess of Queensberry, was a frequent visitor there, and there he composed "The Beggar's Opera." I saw the stone room called Gay's Cave, which is built into a high bank and so placed as to form the central feature of a hill- side terrace that takes the shape of a diamond. That was the genial poet's study, and as he looked forth from it he would behold a broad vista of lawn, diversified with brilliant flowers and with shade-trees that were the growth of centuries, the tall columns, bold capitals, and classic front of a stately mansion that was the home of his friends, and, more near, the limpid waters of the Avon, brown in the shallows, rippling beneath a lovely rustic 50 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD bridge and sleeping in sun and shadow at his feet. The visitor to Stonehenge commonly finds the stones surrounded with carriages and over- run with picnics, while in the centre is posted an expounder with a model. The drive thither, by day, is one of exquisite beauty, for it extends over the long, breezy reaches of Salisbury Plain, through fields of golden grain, and scarlet poppy, and long grass that sways and trembles underneath the cloud- shadows, like the surges of the sea: but Stonehenge, if you would truly feel its mys- tery, should be seen under the cold light of stars, when the night wind is whispering through its weird cluster of huge haunted stones, when no human being else is present, and when nothing comes between your soul and heaven. Once, in that way, I saw the Druid Temple, — if such indeed it be, — and the spirit of dread that is within it was revealed. Being in Salisbury, on an autumn evening, long ago, it occurred to me that a night visit to Stonehenge would provide a SALISBURY AND STONEHENGE 51 novel and interesting experience. Salisbury Plain had not then been occupied, as now it is, by a military encampment, and the stones had not been encircled, as now they are, by a barbed wire fence. The country-side was bleak and lonely, and as I drove away from the town a chill wind, sweeping over the wide moorland, deepened the sense of desolation that such a scene would naturally impart. After a long drive, halting the carriage about two hundred yards from the Stones, I walked on and entered the magic circle alone, remaining there for an hour, in meditation. There was no moon, and in the dim star- light the ghostly pillars seemed at once more huge and more numerous than they truly are. At all times strange, the place then was more than ever inscrutable. For probably two thousand years, or more, the suns and the storms have beat upon those grim memorials of a race and a life to the present age completely unknown. Was Stonehenge a shrine of worship, or a sepulchre, or both? Were human beings there sacrificed to Pagan 52 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD gods, and did the central altar stone stream with human blood? What sombre processions of fierce warriors or stern, implacable priests have passed through those frowning avenues, and what solemn or grisly rites have there been performed! Conjecture is baffled in the contemplation of those relics; but if you muse among them in loneliness and night you will be conscious, as perhaps you never were before, of the haunting influence of mysterious antiquity and the awe that accompanies a sense of spiritual forces, present though unseen. III. HAUNTS OF MOORE. It is a peaceful, slumberous time in August, the first month of the English autumn. The scarlet discs of the poppies and the red and white blooms of the clover, together with wild- flowers of many hues, bespangle the lea, while the air is rich with fragrance of lime-trees and of new-mown hay. Busy, sagacious rooks, fat and bold, wing their way, in darkling clusters, bent on forage and mischief. There is a chill in the air, and the brimming rivers, dark and smoothly flowing through the opulent, culti- vated, park-like region of Wiltshire, shine with a cold gleam. In many fields the hay is cut and stacked: in others men, and often women, are tossing it, to dry, in the reluctant, inter- mittent, bleak sunshine. The sky is now as blue as the deep sea, and now ominous with 53 54 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD great drifting masses of slate-colored cloud. There are moments of beautiful radiance by day, and in some hours of the night the moon shines forth in pensive glory. It is a time of exquisite loveliness, a fitting time for a visit to the last home and the last resting place of the poet of loveliness and love, Thomas Moore. When Moore first went to London, a young author seeking to launch his earliest writings upon the stream of contemporary literature, he crossed from Dublin to Bristol, and then travelled to the capital by way of Bath and Devizes, and, as he crossed several times, he must soon have gained familiarity with that part of the country. He did not, however, settle in Wiltshire until some years afterward. His first lodging in London was a front room, up two flights of stairs, at No. 44 George Street, Portman Square. He subsequently lived at No. 46 Wigmore Street, Cavendish Square, and at No. 27 Bury Street, St. James's. That was in 1805. In 1810 he resided for a short time at No. 22 Molesworth HAUNTS OF MOORE 55 Street, Dublin, but he soon returned to Eng- land. One of his homes, after his marriage with Elizabeth Dyke, "Bessie," the sister of the great actress, Mary Duff (1794-1857), was in Brompton, London. In the spring of 1812 he settled at Kegworth, but a year later he removed to Mayfield Cottage, near Ashbourne, Derbyshire. "I am now as you wished," he wrote to Power, the music-publisher, July 1, 1813, "within twenty-four hours' drive of town." In 1817 he occupied a cottage near the foot of Muswell Hill, at Hornsey, Middle- sex, but after he lost his daughter, Barbara, who died there, the place became distressful to him and he left it. In the latter part of September that year, the time of their afflic- tion, Moore and his "Bessie" were guests of Lady Donegal, at No. 56 Davies Street, Berkeley Square, London. Then, November 19, 1817, they removed to Sloperton Cottage, at Bromham, near Devizes, and established their residence permanently in that place. Lord Lansdowne, one of the poet's earliest friends, was the owner of that estate, and 56 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD doubtless he was the impulse of Moore's resort to it. The present Lord Lansdowne still owns Bowood Park, about four miles from Brom- ham. Devizes impresses a stranger with a singular, pleasant sense of suspended animation, as of beauty fallen asleep, — the sense of something about to happen, which never occurs. More peaceful it could not be, and that is its most alluring charm. Two of its many streets are remarkably wide and spacious, while others are narrow and crooked. Most of its habi- tations are low houses, built of brick, and only a few of them, such as the Town Hall and the Corn Exchange, are pretentious as architecture. The principal street runs nearly northwest and southeast. There is a * 'north gate" at one end of it, and a "south gate" at the other, but no remnant of the ancient town gates is left. The Kennet and Avon Canal, built 1794-1805, skirts the north- ern side of the town, and thereafter descends the western slope, passing through twenty- seven magnificent locks, within a distance of HAUNTS OF MOORE 57 about two miles, — one of the longest con- secutive ranges of locks in England. The stateliest building in Devizes is the noble Castle, which, reared upon a massive hill, at once dominates the surrounding landscape and dignifies it. That splendid edifice, built about 1830, stands upon the site of the ancient Castle of Devizes, which was reared by Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, in the reign of King Henry the First, and it resembles that famous original, long esteemed one of the most complete and admirable works of its kind in Europe. The old Castle was included in the dowry settled upon successive queens of England. Queen Margaret possessed it in the reign of King Henry the Sixth, and Queen Katharine possessed it in that of King Henry the Eighth. It figured in the Civil Wars, and it was then deemed the strongest citadel in England. The poet- soldier, Edmund Waller, when employed in the military service of the Parliament, bom- barded it, in 1643, and finally it was destroyed by order of the Roundheads. Toward the 58 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD close of the eighteenth century its ruins were surmounted by a couple of snuff-mills. No part of the ancient fortress now survives, except the moat, but in its pleasant garden grounds fragmentary remnants can still be seen of its foundations and of its dungeons. During the rebuilding of the Castle many relics were unearthed, such as human bones and implements of war, — significant tokens of dark days and fatal doings long past and gone. In the centre of the town is a commodious public square, known as the Market-place, — a wide domain of repose, as I saw it, uninvaded by either vehicle or human being, but on each Thursday the scene of the weekly market for cattle and corn, and of the loquacious industry of the cheap- jack and the quack. On one side of it is the old Bear Hotel, memorable as the birthplace of Sir Thomas Lawrence, the artist (1769-1830). In the centre are two works of art, — one a fountain, the other a cross. The latter, a fine fabric of Gothic architecture, is embel- lished with thirteen pinnacles, which rise above HAUNTS OF MOORE 59 an arched canopy, the covering of a statue. One face of the cross bears this legend: This Market Cross was erected by Henry, Viscount Sidmouth, as a memorial of his grateful attachment to the Borough of Devizes, of which he has been Recorder thirty years, and of which he was six times unanimously chosen a representative in Parliament. Anno Domini 1814. Upon the other face appears a record more significant, — being indicative equally of credulity and a frugal mind, and being freighted with tragic import unmatched since the Bible narrative of Ananias and Sapphira. It reads thus: The Mayor and Corporation of Devizes avail themselves of the stability of this building to trans- mit to future times the record of an awful event which occurred in this market-place in the year 1753, hoping that such a record may serve as a salutary warning against the danger of impiously invoking the Divine vengeance, or of calling on the holy name of God to conceal the devices of falsehood and fraud. On Thursday, the 25th January, 1753, Ruth Pierce, of Potterne, in this county, agreed, with three other 60 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD women, to buy a sack of wheat in the market, each paying her due proportion toward the same. One of these women, in collecting the several quotas of money, discovered a deficiency, and demanded of Ruth Pierce the sum which was wanted to make good the amount. Ruth Pierce protested that she had paid her share, and said, "She wished she might drop down dead if she had not." She rashly repeated this awful wish, when, to the consternation of the surrounding multitude, she in- stantly fell down and expired, having the money con- cealed in her hand. That is not the only tragic incident in the history of the Market-place of Devizes; for in 1538 a poor tailor, named John Bent, of the neighboring village of Urchfont, was burnt at the stake, in that square, for his avowed disbelief of the doctrine of transub- stantiation. An important institution of Devizes is the Wilts County Museum, in Long Street, devoted to the natural history and the archaeology of Wiltshire. The library con- tains a sumptuous collection of Wiltshire HAUNTS OF MOORE 61 books, and the museum is rich in geological specimens, — richer even than the excellent museum of Salisbury, for, in addition to other treasures, it includes the famous Stourhead collection, made by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, being relics from the ancient British and Saxon barrows on the Wiltshire downs, described by Sir Richard, in his book called "Antient Wilts." Its cinerary and culinary urns are fine and numerous. The Wilts County Museum is fortunate in its curator, B. Howard Cunnington, Esq., of Rowde, — an indefatigable student and thorough antiquarian. An interesting church in Devizes is that of St. John, the Norman tower of which is a relic of the days of King Henry the Second, a vast, grim structure, with a circular turret on one corner of it. Eastward of this church is a long, lovely avenue of trees, and around it lies a large burial-place, remarkable for the excellence of the sod and for the number visible of those heavy, gray, oblong masses of stone which appear to have obtained great public favor, as tombs, about the time of Crom- 62 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD well. In the centre of the churchyard stands a monolith, inscribed with these remarkable words : Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. — This monument, as a solemn monitor to Young People to remember their Creator in the days of their youth, was erected by subscription. — In memory of the sud- den and awful end of Robert Merrit and his wife, Eliz. Tiley, her sister, Martha Carter, and Josiah Denham, who were drowned, in the flower of their youth, in a pond, near this town, called Drews, on Sunday evening, the 30th of June, 1751, and are together underneath entombed. In one corner of the churchyard I came upon a cross, bearing a simple legend, far more touching, though not void of accidental humor: In Memoriam Robert Samuel Thornley Died, August 5, 1871. Aged 48 years. For fourteen years surgeon to the poor of Devizes. There shall be no more pain. And over still another sleeper was written, upon a flat stone, low in the ground: THOMAS MOORE 1779-1852 Enchanter of Erin whose magic has bound us. HOLMES. HAUNTS OF MOORE 63 Loving, beloved, in all relations true, Exposed to follies, but subdued by few: Reader, reflect, and copy if you can The simple virtues of this honest man. Nobody is in haste in Devizes, and the pilgrim who seeks for peace could not do better than to tarry there. The city bell, which officially strikes the hours, is subdued and pensive, and although reinforced with chimes, it seems ever to speak under its breath. The church-bell, however, rings long, vigor- ously, and with much melodious clangor, as though the local sinners were more than com- monly hard of hearing. Near to the church of St. John are some quaint almshouses. One of them was founded before 1207, as a hospital for lepers, and it is thought that one of them was built of stone which remained after the erection of the church. Those almshouses are now governed by the Mayor and Corpora- tion of Devizes, but perhaps formerly they were under the direct control of the Crown. (See Tanner's "Nolitia.") There are seven endowments, one dating back to 1641, and 64 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD the houses are, to this day, occupied by widows, recommended by the churchwardens of St. Mary's and St. John's. An old inhabitant of Devizes, named Bancroft, left a sum of money to insure for himself a singular memorial service, — that the bells of St. John's church should be solemnly tolled on the day of his birth, and rung merrily on that of his death, and that service is duly performed, every year. Devizes is a fit place for the survival of quaint customs, and those serve to mark, very pleasantly, its peculiar, interesting char- acter. The Town Crier, who is a member of the Corporation, walks abroad arrayed in a helmet and a uniform of brilliant scarlet, — glories of apparel that are worn by no other Town Crier in the kingdom, excepting the Crier of York. From Devizes to the village of Bromham, a distance of about four miles, the walk is delightful. Much of the path is between green hedges and is embowered by elms. The exit from the town is by Northgate and along the Chippenham road, — which, like all the roads HAUNTS OF MOORE 65 in this neighborhood, is smooth, hard, and white. A little way out of Devizes, going northwest, this road lies through a deep cut in the chalk-stone and so winds downhill into the plain. At intervals you come upon sweetly pretty specimens of the English thatch-roof cottage. Hay-fields, pastures, and market-gardens extend on every hand. East- ward, far off, are visible the hills of West- bury, upon which, here and there, the copses are lovely, and upon one of which, cut in the rock, is the figure of a colossal white horse — said to have been fashioned by the Saxons. The White Horse was made by removing the turf in such a way as to show the white chalk beneath. The tradition is that this was done by command of King Alfred, in Easter week, 878, to signalize his victory over the Danes, at Oetlandune, or Eddington, at the foot of the hill. Upon the top of that hill there is the outline of an ancient Roman camp. Soon the road winds over a ridge and you pass through the little red village of Rowde. The walk can be shortened by a cut across the 66 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD fields, and that, indeed, is found the prettiest part of the journey, — for then the path lies through gardens, and through the centre or along the margin of the wheat, which waves in the strong wind and sparkles in the bright sunshine and is everywhere tenderly touched with the scarlet of the poppy and with hues of other wild-flowers. In a field through which I passed, as the spire of Bromham church came into view, a surface more than three hundred yards square was blazing with wild-flowers, white, gold, crimson, purple, and blue, upon a ground of vivid green, so that to look upon it was almost to be dazzled, while the air that floated over it was scented with honeysuckle. You can see the delicate spire and the low tower of Moore's church some time before you come to it, and in some respects the prospect is not unlike that of Shakespeare's church at Stratford. A fitter place for a poet's sepulchre it would be hard to find. No spot could be more harmonious than this one is with the romantic spirit of Moore's poetry. Bromham village consists of HAUNTS OF MOORE 67 a few red brick buildings, scattered along irregular little lanes, on a ridge overlooking a valley. Amid those humble homes stands the church, like a shepherd keeping his flock. A part of it is very old, and all of it, richly weather-stained and delicately browned with faded moss, is beautiful. Upon the tower and along the south side the fantastic gargoyles are much decayed. The building is crucial in shape. The chancel window, of course, faces eastward, while the window at the end of the nave faces west, — the latter being a memorial to Moore. At the southeast corner of the church is the Lady Chapel, belonging to the Bayntun family, and in it are suspended various frag- ments of old armor, and in the centre of it, recumbent on a dark tomb, is a grim-visaged knight, clad in his mail, beautifully sculptured, in marble that looks like yellow ivory. Vandal visitors have shamefully marred that fine work, by cutting and scratching their names upon it. Other tombs are adjacent, with in- scriptions that include the names of Sir Edward Bayntun, 1679, and Lady Anne Wilmot, elder 68 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD daughter and co-heiress of John, Earl of Rochester, who, successively, was the wife of Henry Bayntun and Francis Greville, and who died in 1703. The window at the end of the nave is a simple but striking composition, in stained glass, richer and nobler than is com- monly seen in a country church. It consists of twenty-one lights, of which five are lancet shafts, side by side, these being surmounted with smaller lancets, forming a cluster at the top of the arch. In the centre is the figure of Jesus, and around Him are the Apostles. The coloring is true and beautiful. Across the base of the window appear these words, in the glass: "This window is placed in this church by the combined subscriptions of two hundred persons who honor the memory of the poet of all circles and the idol of his own, Thomas Moore." Beneath this win- dow, in a little pew in the corner of the church, I joined in the service, and medi- tated, throughout a long sermon, on the lovely life and character and the gentle, abiding influence of the poet whose hallowed grave HAUNTS OF MOORE 69 and beloved memory make this place a per- petual shrine. Moore is buried in the churchyard. An iron fence encloses his tomb, which is at the base of the church tower, in an angle formed by the tower and the chancel, on the north side of the building. Not more than twenty tombs are visible on this side of the church, and these appear upon a level lawn, green, sparkling, and as soft as velvet. On three sides the churchyard is enclosed by a low wall, and on the fourth by a dense hedge of glisten- ing holly. Great trees are all around the church, but not too near. A massive yew stands darkly at one corner. Chestnuts and elms blend their branches in fraternal embrace. Close by the poet's grave a huge beech uprears its dome of fruited boughs and rustling foliage. The sky was blue, except for a few straggling masses of feathery, grayish cloud. Not a human creature was anywhere to be seen while I stood in this sacred spot, and no sound disturbed the restful stillness, save the faint whisper of the wind in the lofty 70 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD tree-tops and the low twitter of birds in their hidden nests. I thought of Moore's long life, unusually exempt from reason for reproach; of his sweet devotion to parents, wife, and children; of his pure patriotism, which scorned equally the blatant fustian of the demagogue and the frenzy of the revolutionist; of his fidelity in friendship; of his simplicity and purity in a corrupt time and amid many temptations; of his meekness in affliction; of the devout spirit that prompted his earnest exhortation to his wife, "Lean upon God, Bessie"; of many beautiful songs that he added to our literature, — almost every one of them the melodious expression of one or another of the elemental feelings of human nature; and of the obligation of gratitude that the world owes to his beneficent genius: and thus it seemed good to be in this place and to lay with reverent hands the white roses of honor and affection upon his tomb. On the long, low, flat stone over the poet's dust are inscribed the following words: "Anastatia Mary Moore. Born March 16, HAUNTS OF MOORE 71 1813. Died March 8, 1829. Also her brother, John Russell Moore, who died November 23, 1842, aged 19 years. Also their father, Thomas Moore, tenderly beloved by all who knew the goodness of his heart. The Poet and Patriot of his Country, Ireland. Born May 28, 1779. Sank to rest February 26, 1852. Aged 72. God is Love. Also his wife, Bessie Moore, who died 4th September 1865. And to the memory of their dear son, Thomas Lansdowne Parr Moore. Born 24th October 1818. Died in Africa, January 1846." Moore's daughter, Barbara, is buried at Hornsey, near London. On the stone that marks that spot is written, "Anne Jane Barbara Moore. Born January the 4th, 1812. Died September the 18th, 1817." In 1908 a monumental cross was placed at Moore's grave, inscribed, on the base, with his dates and the first four lines of his melodious and touch- ing apostrophe to the Harp of his beloved Ireland. Later, as I was gazing at St. John's, gray and cheerless in the gloaming, an old man 72 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD approached me and civilly began a conversa- tion about the antiquity of the building and the eloquence of its rector. When I told him that I had walked to Bromham to attend the service there, and to see the cottage and grave of Moore, he presently provided me with the little touch of personal testimony which is always interesting and significant in such cir- cumstances. "I remember Tom Moore," he said; "I worked for him once, in his house, and I did some work once on his tomb. He was a little man. He spoke to us very pleasantly. I don't think he was a preacher. He never preached that I heard tell of. He was a poet, I believe. He was very much liked here. I never heard a word against him. I am seventy-nine years old the thirteenth of December, and that'll soon be here. I've had three wives in my time, and my third is still living. It's a fine old church, and there's figures in it of bishops, and kings, and queens." Most observers have remarked the gar- rulous and sometimes grotesquely humorous HAUNTS OF MOORE 73 way in which senile persons prattle their incongruous, sporadic recollections. But — "How pregnant sometimes his replies are!" Another resident of Devizes, with whom I conversed, likewise remembered the poet, and spoke of him with feeling and respect. "My sister, when she was a child," he said, "was often at Moore's house, and he was fond of her. Yes, his name is remembered and hon- ored here. But I think that many of the people hereabout, the farmers, admired him chiefly because they thought that he wrote 'Moore's Almanac' They used to say to him: 'Mister Moore, please tell us what the weather's going to be.' " Northwest from Bromham church and about one mile away stands Sloperton Cottage, the last home of Moore and the house in which he died. A deep valley intervenes between the church and the cottage, but, as each is built upon a ridge, you readily see the one from the other. There is a road across the valley, but the more pleasant walk is along a pathway through the meadows and over 74 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD several stiles, ending almost in front of the cottage. It is an ideal home for a poet. The building is made of brick, but it is so com- pletely enwrapped in ivy that scarcely a particle of its surface can be seen. It is a low building, with a wing and, on its main front, three gables; it stands in the middle of a garden enclosed by walls and by hedges of ivy; and it is embowered by trees, yet not so closely embowered as to be shorn of prospect from its windows. Flowers and flowering vines were blooming around it. The hard, white road, past its gateway, looked like a thread of silver between the green hedgerows which here, for many miles, are rooted in high, grassy banks, and at intervals are diversified with large trees. Sloperton Cottage is almost alone, but there are a few neighbors, and there is the little rustic village of Westbrook, about half a mile westward. Westward was the poet's favorite prospect. He loved the sunset, and from a terrace in his garden he habitually watched the pageant of the dying day. Here, for thirty-five years, HAUNTS OF MOORE 75 was his peaceful, happy home. Here he meditated many of those gems of lyrical poetry that will live in the hearts of men as long as anything lives that ever was written. And here he "sank to rest," worn out by age, incessant labor, and many sorrows incident to domestic bereavement. The sun was sinking as I turned away from this haunt of genius and virtue, and, through green pastures and flower- spangled fields of waving grain, set forth upon my homeward walk. Soon there was a lovely peal of chimes from Bromham church tower, answered far off by the bells of Rowde, and while I descended into the darkening valley, Moore's tender words came singing through my thought: And so 'twill be when I am gone — That tuneful peal will still ring on, While other bards shall walk these dells And sing your praise, sweet evening bells! IV. BATH AND BRISTOL. A beautiful city, somewhat marred by the feverish spirit of the present day, old Bath, — a place of such antiquity that it has echoed to the tread of Roman soldiers and witnessed the coronation of Saxon kings, — retains many characteristics of its ancient glory and is freighted with many associations of romance and incentives to fancy. As long ago as the placid twenty- three years' reign of the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius (86-161), it was a place of stately, elegant abodes, and in the eighteenth century it was, perhaps, the most sumptuous, aristocratic resort in Eng- land. Changes have, of course, occurred in it, even since the days of Swift, Sheridan, Smollett, Chesterfield, and the many other noted wits and beaus whose names are linked with BATH AND BRISTOL 77 its history, but it still is Bath the Beautiful. It lies in a deep vale, on both sides of the Wiltshire Avon, and in the slow lapse of time it has crept upward, along the valley slopes, nearer and nearer to the hill-tops that formerly looked down upon it. Along the margins of the river many gray stone build- ings are mouldering in neglect, but crowds throng upon the causeways, tram-cars rattle through some of the principal streets, multi- tudinous vehicles roll over the pavement, and where of old the horn sounded a gay flourish and the coach came spinning in from Lon- don, now is heard the shriek of the steam- engine, rushing down the vale, with morning newspapers and with passengers "three hours from town." More than a century and a half has passed since the powdered, jewelled days of Beau Nash, — once, about 1752, "by the grace of impudence, King of Bath," — the old town is no longer the Gainsborough belle that it used to be, and you must yield your mind to fancy if you would conjure up, while walk- ing in its modern streets, the gay, quaint 78 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD spectacles described in such classics as "Humphrey Clinker" and "The Rivals." It is pleasing, for the traveller, recalling the literary associations of Bath, to think of the trim figure of elegant Sir Lucius O'Trigger loitering in the South Parade, waiting for Lucy, or bluff, choleric Sir Anthony Absolute gazing, with imperious condescension, on the sparkling galaxy of the Pump Room, or Acres, in his curl-papers and finery, speeding his "four-in-hand" from the country, "with a tail of dust as long as Pall Mall," or Mrs. Malaprop, rigid with decorum, in her Bath chair, or Ly&ia, languishing for her merry, scapegrace lover and sighing over the leaves of Sir Anthony's "evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge." The Bath chairs, sometimes pulled by donkeys and sometimes trundled by men, are among the most harmonious, representative relics now visible in the old resort of fashion and pleasure. At the foot of Gascoigne Place there is a building before which the traveller pauses with interest, because upon its front BATH ABBEY— WEST FRONT "Each niche, well filled trilli monument and bust, Shows how Jiiilli waters serve to lay the dust." OLD EPIGIIAM. BATH AND BRISTOL 79 he can read the legend, engraved on a white marble slab, that "In this house lived the celebrated Beau Nash, and here he died, February, 1761." It is an odd structure, con- sisting of two stories and an attic, the front being of the monotonous stucco much used on buildings in the time of the Regency. In the historic Pump Room, placed aloft in an alcove at the east end, still stands the life-size effigy of Beau Nash, as it stood when that exquisite dandy set the fashions, regu- lated the customs, and was, indeed, "King of Bath"; but the busts of Newton and Pope, that formerty stood on either side of that statue, stand there no more, — except in the fancy of gazers who recall the old epigram which was suggested by that singular group: This statue placed these busts between Gives satire all its strength; Wisdom and Wit are little seen, But Folly at full length! Folly, though, is a word that conveys a different meaning to different minds. Douglas 80 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD Jerrold made an ingenious, effective, farcical play, relative to Beau Nash, in which that magnate of fashion is depicted as anything but a fool. The most conspicuous and interesting build- ing in Bath is the Abbey, which, begun in 1405 and completed in 1606, occupies a prominent position in the principal square of the city, and equally attracts and rewards the curiosity and interest of the visitor. It is indeed a superb church. Its great door, of carved oak, is magnificent, and the west front of it is very noble. A surprising feature of Bath Abbey is its mural record of the dead that are entombed beneath or around it. Well might Sir Lucius have been told that "there is snug lying in the Abbey"! Much of the interior surface of the walls is covered with monumental emblems and memorial slabs, and, after a service there, — like Cap'n Cuttle, after the wedding of Mr. Dombey and Edith, — I "pervaded the body of the church and read the epitaphs," being solicitous to find the resting-place of the once BATH AND BRISTOL 81 renowned actor James Quin (1693-1766), who was buried there. The tablet to his memory was formerly in the chancel, but now it is obscurely placed in a porch, at the north corner of the building, on the outer wall of the sanctuary. It presents the head of the actor, carved in white marble, and set against a black slab. Beneath is the record: "Ob. MDCCLXVI. JEtat. LXXIIL," and then follows an epitaph, written by David Gar- rick. At the base are those conventional dramatic emblems, the mask and dagger. As a portrait this medallion of Quin gives evidence of scrupulous fidelity to nature. The head is shown, as in life, with the full wig of the period. The features are regular and fine, and they indicate an austere character. Quin, biographically, has been designated the last great declaimer of the old English school of acting, a school discomfited and almost obliterated by Garrick. These are the words that Garrick wrote (obviously imitating Ham- lets Yorick speech), to commemorate his van- quished rival, and, if their purport be true, 82 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD Quin, surely, was something more than a mere pompous rhetorician: That tongue, which set the table in a roar, And charmed the public ear, is heard no more; Closed are those eyes, the harbingers of wit, Which spoke, before the tongue, what Shakespeare writ ; Cold is that hand which, living, was stretched forth, At friendship's call, to succor modest worth. Here lies James Quin. Deign, reader, to be taught, Whate'er thy strength of body, force of thought, In Nature's happiest mould however cast, To this complexion thou must come at last. Any printed reminder of mortality's strong hand is superfluous in Bath, for the visitor almost continuously sees deformed and other- wise afflicted persons, resident there "to take the waters." For rheumatic sufferers the place is a paradise, as also it is for wealthy persons who love luxury. The poet Landor said that the only two cities of Europe in which he could live were Bath and Florence, — but, happily, tastes differ. When you have walked in Milsom Street, Great Pulteney Street, Lansdowne Crescent and Victoria Park, o H X i— i » PJ § o fe £ s w . S Q ~ W ■§£ Pi s - ^ S * < "? «■ X o u 0? BATH AND BRISTOL 83 sailed upon the Avon, observed the Abbey within and without, climbed Beechen Cliff for a view of the city and the Avon valley, and taken the baths, you will have had a sufficiently informative experience of modern Bath. The principal luxury of the place is a swimming- tank of mineral water, about forty feet long by twenty broad, and five feet deep, a tepid pool of refreshing potency, and the chief curiosity is a Roman Bath, eighty-one feet long and thirty-nine feet wide, discovered, exhumed, and renovated in 1885, after having remained buried for many centuries. The literary associations of Bath are rich and various. The poets and wits of Queen Anne's time liked the place and frequented it. Horace Walpole heard the famous Wesley preach there, in 1766, and thought him "as evident an actor as Garrick." Gibbon, great- est of historians, sought freedom and pleasure there, when, in his frolicsome youthful days, he broke away from Oxford. Dr. Johnson walked the streets of Bath, in 1776, and Boswell went there to visit him. Frances 84 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD Burney and Jane Austen were, at different times, residents of the gay city, and each has peopled it with representative creatures of fiction, true types of the characters and manners of their respective times. Scott lived there, for a while, when a boy, and he some- where writes that he always remembered with pleasure the fine Abbey, the yellow Avon, and the statue of Neptune which stood at the Ferry leading to Spring Gardens. Landor, when age was advancing on him, watched the lovely sunset there, in April 1854, and, as it faded, thought of the many friends of his youth who had as suddenly and as sadly gone out. Many other shining names might be mentioned, of authors who found delight in Bath and helped to adorn its story. Rich also in literary association is Bath's opulent neigh- bor, the old city of Bristol, — birthplace of "the marvellous boy," Chatterton, and of that noble representative man of letters, Robert Southey. In a stone chamber of the tower of St. Mary Redclyffe Church,— built in 1292,-1 saw the old oak chests, once filled with black letter BATH AND BRISTOL 85 parchments but empty now, in which Chatter- ton, pursuant to his ingenious plan of impos- ture, "discovered" the Canynge and Rowley Manuscripts. Jane and Anne Porter, the novelists, Hannah More, and Mary Robinson, the actress, — the lovely, unfortunate "Perdita," — were natives of Bristol. Savage, the poet, died there. Coleridge and Southey married sisters, named Fricker, resident there, and in the lovely village of Clevedon, near Bristol, the pilgrim can see Myrtle Cottage, once the residence of Coleridge, at which, it is recorded, the untimely arrival of "a person from Porlock" compelled him to leave unfinished his imaginative, sweetly musical poem "Kubla Khan." In Clevedon stands the old church in which was entombed the dust of Arthur Hallam, inspiration of Tennyson's "In Memo- riam." While I was in Bristol and its neighborhood my thoughts were concerned more with Southey than with any other celebrity of the past whose name is connected with that place. The brilliant but cruel satire of Byron has largely contributed to the obscuration of 86 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD Southey's fame. It is not to be denied, either, that some of his writings are ponderous and therefore difficult of perusal; but in faculty and fertility of fancy his poem of "The Curse of Kehama" ranks next to Pope's supremely fanciful "Rape of the Lock," and, at their best, his works are characterized by learning, thought, invention, religious feeling, morality, purity, refinement, chivalry, eloquence, and sweetness. V. THE FAITHFUL CITY. Worcester, called by King Charles the First, "The Faithful City," is closely associated with the story of the fortunes and the wars of the Stuarts, and the moment you enter it your mind is filled with the presence of Charles the Martyr, Charles the Merry, Prince Rupert, and Oliver Cromwell. From the top of Red Hill and the margin of Perry wood, Cromwell looked down over the ancient walled city which he had beleaguered. Upon the summit of the great tower of Worcester Charles and Rupert held their last council of war. Here was lost, September 3, 1651, the battle that made the Merry Monarch a hunted fugitive in exile. With profound interest I have rambled on those heights, traversed the battlefield, walked in the Cathedral and attended divine service 87 88 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD there; revelled in the antiquities of the Edgar Tower, roamed through most of the streets, traced all that can be traced of the old wall, ■ — there is little remaining of it now, and no part that can be walked upon, — examined the porcelain works, for which Worcester is famous, viewed several of its old churches and its one theatre, in Angel Street, entered its Guildhall, where are preserved a fine piece of artillery and nine suits of black armor that were left by King Charles the Second when he fled from Worcester, paced the dusty, empty Trinity Hall, now abandoned and condemned to demolition, where once Queen Elizabeth was feasted, and visited the old Commandery, — a rare piece of antiquity, remaining from the tenth century, — wherein the Duke of Hamilton died, of his wounds, after Cromwell's "crown- ing mercy," and beneath the floor of which he was laid in a temporary grave. In the Edgar Tower at Worcester is kept the original of the marriage-bond that was given by Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, of Shottery, as a preliminary to the marriage THE FAITHFUL CITY 89 of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, It is a long, narrow strip of parchment, glazed and framed. Two seals of pale-colored wax were originally attached to it, dependent by strings, but these have been detached. The handwriting is obscure. There are but few persons who can read the handwriting in old documents of this kind, and thousands of such documents exist in the church-archives, and elsewhere, in England, — documents that have never been examined. The bond is for <£40, and is a guarantee that there was no impedi- ment to the marriage. It is dated November 28, 1582; its text authorizes the wedding, after only once calling the banns in church, and it is supposed that the marriage took place imme- diately, since the first child of it, Susanna Shakespeare, was baptized in the Shakespeare Church at Stratford, May 26, 1583. No registration of the marriage has been found, but that is not a proof that it does not exist. The law prescribed that three parishes, within the residential diocese, should be designated in the license, in any one of which the marriage 90 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD might be solemnized, but custom permitted the contracting parties, when they had complied with this requirement, to be married in whatever parish, within the diocese, they might prefer. The three parishes supposed to have been named are Stratford, Bishopton, and Luddington. The registers of two of them have been searched, but searched in vain. The register of the third, — that of Luddington, which is near Shottery, about three miles southwest of Stratford, — was destroyed, long ago, in a fire that burnt down Luddington church, and conjecture assumes that Shakespeare was married at Luddington. It may be so, but until every old church register in the ancient diocese of Worcester has been examined, the quest of the registra- tion of his marriage ought not to be abandoned. Richard Savage, the antiquarian, has long been occupied with this inquiry, and has transcribed several of the old church registers in the vicinity of Stratford. Rev. Thomas Procter Wadley, another antiquary, of learning and incessant industry, long participated in that labor. The coveted discovery of the entry of the marriage THE FAITHFUL CITY 91 of William and Anne remains unmade, but one valuable result of those investigations is the disclosure that many of the names used in Shakespeare's works are names of persons who were actually resident in Warwickshire in his time. (An instructive article by Mr. John Taylor, on "Local Shakespearean Names," based on and incorporative of some of the researches of Mr. Wadley, was published in "The London Athenaeum," February 9, 1889. Mr. Wadley died, at Pershore, April 4, 1895, and was buried in Bidford churchyard, on April 10.) It has pleased various sensation-mongers to ascribe the authorship of Shakespeare's writ- ings to Francis Bacon. That could only be done by ignoring much positive evidence, — among the rest the evidence of Ben Jonson, who knew Shakespeare personally, and who has left a written statement of the manner in which Shakespeare composed his plays. Effrontery was to be expected from advocates of the preposterous Bacon theory; but when they have ignored the positive evidence, the internal evidence, and the circumstantial evidence, they 92 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD have still a serious obstacle to surmount. The man who wrote Shakespeare's plays knew War- wickshire as it could only be known by a native of it, and there is no testimony that it was so known by Francis Bacon. With reference to the Shakespeare marriage- bond and the other records that are kept in the Edgar Tower at Worcester, it should be said that they ought to be protected with the scrupulous care to which such treasures are entitled. The Tower, — a venerable relic, being an ancient gate of the monastery, dating back to the time of King John, — affords an appropriate receptacle for those documents, but it would not withstand fire, and it does not, or did not, when last I saw it, contain a fire-proof chamber or a safe. The Shakespeare marriage-bond was taken from the floor of a closet, together with a number of dusty books, and I was permitted to hold and examine it. From another dusty closet an attendant extricated a manuscript diary, kept by William Lloyd, Bishop of Worcester, 1627- 1717, and by his man-servant, for several years, THE FAITHFUL CITY 93 about the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne, in which are many quaint, humorous entries, valuable to the student of history and manners. In still another closet, having the appearance of a rubbish-bin, I saw heaps of old parchment, — a mass of antique registry that it would require continuous labor during five or six years to examine, decipher, and classify. Worcester is especially rich in old records, and it is not impossible that the miss- ing clew to Shakespeare's marriage may yet be found in that old Cathedral city. Worcester is rich also in an ample library, which, by the kindness of the custodian of it, Mr. Hooper, I was allowed to explore, high up beneath the roof of the lovely Cathedral. That collection of books, numbering about five thousand volumes, consists mostly of folios, many of which were printed in France. It is kept in a long, low, oak-timbered room, the triforium of the south aisle of the nave. The approach is by a circular stone staircase. In an anteroom to the library I saw a part of the ancient north door of the church, — a 94 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD fragment dating back to the time of Bishop Wakefield, 1386, — to which is affixed a piece of the skin of a human being. The tradition is that a Dane committed sacrilege, by stealing the sanctus bell from the high altar, and was thereupon flayed alive, for his crime, the skin of him having been then fastened to the Cathedral door. In the library are magnificent editions of Aristotle and other classic authors, the works of fathers of the church, a beautiful illuminated manuscript of Wyckliffe's New Testament, written on vellum, 1381, and several books from the press of Caxton and that of Wynken de Worde. This library, which is for the use of the clergy of the diocese of Worcester, was founded by Bishop Carpenter, in 1461, and originally it was stored in the chapel of the charnel-house. Reverting to the subject of old documents, a useful word can perhaps be said about the registers in Trinity Church at Stratford, — documents which, in a spirit of disparage- ment, have sometimes been flouted as "copies." That sort of levity in the discussion of 8 5 5 8 3 ~~ "" -i; . § 3 -2 © "g -v -a ^ o 5 ^ THE FAITHFUL CITY 95 Shakespearean subjects is not unnatural in days when "cranks" are allowed freely to besmirch the memory of Shakespeare, in their foolish advocacy of wild theories as to the authorship of his works. I have explored the quaint pages of the Stratford Registers. Those records are contained in twenty-two volumes. They begin with the first year of Queen Elizabeth, 1558, and they close, in the old parchment form, in 1812. From 1558 to 1600 the entries were made in a paper book, of the quarto form, still occasion- ally to be found in ancient parish churches of England. In 1599 an order-in-council was issued, commanding that those entries should be copied into parchment volumes, for their better preservation. This was done. The parchment volumes, which were freely shown to me by William Butcher, the parish clerk of Stratford, (that good man died, February 20, 1895, aged 66, and was buried in Stratford Cemetery), date back to 1600. The hand- writing of the copied portion, covering the period from 1558 to 1600, is careful and uni- 96 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD form. Each page is certified, as to its accuracy, by the vicar and the churchwardens. After 1600 the handwritings vary. In the register of marriages a new handwriting appears, on September 17 that year, and in the registers of baptism and burial it appears on September 20. The sequence of marriages is complete until 1756, that of baptisms and burials until 1812, when, in each case, a book of printed forms comes into use. The entry of Shakespeare's baptism, April 26, 1564, from which it is inferred that he was born on April 23, is extant as a certified copy from the earlier paper book. The entry of Shake- speare's burial is the original entry, made in the original register. The disposition that was made of the original paper book containing the record of the period from 1558 to 1600 is unknown. It has been suggested by an American writer that Shakespeare's widow, — seven years his senior at the beginning of their married life, and therefore fifty-nine 5^ears old when he died, — subsequently contracted another THE FAITHFUL CITY 97 marriage. Mrs. Shakespeare survived her husband seven years, dying, August 6, 1623, at the age of sixty-six. The entry in the Stratford register of burial contains, August 8, 1623, the names of "Mrs. Shakespeare" and "Anna uxor Richard James." Those two names, written one above the other, are con- nected by a bracket, on the left side, and this has been supposed to be evidence that Shakespeare's widow married again. The use of the bracket could not possibly mislead any- body possessing the faculty of clear vision. When two or more persons were either bap- tized or buried on the same day, the parish clerk, in making the requisite entry in the register, connected their names with a bracket. Three instances of that practice occur upon a single page of the register, in the same hand- writing, close to the page that records the burial, on the same day, of Mrs. (Anne Hath- away) Shakespeare, widow, and Anna, wife of Richard James. But folly needs only a slender hook on which to hang itself. John Baskerville, the famous printer, 1706- 98 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD 1775, was born in Worcester, and his remains, the burial-place of which was long unknown, have been discovered there. Incledon, the singer, died there. Prince Arthur (1486- 1502), eldest son of King Henry the Seventh, was buried in Worcester Cathedral, where a beautiful chantry, built in 1504, contains his remains. Bishop John Gauden (1605-1662), who, it is believed, wrote the "Eikon Basilike," — long generally attributed to King Charles the First, — rests there. The body of the Duke of Hamilton was transferred to that place, from a temporary grave in the Commandery. In the centre of the sacrarium stands the tomb of the cruel King John, who died, October 19, 1216, at Newark. That tomb was opened, July 17, 1797, in a quest for the discovery of the sepulchre of that sovereign, and there is an interesting account of the exploration, written by Valentine Green, in that year. Making a visit to the neighboring city of Gloucester, it was my privilege to see the Shakespeare relics that are, or that were, pre- served there, in a dwelling in Westgate Street, THE FAITHFUL CITY 99 occupied by the Messrs. Fletcher, dealers in fire-arms. Mrs. E. Fletcher, who died in 1890, at an advanced age, claimed to be a collateral descendant from Shakespeare, and she always strenuously maintained that those memorials of the poet, a Jug and a Cane, had been handed down, in her family, through succeeding generations, from Shakespeare's time. Tradition declares that Shakespeare once owned those articles, and the devotional care with which they have been guarded is a proof that the tradition has not lacked power. Each of them was enclosed in a case of wood and glass, and I found the cases in a locked room. The Jug, made of stone- ware, is of a simple form, having pannelled sides, with figures embossed upon them, and it is surmounted by a metal lid. The Cane is a Malacca joint, about four feet long. As it was enclosed I could not take it into my hands for close examination, but I saw that it is such a cane as was customarily carried in the days of Queen Elizabeth and King James the First. Miss Fletcher, who 100 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD showed those relics, spoke of them with venera- tion, and she displayed a large box of papers, written and printed, relative to their history. "They are not now for sale," she said, "but they will be hereafter." They have been several times publicly exhibited, and they are freely shown to the wanderer who takes the trouble to inquire for them. An effigy of Shakespeare was one of the embellishments of the little room in which they were enshrined, and it was not difficult, when standing in their presence, in the ancient city of Gloucester, with haunting historic shapes on every hand, to credit their authenticity as objects that the poet had known and touched. VI. LICHFIELD AND DR. JOHNSON. To a man of letters there is no name in the long annals of English literature more interesting and significant than that of Samuel Johnson. It has been said that no other man was ever subjected to such a light as Boswell threw upon Johnson, and that few other men could have endured it as well. He was in many ways noble, but of all men of letters he is especially noble as the champion of literature. He vindicated the profession of the writer. He lived by the pen, and he taught the great world, once for all, that it is honorable so to live. That lesson was needed in the England of his period, and from that period onward the literary vocation has steadily been held in higher esteem than it enjoyed up to that time. The reader will not be surprised 101 102 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD that one of the humblest of his followers should linger for a while in the ancient town that is glorified by association with his illustrious name, or should write a word of fealty and homage in the birthplace of Dr. Johnson. Lichfield is a cluster of commonplace streets and of red-brick and stucco buildings, lying in a vale northward from Birmingham, diversified by a couple of artificial lakes and glorified by one of the loveliest churches in Europe. Lich- field Cathedral, although an ancient structure, — dating back, indeed, to the early part of the twelfth century, — has been so badly battered, and so considerably "restored," that it presents the aspect of a building almost modern. The denotements of antiquity, however, are not entirely absent from it, and it is not less venerable than majestic. No one of the cathedrals of England presents a more beauti- ful front. The multitudinous statues of saints and kings that are upon it create an impres- sion of royal opulence. The carving upon the recesses of the great doorways on the north and west is of astonishing variety and loveli- 1 ,-„-.':,, ;. , .^ -** • >5* a LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL— WEST FRONT Most beautiful! I gaze and gaze In alienee on the glorious pile. And the glad thoughts of other days Come thronging back the while. PRAED. LICHFIELD AND DR. JOHNSON 103 ness. The massive doors of dark oak, fretted with ironwork of rare delicacy, are impressive and are exceptionally suitable for such an edifice. Seven of the large Gothic windows in the chancel are filled with genuine old glass, — not, indeed, the glass they originally contained, for that was broken by the Puritan fanatics, but a great quantity (no less than three hundred and forty panes, each about twenty-two inches square), made in Germany, in the early part of the sixteenth century, when the art of staining glass was practised in per- fection. This treasure was given to the Cathedral by a liberal friend, Sir Brooke Boothby, who had obtained it by purchase, in 1802, from the dissolved Abbey of Hercken- rode. No such color as that old glass presents can be seen in the glass that is manufactured now. It is imitated, indeed, but it does not last. The subjects portrayed in those sump- tuous windows are mostly scriptural, but the centre window on the north side of the chancel is devoted to portraits of noblemen, one of them being Errard de la Marck, who was 104 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD enthroned Bishop of Liege in 1505, and who, toward the end of his stormy life, adopted the old Roman motto, comprehensive and final, which, a little garbled, appears in the glass beneath his heraldic arms: Deciplmus votis; et tempore fallimur; Et Mors deridet curas ; anxia vita nihil. The father of the elegant Joseph Addison was Dean of Lichfield from 1688 to 1703, and his remains are buried in the ground, near the west door of the church. The stately Latin epitaph was written by his son. This and several other epitaphs here attract the inter- ested attention of literary students. A tablet on the north wall, in the porch, commemorates the courage and sagacity of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who introduced into Eng- land the practice of inoculation for the small- pox. Anna Seward, the poet, who died in 1809, aged sixty-six, and who was one of the friends of Dr. Johnson, was buried and is commemorated here, and the fact that she placed a tablet here, in memory of her father, LICHFIELD AND DR. JOHNSON 105 is celebrated in sixteen eloquent, felicitous lines by Sir Walter Scott. That father, a canon of Lichfield, died in 1790. The reader of Bos- well will not fail to remark the epitaph on Gilbert Walmesley, once registrar of the ecclesiastical court of Lichfield, and one of Dr. Johnson's friends. Of Chappel Wood- house it is significantly said, upon his memorial stone, that he was "lamented most by those who knew him best." Here the pilgrim sees two of the best works of Sir Francis Chantrey, — one called "The Sleeping Children," placed in 1817, in memory of two young daughters of the Rev. William Robinson; the other a kneeling figure of Bishop Ryder, who died in 1836. The former was one of the earliest triumphs of Chantrey, — an exquisite semblance of heavenly innocence and purity. Chantrey had seen the beautiful sculpture of little Penel- ope Boothby, in Ashbourne church, Derby- shire, made by Thomas Banks, and he may have been inspired by that spectacle. Near by is placed one of the most sumptuous monu- ments in England, a recumbent statue, made 106 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD by the master-hand of Watts, the painter, representing Bishop Lonsdale, who died in 1867. That figure, in which the modelling is very beautiful and expressive, rests upon a bed of marble and alabaster. In Chantrey's statue of Bishop Ryder, which seems no effigy, but indeed the living man, there is marvellous per- fection of drapery, — the marble having the effect of flowing silk. Here also, in the south transept, is the urn of the Gastrell family, formerly of Stratford-upon-Avon, to whom was due the destruction (1759) of the house of New Place, in which Shakespeare died. No mention of the Rev. Mr. Gastrell occurs in the epitaph, but copious eulogium is lavished on his widow, both in verse and prose, and she must indeed have been a good woman, if the line is true which describes her as "A friend to want when each false friend withdrew." Her chief title to remembrance, however, like that of her husband, is a painful association with one of the most sacred of literary shrines. In 1776 Johnson, accompanied by Boswell, visited Lichfield, and Boswell records that they LICHFIELD AND DR. JOHNSON 107 dined with Mrs. Gastrell and her sister Mrs. Aston. The Rev. Mr. Gastrell was then dead. "I was not informed till afterward," says Bos- well, "that Mrs. Gastrell's husband was the clergyman who, while he lived at Stratford- upon-Avon, with Gothic barbarity cut down Shakespeare's mulberry-tree, and as Dr. John- son told me, did it to vex his neighbors. His lady, I have reason to believe, on the same authority, participated in the guilt of what enthusiasts of our immortal bard deem almost a species of sacrilege." Upon the ledge of a casement on the east side of the chancel, separated by the central lancet of a threefold window, stand the marble busts of Samuel Johnson and David Garrick. Side by side they went through life, side by side their ashes repose in the great Abbey at West- minster, and side by side they are commemo- rated in Lichfield Cathedral. Both the busts were made by Richard Westmacott. The head of Johnson appears without his customary wig. The colossal individuality of the man plainly declares itself, in form and pose, in every line 108 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD of the eloquent face, and in the dignity of sug- gested carriage and action. This work was based on a cast, taken after death. The head is massive yet graceful, denoting a compact brain and great natural refinement of intellect. The brow is indicative of uncommon sweetness. The eyes are finely shaped. The nose is prominent, long, and slightly aquiline, with wide, sensitive nostrils. The mouth is large, and the lips are slightly parted, as if in speech. Prodigious perceptive faculties are indicated in the forehead, a peculiarity also especially characteristic in the bust of Gar- rick. The total expression of the countenance is benignant, yet troubled and rueful. It is a thoughtful, venerable face, and yet it is the passionate face of a man who has passed through many storms of self-conflict and been much ravaged by spiritual pain. The face of Garrick, on the contrary, is eager, animated, triumphant, happy, showing a nature of abso- lute simplicity, a sanguine temperament, and a mind that tempests may have ruffled but never convulsed. Garrick kept his "storm and LICHFIELD AND DR. JOHNSON 109 stress" for his tragic performances; there was no particle of it in his personal experience. It was good to see those old friends thus associated in the beautiful church that they knew and loved in the sweet days when their friend- ship had just begun and their labors and their honors were all before them. I placed myself where, during the service, I could look upon both the busts at once; and presently, in the deathlike silence, after the last response of evensong had died away, I could well believe that those comrades of fancy were kneeling beside me, as so often they must have knelt beneath this glorious roof: and for one wor- shipper the beams of the sinking sun, that made a solemn splendor through the church, illumined visions no mortal eyes could see. Beneath the bust of Johnson, upon a stone slab affixed to the wall, appears this inscrip- tion: THE FRIENDS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D., A NATIVE OF LICHFIELD, ERECTED THIS MONUMENT AS A TRIBUTE OF RESPECT TO THE MEMORY OF A MAN OF EXTENSIVE LEARNING, A DISTINGUISHED MORAL WRITER AND A SIN- 110 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD CEEE CHRISTIAN. HE DIED THE 13TH OF DECEMBER, 1784, AGED 75 YEARS. A similar stone beneath the bust of Gar- rick is inscribed as follows: EVA MARIA, RELICT OF DAVID GARRICK, ESQ., CAUSED THIS MONUMENT TO BE ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF HER BELOVED HUSBAND, WHO DIED THE 20TH OF JANU- ARY 1779, AGED 63 YEARS. HE HAD NOT ONLY THE AMIABLE QUALITIES OF PRIVATE LIFE, BUT SUCH ASTON- ISHING DRAMATICK TALENTS AS TOO WELL VERIFIED THE OBSERVATION OF HIS FRIEND : " HIS DEATH ECLIPSED THE GAYETY OF NATIONS AND IMPOVERISHED THE PUB- LICK STOCK OF HARMLESS PLEASURE." This "observation" is the well-known eulogium of Johnson, who, however much he may have growled about Garrick, always loved him and deeply mourned for him. The house in which Johnson was born stands at the corner of Market Street and Bread- market Street, facing the little market-place of Lichfield. It is an old building, three stories in height, having a long, peaked roof. The lower story is recessed, so that the entrance is sheltered by a pent. Its two doors, LICHFIELD AND DR. JOHNSON 111 — for the structure now consists of two tene- ments, — are approached by low stone steps, guarded by an iron rail. There are ten windows, five in each row, in the front of the upper stories. The pent-roof is supported by three sturdy pillars. The house has a front of stucco. Here old Michael Johnson kept his bookshop, in the days of good Queen Anne, and from this door young Samuel Johnson went forth to his school and his play. The whole various, pathetic, impressive story of his long, laborious, sturdy, beneficent life drifts through your mind as you stand at that threshold and conjure up the pictures of the Past. Opposite to the house, and facing it, is the statue of Johnson, presented to Lichfield, in 1838, by James Thomas Law, then Chan- cellor of the diocese. On the sides of its massive pedestal are sculptures, showing first the boy, borne on his father's shoulders, listen- ing to the preaching of Dr. Sacheverell; then the youth, victorious in school, carried aloft in triumph by his admiring comrades; and, finally, the renowned scholar and author, in the 112 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD meridian of his greatness, standing bareheaded in the market-place of Uttoxeter, doing pen- ance for his undutiful refusal, when a lad, to relieve his weary, infirm father in the work of tending the bookstall at that place. Every one knows that touching story, and no one who thinks of it when standing there will gaze with any feeling but that of reverence, com- mingled with the wish to lead a true and simple life, upon the noble, thoughtful face and figure of the great moralist, who now seems to look down with benediction upon the scenes of his youth. The statue, which is in striking contrast with the humble birth- place, points the expressive moral of a splendid career. Johnson was not a great creative poet; neither a Shakespeare, a Dryden, a Byron, nor a Tennyson; but he was a great prose writer and he was one of the most massive and majestic characters in English litera- ture. A superb example of self-conquest and moral supremacy, a mine of extensive and diversified learning, an intellect remarkable for deep penetration and broad and generally sure LICHFIELD AND DR. JOHNSON 113 grasp of great subjects, he exerted, as few men have ever exerted, the original, elemental force of genius; and his immortal legacy to his fellow-men was an abiding influence for good. The world is better and happier because of him, and because of the many earnest characters and honest lives that his example has inspired; and this cradle of great- ness should be preserved for every succeeding generation as long as time endures. One of the interesting features of Lichfield is an inscription that vividly recalls the ancient strife of Roundhead and Cavalier, two cen- turies and a half ago. This is found upon a stone scutcheon, set in the wall over the door of the house that is No. 24 Dam Street, and these are its words: March 2d, 1643, Lord Brooke, a General of the Parliament Forces preparing to Besiege the Close of Lichfield, then garrisoned For King Charles the First, Received his deathwound on the spot Beneath this Inscription, By a shot in the forehead from Mr. Dyott, a gentleman who had placed himself on the Battle- ments of the great steeple, to annoy the Besiegers. 114 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD One of them he must have "annoyed" seriously. It was "a long shot, Sir Lucius," for, stand- ing on the place of that catastrophe and look- ing up to "the battlements of the great steeple," it seemed to have covered a distance of nearly four hundred feet. Other relics of those Roundhead wars were shown in the Cathedral, in an ancient room now used for the bishop's consistory court, — these being two cannon-balls, and the ragged and dusty fragments of a shell, that were dug out of the ground, near the church. Many such practical tokens of Puritan zeal have been dis- covered. Lichfield Cathedral Close, in the time of Bishop Walter de Langton, who died in 1321, was surrounded by a wall and fosse, and thereafter, whenever the wars came, it was used as a fortification. In the Stuart times it was often besieged. Sir John Gell succeeded Lord Brooke, when the latter had been shot by Mr. Dyott, — who is said to have been "deaf and dumb," but who evidently was not blind. The close was surrendered on March 5, LICHFIELD AND DR. JOHNSON 115 1643, and thereupon the Parliamentary victors, according to their ruthless and brutal custom, straightway ravaged the church, tearing the brasses from the tombs, breaking the effigies, and utterly despoiling beauty which it had taken generations of pious zeal and loving devotion to create. The great spire was bat- tered down by those vandals, and in falling it wrecked the chapter-house. The noble church, indeed, was made a ruin, and so it remained till 1661, when its munificent bene- factor, Bishop John Hacket, began its restora- tion, now happily almost complete. Prince Rupert captured Lichfield Close, for the king, in April, 1643, and General Lothian recovered it, for the Parliament, in the summer of 1646, after which time it was completely dismantled. King Charles the First came to this place after the fatal battle of Naseby, and sad enough that picturesque, vacillating, short- sighted, beatific aristocrat must have been, gaz- ing over the green fields of Lichfield, to know, — as surely even he must then have known, — that his cause was doomed, if not already lost. 116 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD It will not take you long to traverse Lich- field, and you can ramble all around it through little green lanes between hedgerows. That you will do if you are wise, for the walk, especially at evening, is peaceful and lovely. The wanderer never gets far away from the Cathedral. Those three superb spires steadily dominate the scene, and each new view of them seems fairer than the last. All around the little city the fields are richly green, and many trees diversify the prospect. Pausing to rest awhile, in the mouldering graveyard of old St. Chad's, I saw the rooks flocking homeward to the great tree-tops not far away, and heard their many querulous, sagacious, humorous croakings, while over the distance, borne upon the mild and fragrant evening breeze, floated the solemn note of a warning bell from the Cathedral tower, as the shadows deepened and the night came down. Scenes like that sink deep into the heart, and memory keeps them forever. VII. BOSWORTH AND KING RICHARD. The character of King Richard the Third has been distorted and maligned by the old historians from whose authority the accepted view of it is derived. He was a gallant soldier, a wise statesman, a judicious legislator, a natural ruler of men, and a prince highly accomplished in music and the fine arts and in the graces of social life. Some of the best laws ever enacted in England were enacted during his reign. His title to the throne of England was absolutely clear, as against the Earl of Richmond, and but for the treachery of some among his followers he would have prevailed in the contest on Bos worth Field, and would have vindicated and maintained that title over all opposition. He lost the battle, and he was too great a man to survive the 117 118 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD ruin of his fortunes. He threw away his life that day, in the last mad charge upon Rich- mond, and when once the grave had closed over him, and his usurping cousin had seized the English crown, it naturally must have become the easy as well as the politic business of history to blacken his character. England was never ruled by a more severe monarch than the austere, crafty, avaricious King Henry the Seventh, and it is certain that no word in praise of his predecessor could have been pub- licly said in England during King Henry's reign: neither would it have been wholly safe for anybody to speak for Richard and the House of York, in the time of King Henry the Eighth, the cruel Queen Mary, or the illustrious Queen Elizabeth. The drift, in fact, was all the other way. The "Life of Richard the Third," by Sir Thomas More, is the foun- tain-head of the other narratives of his career, and there can be no doubt that More, who as a youth had lived at Canterbury, in the palace of Archbishop Morton, derived his views of Richard from that prelate, — to whose hand, BOSWORTH AND RICHARD 119 indeed, the essential part of the "Life" has been attributed. Morton was Bishop of Ely when he deserted Richard, and King Henry the Seventh rewarded him by making him Archbishop of Canterbury. No man of the time was so little likely as Morton to take an unprejudiced view of King Richard the Third. It is the Morton view that has become history. The world still looks at Richard through the eyes of his victorious foe. Moreover, the Morton view has been stamped indelibly upon the imagination and the credulity of man- kind by the overwhelming, irresistible genius of Shakespeare, who wrote "King Richard III." in the reign of the granddaughter of King Henry the Seventh, and who, aside from the safeguard of discretion, saw dramatic possi- bilities in the man of dark passions and deeds that he could not have seen in a more virtuous monarch. Goodness, generally, is monotonous. "The low sun makes the color." It is not to be supposed that Richard was a model man, but there are good reasons for thinking that he was not as black as detraction has 120 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD painted him, and, good or bad, he is one of the most fascinating personalities that history and literature have made immortal. It was with no common emotion that I stood upon the summit of Amyon Hill and looked downward over the plain where King Richard fought his last fight and went gloriously to his death. The battle of Bos- worth Field was fought on August 22, 1485. More than four hundred years have passed since then, yet, except for the incursions of a canal and a railway, the aspect of that plain is but little changed from what it was when Richard surveyed it, on that gray, sombre morning when he beheld the forces of the Earl of Richmond advancing past the marsh and knew that the supreme crisis of his life had come. The Earl was pressing forward from Tamworth and Atherstone, which are in the northern part of Warwickshire, — the latter being close upon the Leicestershire border. His course was a little to the southeast, and Richard's forces, facing northwesterly^ con- fronted their enemies from the summit of a BOSWORTH AND RICHARD 121 long and gently sloping hill that extends for several miles, about east and west, from Bos- worth on the right, to the vicinity of Dadling- ton on the left. The king's position had been chosen with an excellent judgment that has more than once, in modern times, elicited the admiration of accomplished soldiers. His right wing, commanded by Lord Stanley, rested on Bosworth. His left was protected by a marsh. Sir William Stanley com- manded the left and had his headquarters in Dadlington. Richard rode in the centre. Far to the right he saw the clustered houses and the spire of Bosworth, and far to the left his glance rested on the little church of Dadlington. Below and in front of him all was open field, and all across that field waved the banners and sounded the trumpets of rebellion and defiance. It is easy to imagine the glowing emotions, — the implacable resent- ment, the passionate fury, and the deadly pur- pose of slaughter and vengeance, — with which the imperious and terrible monarch gazed on his approaching foes. They show, in a meadow, 122 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD a little way over the crest of the hill, where it is marked and partly covered now by a pyramidal structure of gray stones, suitably inscribed with a few commemorative lines, in Latin, a spring of water at which Richard paused to quench his thirst, before he made that last desperate charge on Redmore Heath, when at length he knew himself betrayed and abandoned, and felt that his only hope lay in killing the Earl of Richmond with his own hand. The fight at Bosworth was brief, — lasting less than two hours. Both the Stanleys deserted the king's standard, early in the fray. It was easy for them, posted as they were, to wheel their forces into the rear of the rebel army, at the right and at the left. Nothing then remained for Richard but to rush down upon the centre, where he saw the banner of Richmond, — borne, at that moment, by Sir William Brandon, — and to crush the treason at its head. It must have been a charge of tremendous impetuosity. It bore the fiery king a long way forward on the level plain. He struck down Brandon, cleaving his BOSWORTH AND RICHARD 123 helmet at a single blow. He struck down Sir John Cheyney, a man of almost gigantic stature. He plainly saw the Earl of Richmond, and came almost near enough to encounter him, when many swords were buried in his body, and he fell, beneath heaps of the slain. The place of his death is now the junction of three country roads, one leading north- west to Shenton, one southwest to Dadlington, and one bearing away easterly toward Bos- worth. A little brook, called Sandy Ford, flows underneath the road, and there is a con- siderable coppice in the field at the junction. Upon a prosaic sign-board appear the names of Dadlington and Hinckley. Not more than five hundred feet distant, to the eastward, rises the embankment of a branch of the Midland Railway, from Nuneaton to Leicester, while at about the same distance to the westward rises the similar embankment of a canal. No monu- ment has been erected to mark the spot where Richard was slain. They took up his mangled body, threw it across a horse, and carried it into the town of Leicester, and there it was 124 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD buried, in the church of the Gray Friars, — also the sepulchre of Cardinal Wolsey, — now a ruin. There it remained for almost half a century. One account relates that several years after the burial a monument was erected over Richard's grave, surmounted by an image of him, in alabaster, and that those memorials were destroyed at the time of the demolition of the religious houses, in the reign of King Henry the Eighth. The only commemorative mark upon the battlefield is the pyramid at the well, and that stands at a long distance from the place of the king's fall. I tried to picture the scene of his final charge and his frightful death, as I stood there upon the hill-side. Many little slate-colored clouds were drifting across a pale blue sky. A cool summer breeze was sighing in the branches of the neighboring trees. The bright green sod was alive with the sparkling yellow of the colt's-foot and the soft red of the clover. Birds were whistling from the coppice near by, and overhead the air was flecked with innumerable black pinions of fugitive rooks and starlings. It did not seem BOSWORTH AND RICHARD 125 possible that a sound of war or a deed of violence could ever have intruded to break the Sabbath stillness of that scene of peace. The water of King Richard's Well is a shallow pool, choked now with moss and weeds. The inscription, which was written by Dr. Samuel Parr, of Hatton, reads as follows: AQVA. EX. HOC. PVTEO. HAVSTA. SITIM. SEDAVIT. RICHAEDVS. TERTIVS. HEX. ANGLIAE CVM HENRICO. COMITE DE RICHMONDIA ACERRIME. ATQVE. INGENTISSIME. PRAELIANS ET. VITA. PARITER. AC. SCEPTRO ANTE NOCTEM. CARITVRUS H KA!L. SEP. A.D. M.C.C.C.C.LXXXV. There are five churches in the immediate neighborhood of Bosworth Field, all of which were, in one way or another, associated with that memorable battle. Ratcliffe Culey church has a low square tower and a short stone spire, and there is herbage growing upon its tower and its roof. It is a building of the fourteenth century, — one mark of this period being its perpendicular stone font, — an octagon 126 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD in shape, and much frayed by time. In three arches of its chancel, on the south side, the sculpture shows tri-foliated forms, of excep- tional beauty. In the east window there are fragments of old glass, rich in color and quaint and singular. The churchyard is full of odd gravestones, various in shape and irregular in position. An ugly slate-stone is much used in Leicestershire for monuments to the dead. Most of those stones record modern burials, the older graves being unmarked. The grass grows thick and dense, all over the church- yard. Upon the church walls are several fine specimens of those mysterious ray and circle marks which have long been a puzzle to the archaeological explorer. Such marks are usually found in the last bay but one, on the south side of the nave, toward the west end of the church. On Ratcliffe Culey church they con- sist of central points with radial lines, like a star, but these are not enclosed, as often happens, with circle lines. Various theories have been advanced, by antiquarians, to account for these designs. Probably those marks were BOSWORTH AND RICHARD 127 cut upon the churches, by the pious monks of old, as emblems of eternity. Shenton Hall, 1629, long and still the seat of the Woollastons, stood directly in the path of the combatants at Bosworth Field, and the fury of the battle must have raged all around it. The Hall has been recased, and, except for its old gatehouse and semi-octagon bays, which are of the Tudor style, it presents a modern aspect. Its windows open toward Redmore Heath and Ambien Hill, the scene of the conflict between the Red Rose and the White. The church has been entirely rebuilt, — a handsome edifice, of crucial form, containing costly pews, of old oak, together with interesting brasses and busts, taken from the old church which it has replaced. The brasses commemorate Richard Coate and Joyce his wife, and Richard Everard and his wife, and are dated 1556, 1597, and 1616. The busts are of white marble, dated 1666, and are commemorative of William Woollaston and his wife, once lord and lady of the manor of Shenton. It was the rule, in building 128 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD churches, that one end should face to the east and the other to the west, but you frequently find an old church that is set at a slightly different angle, — that, namely, at which the sun arose on the birthday of the saint to whom the church was dedicated. The style of large east and west windows, with trefoil or other ornamentation in the heads of the arches, came into vogue about the time of King Edward the First. Traces of the earthworks that were con- structed by King Richard's command, at Dad- lington, are still visible. Dadlington church has almost crumbled to pieces, but it will be restored. It is a diminutive structure, with a wooden tower, stuccoed walls, and a tiled roof, and it stands in a graveyard full of scattered mounds and slate-stone monuments. It was built in Norman times, and although still used it has long been little better than a ruin. One of the bells in its tower is marked "Thomas Arnold fecit, 1763." The church contains two pointed arches, and across its nave are five massive oak beams, almost black with age. The BOSWORTH AND RICHARD 129 plaster ceiling has fallen, in several places, so that patches of laths are visible in the roof. The pews are square, box-like structures, made of oak and very old. The altar is a plain oak table, supported on carved legs, covered with a cloth. On the west wall appears a tablet, inscribed, "Thomas Eames, church-warden, 1773." Many human skeletons, arranged in regular tiers, were found in Dadlington churchyard, when a revered clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Bourne, was buried, in 1881, and it is believed that those are remains of men who fell at Bos worth Field. The only inn at this lonely place bears the quaint name of The Dog and Hedgehog. The following queer epitaph appears upon a gravestone in Dadlington churchyard. It is Thomas Bolland, 1765, who thus expresses his mind, in mortuary reminiscence: I lov'd my Honour'd Parents dear, I lov'd my Wife's and Children dear, And hope in Heaven to meet them there. I lov'd my Brothers & Sisters too, And hope I shall them in Heaven view. 130 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD I lov'd my Vncle's, Aunt's, & Cousin's too And I pray God to give my children grace the same to do. Stoke-Golding church was built in the four- teenth century. It stands now, a gray and melancholy relic of other days, strange and forlorn, yet august and stately, in a little brick village, the streets of which are paved, like those of a city, with blocks of stone. It is regarded as one of the best specimens extant of the decorative style of early English eccle- siastical architecture. It has a fine tower and spire, and it consists of nave, chantry, and south aisle. There is a perforated parapet on one side, but not on the other. The walls of the nave and the chancel are continuous. The pinnacles, though decayed, show that they must have been beautifully carved. One of the decorative pieces upon one of them is a rabbit, with his ears laid back. Lichen and grass are growing on the tower and on the walls. The roof is of oak, the mouldings of the arches are exceptionally graceful, and the capitals of the five main columns present, in marked diversity, BOSWORTH AND RICHARD 131 carvings of faces, flowers, and leaves. The tomb of the founder is on the north side, and the stone pavement is everywhere lettered with inscriptions of burial. There is a fine mural brass, bearing the name of Brokesley, 1633, and a superb "stocke chest," 1636, and there is a sculptured font, of exquisite symmetry. Some of the carving upon the oak roof is more grotesque than decorative, — but this is true of most other carving to be found in ancient churches; such, for example, as you can see under the miserere seats in the chancel of Trinity church at Stratford-upon-Avon. There was formerly some beautiful old stained glass in the east window of Stoke-Golding church, but it has disappeared. A picturesque stone slab, set upon the church wall outside, arrests atten- tion by its pleasing shape, its venerable aspect, and its decayed lettering; the date is 1684. Many persons slain at Bosworth Field were buried in Stoke-Golding churchyard, and over their nameless graves the long grass is waving, in indolent luxuriance and golden light. So Nature hides waste and forgets pain. Near 132 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD to this village is Crown Hill, where the Crown of England was taken from a hawthorn bush, whereon it had been cast, in the frenzied con- fusion of defeat, after the battle of Bos worth was over and the star of King Richard had gone down in death. Crown Hill is a green meadow now, without distinguishing feature, except that two large trees, each having a double trunk, are growing in the middle of it. Not distant from this historic spot stands Higham-on-the-Hill, where there is a fine church, remarkable for its Norman tower. From this village the view is magnificent, — embracing all that section of Leicestershire which is thus haunted with memories of King Richard and of the carnage that marked the final conflict of the White and Red roses. VIII. OLD YORK. My first prospect of old York was a prospect through drizzle and mist, yet even so it was impressive. York is one of the quaintest cities in the kingdom. Many of the streets are narrow and crooked. Most of the buildings are of low stature, built of brick and roofed with red tiles. Here and there you find a house of Queen Elizabeth's time, picturesque with overhanging timber-crossed fronts and peaked gables. One such house, in Stonegate, is conspicuously marked with its date, 1574. Another, in College Street, enclos- ing a quadrangular court and lovely with old timber and carved gateway, was built by the Neville family, in 1460. There is a wide area in the centre of the town called Parliament Street, where the market is opened, by torch- 133 134 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD light, on certain evenings of every week. It was market-time when I entered the city, and, wandering through the motley and merry crowd that filled the square, about nine o'clock at night, I bought, at a flower-stall, the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster, — twining them as an emblem of the settled peace that now and here broods so sweetly over the venerable relics of a wild and stormy Past. Four sections of the old Wall of York are still extant, and the observer is amused to per- ceive the ingenuity with which those gray, mouldering remnants of the feudal age are blended into the structures of the democratic present. From Bootham to Monk Gate, — so named at the Restoration, in honor of Gen- eral Monk, — a distance of about half a mile, the wall is absorbed by the adjacent buildings; but you can walk upon it from Monk Gate to Jewbury, about a quarter of a mile, and afterward, crossing the Foss, you can find it again on the southeast of the city, and walk upon it from Red Tower to old Fishergate, 3 ® 5 «. £ g o ^_ S ■«» ^ a ^ r. 5 >" i. ~~ w 3 £ *53 >. ~- • — 5 .i -i | a rv> ^ 2 -I- * s w ^1°§ r V -« a, ^ ° 5 ?^ 53 OLD YORK 135 descending near York Castle. There are houses within the walls and without. The walk is about eight feet wide, protected on one hand by a fretted battlement and on the other by an occasional bit of iron fence. The base of the Wall, for a considerable part of its extent, is fringed with market gardens or with grassy banks. In one of its towers there is a gate-house, occupied as a dwelling, and a comfortable dwelling no doubt it is. In another, of which nothing now remains but the walls, four large trees are rooted, and, as they are tall enough to wave their leafy tops above the battlement, they must have been growing there for many years. At one point a railroad track has been laid, through an arch in the ancient wall, and as you look down from the battlements your gaze rests upon long lines of rail and a spacious station, together with its adjacent hotel, objects which consort but strangely with what your fancy knows of York, — a city of donjons and barbicans, the moat, the draw-bridge, the portcullis, the citadel, the man-at-arms, and the knight in 136 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD armor, with the banners of William the Nor- man flowing over all. The river Ouse divides the city of York, which lies mostly upon its east bank, and in order to reach the longest and most attractive portion of the Wall that is now accessible to the pedestrian you must cross the Ouse, either at Skeldergate or Lendal, paying a halfpenny toll, both when you go and when you return. The walk here is three-quarters of a mile long, and from an angle of this wall, just above the railway arch, can be obtained the best view of the mighty Cathedral, — one of the most sublime works that have been created by the inspired brain and loving labor of man. While I walked there, at night, and mused upon the story of the Wars of the Roses, and strove to conjure up the pageants and the horrors that must have been presented, all about this region, in that remote, turbulent past, the glorious bells of the Minster were chiming from its towers, while the inspirit- ing breeze, sweet with the fragrance of wet flowers and foliage, seemed to flood the ancient, OLD YORK 137 venerable city with the golden music of a celestial benediction. The pilgrim to York stands in the centre of the largest shire in England, and is surrounded by castles and monasteries, now mostly in ruins, but teeming with those associations of history and literature that are the glory of this delightful land. From the summit of the great central tower of the Cathedral, which is reached by two hundred and thirty-seven steps, I gazed, one morning, over the vale of York and beheld one of the loveliest spec- tacles that ever blessed the eyes of man. The wind was fierce, the sun brilliant, and the van- quished storm-clouds were streaming away before the northern blast. Far beneath lay the red-roofed city, its devious lanes and its many gray churches, — crumbling relics of ancient ecclesiastical power, — distinctly visible. Through the plain and far away toward the south and east ran the silver thread of the Ouse, while all around, as far as the eye could see, stretched forth a smiling landscape of green meadow and cultivated field; here a patch of 138 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD woodland, and there a silver gleam of wave; here a manor-house nestled amid stately trees, and there an ivy-covered fragment of ruined masonry; and everywhere the green lines of the flowering hedge. The prospect is even finer here than it is from the splendid sum- mit of Strasburg Cathedral; and indeed, when all is said that can be said about sympathetic natural scenery and architectural sublimities, it seems strange that any lover of the beautiful should deem it necessary to quit the affluent variety of the British Islands, in his quest of it. Earth cannot show you anything more softly fair than the lakes and mountains of Cumber- land and Westmoreland: no city can excel Edin- burgh in stately solidity of character, or tranquil grandeur, or magnificence of position: the most exquisitely beautiful of small churches is Roslin Chapel: and though you search the wide world through you will never find such cathedrals, — so fraught with majesty, sublimity, the loveliness of human art, and the ecstatic sense of a divine element in human destiny, — as those of York, Canterbury, Gloucester, and OLD YORK 139 Lincoln. While thus I lingered, in wondering meditation, upon the crag-like summit of York Minster, the muffled thunder of its vast, sonorous organ rose, rolling and throbbing, from the mysterious depth below, and shook the great tower as with a mighty blast of jubi- lation and worship. At such moments, if ever, when the tones of human adoration are floating up to heaven, a man is lifted out of himself and made to forget his puny mortal existence and all the petty nothings that weary his spirit, darken his vision, and weigh him down to the level of a sordid, trivial world. Well did they know this, — those old monks who built the abbeys of Britain, laying their foundations not alone deeply in the earth but deeply in the human soul! All the ground that you survey from the top of York Minster is classic ground, — at least to those persons in whom imagination is kindled by associations with the stately, storied Past. In the city that lies at your feet once stood the potent Constantine, to be proclaimed 140 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD Emperor, A.D. 306, and to be vested with the imperial purple of Rome. In the original York Minster (the present is the fourth church that has been erected upon this site), was buried that valiant soldier "old Siward," whom "gracious England" lent to the Scottish cause, under Malcolm and Macduff, when time at length was ripe for the ruin of Glamis and Cawdor. Close by is the field of Stamford, where Harold defeated the Norwegians, with terrible slaughter, only nine days before he was himself defeated, and slain, at Hastings. Southward, following the line of the Ouse, you look down upon the ruins of Clifford's Tower, built by King William the Conqueror, in 1068, and destroyed by the explosion of its powder magazine in 1684. Not far away is the battlefield of Towton. King Henry the Sixth and Queen Margaret were waiting in York for news of the event of that fatal battle, — which, in its effect, made them exiles, and bore to supremacy the rightful standard of the White Rose. In this church King Edward the Fourth was crowned, 1464, and OLD YORK 141 King Richard the Third was proclaimed king and had his second coronation. Southward you can see the open space called the Pavement, connecting with Parliament Street, and the red brick church of St. Crux. In the Pavement the Earl of Northumberland was beheaded, for treason against Queen Elizabeth, in 1572, and in St. Crux, one of Wren's chuBches, his remains lie buried, beneath a dark blue slab, which is shown to visitors. A few miles away, but easily within reach of your vision, is the field of Marston Moor, where the impetuous Prince Rupert imperilled and well-nigh lost the cause of King Charles the First, in 1644; and as you look toward that fatal spot you almost hear, in the cham- ber of your fancy, the pagans of thanksgiving, for the victory, that were uttered in the church beneath. Cromwell, then a subordinate officer in the Parliamentary army, was one of the worshippers. Of the fifteen kings, from William of Normandy to Henry of Windsor, whose sculptured effigies appear upon the chancel screen in York Minster, there is 142 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD scarcely one who has not worshipped in this Cathedral. No description can convey an adequate im- pression of the grandeur of the Minster. Can- terbury is the lovelier cathedral of the two, though not the grander, and Canterbury pos- sesses the inestimable advantage of a spacious Close. It must be said also, for the city of Canterbury, that the presence and influence of a great church are more distinctly and delightfully felt in that place than they are in York. There is a more spiritual tone at Canterbury, a tone of superior delicacy and refinement, a certain aristocratic coldness and repose. In York you perceive the coarse spirit of a democratic era. The Walls, which ought to be cherished with scrupulous care, are found, in many places, to be ill-used. At intervals along the walks upon the banks of the Ouse you behold placards requesting the co-operation of the public in protecting from harm the swans that navigate and adorn the river. Even in the Cathedral itself there is displayed a printed notice that the Dean and Chapter are sur- ~ © °> s s "2 § v = « .2 | g & ;©> ^~~- ■*• -^ * ~^ ^ • -SS .2- 1 -i '- ~= > - 2 8 S © -? s s OLD YORK 143 prised at disturbances which occur in the nave while divine service is proceeding in the choir. These facts imply a rough element in the population, and in such a place as York such an element is exceptionally offensive and deplorable. It was said by the wise Lord Beaconsfield that true progress in the nineteenth century is found to consist chiefly in a return to ancient ideas. There may be places to which the char- acteristic spirit of the present day contributes an element of beauty, but, if so, I have not seen them. Wherever there is beauty there is the living force of tradition to account for it. The most that a conservative force in society can accomplish, for the preservation of an instinct in favor of whatever is beautiful and impressive, is to protect what remains from the Past. Modern Edinburgh, for example, has contributed no building that is comparable with its glorious old Castle, or with Roslin, or with what we know to have been Melrose or Dryburgh; but its Castle and its chapels are protected and preserved. York, 1U GRAY DAYS AND GOLD in the present day, erects a commodious rail- way-station and a sumptuous hotel, and spans its ample river with two splendid bridges; but its modern architecture is puerile beside that of its ancient Minster, and so its best work, after all, is the preservation of its Cathedral. The observer finds it difficult to understand how anybody, however lowly born, or poorly endowed, or meanly nurtured, can live within the presence of that heavenly building, and not be purified and exalted by the contempla- tion of so much majesty, and by its constantly •irradiative force of religious sentiment and power. But the spirit which in the past created objects of beauty and adorned common life with visible manifestations of the celestial aspiration in human nature had constantly to struggle against insensibility or violence, and even so the few who have inherited that spirit in the present day are compelled steadily to combat the hard materialism and gross animal proclivities of the new age. What a comfort their souls must find in such an edifice as that of York! What a OLD YORK 145 solace and what an inspiration! There it stands, symbolizing, as no other object on earth can ever do, except one of its own great kindred, the promise of immortal life to man, and man's pathetic faith in that promise. Dark and lonely it comes back upon my vision, but during all hours of its daily and nightly life sentient, eloquent, vital, participating in all the thought, conduct, and experience of those who dwell around it. A solemn peal of its bells that I heard one night was for Canon Baillie, one of the oldest and most beloved and venerated of its clergy. At morning, sitting in its choir, I listened to a thoughtful eulogy, simply and sweetly spoken by the aged Dean, and once more learned the essential lesson that an old age of grace, patience, and benignity means a pure heart, an unselfish spirit, and a good life passed in the service of others. At afternoon I had a place among the worshippers that thronged the nave to hear the special anthem chanted for the deceased Canon, and, as the organ pealed forth its sonorous music and the rich voices of the choristers swelled 146 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD and surged in golden waves of melody upon the groined arches and vaulted roof, my soul seemed borne away to a peace and rest that are not of this world. To-night the rising moon, as she gleams through drifting clouds, will pour her silver rays upon that great east window, and the saintly stories told there in exquisite hues and forms will glow with heavenly lustre on the dark vista of chancel and nave, and when morning comes the first beams of the rising sun will stream through the great casement and illumine the figures of saints and archbishops, and gild the tattered battle-flags in the chancel aisle, and touch with blessing the marble effigies of the dead; and they who walk there, refreshed and comforted, will feel that the vast Cathedral is indeed the gateway to heaven. York is the loftiest of all the English cathedrals, and the third in length, — both St. Albans and Winchester being longer. The present structure is six hundred years old, and more than two hundred years were occu- pied in the building of it. They show you, OLD YORK 147 in the crypt, some fine remains of the Norman church that preceded it, on the same site, together with traces of the still older Saxon church that preceded the Norman. The first one was of wood and was totally destroyed. The Saxon remains are a fragment of stone staircase and a piece of wall built in the ancient herring-bone fashion. The Norman remains are four clustered columns, embellished in the zigzag style. There is not much of commemorative statuary at York, and what there is of it was placed chiefly in the chancel. Archbishop Richard Scrope, who figures in Shakespeare's historical play of "King Henry IV.," and who was beheaded, for treason, in 1405, was buried in the lady chapel. Laurence Sterne's grandfather, who was chaplain to Laud, is represented there, in his ecclesiastical dress, reclining upon a couch and supporting his mitred head upon his hand. Many historic names occur in the inscriptions, — Wentworth, Finch, Fenwick, Carlisle, and Heneage, — and in the north aisle of the chancel is the tomb of William of Hatfield, second son of King 148 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD Edward the Third, who died in 1343-44, in the eighth year of his age. An alabaster statue of the royal boy reclines upon his tomb. In the Cathedral library, which contains eight thousand volumes and is kept at the Deanery, is the Princess Elizabeth's prayer-book, con- taining her autograph. In one of the chapels is the original throne-chair of King Edward the Third. In St. Leonard's Place still stands the York Theatre, erected by Tate Wilkinson, in 1765. In York Castle Eugene Aram was imprisoned and suffered death. The poet and bishop Beilby Porteus, the sculptor Flaxman, the grammarian Lindley Murray, and the fanatic Guy Fawkes were natives of York, and have often walked its streets. Standing on Skelder- gate bridge, few readers of English fiction could fail to recall that exquisite description of the place, in the novel of "No Name." In his artistic use of weather, atmosphere, and color Wilkie Collins is always remarkable equally for his fidelity to nature, and for the felicity and excellence of his language. His OLD YORK 149 portrayal of York seems more than ever a gem of literary art, when you have seen the veritable spot of poor Magdalen's meeting with Captain Wragge. The name of Wragge is on one of the signboards in the city. The river, on which I did not omit to sail, was picturesque, with many quaint barges, bearing masts and sails, and embellished with touches of green, crimson, and blue. There is no end to the associations and suggestions of the storied city, and there can be no end to the pleasure with which it is remembered. IX. STRATFORD GLEANINGS. In all England there is not a cleaner, more decorous, or more restful town than Stratford-upon-Avon, and even to look upon it is to receive a suggestion of peace and comfort. The red brick dwellings shine among the trees, the flower-spangled meadows stretch away, in every direction, and the green hills, sprinkled with copse and villa, glimmer through mist, all round the lovely Vale of the Red Horse, — Welcombe in the north, with its con- spicuous monuments ; Meon in the south, rugged and bold; Red Hill in the west, and far away eastward, beyond a wide, smiling area of farms and villages, the crests of Edgehill, at Radley and Rising Sun, where once the armies of King Charles the First confronted their Round- head foe. The face of England can wear 150 STRATFORD GLEANINGS 151 many expressions, but when propitious it is a face which to see is to love, and nowhere is it more propitious than in stately Warwick- shire and around the home of Shakespeare. After repeated visits to Shakespeare's Town the traveller begins to observe more closely than perhaps at first he did its everyday life and its environment. I have rambled through fragrant fields to Clifford church, and strolled through green lanes to romantic Preston, and climbed Borden Hill, and stood by the May-pole on Welford Common, and journeyed along the battle-haunted crest of Edgehill, and rested at venerable Compton-Wynyates, and climbed the hills of Welcombe to peer into the darkening valleys of the Avon and hear the cuckoo-note echoed and re-echoed from rhododendron groves and from the great, mysterious elms that embower the countryside for miles and miles around. This is the everyday life of Strat- ford, — fertile farms, garnished meadows, ave- nues of white and coral hawthorn, masses of milky snow-ball, honeysuckle, and syringa load- ing the soft air with fragrance, chestnuts 152 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD dropping blooms of pink and white, and labur- nums swinging their golden censers in the breeze. The building that forms the southeast corner of High Street and Bridge Street in Stratford was once occupied by Thomas Quiney, wine- dealer, who married the poet's youngest daugh- ter, Judith, and an inscription appears upon it, stating that Judith lived in it for thirty- six years. Richard Savage, that competent, patient, diligent student of the church registers and other documentary treasures of Warwickshire, furnished proof of this fact, from investigation of the town records, that being only one of many services that he has rendered to the old home of Shakespeare. Standing in the cellar of this house I saw that its walls are four feet thick. Also I saw many pieces of old oak, which, I was informed, had been taken from the bell-tower of the Shake- speare Church, in 1887, when a new frame was installed to sustain a chime of heavy bells, and which would, eventually, be converted into vari- ous carvings, to tempt the taste of enthusiasts of STRATFORD GLEANINGS 153 Shakespeare. In the poet's time the bell-tower was surmounted, not as now by a graceful stone spire, but by a spire of timber, covered with lead. That was removed, and was replaced by the stone spire, in 1746. The oak frame to sup- port the bells, however, had been in the tower more than three hundred years. A spiral stair of forty-five steps gives access, for the sedulous explorer, to the ringing- loft of that tower, and a ladder of nineteen rounds will then conduct him to the bell- chamber above. He can climb further if he likes to do so, and ascend into the interior of the stone spire. From the ringing-loft a small portal allows egress to the chancel roof, from which the prospect, in all directions, is beautiful. Looking westward over the roof of the nave, the observer will view a con- siderable part of the old town, — the slate roofs of its thick-clustered, cosey dwellings wet with recent rain or shining in fitful sunlight, — and beyond it the bold crest and green slopes of Borden Hill, where "the wild thyme" grows in sweet luxuriance, and where, 154 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD since it is close to Shottery, the poet, as he strolled with his sweetheart, in days when love was young, observed and enjoyed the fragrant "bank" mentioned in the "Midsummer Night's Dream." Southward stands the crag-like hill of Meon, once a stronghold of the Danes, and far away the lonely Broadway Tower looms faintly on the ridge of its highland. Further still, dimly visible, is the wavering outline of the Malvern hills. In the north, some- times clear and bright, sometimes weltering beneath sombre rain-clouds of retreating storm, are the green heights of Welcombe, where once the Saxons had a fortified camp, while near at hand are the turrets of the Shake- speare Memorial, opulent Avonbank with its wealth of various trees and its flower-spangled terraces, and the old churchyard of Stratford, in which the roses bloom freely over man's decay, and in which the gray, lichen-covered stones are cold and forlorn against the brill- iant green of the sun-smitten sod. A wide stretch of dark green meadow, intersected with long, dense hedgerows of hawthorn and honey- STRATFORD GLEANINGS 155 suckle, fills the near prospect, in the east, while gently sloping hills extend into the dis- tance beyond, some wooded and some bare, and all faintly enwreathed with mist. At the base of the tower flows the Avon, its dark waters wrinkled by the breeze. Rooks are cawing and swifts and swallows are twitter- ing around the church and its spire. Leafy boughs of the great elms that engirdle the church toss and rustle in the strong wind. Sudden shafts of sunlight illumine the lovely pageant, far and near, and soon the glory of the west fades into that tender gloaming which is the crowning charm of the English summer day. Two sculptured groups, emblematic of Comedy and Tragedy, adorn the front of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, purchased by the profits of a benefit performance, given in that building, August 29, 1885, by Miss Mary Anderson, who then, for the first time, imper- sonated Shakespeare's Rosalind. That actress, after her first visit to Stratford, made in 1883, manifested a deep interest in the town, and 156 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD because of her services to the Shakespeare Memorial she was ultimately elected one of its life-governors. The gains of her presentment of "As You Like It" paid for completion of the decorations of the building. The emblem of History had already been put in place, — the scene, from "King John," in which Prince Arthur melts the cruel purpose of Hubert to burn out his eyes. Tragedy is represented by Hamlet and the Gravedigger, in their colloquy over Yorick's skull. In the emblem of Comedy the figure of Rosalind, in boy's dress, is that of Miss Anderson, a figure expressive of ingenuous demeanor and artless grace. The Library of The Memorial, comprising about ten thousand volumes, continues to grow, but the American department of it needs accessions. Every American edition of Shake- speare ought to be there, and every book, of American origin, on a Shakespearean subject. Of English editions of the complete works of Shakespeare the collection contains more than two hundred. A Russian translation of Shake- speare, in nine volumes, appears in it, together STRATFORD GLEANINGS 157 with three complete editions in Dutch. An elaborate catalogue of the collection, made by Mr. Frederick Hawley, records them, in an imperishable form. Mr. Hawley, once Libra- rian of the Memorial, died at Stratford, March 13, 1889, aged sixty-two, and was buried at Kensal Green, in London, his wish being that his ashes should rest in that place. Mr. Hawley had been an actor, under the name of Haywell, and he was the author of several blank verse tragedies. Mr. A. H. Wall, a learned antiquary, succeeded him as librarian, and was in turn succeeded, June, 1895, by Mr. William Salt Brassington, who has ever since filled that office, with much ability. To Mr. Wall, now deceased, the readers of "The Stratford-upon-Avon Herald" are indebted for instructive articles, notably those giving an account of the original Shakespeare quartos acquired for the Memorial library at the sale of the literary property of J. O. Halliwell- Phillipps. Those quartos are "The Merchant of Venice," "The Merry Wives of Windsor," and a first edition of "Pericles." A copy of 158 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD "Roger of Faversham" was also bought, together with two of the plays of Aphra Behn. Charles Edward Flower purchased, at that sale, a copy of the First Folio of Shake- speare, and the four Shakespeare Folios, 1623, 1632, 1663-4, 1685, stood side by side in his private library, until his death, when they were inherited by the Memorial Library. In repairing the custodian's house at New Place the crossed timbers in the one remaining fragment of the north wall of the original structure were found, beneath plaster. Those have been left uncovered, and their dark lines add to the picturesque aspect of the building. The appearance of the house, prior to 1742, is known but vaguely, if at all. The street, Chapel Lane, that separates New Place from the Guild Chapel was formerly narrower than it is now, and the house stood in a grassy enclosure, encompassed by a wall, the entrance to the garden being at some distance east- ward, in the lane, toward the river. The chief rooms in New Place were lined with square, sunken oak panels, which covered the STRATFORD GLEANINGS 159 walls from floor to roof, and, probably, also covered the ceilings. Some of those panels, obtained when the Rev. Francis Gastrell caused that house to be demolished, can, or once could, be seen, in a parlor of the Falcon hotel, at the corner of Scholar's Lane and Chapel Street. A large collection of old writings was found in a room of the Grammar School, adjacent to the Guild Chapel, in 1887. It contains five thousand separate papers, the old com- mingled with the new; some of them indentures of apprenticeship, others receipts for money; no one of them is important, as bearing on the Shakespeare story. Several of them are in Latin. The earliest date is 1560, four years before the poet was born. One document is a memorandum "presenting" a couple of the wives of Stratford for slander of cer- tain other women, and quoting their bad language with startling fidelity. Another is a letter from a citizen of London, named Smart, establishing and endowing a free school in Stratford for teaching English, — the writer remarking that schools for the teaching of 160 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD Latin are numerous, while no school for teach- ing English exists, that he can discover. Those papers have been classified and arranged, but nothing directly pertinent to Shakespeare has been found in them. I saw a deed that bore the "mark" of Joan, sister of Mary Arden, Shakespeare's mother. An interesting Stratford figure, locally well known for a long time, was John Marshall, antiquary, who died on June 26, 1887. Mr. Marshall occupied the building next but one to the original New Place, on the north side, — the house once tenanted by Julius Shaw, one of the five witnesses to Shakespeare's will. Mr. Marshall sold Shakespeare souvenirs and quaint furniture. He had remarkable skill in carving, and his mind was stored with knowl- edge of Shakespeare antiquities and the tradi- tional lore of Stratford. His kindness, his eccentric ways, his elaborate forms of speech, and his artistic ingenuity commended him to the respect of all who knew him. He was "a character," — and in such a place as Stratford such quaint beings are appropriate and uncom- _ ^^ Iff Ih^^»™} ss II 1 i ISnlMtT^te 4 ' -^r-;-—rT- ->.r. 1 it^^^LS •' ./■ jl 111. ■ST 3 ifipMffW^ , K— — rr=: : a- "'"W- L' I ; mi si- HI* ll i ^* 1 1 ■ «£ = £ -.s^l 5 g « tt o .O ■« "£ =c a a * ~ ~ ~«i Z l •■h->. - ^ »a .= sq ^ &h ^ ^ ^ ^ STRATFORD GLEANINGS 161 monly pleasing. He rests now, in an unmarked grave, in Trinity churchyard, close to the bank of the Avon, eastward of the stone that marks the sepulchre of Mary Pickering. He was well known to me, and we had many a talk about the antiquities of the town. Among my relics there was for some time (until, at last, I gave it to the eminent actor, Edwin Booth) a piece of wood, bearing this inscription: "Old Oak from Shakespeare's Birth-place, taken out of the building when it was Restored in 1858 by Mr. William Holtom, the contractor for the restora- tion, who supplied it to John Marshall, carver, Stratford-upon-Avon, and presented by him to W. Winter, August 27th, 1885, J. M." That relic is now possessed by The Players, in New York. Another valued souvenir of this quaint person, given by his widow to Richard Savage, — a fine carved goblet, made from the wood of Shakespeare's mulberry-tree, — came into my possession, as a birthday gift from Richard Savage, July 15, 1891, and went the same way. In the Washington Irving parlor of the 162 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD Red Horse the American traveller finds objects that are specially calculated to please his fancy and to deepen his interest in the place. Among them are the sexton's clock to which Irving refers, in his "Sketch Book," an auto- graph letter by him, another by Longfellow, a view of Irving's house, Sunnyside, and pictures of Junius B. Booth, Edwin Booth, the elder and the younger Joseph Jefferson (Rip Van Winkle), Mary Anderson, Ada Rehan, Ellis- ton, Farren, Salvini, Henry Irving, and Ellen Terry. To invest that valued room with an atmosphere at once literary and dramatic was the intention of its decorator, and that object has been accomplished. When Washington Irving visited Stratford and lodged at the Red Horse the "pretty chambermaid," to whom he alludes, in his genial account of that experi- ence, was Sally Garner, — then, in fact, a middle-aged woman and plain rather than pretty. The head waiter was William Webb. Both those persons lived to old age. Sally Garner was retired, on a pension, by Mr. Gardner, former proprietor of the Red Horse, STRATFORD GLEANINGS 163 and she died at Tanworth, and was buried there. Webb died at Stratford. He had been a waiter at the Red Horse for sixty years. His grave, in Stratford churchyard, remained unmarked, and it is one among the many that, unfortunately, were levelled and obliterated in 1888, by order of the Rev. George Arbuthnot, then Vicar, since removed to Coventry. The grave of Charles Frederick Green, author of an account of Shakespeare and the Crab Tree, — that figment of folly, set afloat by Samuel Ireland, — was made in the angle near the west door of Trinity Church, but it has been covered, flat tombstone and all, with gravel. Reverence for memorials of other days is not without its practical influence. Among good results of it is the restoration t of the ancient timber front and the quaint gables of the Shakespeare Hotel, which, already interest- ing by its association with Garrick and the Jubilee of September 7, 1769, has become one of the most picturesque and representative buildings in Stratford. There is a disposition among natives of Shakespeare's town to save 164 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD everything that is associated, however remotely, with his name. Charles Frederick Loggin possessed a lock and key that once were affixed to one of the doors in New Place, and also a sundial that reposed upon a pedestal in New Place garden, in Shakespeare's time. The lock is made of brass; the key of iron, with an ornamented handle, of pretty design, but broken. On the lock appears an inscrip- tion stating that it was "taken from New Place in the year 1759, and preserved by John Lord, Esq." The sundial is made of copper, and upon its surface are Roman numerals ranged around the outer edge of the circle that encloses its rays. The corners of the plate are broken, and one side of it is bent. This injury was done to it by thieves, who wrenched it from its setting, on a night in 1759, and were running away with it when they were captured and deprived of their plunder. The sundial also bears an inscription, certifying that it was preserved by Mr. Lord. New Place garden was at one time owned by one of Mr. Loggin's relatives, and from that STRATFORD GLEANINGS 165 former owner those Shakespeare relics were derived. Shakespeare's hand may have touched that lock, and Shakespeare's eyes may have looked upon that dial. Another remote relic of Shakespeare's time is the shape of the foundation of Bishopton church, which remains traced, by ridges of vel- vet sod, in a green field a little to the northwest of Stratford, in the direction of Wilmcote, — the birthplace of Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden. That church was destroyed about 1800. The house in Wilmcote, in which, as tradition declares, the poet's mother was born, stands near an entrance to the village, and is conspicuous for its quaint dormer windows and its mellow colors. Wilmcote is rougher in aspect than many of the villages of War- wickshire, and the country immediately around it is bleak, but the hedges are full of wild- flowers and are haunted by many birds, and the wide, green, lonesome fields, especially when you see them toward evening, possess that air of melancholy solitude, dream-like rather than sad, which always strongly sways 166 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD the imaginative mind. Inside the Mary Arden cottage I saw nothing remarkable, except the massive old timbers. That house will, no doubt, one day be purchased and added to the other several Trusts, — of Shakespeare's Birthplace, the Museum, and New Place. The Hathaway cottage was thus acquired in March, 1892. The beautiful Guild Chapel needs care. The hand of restoration should, indeed, touch it reverently, but restored it must be, at no distant day, for every autumn storm shakes down fragments of its fretted masonry and despoils the venerable grandeur of that ancient tower on which Shakespeare must often have gazed, from the windows of his home. It is unfortunate that the restoration of that fine old church was not undertaken while yet the Rev. R. S. De Courcy Laffan was Head- Master of the Grammar School and pastor of the Guild, for then it would have been effected under the direction of a man of noble spirit, rare ability, sound scholarship and fine taste, a reverent Shakespearean, and one by whom nothing would have been neglected and noth- H ® H ^> O a fare, ine emb v same ie, v r more! &s 3 » w "~ -S &> s *•* <^ ' -3 S>^ °3- ■£> ~ O 98 « 2 S £ -^ ~ = STRATFORD GLEANINGS 167 ing done amiss. Liberal in thought, stable in character, simple, sincere, and notable for sensibility and worth, that preacher is one of the most imposing figures in the pulpit of his time. Mr. Laffan resigned his office in Stratford in June, 1895, and became Presi- dent of Cheltenham College, from which posi- tion he retired, to take charge of a parish in London. An interesting, modern feature of Strat- ford is Lord Ronald Gower's statue of Shake- speare, erected in October, 1888, in the Memorial garden. That work is infelicitous in its site and not fortunate in all of its details, but in some particulars it is fine. Upon a huge pedestal appears the full-length bronze figure of the poet, seated, while at the four corners of the base are bronze effigies of Hamlet, Lady Macbeth, Henry the Fifth, and Falstaff. Hamlet is the expression of a noble ideal. The face and figure, wasted by misery, are full of thought. The type of man thus embodied will at once be recognized, — an imperial, tender, gracious, but 168 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD darkly introspective nature, subjugated by hopeless grief and by vain brooding over the mystery of life and death. Lady Macbeth is depicted in her sleep-walking, and, although the figure is treated in a conventional manner, it conveys the idea of remorse and of physical emaciation from suffering, and likewise the sense of being haunted and accursed. Prince Henry is represented as he may have appeared when putting on his dying father's royal crown. The figure is lithe, graceful, and spirited, the pose is true and the action is natural, but the personality is deficient of distinction. Falstaff appears as an obese type of gross, chuckling humor. The intel- lect and predominant character of the man are not indicated. The figures are dwarfed, furthermore, by the huge size of the pillar against which they stand. The statue of Shake- speare shows a man of solid self -concentration and adamantine will, an observer, of universal view and incessant vigilance. The chief feature of it is the piercing look of the eyes. This is a man who sees, ponders, and records. Imagi- STRATFORD GLEANINGS 169 nation and sensibility, on the other hand, are not suggested. The face lacks fine modelling: it is as smooth as the face of a child. The man who had gained Shakespeare's obvious experi- ence may have risen to a composure not to be ruffled by anything that this world can do, to bless or to ban a human life; but the record of his struggle must have been written in his face. This may be a fine statue of a practical thinker; it is not an adequate presentment of Shakespeare. The structure stands on the south side of the Memorial building and within a few feet of it, so that it is almost sub- merged by what was intended for its back- ground. It would show to better advantage if it were placed further to the south, looking down the long reach of the Avon, toward Shakespeare's church. The form of the poet could then be seen from the spot on which he died, while his face would still look, as it does now, toward his tomb. There is a collection of autographs of visitors to the Shakespeare Birthplace that was gathered many years since by Mary 170 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD Hornby, custodian of that cottage (she who whitewashed the walls, in order to obliterate the autographs of visitors written upon them, when she was removed from her office, in 1820), and this was in the possession of her granddaughter, Mrs. Eliza Smith, of Strat- ford. Many distinguished names have been taken from it, among others that of Lord Byron. Mrs. Eliza Smith died, at No. 56 Ely Street, Stratford, on February 24, 1893, aged sixty-eight, and the relics that she pos- sessed passed to a relative, at Northampton, by whose authority they were sold, in London, in June, 1896. The mania for obtaining souvenirs of Stratford antiquity is remarkable. Mention has been made of an unknown lady who came to the birth-room of Shakespeare, and, after begging in vain for a piece of the woodwork or of the stone, knelt and wiped the floor with her glove, which then she carefully secreted, declaring that she would, at least, possess some of the dust of that sacred chamber. It is a sincere sentiment, though not a rational one, which impels devotional STRATFORD GLEANINGS 171 persons to such conduct as that: the elemental feeling, doubtless, is one of reverence; but the entire Shakespeare Birthplace would soon disappear if such a passion always were prac- tically gratified. Among the relics preserved in the Shake- speare Memorial Library are the manuscript of Charles Mackay's treatise on "Obscure Words in Shakespeare's Plays," and a human skull that was used as "Yorick's skull, the king's jester," by John Philip Kemble and also by Edmund Kean, when playing Hamlet. The store of relics in Stratford is consider- able, and some of them are of much interest. A fine autograph of Robert Burns is owned by Mr. William Hutchings, of that town, and the original manuscript of the letter that Dr. Johnson addressed, June 26, 1777, to Dr. Dodd, the forger, then under sentence of death, is one of the possessions of Alderman Bird. There are credulous persons who accept as authentic a painting which is called the Ely Palace Portrait of Shakespeare. The late 172 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD Henry Graves, long noted as a connoisseur of art, believed in it and declared that he valued it at five hundred guineas or at any fancy price above that figure. The Ely Palace Portrait of Shakespeare was discovered, in London, and was bought, by Bishop Tur- ton, of Ely, in 1846. It purports to have been an heirloom in a family resident in Little Britain and personally known to Shakespeare, and the story of it declares that it was painted in Shakespeare's time. In contour and ex- pression it bears resemblance to the Droeshout likeness: almost all the putative likenesses of Shakespeare reveal a striking and significant resemblance to either the Droeshout engraving or the Gerrard Johnson bust. The face in the Ely portrait is thin and pale, and the eyes are small. In May, 1891, — so runs the tale, — this portrait was, for the first time in many years, taken out of its frame, in order that the covering glass might be cleaned, and then the following inscription was observed, on the left-hand upper corner of the canvas: "AE. 39. X 1603." The existence of that STRATFORD GLEANINGS 173 inscription had not before been known at the Birthplace, but inquiry ascertained that the inscription was known to Bishop Turton when he bought the picture, and doubtless it had an effect upon his judgment of its authen- ticity. The Ely Palace Portrait is preserved at the Birthplace, where it is an interesting feature in the collection that was made for the museum department by William Oakes Hunt and J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps. Among Shakespeare relics that long sur- vived in Stratford, but have disappeared, was the old house called Avonbank. That build- ing stood next to the north gate of Trinity churchyard, on land forming part of the estate of the late Charles Edward Flower, and in the town records it was designated, "the House of St. Mary in old town." Thomas Green, who has been variously styled "the poet's cousin" and "the poet's intimate friend" (he was town-clerk of Stratford from 1614 to 1617), lived there, and, accordingly, it is reasonable to suppose that the house was one of Shakespeare's resorts. Each room in 174 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD it had a name. One was called "the church- yard room"; one "the bee-hive"; one "the end"; one "the middle"; and one "the bird's nest." Another interesting relic that has disap- peared is the old Market Cross of Stratford, a combination of building and religious emblem. That structure, often seen by Shake- speare, was as old as the early time of Queen Elizabeth. It stood close by the southwest corner of High Street and Wood Street, and was used as a market. At a meeting of the Common Council of Stratford, held August 2, 1794, it was "agreed that the house at the Cross, late in the possession of Mr. Robert Mander, be wholly taken down and laid open to the road; that Mr. Taylor take down the house and be careful to put the materials by for the use of the corporation." The Cross was taken down and removed in one day, Saturday, August 11, 1821, and its base was finally placed in the centre walk of the Shake- speare Birthplace garden. The foundation stone of the ugly market-house now standing STRATFORD GLEANINGS 175 at the junction of Wood Street and Henley Street was laid by George Morris, Mayor of Stratford, on the coronation day of King George the Fourth. The restoration of the Stratford Guild Hall and Grammar School has been made with excellent judgment and taste. That good work was planned and begun by the late Charles Edward Flower (1830-1892), and it was carried forward under the superintendence of his widow, whose devotion to every task and purpose cherished by him was that of reverent memory and affectionate zeal. She also has passed away, dying July 21, 1908. The visitor to the Guild Hall sees it now much as it was when Shakespeare saw it, when a boy. It is a room fifty-two feet long by eighteen feet nine inches wide, and eight feet eight inches high. Three sides of it are panelled, — the panels resting upon a base of timber and rock. The ceiling is of timber and plaster and the floor of stone. One massive timber runs along the centre of the ceiling, from north to south, and with that 176 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD the other timbers of the ceiling run parallel, — the intermediate spaces being filled with plaster, finished with a wave-like surface. On the west side are four spandrels, and also, high in the wall, nine windows, each about four feet by two, set near together and filled with small, leaded, diamond panes of or- dinary glass. At the north end is a large oak door, made in imitation of the doors of old, opening into a passage leading from the street, on the west, to the quadrangle and pedagogue's house, on the east. Upon the east wall there are four spandrels, and there is a brick chimney-breast, and near that is a large casement, made of green and white glass, through which you can look into the quadrangle. At the south end there are thir- teen large, and three small, upright timbers, stained black, — as, indeed, most of the timbers are, whether new or old, — and between those the plaster reveals traces of ancient frescoes. Five panels of the fresco are set in a large oak frame and are glazed. The walls, above the panels, are plastered and are finished with STRATFORD GLEANINGS 177 a smooth, cream-colored surface. The north end of the hall adjoins the venerable Chapel of the Guild. In the east wall, near the north end, there is a door. In the ceiling there are thirty-seven pieces of timber. At the south end a bit of the original timber, once ornamented with gay color, still faintly visible, has been left untouched. Presentations of Miracle Plays and Mysteries were effected in that hall, in the time of Shakespeare's boy- hood, and it may be true, as is believed, that the first dramatic performances the lad ever saw were seen by him in that room. As I sat there, on a sombre Sunday morning, alone and listening to the rain upon the roof, the chapel bell suddenly began to ring, and I remembered the tradition that the bell of this chapel, which had sounded in his ears when he was a schoolboy, was tolled at his funeral. The schoolroom is over the Guild Hall, and an oak partition of great age divides it into two parts. The timbers supporting the roof, massive and rugged, cross the room at an altitude of about ten feet, and above them is 178 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD a network of rafters. The staircase leading to the schoolroom is of oak, and very rich, and there are fine oak doors on the east side, and lattices on the west. On the south wall hangs a portrait of Henry Irving, as Hamlet. East of the southern branch of the school- room, and opening from it, is a quaint room called the Council Chamber, now used as a library. The roof, rising to a peak, is wrought of old timbers, bare, massive, and strange. An ancient oak table, much hacked by the jackknives of many generations of boys, stands in the centre of that room, together with some oak benches, while around the walls are book- cases, containing about one thousand volumes, and at the north side is a dais sustaining a great chair and a reading-desk, above which hangs a copy of the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare, — the original of which, long kept at the Bethnal Green Museum, is now in the National Gallery, in London. From the coun- cil room a narrow, crooked staircase gives access to a tiny room beneath the eaves, of the same general character, — probably a STRATFORD GLEANINGS 179 priest's cell, in ecclesiastical times, but used now as a storeroom and study. The outside of the building is timber-crossed, with inter- stices of plaster, the roof being covered with red tiles. In the rear stands the little cottage in which dwelt Shakespeare's schoolmaster, Walter Roche, — a structure, now restored, con- taining a quaint, charming room, used as a study by the Head-Master of the Guild. At one time it was thought that this building, one of the oldest houses in Stratford, must be sacrificed, but it has been deftly set upon new foundations and thus preserved. Human bones were discovered in the earth, while the work of restoration was in progress, near to that building, — the remains of some ecclesiastic of long ago. In its renovated condition the ancient Grammar School of the Guild, while it reveals the care of the restorer, retains its aspect of venerable antiquity, and it is one of the most precious historic shrines of Stratford. Some excitement was caused in Stratford, in June, 1894, by the discovery that the doors 180 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD of the north porch of Trinity Church had not only been removed from their place but had been sold, and for a time the matter was a theme of wonder. The doors had long been disused, but there they had hung for cen- turies, — useless but venerable, — and nobody wished them to be disturbed. The Vicar of Stratford, however, caused them to be taken away. The porch is provided with an iron grille, and the removal of the doors, which had for years stood open, served to reveal more clearly the proportions and peculiarities of its interior. There was no complaint, and the doors might long have reposed, unnoted, among the rubbish in the churchyard, but for their sudden appearance as a commodity of commerce. That appearance was precipitated by one of the church- war dens. A quantity of refuse wood and stone was to be sold, the ancient oaken doors, massive and pon- derous, stood in the way, and so, with a word, they were despatched. Such things are done more in heedlessness than with purpose. The most frugal-minded of church-wardens, con- STRATFORD GLEANINGS 181 sidering what Stratford is and upon what mainly it thrives, would scarcely have sold those church doors, had he paused to reflect that the gaze of Shakespeare may have rested on them, and that therefore they belong to the story of the poet. Sold they were, and conveyed away, and but that the fact became public and attracted the attention of the Bishop of Worcester, they would not have come back. A mandate from that authority declared the sale invalid, and the church-warden was compelled to recover the alienated relics. X. THE CHILDS FOUNTAIN. American interest in Stratford-upon-Avon springs out of a love for the works of Shake- speare as profound and passionate as that of the most sensitive and reverent of the poet's countrymen. It is, in part, to Americans that Stratford owes the Shakespeare Memo- rial, for while the land on which it stands was given by that public-spirited citizen of Stratford, Charles Edward Flower, and while money to pay for the building of it was freely contributed by wealthy residents of Warwickshire, and by men of all ranks throughout England, the gifts and labors of Americans were not lacking to that good cause. Edwin Booth was one of the earliest contributors to the Memorial fund, and the names of Herman Vezin, M. D. Conway, 182 THE CHILDS FOUNTAIN 183 W. H. Reynolds, and Louise Chandler Moul- ton appear in the first list of its subscribers. Kate Field worked for its advancement, with remarkable energy and practical success. Mary Anderson acted for its benefit, on August 29, 1885, as also, later, did Ada Rehan and Augus- tin Daly's company, under that generous manager's able direction. In the church of the Holy Trinity, where Shakespeare's dust is buried, a stained window, illustrative, scrip- turally, of that solemn epitome of human life which the poet makes in the speech of Jaques on the seven ages of man, evinces the practical devotion of the American pilgrim. Wherever in Stratford you come upon any- thing associated, even remotely, with the name and fame of Shakespeare, there you will find the gracious tokens of American homage. The libraries of the Birthplace and of the Memorial contain gifts of American books. New Place and Anne Hathaway's cottage are never omitted from the American traveller's round of visitations and monetary tribute. The romantic Shakespeare Hotel, with its rambling 184 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD passages, its quaint rooms named after Shake- speare's characters, its antique bar parlor, and the rich collection of autographs and pictures, made by the late Mrs. Justins; the Town Hall, adorned with Gainsborough's expressive por- trait of Garrick, to which no engraving does justice; the Clopton bridge, Lucy's mill, the footpath across fields and roads to Shottery, and the picturesque Mary Arden Cottage at Wilmcote, — each and every one of them receives, in turn, the tribute of the wandering American, and each repays him, in charming suggestiveness of association, in high thought, and in the lasting impulse of poetic reverie. At the Red Horse, where Mr. William Gard- ner Colbourne maintains the traditions of old- fashioned English hospitality, he finds his home, well pleased to muse and dream while the night deepens and the clock in the neighboring tower murmurs drowsily in its sleep. Those who will can mock at his enthusiasm. He would not feel it but for the spell that Shakespeare's genius has cast upon the world. He ought to be glad and grateful that he can feel that spell, THE CHILDS FOUNTAIN 185 and, since he does feel it, nothing could be more natural than his desire to signify that, although born far away from the old home of his race, and separated from it by a vast wilder- ness of stormy ocean, he still has his part in the priceless legacy of Shakespeare, the treasure and the glory of the English tongue. A significant token of this American senti- ment, and a permanent object of interest to the pilgrim in Stratford, is supplied by the gift of a drinking fountain made to that town, on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Jubilee, by George W. Childs, of Philadelphia. It never was a surprise to hear of that benefactor's activity and generosity in doing good, it was only an accustomed pleasure, — now, like many other pleasures, only a memory: Mr. Childs died, at his home, in Philadelphia, February 3, 1894. With fine-art testimonials in the Old World as well as in the New, his name will long be honorably associated. In 1886 he pre- sented a window of stained glass to West- minster Abbey, to commemorate, in Poets' Corner, George Herbert and William Cowper. 186 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD In 1888 he gave to St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, a pictorial window commemo- rative of Milton. The fountain at Stratford was dedicated on October 17, 1887, with appro- priate ceremonies, conducted by Sir Arthur Hodgson, of Clopton, then mayor, now deceased, and amid general rejoicing. Henry Irving, then leader of the English stage, and now remembered as the most illustrious of English actors since the age of Garrick, delivered a felicitous address, and read a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes. The countrymen of Mr. Childs, not less interested in the struc- ture than the community that it was intended to honor and benefit, saw with satisfaction and pride his beneficent, opulent offering to a town which is hallowed for them by exalted associations, and endeared by delightful mem- ories and they sympathized with the motive and feeling that prompted him to offer his gift as one among many memorials of the fiftieth year of the reign of good Queen Victoria. It is not every man who knows how to give with grace, and the good deed is THE CHILDS FOUNTAIN 187 "done double" that is done at the right time. Stratford had long been in need of such a fountain as Mr. Childs presented, and there- fore it satisfied a public want at the same time that it served a purpose of ornamenta- tion, and helped to strengthen a bond of international sympathy. Rother Street, in which the structure stands, is the most con- siderable open place in Stratford, situated near the centre of the town, on the west side. There, as also at the intersection of High and Bridge streets, which are the principal thoroughfares of the city, the farmers, at stated intervals, range their beasts and wagons and hold a market. It is easy to see why Rother Street, embellished with this monu- ment, which combines a clock-tower, a place of rest for man, and commodious drinking- troughs for horses, cattle, dogs, and sheep, has become the agricultural centre of the region. The base of the monument is made of Peterhead granite, while the superstructure is of gray stone, from Bolton, Yorkshire. The height of the tower is fifty feet. On the north 188 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD side a stream of water, flowing from a bronze spout, falls into a polished granite basin. On the south side a door opens into the interior. The decorations include sculptures of the arms of Great Britain alternated with the eagle and stripes of the United States. In the second story of the tower, lighted by glazed arches, is placed a clock, and on the outward faces of the third story appear four dials. There are four turrets, surrounding a central spire, each surmounted by a gilded vane. The inscriptions on the base, devised by Sir Arthur Hodgson, are these: The gift of an American citizen, George W. Childs, of Philadelphia, to the town of Shakespeare, in the Jubilee year of Queen Victoria. In her days every man shall eat, in safety Under his own vine, what he plants; and sing The merry songs of peace to all his neighbors. God shall be truly known: and those about her THE CHILDS FOUNTAIN 189 From her shall read the perfect ways of honor, And by those claim their greatness, not by blood. Henry VIII., Act V. Scene 4. in Honest water, which ne'er left man i' the mire. Timon of Athens, Act I. Scene % rv Ten thousand honors and blessings on the bard who has thus gilded the dull realities of life with innocent illusions. — Washington Irving's Stratford-on-Avon. Stratford, fortunate in many things, is especially fortunate in being situated at a con- siderable distance from the main line of any railway. Two railroads skirt the town, but both are branches, travel upon them has not become too frequent, and Stratford still retains a measure of isolation, and consequently a flavor of quaintness. Antique customs are still prevalent there, and odd characters can still be encountered. The current of village gossip flows with incessant vigor, and nothing happens in the place that is not thoroughly 190 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD discussed by its inhabitants. I have, on many occasions, observed the gratitude of the War- wickshire people to the American philanthropist. Time will only deepen the respect with which his name is cherished. In England, as a pious custom, the record of good deeds is made permanent, not alone by imperishable symbols, but in the hearts of the people. The inhab- itants of Warwickshire, guarding and main- taining their Stratford Fountain, will not forget by whom it was given. Wherever you go, in the British Islands, you find memorials of the Past and of individuals who have done good deeds in their time, and you also find that those memorials are respected. Many such emblems might be indicated. Each of them takes its place in the regard and gradually becomes entwined with the experience of the whole community. So it is with the Childs Fountain at Stratford. It stands in the track of travel between Banbury, Shipston, Stratford, and Birmingham, and many weary men and horses pause beside it every day, for a moment of refreshment and °» a so H £ § a C/2 M ■*s oa (X ■£- S> * 2g = O fe ?■ *» § ° a « sb » § Q SSlS '~ a "S -~" o .*; OS &i"~^ o his a •ch in 'stent > 8 flows ftain's 2 -a *> si ^ ^ <» .s sb « ^s : g « £ ^ ~ i- -~ 1— 1 a •" -= -a o SB *S" V. ^ SO SB *» » SB 'S *§ 8-t E«< ^ ^ THE CHILDS FOUNTAIN 191 rest. On festival days it is hung with garlands, while around it the air is glad with music. If the founder of it had heen capable of an egotistical thought, he could have taken no way better or more certain, for the perpetuation of his name in the affectionate esteem of one of the most sedate communities in the world. Autumn in England, and all the country ways of lovely Warwickshire are strewn with fallen leaves: but the cool winds are sweet and bracing, the dark waters of the Avon, shimmering in mellow sunlight and frequent shadow, flow softly past the hallowed church, and the reaped, gleaned, and empty meadows invite to many a healthful ramble, far and wide over the country of Shakespeare. It is a good time to be there; and now and always hereafter it will be deeply pleasing to every American explorer of haunted Warwickshire to see, among the emblems of poetry and romance which are its chief glory, this token of American sentiment and friendship, the Fountain of Stratford. XI. THE SHAKESPEARE CHURCH. The renovation of the Shakespeare Church, which had been in progress for some time, was completed, or nearly completed, in 1892, and only a few old things were left intact in that sacred building. The venerable aspect of that church could not, indeed, be entirely despoiled, even by the superserviceable zeal and regulative spirit of convention. Something of venerable majesty must still survive, in the gray, mossy stones of that massive tower and in the gloomy battlements of nave and chancel through which the winds of night sigh softly over Shakespeare's dust. The cold sublimity of the ancient fabric, with its environment of soft and gentle natural beauty and its associations of poetic renown, can never be wholly dispelled. Much has been 192 THE SHAKESPEARE CHURCH 193 done, however, to make the place modern and conventional. The appearance of the church, especially in its interior, has been materially- changed. A few of the changes were essen- tial, and those may have been made wisely, and all of the changes have been made with mechanical skill, if not always with taste. A few more touches, and the inside of the ancient building will be as neat and prim as a box of candles. The avowed object of the restoration was to make the church appear as it appeared when it was built, and before it had acquired any association what- ever, and that object has been measurably accomplished; but a radical change there was an injury. Now that so many old things have been made new, the devotees of Shakespeare may be asked what it is of which they think they have reason to complain. Their answer is ready. They wanted to have the church repaired; they did not want to have it rebuilt. The Shakespeare Church is a national monu- ment. More than that, — it is a literary shrine 194 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD for all the world. There was an indescribable poetic charm about the old edifice, which had been bestowed upon it, not by art but by time. That charm should have been left untouched. Nothing should ever have been done to impair it. The building had acquired character. It had become venerable with age, storied with association, and picturesque with quaintness. The suns and the storms of centuries had left their traces on its walls. The actions and sufferings, the inspirations and eccentricities of successive generations had impressed themselves upon its fabric. It had been made individual and splendid, — like a visage of some noble old saint of mediaeval times, a face lined and seamed by thought, dignified by experience, sublimated by con- quered passion. Above all, it had enshrined, for nearly three hundred years, the ashes of the greatest poet that ever lived. All that was asked was that it should be left alone. To repair it in certain particulars became a necessity, but to alter it was to do an irrepa- rable harm. That harm has been done; and THE SHAKESPEARE CHURCH 195 it is that which the Shakespeare enthusiast resents and deplores. On the occasion of a visit to the church, soon after its restoration, I went into the chancel and stood there, alone, in front of the altar, and looked around, in amazement and sorrow. The aspect of that chancel is no longer ancient; it is new. The altar has been moved from its place against the east wall, beneath the great window, and has been elevated upon a double pedestal. The floor around it has been paved with encaustic tiles, of hideous brown and yellow. Almost all the mural tablets upon the north and south walls have been carried away, and they can now be found dispersed in the transepts, while their place is filled by a broad expanse of wooden panels, extending from the backs of the miserere stalls upward to the sills of the windows. The stalls themselves have been repaired, but that was necessary, because the wooden foundations of them had become much decayed. And, finally, the stone screens that filled half of the window back of Shakespeare's 196 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD monument and half of the window back of the busts of Judith Combe and her lover have been removed. The resultant effect, — which might be excellent in a modern hotel, but which is deplorable in this church, — is that of enterprise and novelty, the new broom and modern "improvements." Those improve- ments, no doubt, are fine in their way, but if ever there was a place on earth where they are inappropriate, that place is the Shake- speare Church. They suit well with it as a place of ecclesiastical ritual, and if the church were merely that, nobody would greatly care even if it were made as bright as a brass band; but since it is the literary shrine of the world, no one who appreciates its intrinsic value can fail to regret that the ruthless hand of innovation has been permitted to degrade it, in any degree whatever, to the level of the commonplace. When Dean Balsall (obiit 1491) built the chancel of that church, in 1480, he placed it against a little stone building, the remnant of an ancient monastery (as trustworthy THE SHAKESPEARE CHURCH 197 antiquarian scholars believe) which was long used as a priest's study, and under which was a charnel-house or crypt. (A mass of human bones was removed from that crypt about 1886, and buried in a pit in the church- yard.) The stone screen in the lower half of the Shakespeare window was necessary as a part of the sustaining wall between the old structure and the new one, and later it was found useful as a background for the Shake- speare monument. Against that screen the bust of the poet was placed by his children and his friends, and as they saw, knew, and left it, so it should have been preserved and perpetuated. So it long remained, but the pilgrim to Stratford church hereafter will never see the bust of Shakespeare as it was seen by his daughters. A link that bound us to the Past has been broken, and no skill of man can now avail to mend it. Back of the bust has been placed a stained window, commemorative of J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, the renowned Shakespeare scholar. That was put in on July 27, 1891, late in the afternoon, 198 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD and that same night it was my fortune to have a view of it, from within and from without. The light of the gloaming had not yet faded. The bell-ringers were at practice in the tower, and the sweet notes of the "Blue Bells of Scotland" were wafted down- ward in a shower of silver melody upon the still air of haunted chancel and darkening nave. Enough of light yet lingered to dis- play the fresh embellishment, and I examined it closely and viewed it for a long time. It is exceedingly ugly — being prosaic in design and coarse in color. The principal object in its composition is the head of a bull, which, engirt with flames, rests upon a heap of stones, encircled with a rivulet of ultramarine blue. Upon each side, in contrasted groups, stand several figures, two or three of them visible at full length, but most of them visible only in part. Of human heads the picture contains eleven. The chief colors are blue, purple, bronze, scarlet, and gray. The action of the principal figures is spirited and the treatment of the faces shows artistic skill, THE SHAKESPEARE CHURCH 199 — those qualities being the merits of the work. As a memorial, the window means nothing, while its implied reference to one of the stories of Jewish history is unimportant. The inscription is from the Bible: "And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord." The meaning of this is figurative and it is reverent and irreproach- able; yet the observer who reads that sen- tence can scarcely repress a smile when he remembers that the stones which were taken from the Shakespeare window, to make room for this pretentious deformity, now form a channel for hot-air pipes under the chancel floor. The necessity for saving a relic here and there seems not to have been ignored. The stone reading-desk that long adorned the Shakespeare Church was sold to a stone-mason in the Warwick road, and the top of the stone pulpit was thrown away, but the broken, battered font, at which, possibly, the poet was baptized, has been placed on the pillar that formerly supported the stone pulpit, and 200 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD that structure can be seen, in the southwest corner of the nave. There also have been placed the three carved canopies of stone that formerly impended over the sedalia in the chapel of Thomas a' Becket, — now occupied by the organ works. In the south transept stand two large gravestones, the memorials of former vicars, which were removed from the chancel, — where they ought to have been left. The lately discovered (1890) gravestone of Judith Combe has been placed in the chancel floor, beneath her bust. In making repairs, the vault of Dean Balsall, which is near to Shakespeare's grave, was broken open, and it was inspected, if not explored, but the remains were not disturbed. Let us be thank- ful for so much forbearance. A time was when the former vicar of Stratford, Rev. George Arbuthnot, gave his consent that the grave of Shakespeare might be opened, and there are uneasy spirits still extant whom idle curiosity would quickly impel to that act of desecration. Whatever remnant sur- vives, therefore, of the spirit of reverence in the THE SHAKESPEARE CHURCH 201 ecclesiastical authority of Stratford ought to be prized and cherished. Readers who wish to know why it is thought by some persons that the grave of Shake- speare ought to be explored will find the dubious reasons set forth in a book called "Shakespeare's Bones," written by C. M. Ingleby, LL.D., and published in 1883. Dr. Ingleby has collected many striking facts with regard to the explorations of other tombs. He appears to think it probable that the relics of Shakespeare have already been rifled, but that is conjecture. His assertion that a new stone was laid over Shakespeare's grave about the year 1880 is supported by the authority of Halliwell-Phillipps. XII. RAMBLES IN ARDEN. The traveller who hurries through War- wickshire, — as American travellers generally do, — appreciates imperfectly the things that he sees, and does not know how much he loses, from lack of a leisurely survey of that picturesque region. The customary course is to lodge at the comfortable Red Horse, in Stratford-upon-Avon, and from that cosey habitation to proceed, in a carriage, along a route that ought to be traversed on foot, to the Shakespeare Birthplace, the Grammar School and the Guild Chapel, the relics of New Place, Trinity Church and the Shake- speare graves in its chancel, Anne Hathaway's cottage, at Shottery, and the Shakespeare Memorial Library and Theatre. When seen under favorable conditions those are impressive 202 RAMBLES IN ARDEN 203 sights, to the lover of Shakespeare; but when you have seen all of them, you have only begun to feel the charm of Stratford. It is only by living in the town, making yourself familiar with it in all its moods, viewing it in storm as well as in sunshine, roaming through its quaint streets in the lonely hours of the night, sailing up and down the beau- tiful Avon, driving and walking in the green lanes that twine about it for many miles in every direction, and so becoming a part of its actual being, that you obtain a genuine knowledge of that delightful place. Famil- iarity, in this case, does not breed contempt. The worst you will ever learn of Stratford is that gossip thrives in it, that its mentality is sometimes narrow and sleepy, and that it is heavily ridden by the ecclesiastical establish- ment. You will not find anything that can detract from the impression of beauty and repose made upon your mind by the sweet retirement of its situation, the majesty of its venerable monuments, and the opulent, diver- sified associations of its rural and historical 204 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD environment. On the contrary, the more you know of those charms the more you will love the town, and the greater will be the benefit of thought and spiritual exaltation that you will derive from your knowledge of it, and hence it is important that the American traveller should be counselled, for his own sake, to live at least a little time in Stratford, instead of treating it as an incident of his journey. The occasion of a garden party at the rectory of a clerical friend at Butler's Marston gave opportunity to see one of the many pic- turesque, happy homes with which Warwick- shire abounds. The lawns there are ample and sumptuous. The dwelling and the church, which are contiguous, are bowered in great trees. From the terraces a lovely view can be obtained of richly colored and finely cultivated fields, stretching away toward Edge- hill, which lies southeast from Stratford-upon- Avon, about sixteen miles away, and marks the beginning of the Vale of the Red Horse — so called because of the figure of the horse RAMBLES IN ARDEN 205 which appears on the hill-side, near to Piller- ton village, cut in the red clay. In the churchyard at Marston are the gray, lichen- covered remains of one of those ancient crosses from the steps of which the monks preached, in the early days of the Roman Catholic Church, — relics deeply interesting for what they suggest of the people and the life of earlier times. A fine specimen of the ancient cross can be seen at Henley-in-Arden, a few miles northwest of Stratford, where it stands, in mouldering majesty, in the centre of the village, — strangely inharmonious with the little shops and numerous inns of which that long, straggling town is composed. The tower of the church at Butler's Marston, a gray, grim structure, was built in the eleventh century, a period of much ecclesiastical activity in the British Islands. Within it I found a fine pulpit, of carved oak, dark with age, of the time of King James the First. There are many commemorative stones in the church, on one of which appears this lovely apostrophe to a girl deceased: 206 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD Sleep, gentle soul, and wait thy Maker's will! Then rise unchanged, and be an angel still. The village of Butler's Marston, — a little group of cottages clustered on the margin of a tiny stream and almost hidden in a wooded dell, — is comparatively new, for it has arisen since the time of the Puritan civil war. The old village was swept away by the Roundheads, when Essex and Hampden came down, to fight King Charles the First, at Edge- hill, in 1642. That fierce strife raged all along the country-side, and you can still perceive there, in the inequalities of the land, the sites on which houses formerly stood. It is a peace- ful place now, smiling with flowers and musical with the rustle of the leaves of giant elms. The clergyman farms his own glebe, and he has expended more than a thousand pounds in the renovation of his manse. The church "living" is not worth much more than <£100 a year, and when he leaves the dwelling he loses the value of all the improvements that he has made. That fact he mentioned, with a as S S H CO < H CO Pm u a ° ~ 5 5-S £ ^ ^ ~ = ~ o^S S S « ® » s 5 a *> « « c S S i~ ~ a rr ~~ &, •% -- ^S -s = ~ « H § o § « « a, '- ** &,« * ££^^ RAMBLES IN ARDEN 207 smile. The place is a little paradise, and as I looked across the green and golden fields, and saw the herds at rest and the wheat waving in sun and shadow, and thought of the simple life of the handful of people congregated there, the words of Gray came murmuring into my mind: Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learned to stray ; Along the cool, sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. "Unregarded age, in corners thrown." Was that fine fine suggested to Shakespeare by the spectacle of the almshouses of the Guild, which, in his time, stood, as they stand now, close to the spot where he lived and died? The Guild chapel stands at the corner of Chapel Street and Chapel Lane, immediately opposite to the place of the poet's last home. South- ward from the chapel, and adjoining it, extends the long, low, sombre building that contains the Free Grammar School, in which, there is reason to believe, Shakespeare was 208 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD educated; at first by Walter Roche, after- ward by Simon Hunt, — who doubtless birched the little boys then, even as the Head- Master does now, it being a cardinal principle with the British educator that learning, like other goods, should be delivered in the rear. In those almshouses, doubtless, there were many forlorn inmates, even as there are at present, and Shakespeare must often have seen them. On visiting one of the bedesmen I found him moving slowly, with that mild, aimless, inert manner and that bleak aspect peculiar to such remnants of vanishing life, among the vegetable vines and the profuse, rambling flowers in the sunny garden behind the house; and presently I went with him into his humble room and sat by his fireside. The scene was a perfect fulfilment of Shakespeare's line: A stone floor; a low ceiling crossed with dusky beams; walls that had been whitewashed long ago; a small iron kettle, with water in it, simmering over a few smouldering coals; a rough bed, in a corner; a little table, on which were three conch-shells, ranged in a row; an RAMBLES IN ARDEN 209 old arm-chair, on which were a few coarse wads of horsehair, as a cushion; and a bench, whereon lay a torn, tattered, soiled copy of the Prayer Book of the Church of England, open at the Epiphany. The room was lighted by a little lattice of small, leaded panes, and upon one of the walls hung a framed placard of worsted work, bearing the inscrip- tion, "Blessed be the Lord for His Unspeak- able Gift." The aged, infirm pensioner doddered about, and when he was asked what had become of his wife his dull eyes filled with tears and he said simply that she was dead. "So runs the world away." The sum- mons surely is not unwelcome that calls such an old and lonely pilgrim as that to his rest. Warwickshire is hallowed by shining names of persons distinguished in letters and art. Dugdale, the antiquarian, Fulke Greville, "the friend of Sir Philip Sidney," and Dray- ton, the poet, were born there. Walter Savage Landor was a native of Warwick, — in which quaint town you can see the house of his birth, duly marked. Croft, the com- 210 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD poser, was born near Ettington, not far from Stratford: there is a tiny monument, commemorative of him, in the ruins of Etting- ton church, near the manor-house of Shirley: and in our day Warwickshire has enriched the world with "George Eliot" and with the great actress, — the one Ophelia and the one Beatrice of our age, — Ellen Terry. It is, how- ever, a characteristic of England that which- ever way you turn in it your footsteps fall on haunted ground. Everyday life, in that realm, is continually impressed by incidents of historic association. In an old church at Greenwich, for example, I asked that I might be directed to the tomb of General Wolfe. "He is buried just beneath where you are now standing," the custodian said. It was an elderly woman who showed the place, and she presently stated that when a girl she once entered the vault beneath that church and stood beside the coffin of General Wolfe and took a piece of laurel from it, and also took a piece of a red velvet pall from the coffin of the old Duchess of Bolton, close by. RAMBLES IN ARDEN 211 That Duchess was Lavinia Fenton, the first representative of Polly Peachum, in "The Beggar's Opera," who died in 1760, aged fifty- two. "Lord Clive," the dame added, "is buried in the same vault with Wolfe." An impressive thought, that the ashes of the man who established Britain's power in America should at last mingle with the ashes of the man who gave India to England! Among many charming rambles that can be enjoyed in the vicinity of Stratford, the ramble to Wootton-Wawen and Henley-in-Arden is not the least delightful. Those towns are on the Birmingham road, the former six miles, the latter eight miles, from Stratford. When you stand on the bridge at Wootton you are only one hundred miles from London, but you might be a thousand miles from any city, for in all the slumberous scene around you there is no hint of anything but solitude and peace. Close by a cataract sparkles over the rocks and fills the air with music. Not far distant rises the stately mass of Wootton Hall, an old manor-house, surrounded with green 212 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD lawns and bowered by majestic elms, which has always been a Roman Catholic abode, and which is not leased to any but Roman Catholic tenants. A cosey, gabled house, standing among trees and shrubs a little way from the roadside, is the residence of the priest of this hamlet. Across the meadows, in one direction, peers forth a fine specimen of the timbered cottage of ancient times, — the dark beams con- spicuous upon a white surface of plaster. Among the trees, in another direction, appears the great gray tower of Wootton-Wawen church, a venerable pile, and one in which, by means of the varying orders of its architec- ture, you can, perhaps, trace the whole ecclesiastical history of England. The approach to that church is through a green lane and a wicket-gate, and when you come near to it you find that it is surrounded with many graves, some marked and some unmarked, on all of which the long grass waves in rank luxuriance and whispers softly in the summer breeze. The place seems deserted. Not a human creature is visible, RAMBLES IN ARDEN 213 and the only sound that breaks the stillness is the cawing of rooks in the lofty tops of the neighboring elms. The actual life of all places, when you come to know it well, proves to be, for the most part, conventional, com- monplace, and petty. Human beings, with here and there an exception, are dull, each, in that respect, resembling the other, and each needlessly laborious to increase the resemblance. In this regard all parts of the world are alike, and therefore the happiest traveller is he who keeps mostly alone, and uses his eyes, and communes with his thoughts. The actual life of Wootton is, doubtless, much like that of other hamlets, a bickering tenor of church squabbles, village gossip, and discontented grumbling, diversified with feeding, drinking, cricket, golf, lawn tennis, matrimony, birth, and death. But as I looked around upon the group of nestling cottages, the broad meadows, green and cool in the shadow of densely mantled trees, and the ancient church, gray and faded with antiquity, slowly crumbling amid the everlasting vitality of Nature, I felt 214 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD that here, perhaps, might be discovered a permanent haven of refuge from the incessant platitude and triviality of ordinary experience and the empty strife and din of the world. Wootton-Wawen church is one of the numerous Roman Catholic buildings of about the eleventh century that still survive in Eng- land, devoted now to Protestant worship. It has been partly restored, but most of it is in a state of decay. A more valuable ecclesiastical relic it would be difficult to find, even in that region rich with antique treasures, the heart of England. Its sequestered situa- tion and its sweetly rural surroundings invest it with peculiar beauty. It is associated, fur- thermore, with names that are stately in Eng- lish history and honored in English literature, — with Henry St. John, Viscount Boling- broke, whose sister reposes in its ancient vaults, and with William Somerville, 1692- 1742, the poet who wrote "The Chase." It was not until I actually stood upon his tomb- stone that my attention was directed to the name of that old author, and to the presence RAMBLES IN ARDEN 215 of his relics in that lonely place. Somerville, who lived and died at Edston Hall, near Wootton-Wawen, was noted in his day as a Warwickshire squire and huntsman. His grave is in the chancel of the church, the fol- lowing felicitous epitaph, written by himself, being inscribed upon the plain blue stone that covers it: — H. s. E. OBIIT 17. JULY. 1742. GULIEEMUS SOMERVILE. AEM. SI QUID IN ME BONI COMPERTUM HABEAS, IMITATE. SI QUID MALI, TOTIS VIRIBUS EVITA. CHBISTO CONFIDE, ET SCIAS TE QUOQUE FRAGILEM ESSE ET MORTALEM. Such words have a meaning that sinks deep into the heart when they are read upon the gravestone that covers the poet's dust. Another epitaph written by Somerville, — one that shows equally the kindness of his heart and the quaint- 216 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD ness of his character, — appears upon a little, low, lichen-covered stone in Wootton-Wawen churchyard, commemorating his huntsman and butler, Jacob Bocter, who was hurt in the hunt- ing-field, and died of that accident: — H. s. E. JACOBUS BOCTER. GULIELMO SOMERVILE ARMIGRO PROMUS ET CANIBUS VENATICIS PRAEPOSITOR DOMI. FORISQUE FIDELIS EQUO INTER VENANDUM CORUENTE ET INTESTINIS GRAVITER COLLISIS POST TRIDUUM DEPLORANDUS. OBDT 28 DIE JAN., ANNO DNI 1719. AETAT 38. The pilgrim who rambles as far as Woot- ton-Wawen will surely stroll onward to Henley-in-Arden. The whole of that region was originally covered by the Forest of Arden — the woods that Shakespeare had in mind when he was writing "As You Like It,'* a comedy whereof the atmosphere, foliage, RAMBLES IN ARDEN 217 flowers, scenery, and spirit are purely those of its author's native Warwickshire. Henley, if the observer can judge by the numerous inns that fringe its long, straggling, picturesque street, must once have been a favorite halting- place for the coaches that plied between Lon- don and Birmingham. Those inns are mostly disused now, and the little town sleeps in the sun and seems forgotten. Mention has already been made of the ancient Market-Cross in its centre, — gray, sombre, and much frayed by the tooth of time. Near Henley, and accessible in a walk of a few minutes, is the church of Beaudesert, one of the most precious of the ecclesiastic gems of England. There you can see architecture of mingled Saxon and Nor- man, — the solid Norman buttress, the castel- lated tower, the Saxon arch moulded in zig- zag, which is more ancient than the dog-tooth, and the round, compact columns of the early English order. Near the church rises a noble mound, upon which, in the Middle Ages, stood a castle, — probably that of Peter de Montfort, — and from which a comprehensive, superb 218 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD view can be obtained, over many miles of verdant meadow and bosky dell, interspersed with red-roofed villages, from which the smoke of the cottage chimneys curls up in thin blue spirals under the gray and golden sky. A graveyard encircles the church, and by its orderly disorder, — the quaint, graceful work of capricious time, — enhances the charm of its venerable age. The membership of the parish of Beaudesert is very small; it consisted of only 146 persons at the time of my visit. I was privileged to speak with the aged rector, the Rev. John Anthony Pearson Linskill, and to view the church under his kindly guidance. That venerable man died, February, 1890, in the picturesque rectory of Beaudesert (birth- place of Richard Jago, 1715-1781, the poet who wrote "EdgehiH"), and he is buried within the shadow of the church that he loved. His good- ness, his benevolent mind, and the charm of his artless talk will not be forgotten. My walk, on leaving Beaudesert, took me miles away, — to Claverdon, and back to Stratford by way of Bearley, and all the time it was my thought RAMBLES IN ARDEN 219 that some of the best moments of our lives are those in which we are chastened by parting and by regret. Nothing is said as often as good-by: but, in the touching words of Cowper: The path of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown. XIII. ON THE AVON. The river life of Stratford is one of the chief delights of that delightful town. The Avon, according to law, is navigable from its mouth, at Tewkesbury, where it empties into the Severn, as far upward as Warwick, but according to fact it is passable only by the resolute navigator who can and will surmount obstacles. From Tewkesbury up to Evesham there is plain sailing. Above Evesham there are occasional barriers. At Stratford there is an abrupt pause, at Lucy's Mill, and your boat must be taken ashore, dragged over the meadows, and launched again above the dam. Lucy's Mill is south of the Shakespeare Church, and from that point up to Clopton's bridge the river is broad. There boat-races are rowed, almost every year. There the stream ripples 220 ON THE AVON 221 against the pleasure-ground called the Ban- croft, skirts the gardens of the Shakespeare Memorial, glides past the lovely lawns of Avonbank, and breaks upon the retaining wall of the churchyard, crowned with the high, thick-leaved elms that nod and whisper over Shakespeare's dust. The town lies mostly on the west bank of the Avon. On the east bank there is a wide stretch of meadow. To float along there, in the gloaming, when the bats are winging their "cloistered flight," when great flocks of starlings are flying rapidly over, when "the crow makes wing to the rooky wood," when the water is as smooth as a mirror of burnished steel, and equally the grasses and flowers upon the banks and the stately trees and the gray, solemn, beautiful church are reflected in the lucid stream, is an experience of thoughtful pleasure that sinks deep into the heart and will never be forgotten. You do not know all of Stratford till you know the Avon. From Clopton's bridge the river winds capriciously, and its banks are sometimes 222 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD fringed by willows and sometimes bordered by grassy meadows or patches of woodland or cultivated lawns, enclosing villas that seem the chosen homes of loveliness and peace. The course is clear for several miles. Not till you pass the foot of Alveston village does any obstacle present itself, but there, as well as a little further on, by Hatton Rock, the stream runs shallow and the current becomes very swift, dashing over sandy banks and great masses of tangled grass and weeds. These are "the rapids," and through these the boatman must make his way by adroit steering and a vigorous and expert use of oars and boat- hooks. The Avon, at this point, is bowered by tall trees, and upon the height that it skirts you see the house of Ryon Hill, — a dwelling that figures in the novel of "Asphodel," by Miss Braddon. That part of the river, closed in and presenting in each direction twinkling vistas of sun and shadow, is especially lovely. There, in a quiet hour, the creatures that live along the shores will freely show themselves and their busy ways. ON THE AVON 223 The water-rat comes out of his hole and nibbles at the reeds or swims sturdily across the stream. The moor-hen flutters out of her nest, among the long, green rushes, and skims from bank to bank. The nimble little wag- tail flashes through the foliage. The squirrel leaps among the boughs, and the rabbit scampers into the thicket. Sometimes a king- fisher, with his shining azure shield, pauses for a moment among the gnarled roots upon the brink. Sometimes a heron, disturbed in her nest, rises suddenly upon her great wings and soars grandly away. Once, rowing down the Avon at nearly midnight, I surprised an otter and heard the splash of his precipitate retreat. The ghost of an old gypsy, who died by suicide upon this wooded shore, is said to haunt the neighboring crag, but this, like all other ghosts that ever I came near, eluded equally my vision and my desire. But the spot is weird at night. Near Alveston Mill you must drag your boat over a narrow strip of land and launch it again for Charlecote. Now once more 224 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD the water-way is broad and fine. As it flows past a stately, secluded home, once that of the ancient family of Peers, toward the Welles- bourne Road, a large bed of cultivated white water-lilies (hitherto they have all been yel- low) adorns it, and soon there are glimpses of the deer that browse or prance or slumber beneath the magnificent oaks, elms, limes, and chestnuts of Charlecote Park. No view of Charlecote Manor can compare with the view of it that is obtained from the river. The older wing, with its oriel window and quaint belfry, is of a peculiar, mellow red, relieved against bright green ivy. The only piece of architecture in this region that excels it in beauty of color is the ancient house of Comp- ton-Wynyates, but that is a marvel of loveli- ness, the gem of Warwickshire, and, in romantic quaintness, it surpasses all its fellows. The towers of the main building of Charle- cote are octagon, and a happy alternation of thin and slender with thick, truncated turrets much enhances the effect of quaintness in that opulent edifice. A walled terrace, margined ON THE AVON 225 with urns and blazing with flowers of gold and crimson, extends from the river front of the home to the waterside, and terminates in a broad flight of stone steps, at the foot of which are moored the barges of the family of Lucy. No spectacle could suggest more of aristocratic state and austere magnificence than this sequestered edifice does, standing there, silent, antique, venerable, surrounded by its vast, thick-wooded park, and musing, as it has done for centuries, on the silver Avon that murmurs at its base. Close by there is a lovely waterfall, over which a little tributary of the river descends in a fivefold wave of shimmering crystal, wafting a music that is heard in every chamber of the house and in all the fields and woodlands round about. It needs the sun to bring out the rich colors of Charlecote, but once when I saw it from the river a storm was coming on, and vast masses of black and smoke-colored cloud were driving over it, in shapeless blocks and jagged streamers, while countless frightened birds were whirling above it; and when the fierce 226 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD lightning flashed across the heavens and a deluge of rain descended and beat upon it, the spectacle became one of surpassing mag- nificence — a tempestuous splendor that words cannot depict. Above Charlecote the Avon grows narrow, for a space, and after you pass under Hampton Lucy bridge your boat is entangled in river grass and impeded by whirls and eddies of the shallowing stream. There is another mill at Hampton Lucy, and a little way beyond the village your further progress upward is stopped by a waterfall, — beyond which, how- ever, and accessible by the usual expedient of dragging the boat over the land, a noble reach of the river is disclosed, stretching away toward Warwick, where the wonderful Castle, and tall St. Mary's tower, and Leicester's hos- pital, and the cosey Warwick Arms await your coming, — with mouldering Kenilworth and majestic Stoneleigh Abbey reserved, to lure you still further afield. But the scene around Hampton Lucy is not one to be quickly left. There the meadows are rich, green, and ON THE AVON 227 fragrant. There the large trees give grateful shade and make sweet music in the summer wind. There, from the ruddy village, thin spires of blue smoke curl upward through the leaves and seem to tell of comfort and content beneath. At a little distance the gray tower of the noble church, — an edifice of peculiar majesty, and one well worthy of the excep- tional beauty enshrined within it, — rears itself among the elms. Close by the sleek and indolent cattle are couched upon the cool sod, looking at you with large, soft, lustrous, indif- ferent eyes. The waterfall murmurs its low, melancholy plaint, while sometimes the silver foam of it is caught up and whirled away by the breeze. The waves sparkle on the running stream, and the wildflowers, in gay myriads, glimmer on the velvet shore: and so, as the sun is setting, you breathe the fragrant air from Scarbank, and turn homeward, soothed in a dream of beauty and grateful for a happy day. XIV. HEREFORD AND TINTERN ABBEY. Twilight in an old English city. Rain has fallen many times, during the day, and as the gloaming deepens the sky is gloomy with drifting clouds. The music of the chimes in a neighboring church tower has just died away, and in the hush that follows it I hear the twittering of birds and the rustle of leaves and branches in a strong, cool, fragrant wind. At most times the sense that oppresses a thoughtful mind is that of the overwhelming surge and stress of human life: in this serene hour the dominant consciousness is that of opulent, diversified, all-encircling peace and beauty. Not long ago, — a pilgrim, revisiting hallowed shrines, — I landed on the south shore of England, and, until this moment, drifting from place to place, I have known much action 228 HEREFORD 229 and wearing excitement. To-night there is a pause, and the old feeling of sweet composure comes back upon my spirit, and I feel again that this is indeed the old home, the land of my youthful longings, the land that has been the fulfilment of my early dreams. A beautiful environment naturally tends to composure, but it must cease to be novel before it will begin to soothe. As I review the interval since that lovely summer morning when the golden rocks of the Scilly Islands glimmered into view, with white seas dashing over them and sparkling in the sun, I remember a mass of things which only now have crystal- lized into lovely memories. There is a grand strain of organ music, and the gray spaces of St. Paul's Cathedral seem peopled with angel forms that float upward in the vast dome and vanish into heaven. Sunlight streams on the sacred memorials in the Poets' Corner of the great Abbey, and all the glories of English literature, from Chaucer to Tennyson, throng into the mind and overwhelm it with gratitude and wonder. It is night on the dark, silent 230 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD Thames, and under the cold light of stars rise the grim bastions of the haunted Tower. Mid- night is brooding over the plains, hedgerows, and copses of beautiful Warwickshire, and as I sit on the old stone bench, by the riverside, in Stratford churchyard, a chill wind stirs the leaves and, beneath a gibbous moon, the great elms that encircle the ancient church are reflected in the wavering waters of the Avon, far below, and all the world is turned to reverie and dream. It is a glorious morning, and beneath a sky of blue and gold, and snowy, drifting fleece, I watch the gray spire of Strat- ford church till it fades in the distance, while around me are green and yellow fields that seem to bask in sunshine and are peaceful with recumbent sheep, drowsy cattle, and indolent rooks. A little later the crag of Meon vanishes, the ancient town of Evesham, with its noble tower, its breezy vanes, and its broad reaches of sparkling river, recedes, and I am speeding through the gardens and apple orchards of Evesham vale and Pershore, while, melting from my vision, like rifted clouds of fairyland, HEREFORD 231 the lovely Cotswold Hills dwindle into silver haze. The blaze of noon is brilliant on the red roofs of Worcester, and the great, gray Cathedral, with its massive, ornate tower and cone-shaped pinnacles, comes upon the soul like a benediction, saying that beauty is immortal and that grandeur has not left the world. Soon the lonely hills of Malvern glide into view, and I see that charming, breezy city, where it sleeps on the hillside, — its sober villas draped with green, pink, and scarlet of geranium, white petunia, clinging clusters of purple clematis, roses that yet linger and great veils of glistening ivy that tremble in the perfumed wind. Storm and sunshine are glorious in giant strife on the windy summit of the Worcester Beacon and on the old Saxon camp that frowns over the beautiful vale of the Severn, but the wonderful prospect, perhaps the most wonder- ful in all England, is spread before me at intervals, while, — looking down upon distant Gloucester, and Cheltenham, and Tewkesbury, and over Windcomb and Sudeley, where lie the kings of old Mercia, and across the Welsh 232 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD hills toward ancient Hereford, \\ith all the beauties round me of what once was Malvern Chase, — I muse on the Wars of the Roses, and see, as in a vision, the whole splendid pageant of the history of England. The scene changes, and every change is fraught with meaning. The green slopes of distant Bredon Hill are left, and through the great tunnel beneath the mountains of Malvern I enter the sunny fields and smiling valleys of Wales. It is a peaceful afternoon at Here- ford, and in the Lady Chapel of its venerable Cathedral I sit for a long time and gaze upon the lovely lancet windows, while to a small group of worshippers a kindly clergyman expounds an epistle of Paul, and his benign, simple manner makes the solemnity of the solemn place still more impressive. My thoughts, however, are more with sinners than with saints, in Hereford, for it is a memory of Nell Gwynn and David Garrick, and not entirely the Cathedral, that has lured me to that place, and soon I am standing in Wilde- marsh Street, and looking on the Raven Inn HEREFORD 233 where Gar rick was born, — the greatest come- dian, perhaps, that ever illumined the English stage. The Raven Inn is a little brick building, on a corner, in a busy neighborhood, and not in any way distinctive. No doubt it has under- gone changes, but it was a tavern when Gar- rick's parents dwelt in it, and a tavern it remains. Over the door of its "smoke room" a circular blue tablet, inscribed with white letters, declares it to be the actor's birthplace, and gives the date of his birth, 1716. His father was a military officer, at that time, stationed in Hereford, and in the parish register of All Saints' Church, which is not far from the Raven Inn, the record of the auspi- cious boy's baptism is still preserved and shown. Next to the Raven Inn there is a barber's shop, and opposite to it a market, while not distant are municipal offices, a school for girls, and Association rooms for youthful male Chris- tians. Garrick's youth was passed, not in Hereford, but in Lichfield, where he went to school to Doctor Johnson, and therefore Here- ford's associations with him, though important, 234 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD are not extensive; but the old city is proud of her illustrious son, and well she may be, for the birth of David Gar rick within her walls shines brighter in her annals than the deaths of old warriors or any deeds of ancient kings: and King Harold once had a royal castle there, and King Stephen sat crowned in the Cathedral, and Queen Isabella hanged Hugh de Spencer at one of the gates, and Owen Tudor was beheaded there, over four hundred years ago, and was buried in a monastery on the banks of the Wye. They show you, in the Cathedral, the chair on which King Stephen sat, but I was conscious of a livelier emotion when gaz- ing on the humble cradle of the great actor whose genius and influence, in a pedantic period, lifted the English stage to dignity and shed around it a halo of lasting renown. It was a singular, almost an ironical, freak of Nature, operating by the accident of birth, that twined with Garrick's name the far less important though interesting name of Nell Gwynn. The house of her birth has been demolished, but, strolling southward toward the " :*? £2 S> i«4 ~ ~~ = S *< i* o ^ajc*,^ HEREFORD 235 river, after evening service in the Cathedral, I presently found myself in Gwynn Street, a sombre little lane, named after the royal favorite, and I saw the mural record of the actress who ruled the King, in those merry, dissolute Stuart times, more than three hundred years ago. Day is waning over the links and fanes of the Wye as I leave it, at Ross, and speed away, by Grange Court, toward the Severn and the sea. It is sunset at Newham, and soon the noble river broadens, and the wide tracts of sand that fringe its banks, show themselves, bleak and desolate, beneath the gathering night. My haven is Chepstow, and in the stillness and comfort of the Beaufort Arms I pass a little time of slumber and a longer time of thought, while the lonely moments pass, and, hour by hour, the church- bell softly tolls their requiem. Glad morning is at the Severn mouth and over the green hills and hard white roads of wind-swept, fragrant, glistening Monmouthshire, and I am standing at the Pulpit Rock, on the wooded summit of 236 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD the Wyndcliffe, and one of the richest prospects that opulent England can furnish is spread before me, in a blaze of green and gold. All around and stretching miles away are thickly wooded hills. In front lies the peaceful, sunlit valley of the Wye, the little river curving here, and making a perfect fan, on which stand a manor and a church, and every foot of which is cultivated, so that it blooms with verdure and plenty, to the water's edge. Beyond that fan of many-colored earth, and on the furthest shore of the stream, rise the shattered towers of Chepstow Castle, esteemed among the most picturesque of ruins, and a living witness to the many and strange vicissitudes of its fortune during seven cen- turies of teeming life. Around it are clustered the pleasant habitations of the pleasant town. More distant gleams the broad Severn, which here receives the tributary waters of the Wye, while far away eastward shines the wide expanse of the Bristol Channel, through which continually ebbs and flows one of the mightiest of Atlantic tides. The day is uncommonly HEREFORD 237 clear, and this gorgeous pageant, resplendent under a dome of sapphire, is only darkened now and then by the fleeting shadow of a cloud, swiftly driven by the summer gale. On one side I look toward Berkeley, darkly famous for the savage slaughter of a King, and on the other side toward Clevedon, hallowed by the sepulchre of a poet. In yonder Castle the hand of murder stilled the heart of King Edward the Second; in yonder church, upon the lonely hill, was laid the dust of Arthur Hallam. Touching in itself, this memorable scene is also touching for what it encloses and reveals, and I part from it as from something always to be loved and never to be forgotten. The path downward is through dense, bird- haunted thickets on the mountain slopes, and through a quaint, cavernous, grotto-like moss- cottage at the roadside, and soon, as I drive along the valley of the Wye, a flood of sun- shine streams upon the gray and ruddy stones of Tintern, and I behold the loveliest monastic ruin in this historic land. The ruin of Foun- tain's Abbey, at venerable Ripon, is more 238 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD impressive by the attribute of grandeur, more stimulative to the imagination, and, in its desolate loneliness, more touching to the heart, but Tintern possesses an inexpressible charm of tender grace and poetic beauty. Only the walls remain, of cruciform nave and transept, with cloister, chapter-house, refectory, and a few adjacent rooms, but those remnants, almost uniform in architectural style, present a sym- metry of proportion, an elegance of simplicity, an opulence of detail, and a lovely lightness of effect, for which it would be well-nigh impos- sible to find a parallel. The Abbey must have been the perfection of the stately perpendicular order. The tracery of its windows is of fascinating delicacy, — the south window, in particular, being of such just proportion and such winning character that the eye lingers upon it as if enchanted. As you sit beneath that superb casement, while huge broken masses of white cloud drift swiftly over and the bril- liant grass and the white daisies ripple at your feet, you will try to shape, in fancy, some image of the beautiful Abbey, as it appeared to the HEREFORD 239 Cistercian monks who built it, six hundred years ago. The natural environment is, prac- tically, unchanged. The placid river still purls round the promontory on which it is built. The wooded hills encompass and shelter it on either hand. Except for a tiny street of dwellings that straggles along the riverside, modern craft afloat in the stream, cleared lands adjacent, and perhaps an occasional sound of travel, you might think yourself in the Plan- tagenet days. This is a place given wholly to careless indolence, graceful disorder, cleanliness, stillness, repose, and peace. Even the stones of the ruin seem asleep. Great shrouds of ivy have covered some of the walls, and when the breeze softly flutters them you think of a slum- bering dreamer stirring in his dream. By a spiral stone staircase in the north transept it is possible to reach a considerable height, — indeed, to reach the summit of the nave, across which there is a dizzy passage, and the explorer will be well rewarded by the view which he can obtain from that eminence. Such forms, such tracery, such carving, — they are the work, 240 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD not of skill only, but of love; and, looking on that wonder of ruined beauty, j^ou feel once more the great, vital truth that everything which is precious in art, in literature, and in life, is born of self-sacrifice and reared in spiritual devotion. It is bright daylight when I look my last on Tintern Abbey and murmur Farewell. Many a year had I longed to see it. Many a dream of it had I cherished — thinking of Wordsworth's eloquent poem, which the sight of it inspired. The reality is more than any dream. In one heart it will dwell forever with the sunlight sleeping on its ivied walls, the white daisies gleaming on its carpet of velvet sod, the fragrant wind sighing through its empty casements, the rooks flying over it, and the benediction of heaven garnered in its bosom. .>- ^ — -* . XV. TENNYSON. When I stood at the summit of the Wynd- cliffe and looked toward Clevedon I thought of Hallam and Tennyson, — that they "were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided." Arthur Henry Hallam (1811-1833) died suddenly, at Vienna, when only on the threshold of a life which, con- sidering the genius he had already evinced and the mental powers attributed to him by friends not less judicious than affectionate, might well have proved as rich in achievement as it was brilliant in promise. His remains were con- veyed to England, and, in January, 1834, were buried in the chancel of Clevedon church. That church, which stands on a lonely hill, over- looking the Bristol Channel, was imaged in Tennyson's memory when he wrote that 241 242 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD exquisite lyric, — the perfect poetry of tears, — which closes with those words of infinite sad- ness and longing and immortal significance: Break, break, break At the foot of thy crags, O sea ! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me. And the thought of that grave beneath the pavement of Clevedon church permeates with the spirit of a grief not less sublime than loving every strain of "In Memoriam," — the most pathetic and beautiful commemorative poem in the English language. Tennyson, dying in 1892, had survived his friend and comrade for close on sixty years, never ceasing to cherish his memory, never doubting that they would meet again. Looking upon Clevedon church I remembered the start- ling though expected message which one day reached me, far across the sea — "Tennyson is dead": and I recalled the thoughts which then thronged upon my mind, thoughts which, how- ever inadequate to a great theme, were those TENNYSON 243 of heart-felt homage. He was the greatest of all the poets since Byron. He died in his eighty-fourth year, a noble mission completed, a beautiful life accomplished. That mission was to develop in himself a great soul and a stately character, and, by means of their perfect expression, in the highest, most enduring form of art, to aid humanity in the achievement of spiritual progress. Many poets have died in youth or middle age: Tennyson enjoyed, to the full, whatever advantage accrues to a long life, and he attained to a complete development of his powers and a complete fulfilment of his artistic designs. He did not leave unexplored any region of thought which he wished to explore, and he did not leave unsaid any important word that it was in his power to say. He was deeply loved; he will ever be tenderly remembered; and, long after his generation has passed away, his name will be found written on the scroll of fame. His release, old as he was, and burdened with the weight of years, must have come to him as a blessing: "Call me not so often back, silent voices of 244 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD the dead!" The supreme feeling of all who know his poetry and his story will always be that of grateful pride in the purity of his life, the majesty of his character, the splendid afflu- ence of his genius, and the imperishable lustre of his renown. The word of a poet is precious precisely in as far as it expresses, not his heart alone, but the heart that is universal, — the passion, the emotion, the essential life of humanity, at its best. A word that is said for the hour disappears with the hour for which it is said, but when the great representative poet has spoken, speaking from the soul of Nature, his message becomes an essential part of human experience and dwells in memory forever. Tennyson is the poet of love, sorrow, passion, affection, pageantry, pathos, sublimity, and faith, and especially he is the poet of destiny and will. The range of his vision is very broad. His glance is penetrating and deep. His voice is not the echo of the age in which he lived, however much he may have been disturbed by the conflicts of that age, but it is a voice pro- TENNYSON 245 ceeding out of the elemental source of things, and uttering absolute truths, in words that are beautiful, final, and perfect. The reader of Tennyson finds that his own spirit, — his essen- tial experience, discontent, aspiration, the inmost fibre of his being, — is expressed for him with a fulness, a passionate sincerity, and an artistic beauty that he could never hope to reach, and that expression satisfies him fully, and leads, and guides, and strengthens him. The human mind, glad and thankful in the presence of much good, but not blind to the existence of much evil, has not succeeded in proving that everything will finish well, nor has it succeeded in illuminating the way in which that consummation can be obtained; yet it believes in the ultimate triumph of good. That conviction is adamantine in the poetry of Tennyson. A distinctive, possibly a predomi- nant note in it, is the pathetic note: "I shall never see thee more, in the long gray fields, at night." The evanescence of man and all his works is continuously recognized, and even when the blare of the trumpet is at its loudest 246 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD the low sob of the organ is heard, a solemn undertone of lament and warning. Yet Tenny- son is a poet who rests calmly on the strength of the human will and looks without fear into the eyes of death. Such a poet is a leader and comforter of the human race, and it is natural and right that he should have its homage. The thoroughness and far-sighted patience with which Tennyson developed his mind and ascertained and exercised his poetic faculties provide a lesson of supreme value in the con- duct of intellectual life. No one of the poets has manifested more, few have manifested as much, of the grand stability that consists in sane continence and poise. Tennyson's genius was not delirious. His works give no sign of that feverish straining after effect, that strenuous reaching upward for an object or an idea, that flurry of wild endeavor, which are characteristic of a petty mind. He was born great, but he so nurtured, trained, and disciplined his powers that he steadily increased in greatness. He made his intellect broad and he kept it holy, in order that the revelations TENNYSON 247 of Nature and of the spiritual world might flow through it as through their natural chan- nel. He was not warped from his course by the influence of other men, or by con- sideration of popular applause or of the idle fancies and fleeting caprice of mankind. He was never that sentimental, effusive demagogue, the Poet of the People; he was something far higher and better than that, — he was the Poet of Man. Like Wordsworth, — his illus- trious predecessor, with whom, in the attribute of stately individuality and the circumstance of temperamental isolation, he was kindred, — he took and kept his chosen, natural path. There was once a time when Tennyson received little but ridicule and neglect, and then, later, came a time when he received an homage amounting almost to idolatry, but during neither of those periods was his spiritual serenity disturbed. The ideal of lofty, inflex- ible character and pure, perfect manliness that his poetry continually presents was the uncon- scious reflex of himself. His magnificent Ode on "The Death of the Duke of Wellington," 248 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD thrills and trembles with profound, passionate exultation in the reality of virtuous strength and moral grandeur. The transcendent attributes of power that Tennyson's poems disclose are heart and imagination. Their vitality of feeling, never shown in discord or tumult, but always present, like the central heat of the sun, is colossal, and, looking back on the current of his years and the incessant fertility of his achievement, it is not less than marvellous that such intense emotion should have kept itself alive in him for so long a time. Almost to the end his voice was a clarion and his pen was fire. In his poem of "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After" there is the same strain of noble, impassioned feeling, — loftier, grander, more predominant and more august, if possible, — that burns in the "Locksley Hall" of his vigor- ous, splendid youth. He did not need to go out of himself for inspiration. The flame leaped from within. The altar was never darkened and never cold. Every influence that the experience and environment of his life TENNYSON 249 could liberate became tremulous with sensi- bility and eloquent with meaning, the moment it touched his mind. It was as if the wander- ing breeze derived warmth, fragrance, and deathless melody from only sweeping the strings of the harp that had been placed to receive its caress. He was an example, further- more, of that miracle of Nature, the renewal of the elemental poetic power. At a time when it seemed, with the death of Byron, that the last great poetic voice was hushed, suddenly the genius of Tennyson sprang into light, and the world was dowered with a literature of poetry essentially and absolutely new. The poetry of Tennyson, while never eccentric, is unique. It has, indeed, been widely imitated, — as he observed when he wrote that "Most can raise the flower now, for all have got the seed"; but the hand of the Master remains unrivalled. The blank verse of Ten- nyson possesses a rich quality of music and an indescribable potency of movement that were his own. He used many of the old forms of 250 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD versification, but he beautified every one of them that he touched. The stanza of "In Memoriam" occurs in Ben Jonson, but Ten- nyson gave it a grace, flexibility, and sono- rous music all his own. In the invention of new forms he was remarkably ingenious, but it is notable, as in "The Lotos Eaters," "The Two Voices," "Margaret," and other of his poems, that the form is the inevitable consequence of the thought. Every fibre of his art was pervaded by inspiration. He proved that the most delicate and beautiful refinement of mechanism, in the use of language, is not incompatible with boundless feeling. He made intolerable and impossible, henceforth, in poetry, the bad extremes of tumid verbiage and soulless form. Alike to literature and to life the serv- ices that he rendered are those of perpetual blessing, and the world is nobler, and the life of coming generations will be better and more beautiful, because he has lived and written. ALFRED TENNYSON 1809-1892 He Jialh returned to regions whence he came. Him doth the spirit divine Of universal loveliness reclaim. All X at nre is his shrine. WILLIAM WATSON. XVI. STRATFORD TO NOTTINGHAM. A white swan was floating on the dark, shining stream of the Avon when last I saw it, and birds were circling around the gray spire of the Shakespeare Church, and under a sky of mingled cloud and sunshine the great elms that curtain it, reflected in the still water, seemed to hallow it as the perfect emblem of majesty and peace. For me the picture fades and disappears, but for all time the Swan of Avon will glorify that place and will allure the reverent pilgrim from every part of the world. Thus thinking, and with heartfelt bless- ing on a scene long known and dearly loved, I turned away from the shrine of Shakespeare, to revisit the early haunts and the ancestral home of Byron. The annual number of passenger trips by 251 252 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD railway in Great Britain is stated at nine hun- dred and eighty millions, from which fact it can be inferred that the scenery of that country has been generally observed. There is not, indeed, anything in the inhabited world that has not been viewed by somebody, and there is not anything which, to somebody, is not familiar: custom will stale almost every spectacle that the world can furnish: yet, to an imaginative vision, novelty and charm continually present themselves, and travel never loses its zest. These English scenes, though known to me for many years, are still lovely. The course is through ploughed fields and vacant meadows, over which, here and there, plods a lonely sportsman, intent on shooting the grouse. The traveller's glance lingers upon the red roofs of cosey farm houses, the cattle and sheep that are carelessly grouped in the pastures, the haws, now glowing red in the green bushes of the hawthorn, and the pleasing, irregular hedgerows that diversify the distant hills. Near at hand many frightened rabbits scurry away, and hide themselves among the STRATFORD TO NOTTINGHAM 253 tangled gorse. Wooded tracts appear, and white roads that stretch away through green fields, diamond-pointed or circular hay-ricks, and meadows of russet-tinted grass, spangled with millions of golden buttercups, that faintly wave in a cool, autumn wind. There is Etting- ton, where Shirley dwelt, who figures in "Lothair"; there is the old Roman Foss; there is beautiful Compton-Wynyates, slumbering in its green dell; there is Keinton, nestled among the low hills; and presently, under a glorious blue sky flecked with shreds of white and leaden cloud, I gaze on the crest of famous Edgehill, where King Charles the First defeated the Roundheads, and mark the beginning of the vale of the Red Horse. Through that region of Warwickshire the characteristics of the scenery are uniform, and, except for minor shades of difference, one picture only repeats another. It is early autumn now, and the various contrasted tints of the grass denote the declining year, but though the grasses wither and the leaves have begun to fall, the cedars are dark with foliage, the oaks, elms, 254 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD and beeches make a brave show on the hillsides, and in the moist lowlands the rich, deep green of the meadows is dazzling in its brightness. On this day of my pilgrimage the sun was often hidden by clouds, but its soft influence, diffused through white and tawny fleece, made a tranquil shade, well befitting a time of fare- well, and hallowing the remembrance of days forever gone. Objects seen in such a light as that become transfigured, and even the common- place is poetic. Every moment, too, there was a change, and I suppose it is true that the fleeting glance sees only that which is lovely. There were glimpses of canal, and pond, and rivulet; of many-colored cattle and of nibbling sheep; of little colts scampering away in the long, lonesome pastures ; of rooks in sable multi- tudes, convened in the newly reaped grain fields or making wing to some distant refuge; of opulent foliage, and of the various shapes of the meadows, deftly enclosed by hedges. Some- times a noble manor house was visible, far away, while more near a neat cottage, draped with vines and nestled among the trees, appeared the STRATFORD TO NOTTINGHAM 255 perfect image of "settled, low content." At Byefleld I saw a superb church, the tower fretted and having on each corner a round turret, and around the church cottages were clustered like children at a parent's knee. At Morton-Pinckney the hedges were gleaming with red berries, and at some distance a gray church — showing the four pinnacles so scorned by Ruskin — looked grimly forth from among the leaves. Little pony-chaises were in waiting, the few persons present spoke softly and moved slowly, and every denotement was of comfort and peace. Soon I saw the pretty village of Blakesley, where were many fine Alderney cattle, and where the cottage roofs were coated with moss, while around its low church tower great flights of birds made a lovely picture. That country side is especially fertile and in the plains of Towcester I could but note the rich, dark green of the meadows, so significant of abundance. The fields had been reaped, and all things put in order, — regular, yet sweetly wild. Now and then I saw traces of a late harvest, — stacks of yellow grain, yet 256 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD ungarnered, or sheaves of husk. Blisworth came next, with its fine canal, its verdant hedges, and its willow-bordered river, and presently I was rambling in the streets of Northampton, and musing on yet another provincial copy of London. A large, gay, red brick town it is, populous and busy, its antiquities overwhelmed by the stirring life of to-day. It has its George Hotel, its Peacock, its Shakespeare, its Falcon, its Sheep Street, and perched on high, in front of a fine old church called All Saints, stands King Charles the Second, astonished and astonishing, in the martial garb of ancient Rome; but also it has its May fair, its Waterloo House, and its parade, and in its ample market-place the shops are numerous and the traffic is brisk, while up and down its highways roll the tram-cars of our time, — and Becket, and King Henry the Second, and Northampton Castle, and the stormy past of history are far away. In North- ampton the traveller thinks of Fotheringay and Mary Stuart, and of "Burleigh House by Stamford town," — for those storied places are STRATFORD TO NOTTINGHAM 257 associated with the Northampton shire, and the latter is still extant: and there is need to think of the relics that renown these English places, when, as you walk the streets, you see, everywhere, the same windows full of hams and the same clod-poles full of beer. Northampton has fine suburbs, and, as its arid slate roofs and monotonous rows of red- brick dwellings faded in the distance, I was cheered to look upon its contiguous, breezy meads, intersected by the winding river, while the western skies were glorious with mingled and blended tints of silver and masses of slate, piled one upon another in towering majesty, while opposite, in the East, half the heaven was one blazing sapphire. The course was northerly now, through the cultivated region of Brampton, Chipston, and Oxenton, and pleasant it was to see the fields of sallows, called sometimes the palm (on one of these it is that Rosalind, in the immortal comedy, finds the verses of Orlando), the ample hill-slopes populous with feeding cattle, the bright yellow hay-ricks, and the peaceful sheep. Soon a rain- 258 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD bow formed itself in the East, spanning the whole arch of the skies, and then came rain, in the midst of sunshine, over a smiling land of gardens and flowers, with vistas, in every direction, of gleaming meadow, trim copse, farms, cottages, black cattle, huge and startling against the vivid green, and spired churches on distant hills, with birds flying over them, and evanescent glints of sunlight on the parti- colored uplands far away. Words can only hint the alluring loveliness of these ever-changing pageants. The long shadows of the trees slope to the eastward. The land rises to crested hill-tops or sinks into gentle dells, thick clad with oak and beech, and a multitude of rooks and starlings makes rapid flight into dim recesses of the wood. We have skirted Rutlandshire and are in Leicestershire now, still making to the north. Here a wonderful double rainbow forms a great arch in the heavens bending over the beautiful vale of the Trent. The night comes slowly on. The fields grow dusky and lone- some. The plains are wide, and little towns STRATFORD TO NOTTINGHAM 259 glimmer on the view, with tall chimneys and windmills in the distance. Hedges glisten in lingering, intermittent rays of the setting sun. The hills in the west are half in cloud and half in silver mist. The air is cold, fragrant, and delicious. Past cosey farm houses, past little red and gray villages, through hay-fields, and sheep-pastures, and market gardens, over white roads and shining rivulets, and so at last the pilgrim comes to a sunset haven in the ancient city of Nottingham. XVII. NOTTINGHAM AND NEWSTEAD. The shire of Nottingham is not very large, not more than fifty miles long by thirty broad, but it is second to none in the attributes of distinctive character, and it contains some of the grandest estates and most precious historic relics in England. From the esplanade of the Castle Museum, on the top of the caverned rock which is the highest point in the city, you can look toward stately Wollaston in the west; Hucknall-Torkard, containing the tomb of Byron, and romantic Newstead Abbey, in the north; Southwell, with its quaint Abbey and lovely chapter-house, the finest in Europe, further afield, in the northeast; the Vale of Belvoir in the east; and those verdant plains, southward, through which, in sun and shadow, flows the broad, sumptuous river Trent. Upon 260 NOTTINGHAM AND NEWSTEAD 261 every side the scene is enchanting with rural charm and impressive with storied antiquity. There King Alfred the Great warred with the Danes: there the Norman William laid upon the people his strong hand of conquest and tyranny: there Robin Hood and his merry followers "fleeted the time," in the golden age: there Roger Mortimer and his wicked paramour Isabella were seized by King Edward the Third, — suddenly coming upon them through those subterranean caves and passages which are practicable still for the visitor of To-day; and there, when the Wars of the Roses were surging around the sturdy citadel of Notting- ham, often came that expeditious, intrepid, Richard of Glo'ster, the most brilliant, dangerous, fateful, fascinating figure in the royal annals of England. Not far away, and easily to be reached by a brief journey to either Worksop or Mansfield, is the pic- turesque region of Sherwood Forest, part of which is still preserved, and through that fragrant, verdurous tract, at frequent intervals of beauty, are disposed the opulent estates of 262 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD Welbec, Clumber, Rufford, Hardwick, and Thoresby, conspicuous among the stateliest of English homes, lovely with scenery, haunted by legend, glorious with art, and incomparable in dignity of repose. Every place has a history, but the inhabit- ants, as a rule, seldom consider it. No mat- ter which city you visit, you will find that the people who live in it To-day are chiefly anxious as to how they shall live in it To-morrow. They are but little concerned as to its antiquities, and, habitually, they care not for the Past, disregarding even those monitions of its experience which might well serve to ameliorate their present con- dition. Nottingham is the city in which King Charles the First reared his standard, when at length he determined to hazard his cause on the arbitrament of battle against the Parlia- ment of England, and surely if any spot ought to be marked it is the spot on which that ominous ceremony occurred. Nothing com- memorates it; nothing designates it. The exact place is not known, but it is believed ° - s = > ^ a t gi, ~ * ~ ; ? = » -2 *» ."S O Co •* &i £; r HAUNTS OF WORDSWORTH 321 Mementos of Wordsworth are frequently encountered by the traveller among these lakes and fells. One of them, situated at the foot of Place Fell, is a rustic cottage that the poet once selected for his residence: it was purchased for him by Lord Lonsdale, as a partial indemnity for losses, caused by an ancestor of his, to Wordsworth's father. The poet liked the place, but he never lived there. The house somewhat resembles the Shakespeare cottage at Stratford, — the living-room being floored with stone slabs, irregular in size and shape and mostly broken by hard use. In a corner of the kitchen stands a fine carved oak cupboard, dark with age, inscribed with the date of the Merry Monarch, 1660. What were the sights of those sweet days that linger still, and will always linger, in my remembrance? A ramble in the park of Patterdale Hall (the old name of the estate is Halsteads), which is full of American trees; a golden morning in Dovedale, with Irving, much like Jaques, reclined upon a shaded rock, half-way up the mountain, musing and moral- 322 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD izing in his sweet, kind way, beside the brawl- ing stream; the first prospect of Windermere, from above Ambleside, — a vision of heaven upon earth; the drive by Rydal Water, which has all the loveliness of celestial pictures seen in dreams; the glimpse of stately Rydal Hall and of the sequestered Rydal Mount, where Wordsworth so long lived and where he died; the Wishing Gate, where one of us, I know, wished in his heart that he could be young again and be wiser than to waste his youth in self-willed folly; the restful hours of observa- tion and thought at delicious Grasmere, where we stood in silence at Wordsworth's grave and heard the murmur of Rotha singing at his feet; the lovely drive past Matterdale, across the moorlands, with only clouds and rooks for our chance companions, and mountains for sentinels along our way; the ramble through Keswick, all golden and glowing in the after- noon sun, till we stood by Crosthwaite church and read the words of commemoration upon the tomb of Robert Southey; the glorious cir- cuit of Derwent, — surely the loveliest sheet of HAUNTS OF WORDSWORTH 323 water in England; the descent into the vale of Keswick, with sunset on the rippling crystal of the lake and the perfume of countless wild roses on the evening wind. Those things, and the midnight talk about those things, — Irving, so tranquil, so gentle, so full of keen and sweet appreciation of them, — Bendall, so bright and thoughtful, — Marshall, so quaint and jolly, and so full of knowledge equally of nature and of books! — can never be forgotten. In one heart they are cherished forever. Wordsworth is buried in Grasmere church- yard, close by the wall, on the bank of the little river Rotha. "Sing him thy best," said Matthew Arnold, in his lovely dirge for the great poet — Sing him thy best! for few or none Hears thy voice right, now he is gone. In the same grave with Wordsworth sleeps his devoted wife. Beside them rest the poet's no less devoted sister Dorothy, who died at Rydal Mount in 1855, aged 83, and his daughter, Dora, together with her husband 324 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD Edward Quillinan, of whom Arnold wrote so tenderly : Alive, we would have changed his lot, We would not change it now. On the low gravestone that marks the sepulchre of Wordsworth are written these words: "William Wordsworth, 1850. Mary Wordsworth, 1859." In the neighboring church a mural tablet presents this inscription: To the memory of William Wordsworth. A true poet and philosopher, who by the special gift and calling of Almighty God, whether he discoursed on man or na- ture, failed not to lift up the heart to holy things, tired not of maintaining the cause of the poor and simple, and so in perilous times was raised up to be a chief minister, not only of noblest poetry, but of high and sacred truth. The memorial is raised here by his friends and neighbours, in testimony of respect, affec- tion, and gratitude. Anno mdcccli. A few steps from Wordsworth's grave will bring you to the marble cross that marks the resting-place of Hartley Coleridge, son of the great author of "The Ancient Mariner," HAUNTS OF WORDSWORTH 325 himself a poet of rare sensibility; and close by is a touching memorial to the gifted man who inspired Matthew Arnold's poems of "The Scholar-Gipsy" and "Thyrsis." This is a slab laid upon his mother's grave, at the foot of her tombstone, inscribed with these words: In memory of Arthur Hugh Clough, some time Fel- low of Oriel College, Oxford, the beloved son of James Butler and Anne Clough. This remembrance in his own country is placed on his mother's grave by those to whom life was made happy by his presence and his love. He is buried in the Swiss cemetery at Florence, where he died, November 13, 1861, aged 42. "So, dearest, now thy brows are cold I see thee what thou art and know Thy likeness to the wise below, Thy kindred with the great of old." Southey rests in Crosthwaite churchyard, about half a mile north of Keswick, where he died. They show you Greta Hall, a fine mansion, on a little hill, enclosed in tall trees, which for forty years, ending in 1843, was the poet's home. In the church is a marble 326 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD figure of Southey, recumbent on a large stone sarcophagus. His grave, in the churchyard, is marked by a low flat tomb, on the end of which appears an inscription commemorative of a servant, Betty Thompson, who had lived fifty years in his family and is buried near him. There was a pretty scene at this grave. When I came to it Irving was already there, and was speaking to a little girl who had guided him to the spot. "If any one were to give you a shilling, my dear," he said, "what would you do with it?" The child was confused and she murmured softly, "I don't know, sir." "Well," he continued, "if any one were to give you two shillings, what would you do?" She said she would save it. "But what if it were three shillings?" he asked, and each time he spoke he dropped a silver coin into her hand, till he must have given her more than a dozen of them. "Four — five — six — seven — what would you do with the money?" "I would give it to my mother, sir," she answered at last, her little face all smiles, gazing up at the stately, sombre stranger, whose noble countenance HAUNTS OF WORDSWORTH 327 never looked more radiant than it did then, with gentle kindness and pleasure. It is a trifle to mention, but it was touching in its simplicity; and that attentive group, around the grave of Southey, in the blaze of the golden sun of a July afternoon, with Skiddaw looming vast and majestic over all, will linger with me as long as anything lovely and of good report is treasured in my memory. Long after we had left the place I chanced to speak of its peculiar interest. "The most interesting thing I saw there," said Irving, "was that sweet child." I do not think the great actor was ever much impressed with the beauties of those writers who are constantly, and incor- rectly, called "the lake poets." Another picture glimmers across my dream, — a picture of peace and happiness which shall close this rambling reminiscence of peaceful days. We had driven up the pass between Glencoin and Gowbarrow, and had reached Matterdale, on our way toward Troutbeck station, — not the beautiful Windermere Trout- beck, but the less notable one. The road is 328 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD lonely, but at Matterdale the traveller sees a few houses, and there our gaze was attracted by a gray church nestled in a hollow of the hillside. It stands sequestered, with bright greensward around it and a few trees. A faint sound of organ music floated from this sacred building and seemed to deepen the hush of the summer wind and shed a holier calm upon the lovely solitude. We left the carriage and silently entered the church. A youth and a maiden, apparently lovers, were sitting at the organ, — the youth playing and the girl listen- ing, and looking with tender trust and innocent affection into his face. He recognized our presence with a kindly nod, but went on with the music. I do not think she saw us. The place was full of soft, warm light, streaming through the stained glass of Gothic windows, and was fragrant with perfume floating from the hay-fields and the dew-drenched roses of many a neighboring hedge. Not a word was spoken, and after a few moments we departed, as silently as we had come. Those lovers will never know what eyes looked upon them ROBERT SOUTHEY 1774-1843 He was all pureness and his outward part But represents the picture of Ms heart. cow LEV. HAUNTS OF WORDSWORTH 329 that day, what hearts were comforted with the sight of their happiness, or how a careworn man, three thousand miles away, fanning upon his hearthstone the dying embers of hope, now thinks of them with tender sympathy, and murmurs a blessing on the gracious scene which their presence so much endeared. XXI. GRAY AND ARNOLD. The poet Emerson's injunction, "Set not thy foot on graves," is wise and right, and being in merry England in the summer time it certainly is your own fault if you do not fulfil the rest of the philosophical command- ment, and "Hear what wine and roses say." Yet the history of England is largely written in her ancient churches and crumbling ruins, and the pilgrim to historic and literary shrines in that country will find it difficult to avoid setting his foot on graves. It is possible there, as elsewhere, to live entirely in the present; but to certain temperaments and in certain moods the temptation is irresistible to live largely in the past. One of the most sacred spots in England is the churchyard of Stoke- Pogis. At one time it seemed likely that 330 GRAY AND ARNOLD 331 Stoke Park would pass into the possession of a sporting club, and be turned into a race- course and kennel. Fate was kind, however, and averted the final disaster. Only a few changes are to be noted in that part of the park which, to the reverent pilgrim, must always be dear. The churchyard has been extended in front, and a solid wall of flint, pierced with a lych-gate, richly carved, has replaced the plain fence, with simple turnstile, that formerly enclosed that rural cemetery. The additional land was given by a new proprietor of Stoke Park, who wished that his tomb might be made in it; and this has been built, beneath a large tree, not far from the entrance. The avenue from the gate to the church has been widened, and it is fringed with thin lines of twisted stone; and where once stood only two or three rose-trees there are now sixty-two, — set in lines on either side of the path. But the older part of the grave- yard remains unchanged. The yew-trees cast their dense shade, as of old. The quaint porch of the sacred building has not suffered under 332 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD the hand of restoration, the ancient wooden memorials of the dead continue to moulder above their ashes, and still the abundant ivy gleams and trembles in the sunshine and in the summer wind that plays so sweetly over the spired tower and dusky walls of this lovely temple. It would still be lovely, even if it were not associated with the immortal Elegy. I stood for a long time beside the tomb of the noble and tender poet and looked with deep emotion on the surrounding scene of pensive, dream-like beauty, — the great elms, so dense of foliage, so stately and graceful; the fields of deep, waving grass, golden with buttercups and white with daisies; the many unmarked mounds; the many mouldering tomb- stones; the rooks sailing and cawing around the tree-tops; and the blue sky flecked with floating fleece. Within the church nothing has been changed. The memorial window to Gray, for which contributions have been taken dur- ing several years, had not yet been placed. As I cast a farewell look at Gray's tomb, on turn- GRAY AND ARNOLD 333 ing to leave the churchyard, it rejoiced my heart to see that two American girls, who had then come in, were placing fresh flowers over the poet's dust. He has been buried more than a hundred years, but his memory is as bright as the ivy on the tower within whose shadow he sleeps, and as fragrant as the roses that bloom at its base. Many Americans visit Stoke-Pogis church- yard, and no visitor to the Old World who knows how to value what is best in its treasures will omit that act of reverence. The journey is easy. A brief run by railway from Pad- dington takes you to Slough, which is near to Windsor, and thence it is a charming drive, or a still more charming walk, mostly through green, embowered lanes, to the "ivy-mantled tower," the "yew-tree's shade," and the simple tomb of Gray. What a gap there would be in the poetry of our language if the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" were absent from it! By that sublime and tender reverie upon the most solemn of all subjects that can engage the attention of the human mind 334 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD Thomas Gray became one of the chief bene- factors of his race. Those lines have been murmured by the lips of sorrowing affection beside many a shrine of buried love and hope, in many a churchyard, all round the world. The sick have remembered them with com- fort. The great soldier, going into battle, has said them for his solace and cheer. The dying statesman, closing his weary eyes upon this empty world, has spoken them with his last faltering accents, and fallen asleep with their heavenly music in his brain. Well may we pause and ponder at the grave of that divine poet! Every noble mind is made nobler, every good heart is made better, for the experience of such a pilgrimage. In such places as these pride is rebuked, vanity is dispelled, and the revolt of the passionate human heart is humbled into meekness and submission. There is a place kindred with Stoke-Pogis churchyard, a place destined to become as famous and as dear to the heart of the reverent pilgrim in the footsteps of genius and pure GRAY AND ARNOLD 335 renown. On a Sunday afternoon I sat for a long time beside the grave of Matthew Arnold. It is in a churchyard at Laleham, in Surrey, where he was born. The day was chill, sombre, and, except for an occasional twitter of birds and the melancholy cawing of distant rooks, soundless and sadly calm. So dark a sky might mean November rather than June, but it fitted well with the scene and with the pensive thoughts and feelings of the hour. Laleham is a village on the south bank of the Thames, about thirty miles from London and nearly midway between Staines and Chertsey. It consists of a few devious lanes and a cluster of houses, shaded by large trees and every- where made beautiful by flowers, and it is one of those fortunate places to which access can- not be obtained by railway. There is a manor- house in the centre of it, secluded in a walled garden, fronting the square immediately oppo- site to the village church. The other houses are mostly cottages, made of red brick and roofed with red tiles. Ivy flourishes, and many of the cottages are overrun by climbing 336 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD roses. Roman relics are found in the neigh- borhood, a camp near the ford, and other indications of the military activity of Caesar. The church, All Saints', is of great antiquity. It has been, in part, restored, but its venerable aspect is not impaired. The large, low tower is of brick, and this and the church walls are thickly covered with glistening ivy. A double- peaked roof of red tiles, sunken here and there, contributes to the picturesque beauty of the building, and its charm is further height- ened by the contiguity of trees, in which the old church seems to nestle. Within there are low, massive pillars and plain, symmetrical arches, — the remains of Norman architecture. Great rafters of dark oak augment, in that quaint structure, the air of solidity and of an age at once venerable and romantic, while a bold, spirited, beautiful painting of Christ and Peter upon the sea imparts to it an addi- tional sentiment of sanctity and solemn pomp. That remarkable work is by George Henry Harlow, and it is placed back of the altar, where once there would have been, in the GRAY AND ARNOLD 337 Gothic days, a stained window. The explorer does not often come upon such a gem of a church, even in England, — so rich in remains of the old Catholic zeal and devotion, remains now mostly converted to the use of Protestant worship. The churchyard of All Saints' is worthy of the church, — a little enclosure, irregular in shape, surface, shrubbery, and tombstones, bor- dered on two sides by the village square and on one by a farmyard, and shaded by many trees, some of them yews, and some of great size and age. Almost every house that is visible near by is bowered by trees and adorned with flowers. No person was any- where to be seen, and it was only after inquiry at various dwellings that the sexton's abode could be discovered and access to the church obtained. The poet's grave is not within the church, but in a secluded spot at the side of it, a little removed from the highway, and screened from immediate view by an ancient, dusky yew-tree. I readily found it, perceiving a large wreath of roses and a bunch of white 338 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD flowers that were lying upon it, — recent offer- ings of tender remembrance and sorrowing love, but already beginning to wither. A small square of turf, bordered with white marble, covers the vaulted tomb of the poet and of three of his children. At the head are three crosses of white marble, alike in shape and equal in size, except that the first is set upon a pedestal a little lower than those of the others. On the first cross is written: Basil Francis Arnold, youngest child of Matthew and Frances Lucy Arnold. Born August 19, 1866. Died January 4, 1868. "Suffer little children to come unto me." On the second: Thomas Arnold, eldest child of Matthew and Frances Lucy Arnold. Born July 6, 1852. Died November 23, 1868. "Awake, thou, Lute and Harp! I will awake right early." On the third: Trevenen William Arnold, second child of Matthew and Frances Lucy Arnold. Born October 15,1853. Died February 16, 1872. "In the morning it is green and groweth up." GRAY AND ARNOLD 339 Near by are other tombstones, bearing the name of Arnold, — the dates inscribed on them referring to about the beginning of the nine- teenth century. These mark the resting-place of some of the poet's kindred. His father, Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, rests in Rugby chapel, — that noble father, that true friend and servant of humanity, of whom the son wrote those words of imperishable nobility and meaning, "Thou, my father, wouldst not be saved alone." Matthew Arnold is buried in the same grave with his eldest son, and side by side with his little children. He who was himself as a little child, in his innocence, goodness, and truth, — where else and how else could he so fitly rest? "Awake, thou, Lute and Harp! I will awake right early." Every man will have his own thoughts in such a place as this, will reflect upon his own afflictions, and, from knowledge of the manner and spirit in which kindred griefs have been borne by the great heart of intellect and genius, will seek to gather strength and patience to endure them well. Matthew 340 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD Arnold taught many lessons of great value to those persons who are able to think. He did not believe that happiness is the destiny of the human race on earth, or that there is a visible ground for assuming that happiness, in our mortal condition, is one of the inherent rights of humanity. He did not think that this world is made an abode of delight by the mere jocular affirmation that everything in it is well and lovely. But his message, delivered in poetic strains that will endure as long as our language exists, is the message, not of gloom and despair, but of spiritual purity and sweet and gentle patience. The man who heeds Matthew Arnold's teaching will put no trust in creeds and superstitions, will place no reliance upon the transient structures of theology, will take no guidance from the ani- mal and unthinking multitude, but will "keep the whiteness of his soul," will be simple, unselfish, and sweet, will live for the spirit, and in that spirit, pure, tender, fearless, strong to bear and patient to suffer, will find composure to meet the inevitable disasters of GRAY AND ARNOLD 341 life and the awful mystery of death. Such was the burden of my thought, sitting there, in the gloaming, beside the lifeless dust of him whose hand had once, with kindly greeting, been clasped in mine: and such will be the thought of many and many a pilgrim who will stand in that sacred place, on many a summer evening of the long future, — While the stars come out and the night wind Brings, up the stream, Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea. A plain headstone, of white marble, has been placed at Arnold's grave, bearing the following inscription : — Matthew Arnold, eldest son of the late Thomas Arnold, D.D., Head Master of Rugby School. Born December 24, 1822. Died April 15, 1888. "There is sprung up a light for the righteous, and joyful glad- ness for such as are true-hearted." The "Letters of Matthew Arnold," pub- lished in 1895, contain touching allusions to Laleham churchyard. At Harrow, February 342 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD 27, 1869, the poet wrote: "It is a wonderfully clear, bright day, with a cold wind, so I went to a field on the top of the hill, whence I can see the clump of Botleys and the misty line of the Thames, where Tommy lies at the foot of them. I often go for this view on a clear day." At London, August 2, 1869, he wrote: "On Saturday Flu and I went together to Laleham. It was exactly a year since we had driven there with darling Tommy and the other two boys, to see Basil's grave; he enjoyed the drive, and Laleham, and the river, and Matt Buckland's garden, and often talked of them afterwards. And now we went to see his grave, poor darling. The two graves are a perfect garden, and are evidently the sight of the churchyard, where there is nothing else like them; a path has been trodden over the grass to them, by people coming and going. It was a soft, mild air, and we sat a long- time by the graves." XXII. THROUGH SURREY AND KENT. It is early morning in London. The rain has been falling all night, and in the gray of the dawn it continues to fall, — not now in showers, but intermittently and in a cold drizzle. The sky is dark and sullen, and through the humid, misty air the towers and spires of the majestic city loom shadowlike, fantastic, and strange. Pools of water stand here and there in the streaming, slippery streets, which are almost devoid equally of vehicles and pedestrians. The shopkeepers of Kensington have not yet awakened, and as my cab rolls through the solitary highways I see that only in a few places have the shut- ters been taken from the windows. Victoria is presently reached, where, at this early hour, only a few persons are astir, so that the con- 343 344 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD fusion and clamor of British travel have not yet begun. Soon the train rumbles out of the station. The skies begin to brighten as it crosses the Thames, while, gently ruffled by the morning breeze, the broad expanse of the river shows like a sheet of wrinkled steel. At first the run is among long rows of houses, all alike, — the monotonous suburban dwellings of towns such as Wandsworth and Clapham, with their melancholy little gardens, dripping with recent rain, in which marigolds are beginning to bloom, and great, heavy sunflowers hang their disconsolate heads. Nothing here seems joyous except the grass, but this has profited by the pertinacious rain and is richer and greener than ever. Presently the gardens and dwell- ings grow more opulent. The wind rises with the advance of day, and soon the dense foliage about the hill and vale of Heme stirs and rustles in the gladness of its careless life. Now begins the gentle pageant of English rural scenery — that blending of soft color and quaint, delicate object. Every traveller will remember, and will rejoice to remember, the THROUGH SURREY AND KENT 345 elements of that delicious picture — the open, far-reaching stretches of pasture, level, green, and fragrant; the beds of many-colored flowers, flashing on brilliant lawns; the fleecy sheep, the sleek horses, and the comely cattle, grouped or scattered in the fields, some feeding, some ruminant, some in motion, and some asleep; the deep, lush grass and clover; the nurseries of fruit-trees; the glimpses of gray church- towers and of shining streams; and the fre- quent flights of rooks and frolicsome starlings that seem at times almost to make a darkness in the air. Soon the opulent, aristocratic facade of ancient Dulwich College, — at once the memorial and the sepulchre of Shakespeare's associate, Edward Alley ne, — smiles upon the traveller and witches him with thoughts of a memorable past. Leaving Dulwich the train speeds through a long tunnel, and in a few moments, dashing across the plain of Penge, I per- ceive the lofty tower and Olympian fabric of the Crystal Palace shining on the hills of Sydenham. This is a fertile, rolling country, 346 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD much diversified with hill and valley. All around the banks are scarlet with innumer- able standards of the gorgeous poppy and golden with flowers of the colt's-foot, and many red-roofed farm-houses are momentarily visible in the green depths of lofty groves. The way lies through hop-fields now, and the air is delicious with the zestful perfume of their blossoms. Beds of wild fern and of many kinds of underwoods are traversed, and in fields that are divided by hedges of lovely hawthorn I see sheaves of yellow grain. Quaint little villages are passed. The door- yards are gay with marigolds. There are broad patches of clover in copious, fragrant bloom, and on the distant horizon the green hills, crowned with dark groves, loom gloomily under straggling clouds. The wind blows chill, the sky takes on a cold, silvery hue, and innu- merable starlings, flying low, look like black dots under the dome of heaven. The speed is great, and the engine leaves long trails of thick, smoky vapor that melts through the trees and hedges or seems to sink into the ground. At THROUGH SURREY AND KENT 347 Sole a lovely rural region is opened and the sky begins to smile. Yonder on the hillside a stark church-tower shows its grim parapet. In the opposite quarter there are hills, thick-wooded or capped with sheaves of the harvest. This scene is one of exceptionally picturesque beauty, — the peace of deep vales in which boughs wave, streams murmur, and stately rooks are seeking their food; the peace of old red or gray farm-houses veiled with ivy and nestled among flowers. The banks of the Medway are near, and beyond the crystal bosom of that beautiful river rises the black ruin of Rochester Castle, flecked with lichen and haunted by hosts of doves, and near it the pinnacled tower of Rochester Cathedral, romantic in itself, but made more romantic by the art of the great genius who loved it well. Here Dickens laid the scene of his ingenious story of "Edwin Drood," and not far from this spot stands the old, lonely house of Gadshill in which he died. The little town of Rochester is all astir. The wet, red roofs of its cosey dwellings glisten in the welcome though transient sunshine, and on some of 348 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD those houses great mantles of green ivy sway gently in the rising wind. The river is full of shipping, — small craft and steamboats, — and the gaze of the pilgrim dwells delighted on brown sails, tapering spars, gay smoke- stacks, and the busy little boats that seem never at rest. Not many views in England possess such animation as pervades the spec- tacle of the valley of the Medway at Rochester, and the lover of Dickens may well look upon it with affection and leave it with regret. The train dashes through a ravine of chalk- stone now and I have a fine prospect of martial Chatham, which is built in a valley, but extends up the side of the adjacent eastward hill, and through one of its long highways my glance follows the plunging flight of a large flock of frightened sheep. At New-Brompton there are many small gray houses, and there is a profusion of red and yellow flowers. A wide reach of glistening water is presently seen, toward the east, — which is the Medway, near- ing the sea. Harvest fields extend almost to its verge, and the country is level for miles, THROUGH SURREY AND KENT 349 — a marsh-land intersected by channels and pools. Presently I come again into hop- fields, and recognize the rich, blooming land of Kent. At Newington there are gloomier skies and dashes of sudden rain, but the grass is thickly strewn with sumptuous white daisies, and the prospect of a noble antique church, with plenteous moss and lichen on its triple-gabled roof and with its square tower bosomed in foliage, would make any gazer forget the weather and cast all dis- comfort to the winds. Speeding past Sitting- bourne I note the breezy activity of that thrifty place, the newly built manufactories, the tall, smoking chimneys, the fine mill, and the miller's still finer dwelling — so close to the brink of his great pond that not the building only but the innumerable flowers that grow around it are reflected in the broad, gleaming pool. This sweet picture passes in an instant, and then, under rifts of blue in a sky of silver, come many drenched sheaves of an injured harvest. There is a vision of roads that are full of mire; of glowing hop-fields; of hay- 350 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD stacks and thatched cottages; of distant spires peeping out among the trees; of windmills on the hill-tops; of harvesters gathering grain; and of happy children who wave a greeting from poppy-spangled fields. Faversham now, and across the green levels, far away, rise the brown sails of barges and of other little ves- sels that ply the neighboring sea. Near at hand the green hedges are full of white and red and yellow flowers, and many sheep are nibbling in the pastures or gazing with a wooden stare at the flying train. The sky continually changes, and here it is a dome of dark-gray and silver, across which, with astonishing speed, thin fleeces of rain-cloud career on the stormy wind. I have come into a beautiful valley, green on all sides and diversified with windmills, cottages, little gray churches, massive cones of golden hay, clumps of larch, lines of delicate silver birch, and large masses of fragrant hops, — the thick vines of which hang so near that I can almost clutch their pendant blossoms as I pass. A veil of dim sunshine is cast over this verdurous THROUGH SURREY AND KENT 351 scene, and as the vale broadens you can per- ceive a dazzling variety of objects — manor- house and cottage, grove and plain, fields that are brown and fields that are yellow, thin white roads that wind away over hill-tops and are lost in the distance, a bright and rapid stream that flashes through the meadow, and, grandly crowning the pageant and consecrating its beauty, the stately, splendid towers of Canter- bury Cathedral. There they stand, majestic and glorious, with centuries of history upon their hallowed battlements, serene, predominant, and changeless amid the changes of a transitory world. Nothing of architectural creation can excel in charm the spiritual loveliness of that cathedral. York and St. Paul's and Lincoln surpass it in massive grandeur; Gloucester surpasses it in romance; Durham is more rugged and more austerely splendid; West- minster is more rich with poetic association and with ecclesiastical ornament; Ely possesses a greater variety of blended architectural styles and of eccentric character; but, travel where you may, you never will behold a church more 352 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD completely radiant with the investiture of sublimity. It won my heart years ago, and no one of its magnificent rivals has ever allured me from its shrine. There is no pause. Berkesbourne flashes by — its velvet plains slumbering under spacious elms, and its fields of silken oat-grass blazing with poppies. All about Adisham the thatched cottages and the sheep in the pastures make a pretty picture of smiling content. The har- vest is partly mown and partly erect. Birds abound, and there are many patches of wood- land near by, and many vacant plains. The country is hilly now, and on the gentle acclivities, here and there, is seen a manor-house, quaint with gables and latticed casements and draped with ivy. In the foreground are fields of clover, and, looking beyond those, your gaze falls upon wooded vales in which the dark sheen of the copper-beach shows boldly against the green of the elms. A little graveyard gleams for a moment on the hillside, — in mute reminder that Death also has a part in these scenes of fertile beauty, — and then the train flits through the THROUGH SURREY AND KENT 353 dark tunnel and comes slowly to a pause beneath the noble cliffs of Dover. The sombre castle frowns upon its crag. The great hillsides are solitary in the bleak light. The little cabin and the signal-standard keep their lonely vigil on the wind-beaten summit of the Shakespeare Cliff. The massive stone pier, like a giant's arm, stretches into the sea, and braves its power and defies its wrath; and on the vacant, desolate beach the endless surges still murmur their mysterious, everlasting dirge — the requiem of broken vows, and blighted hope, and all the futile ambitions, passions, and sorrows of mankind. XXIII. A FRENCH VIGNETTE. The sea was wild when the steamer on which I had embarked sprang into its embrace, the sky was full of white and tawny clouds, rifted by streaks of blue, and the long waves rolled up in purple masses, crested with plumes of silver. Many sails were visible, in the distant horizon, and the air was so clear that in mid- channel I could discern, in successive glances, the high cliffs of Albion and the low-lying, sandy coast of France. It was an hour of memory and thought, of dreams and visions, and I forgot the life around me, — the sailors, at their tasks, the chatter of travellers, the clank of the engines, the swirl and strife of the waters and the winds, — to muse on old imperial battles that once incarnadined these seas, and to gaze on the ghostly galleons of 354 « " n 2 _ s «T ~ ^ ss ^> < - ■r. Q ° * S "J? "° rig -~ H M < ~ Uh -^ ~ S OS •j. fa 2 u ■3 © . a. H