SPECIAL ARTICLE

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18237, 22 November 1924, Page 11

SPECIAL ARTICLE

STRATFORD-ON-REVISITED. + jgJICUIiI WEITTES FOE "iHH PEESS.")

(By J. "W. Joynt, M.A.)

'.'Revisited" it s > in fact, many -ears since I bad been to Stratford; Lt the aopeal of the place for a reeved and fuller acquaintance could no longer be resisted. The fascination of Stratford deepens with one's advancing years, experience of life, and (may ' • J add?) growth in knowledge and in . Jinmility- There one may touch' the V; unseen, and realise an overwhelming Presence, which dominates and pervades the whole The Germans have gomething like it in Weimar, saturated ,rith the spirit of Goethe and Schiller; the Italians have their Florence, gat-wated with the spirit of Dante. But those who have experienced all three I jrill agree that the case of Stratford I js beyond comparison the most impresgive. A cabman at Weimar once talked to me with patriotio enthusiasm of "thegreat times" of the poets; but he Bpoke of them as something far away, Bad to be contemplated with awe. So jn Florence, the shade of Dante, though spoken of with pride and reverence, is felt, as something distant, cold, and mysterious, no longer pervading the ordinary, every-day life of the town. But here in Stratford the people give .one the impression of being in direct, intimate, personal touch with Shakespeare. He is all round them, entering into their lives, and making those lives richer, and happier for his presence and contact. From this influence one feels "them somehow different from other ; people; and so they are. And the visi- ; ior who oomes in the right spirit experiences at once the restful sense of < being in sympathy suid communion with the people, because he participates Vith them in the large, genial, satisfying reality of Shakespeare's presence. ....■ But, apart from presences and in*fluenccs, Stratford has very real' charms

"and attractions of its own. All around '.is.- the verdant .and wooded .Warwickehire country, so rich and fertile, so Suggestive of stability and permanThen there is the beautiful river, • much fuller, broader, and deeper than its Christchnreh namesake; but fringed ; by willows, much in the same manner as the reproduction, due to the referential devotion of the Canterbury ■ settlers. A specially beautiful reach »of th'o river envelops the stately pile ,of the Shakespeare Memorial Buildings, with the imposing statuary group -in the gardens; and, further along, the . noble Holy Trinity Church, in the iChancel of which his bones lief buried. In the town itself the old andi the new ;are intermingled in a pleasing confusion. Modern shops are interspersed '■with genuine old ; Tudor structures, ■■vwhich are used for very modern purposes. One of the oldest of them, the : -Garrick Inn," is a pub. It has no "special association with Garrick, who ,vgenerally patronised the "Falcon," higher up the street. One one side of •. the Garrick Inn the American flag: floats over a rickety structure, ,which • 'was the home, in her maiden days, of the mother of. John Harvard, the r founder of Harvard College,, which ia f now famous! as the Harvard University. On the other side is Tiidor House, a fifteenth century building,. which wa£ "restored'' some years ago by' Marie Corelli on behalf of a group-of Americans. It is now a Shakespeare curio Bhop. On the other side of the street are the ramshackle buildings of the ''Shakespeare Hotel," for inany years the favourite home of the visiting "Festival" companies and still, the chief hotel in Stratford. .

Th® "Shakespeare Hotel." ■ Let us look into this hotel for a moment. The dining-room is a wanderine series of rooms, in -which- the unaukitirig ceiling is supported on old oai pillars. Then we get into a maze > of narrow passages, with guests' roams on each side.. On each door is painted, not only a number, but the < name of a play or a character of Shakespeare. My room was "Ophelia." Itt the neighbourhod were '' Coriolanus," "Rosalind," "Falstaff" and; "Antony and I could not traoe any principle of arrangement. The reading and writing room was "Macbeth"; and- (quaint touch thisl) the room that served aa .a: bar was "Measure , for Measure." An inscription on a "foundation stone" hy .the clobr indicates ■ .that it was "laid by Sir Frank Benson when . the hotel was "restored" some years ago. - I may remark in passing that -this term, "restoration," applied to mony'of the old houses of Stratford is .rather ambiguous, and in "some cases ausleading. There are several build- , mgp, the "restoration" of which: has mainly consisted in the ramoral of plaster, and the bringing of the old umber-work into view. l T)fe dopton , Bridge, dating from Henry VIII., is at present the subject of keen municipal controversy. Shall it foe "restored" and . Widened; or shall it be replaced by a v inodern structure? In the meantime I Its precarious existence is being teni«erly nnrsed by stringent traffic regulations,. The general effect of the town ' is-soothing,- and in harniony with its great associations; so that, whether . one comea to dream or to_ study, one's nerves are not jangled by" things "out of tune and harsh.'' . There are two little publishing houses • in Stratford, the "Shakespeare.Head," ' J®d the "Shakespaare Press." The ■latter is specially interesting from the wet that it .is run by a William JagBard, _a lineal descendant of the Jag-,-'RB?ds who printed the first folio, and , too twenty-four years previously prinfc- : W that surreptitious miscellany, ''The . ftjssionate Pilgrim," containing two of Shakespeare's Sonnets. The present

representative is an entertaining per- - son, and a great talker. He has just brought out a Shakespearean Bibliography up-to-date, which cost • him twenty-four years of labour. Looking ■ .through' the copy in the library one finds t V the classification and headings not altogether satisfactory. Of course at Stratford we are con--1 fronted with many Shakespearean problems. Entering the great Church, encounter one of the most, acute of them. It is a question of the bust of. the poet in the north wall of the chancel, looking down on the five graves. 'What is its age, and what its" degree of authenticity as a likeness? The whole question of Shakespearean portraiture, whether in bust or picture, is on© of vast dimensions, which could not be * / dealt with here even in outline. But to >tfcis bust fresh attention has been drawn »y a- recent circumstance. Just before this visit of 'mine, there appeared in '"The Times" literary Supplement a print from a portrait of Shakespeare, j aecompanied- by a-letter from A. Shaw, of the Public Becord Office, which he claimed that the portrai date 1609; that it was therefore - ''the only contemporary portrait m ex and that it presented certain C. ,-features of resemblance to the St j Viord bust (especially in a ***nß V.\,»n<»t of the moustache), which bad an «. important mutual bearing on theautne n of both. With all this matter in t mind and in my. hand, ! n »tural y kJffffnined the bust again with cl ? Ration. I could not detect any *eaem

blance.at all; the portrait and the bust seemed to represent two differentpeople. A fortnight later I was relieved to see' in "The Times" Supplement a letter from Sir George Greenwood (the well-known Shakespearean sceptic), expressing exactly the same opinion. 1 must confess that this bust has always repelled me; and I do not want to think that Shakespeare was like that. It is claimed for it that it was reproduced from a death mask—which may. account for the blank, inert, expressionless face—and that, being of James I. workmanship, it-must, at least, liave> satis-, fled the family, several members of which were still alive at the time. The cheeks are tinted a pinky rose colour. The body is pudgy. The right hand holds a pen in a lifeless kind of way, as if it was about, not to dash off the ghost scene in "Hamlet," but to execute one of those sprawling signatures, which, we iind to documents in the "Birthplace." Tliere are queer.traditions about this bust. It is said Aat Malone whitewashed the face in 1793; and that the original colouring was restored half a century ago.

The Chancel Floor. We leave it, and look down on the graves in the chancel floor. They are: Of Anne Shakespeare, his wife; of Shakespeare himself; of his daughter Susanna (Mrs Hall); of her husband, Dr. John Hall; and of Thomas Nash, first husband of Elizabeth Hall, their daughter. Elizabeth herself wns still alive, and by second marriage been me Lady Barnard. With her the direct line of Shakespeare became ext'net. Each gravestone has an inscription. That on Shakespeare's is familiar. Modernised in spelling, it runs:— Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here: Blest be the man that spares these

stones, ' And curst be he that moves my bones. Two questions have been asked about this inscription Did the author of the "Sujrar'd Sonnets" pen this crude, vulgar quatrain ? And, if so, what was the. point or motive of the appeal P The former is generallv answered in the affirmative; and t"he latest biographer of Shakespeare, Dr.'J. Quincy Adams, accounts for the "crude -vulgarity" by the Assumption that the writer was addressing himi-elf to a sexton or a gravedigger, and adapted, his style to theirs. And as for the motive: Shakespeare knew perfectly well that it was a common .practice, whenever room was required, for a, new gra.ve in a special locality, to clear out the bones of some tenant of many years. We can; only hope that the appeal has had its effect to this day. The inscription on Susanna's grave is deeply interesting, as shedding light on her -character

Witty above her sex. but that's not all: Wise to salvation was gOod Mistress Hall; , • Something of Shakespeare was in that, —but this Wholly of Him with whom she's now

in bliss. . ' . ~ Then, Passenger, hast ne'er, a tear To weep with her, that wept. with all P That wept, yet set Herself to cheer Them up with comforts cofdiial. Her lovtj shall live, her mercy spread,' When thou hast ne'er a tear to shed.. ■ The old Grammar School, in which Shakespeare got his schooling,.not .only still survives,,but is,still regularly used as a' class-room, f will. riot: now. speak of its solid, black oak desks, and the swarm of names cut on them. • The desk at which Shakespeare, actually sat; has been, removed, for greater security, to the ''Birthplace.''. But I will draw attention to • one , small object in .the room, which, has an interest and significance of its own. Hanging" on the wall in a picture-frame is a.letter from one of the boys to his father, *the was ' then in. London on Stratford' business. The boy's name was Richard Quinoy, and .the father was that-Richard Quiney, who -wrote to Vhis '"wellbeloved friend," Will Shakespeare, the ! letter" • which is now the . only ;■ letter extant : written to Shakespeare .by another person. • The original is in the "Birthplace." The father 's letter is one of a species not uncommon. •It -is a begging letter, appealing! to his,.'' wellbeloved" to advance him thirty'pounds,; to relieve him from a temporary embarrassment. , But, to. return to.! the boy's letter. It expresses' most, admirable filial sentimonta in flowing Latin. The Latinity is excellent. 'Not only'is there no mistake, but the tone and. style have a Ciceronian touch, which is well adapted- for ' sentiments of that kind. The contemplation .'of ' this suggests some reflections. We know that Latin, was taught in those days in a very different way from what" it ,is nowj not by grammars and- gerundbut as a spoken and/written language. And so we ask ourselves: if this ordinary boy of "eleven yeais old could write Latin like that, what about :Will: Shakespeare, /with, his infinitely more alert mind> and his sir or seven years at that same .Grammar Schoolt Too much; importance is attached to Ben Jonson's remark about "little Latin and less Greek.''; Ben liked to pose as the learned man of his profession; and, though he wrote warm tributes .to Shakespeare, he was rather disposed to disparage the actual 1 attainments of his contemporary, dramatists. Few people would now: follow: the late Dr. Churton Collins in.- claiming for Shakespeare an extensive knowledge of classical literature; but fewer still, who look seriously into the matter, will accept the " gross illiteracy o£ Sir George Greenwood and his; school. The happy mean has been struck by Prof. Herford in his recent: .volume. One might say a great deal more on the subject; but this is not tlie place.

Memorial Buildings. The imposing "pile of the Memorial Buildings is in good taste, and pleasing to look upon. We owe a big debt of gratitude to those' enthusiastic Strat-ford-ites, with " the Flower family at their head, who, by their munificence, rendered possible the constitution of the "Birthplace Trust," with all the rich and fruitful results for. Shakespeare scholarship that haye followed from it. The revolution that has been wrought during the last twenty-five or thirty years has been largely due to the operations of this trust, guided and counselled, of course, by the. best scholarship of the day in the persons of Sir Sidney-Lee and others, who were bending their whole strength- to the task. ffhe guiding policy has been to concentrate at Stratford, every object, discovered or procurable, whether document or book-or picture or thing, which could in any way, however remote, throw light oa the life, work, or; environment. of Shakespeare or his contemporaries; and at the same time to provide a local home for dramatic representations mainly of Shakespeare. This memorial building contains •'library, picture gallery, and theatre. The library, with its- seven or eight thousand volumes is a priceless store of dramatic literature,. commentary and biography; and its glass cases are well stocked with miscellaneous objects. Perhaps the most; precious of the latter is" 'a brooch, which was dug up a hundred years ago in excavations at New Placed On the reverse is Shakespeare -s name in old English character. As to the theatre, the; guide-books tell us that it was "modelled somewhat on the original Globe Theatre ,in Southward'V That "somewhat".is :a. very wholesome qualification; .the resemblance is very remote indeed. . It is quite a modern theatre; comfortable, compact, and, in structural arrangement, ingeniously devised to suit a limited space. The picture gallery is a miscellaneous collection: great players in their leading pirts or in mufti; great scenes from Shakespeare; portraits of Shakespeare himself,. and bo on, Becent additions have been;

Arthur Bourcbier as Sliylock, Dame Genevieve "Ward, Edwin Sooth, Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, and a stained glass window, the figures in which are portraits of.Frank Benson's original company. Of the portraits or Shakespeare, the one- of speeial interest is the' Droeshout, from which the engraving was made which forms the frontispiece to the first folio.

The "Birthplace." But, after all, the real nerve-centre of all this commemorative organism is the "Birthplace" itself. In this little tumble-dowri house,- we touch, by means of both itself and its contents, the vital elements of his being and the foundations of all that lie became. John Shakespeare and his family must have had cramped quarterg here, especially as. the largest room was occupied as "a wool-store. And then, when Will brought his young wife along, and a new generation of children began to appear! It is all rather a puzzle, and we have no specific details. There are some similar old'houses in the immediate neighbourhood; and one of them may have served for overflow. Anyhow, we cannot wonde> that the res'tIcSs, hot-blooded youth should have yearned for a larger breathing space, and should have thrown himself on the great world, to sink or to swim.

The house is now a little Shakespeare museum, and the contents are vividly Bnggestive. There are four separate instances of Shakespeare's signature; and, as we contemplate them, we cannot help asking, as many have asked already, how the man who scrawled these signatures could have produced such manuscript as to justify Heminge and Condell (two level-headed, unemotional men) in declaring' that they had printed the folio from, the manuscript exactly as it left the author's hands, without blot or erasure. lam not going to weary my readers by dwelling on the fierce controversy which has raged over this problem. They will find all about it in Sir Sidney Lee or Prof. J. Quincy Adams. But there is a fifth signature, the appeal of which is stronger than, that of the others; only unfortunately it is the only one of the lot, the authenticity of which is doubted. On the wall there is a frayed and soiled leaf from a copy of Ovid's "Metamorposes," with a note at the bottoita stating that so-and-so gave this book to Will Shakespeare. If this were only genuine! We have plenty of evidence that he knew and loved his Ovid and his Plautus; but it would be nice to have a leaf from a copy of his own. Glass-cases are full of parchmentdocuments relating to Stratford transactions of the time—conveyances, covenants, indentures, bonds, mortgages, and'the like—in some of which Shakespeare himself was concerned as a man of property,-or as a litigant. A very interesting document is a schedule of payments made- by John Shakespeare, as High Bailiff of Stratford, to a visiting company of the Queen's Players in 1568. ' Then, in the little bookcollection upstairs, there are some absorbing things: a copy of each of the four Folios, several of the Quartos, and a number of books which Shakespeare must have known arid read, or which refer to hirii:—Florio's "Montaigne" and "World of Words," "England's Parnassus;" an-' 'Ovid'' -of 1575, Cinthio's "Hecatommithi" (from which -he took the material for "Othello"). ; This'Cinthio is. the fourth Venetian dated 1610. But, as ."Othello" was produced long before that date, Shakespeare must- have used an earlier ■ editibh. Of course/Hollingshed and North's "Plutarch" are there "too. liet-us take leave of .Stratford with a few minutes'" meditation ini the. garden of ''New Place,'' the homo .of Shakespeare in the days of his maturity arid prosperity, when- he - owned : houses- and -lands,', had bought: up tithes, arid?had, attairied a sort -of aldermariic jdignity in his town and-: country. .This •is ; the garden; but where is the house which Shakespeare had restored and rebuilt, and in which he was wont to entertain his friend, Michael : Drayton, and,other• Jcindred. spirits? The "Great House" had stood'..there from a century before Shakespearo's time. He bought it in 1597, when he was only 33 years" old; and made practically a new house of it. We need not go into its subsequent history. It remained in the hands - of Shakespeare's family (or their husbands) for about half a century; About the middle of the eighteenth century, fate decreed that it should come into the possession of a Bev.'Francis Gastrell, who seems to have been endowed with a malevolent spirit of vandalism. -He destroyed the house, and cut down the mulberry treo, which Shakespeare had planted in the garden. In a corner of the garden we'- notice three massive foiinda-tion-arches, almost grown over with grass. -That' is all that remains of the fine old hospitable mansion/ There is" a new mulberry tree, and we may pick its fruit. But it is only the "emblem arid beatified ghost" of its predecessor.