Stratford-on-Avon

“ After leaving Warwick the Avon keeps winding towards the south-western boundary of the county till, before reaching this, it arrives at another and yet more noted town. Stratford-on-Avon is a household word wherever the English tongue is spoken. No American thinks his visit to the country of his ancestors is complete till he has made a pilgrimage to the birthplace and the grave of Shakespeare—nay, even our distant kinsmen in Germany are not seldom drawn thither by the same magnetic force. ”

“ Nothing else upon earth—no natural scene, no relic of the past, no pageantry of the present—can vie with the shrine of Shakespeare, in power to impress, to humble, and to exalt the devout spirit that has been nurtured at the fountain of his transcendent genius.
A fortunate way to approach Stratford-on-Avon is by Warwick and Kenilworth. Those places are not on a direct line of travel; but the scenes and associations that they successively present are such as assume a symmetrical order, increase in interest, and grow to a delightful culmination. ”

“ Now, there are papers in London which often fill out the information preserved among the valuable records of Stratford-on-Avon. I have come across some letters in the unpublished Register of the Privy Council, which may be added to the history of the town. They show that some one, or some party of inhabitants, had complained to the Privy Council against three men, who persisted in using thatch, and they tell their own story, so I give them in full.
16th March, 1618-19. To the Bayliffe, Chief Aldermen, and Towne Clarcke for the tyme being of Stratford-upon-Avon. ”

“ It would have been a great thing to pass a single night close to the church where Shakespeare's dust lies buried. A single visit by daylight leaves a comparatively slight impression. But when, after a night's sleep, one wakes up and sees the spire and the old walls full before him, that impression is very greatly deepened, and the whole scene becomes far more a reality. Now I was nearly a whole week at Stratford-on-Avon. The church, its exterior, its interior, the birthplace, the river, had time to make themselves permanent images in my mind. ”

“ It is Stratford-on-Avon.
There, save once a year, when Shakespeare’s birthday is commemorated, fashion brings but few persons to simulate admiration. It is not as at some great funeral, where curiosity or official position or other extraneous motive brings men together to do honour to the departed; they come like humble friends, to pay tribute to one whom they not only admire, but revere, to this little Warwickshire town. It is too remote from the places where men congregate to entice the thoughtless crowd ”

“ He had lived in Stratford, man and boy, for eighty years, and seemed still to consider himself a vigorous man, with the trivial exception that he had nearly lost the use of his legs for a few years past. His dwelling was a cottage looking out upon the Avon and its bordering meadows, and was a picture of that neatness, order, and comfort which pervade the humblest dwellings in this country. A low whitewashed room, with a stone floor carefully scrubbed, served for parlor, kitchen, and hall. ”

“ It is only natural that the author should miss in her country home the literary, musical, and artistic society of London, where she has so many friends, but she has made acquaintances too in Warwickshire, where she has the privilege of meeting men and women eminent in the world of letters. Stratford-on-Avon is of itself a shrine to which so many distinguished pilgrims, especially Americans, are drawn, that charming, unexpected meetings often take place and friendships are cemented when she takes her many visitors to see the interesting places in the town. ”

“ Dream (Stratford-on-Avon)
One warm June evening
I sat in the churchyard
Of old Trinity. I sat there for hours
On an ancient stone, forgetting time.
The Avon, as silent as the centuries it had known,
Glided past, carrying me on with its memories.
From the lush meadow across the river came the bleating of lambs,
And from the limes floated the song of blackbirds.
All about the scent of roses hung heavy.
Then, over the roof of Trinity, the moon arose.
Shakespeare saw the Avon, thus, and loved it,—
Winding on in the moonlight.
[Pg 39]
Escape
How simple life can be! ”

“ You have kept strictly to the line of route pursued by the King and Jane Lane from Bentley House, except as regards their arrival at Stratford-on-Avon. They must have come across country until they touched the high road from Birmingham. When within a mile of Stratford they retraced their course, and, according to Mr. Wise's account, turned to the village of Wootton Wawen, seeking the higher ground, and getting to Stratford by a lane, now called the King's Lane. Henley is some miles to the right. ”

“ Agriculture has ever been the mainstay of Stratford, and as far as we can see, ever will be. All around in the Avon valley stretch those rich pastures that still “lard the rother’s sides,” and on market days there come crawling into the streets, among the cattle and the sheep, carriers’ carts from many an obscure village, with curious specimens of countryfolk who have not lost the old habit of looking upon Stratford as the centre of the universe. So much the better for Stratford. ”

“ CHAPTER ELEVEN STRATFORD-ON-AVON “We’re going to stay in a really, truly old inn at last, aren’t we!” Betty gave a sigh of satisfaction and walked rapidly along by Mrs. Pitt’s side, as that lady led the way from the station at Stratford to the famous Red Horse Hotel.
“Stratford is exactly like any other little English town,” John was commenting to Philip. “There are plenty of new houses made of shiny, red bricks, and all put close together in blocks, with their tiny lawns and gardens in front. ”

“ Throughout the summer season Stratford-on-Avon becomes a metropolis "whereunto the tribes of men assemble." To "do Stratford" [Pg 6] is an article of faith with American visitors, even if they have no more than a week in which to master the wonders of Great Britain and Ireland. Germany sends many admirers, for nowhere is Shakespeare's genius more widely recognised, more highly esteemed, than in that country. London and the big midland towns of England send visitors daily. ”

“ The discovery, and the discoverer, William Henry Erin, became ‘the Talk of the Town.’ It seemed to Margaret impossible that the meritorious though fortunate young fellow could ever become more famous; but the possibilities of greatness are infinite; his foot, as it turned out, was only on the first rung of the ladder. The modest house in Norfolk Street became a sort of metropolitan Stratford-on-Avon; it was absolutely besieged by the antiquarian and learned world. ”

“ They looked death often in the face as they went the lonely road. The wild things in the forest menaced them, floods obscured the fords, lawless men no less fierce than the animals which roamed the tangled brakes lurked and slew. “Now am I in Arden,” the wayfarer might have said, anticipating Touchstone, “the more fool I; when I was at home I was in a better place; but travellers must be content.”
No town or village then existed upon the banks of Avon, and the first mention of Stratford occurs in A.D. 691, when a monastery situated here is named. ”

“ I am proud to think that Americans have written so charmingly of Shakespeare: I am proud to know that at Stratford no man besides the master is as honored as Irving, and while I can not restrain a blush for our English cousins, I am proud that over half the visitors at the birthplace are Americans, and prouder still am I to remember that they all write letters to the newspapers at home about Stratford-on-Avon.
In England poets are relegated to a "Corner." The earth and the fulness thereof belongs to the men who can kill ”

“ After the joys of Stratford-on-Avon came the delights of the rest of the fascinating Shakespeare villages. "Piping Pebworth", "Dancing Marston", "Drunken Bidford", "Haunted Hillborough", "Hungry Grafton", "Papist Wixford", and "Beggarly Broom" were visited and rejoiced over in turn; then the car wended its way from Warwickshire to sample the glories of Gloucestershire. Here, too, our pilgrims found plenty to arouse their enthusiasm: the richness of the landscape, with orchards just breaking into bloom; the slow winding rivers, with their willowy, reedy banks ”

“ And so we bade good-by to Stratford-on-Avon and its hospitalities, with grateful remembrances of our kind entertainers and all they did for our comfort and enjoyment.
Where should we go next? Our travelling host proposed Great Malvern, a famous watering-place, where we should find peace, rest, and good accommodations. So there we went, and soon found ourselves installed at the "Foley Arms" hotel. The room I was shown to looked out upon an apothecary's shop, and from the window of that shop stared out upon me a plaster bust which I recognized as that of Samuel Hahnemann. ”

“ Not quite in the olden time, but only just on the verge of our prosaic modern time, Plympton gave to the world England’s greatest painter—a circumstance which (though forgotten by the native, who on being asked by a tourist where Sir Joshua Reynolds was born, replied he “never heeard of sich”) should indeed make this honoured little town almost as famous as Stratford-on-Avon.
In the Doomsday Book, Plympton is designated “Terra Regis,” so also are Tavistock, Ashburton, and Tiverton, “all which places were then the King’s demesne towns,” but not boroughs. ”

“ STRATFORD, ROBERT de (d. 1362) , bishop of Chichester and chancellor, was son of Robert and Isabella de Stratford, and younger brother of John de Stratford [q. v.] , archbishop of Canterbury. He seems to have been educated at Oxford, perhaps at Merton College, like his brother. He held the living of Overbury in 1319, which he exchanged for the rectory of his native town, Stratford-on-Avon, on 27 Oct. ”

“ It all goes to show that a man should stick to his own trade and not try to follow two or more widely dissimilar callings at the same time. Sooner or later he is bound to slip up.
We found Stratford-upon-Avon to be the one town in England where guides are really abundant. There are as many guides in Stratford as there are historic spots. I started to say that there is at least one guide in Stratford for every American who goes there ”

“ The elder Ireland was a fervent admirer of Shakespeare, and about 1794, when preparing his ‘Picturesque Views of the Avon,’ he took his son with him to Stratford-on-Avon. They carefully examined all the spots associated with the dramatist. The father accepted as true many unauthentic village traditions, including those concocted for his benefit by John Jordan [q. v.] , the Stratford poet, who was his chief guide throughout his visit; and he fully credited an absurd tale of the recent destruction of Shakespeare's own manuscripts by an ignorant owner of Clopton House. ”

“ We must, however, now again, after such brief excursion, return to the spot from whence we started, and as the sun shines brightly upon park and field, and wooded glade, once more look upon fair and fertile Warwickshire.
Sweet Stratford-upon-Avon! those who know thee, and know thee well—who have lingered in thy old-world streets, and wandered in thy neighbourhood, breathing the scented air which smells so wooingly amongst the shadowy groves and unfrequented glades around, will acknowledge that there is no place in England, for situation and beauty, thy superior. ”

“ Our thoughts were all of Shakespeare now; our goal was Stratford-on-Avon.
Should we drive by the right bank of the river, or the left? The choice lay between Snitterfield and Charlecote Park. In Snitterfield, [168] a village four miles to the north of Stratford, the poet's paternal grandsire, Richard Shakespeare, wore out a quiet yeoman life, tilling the farm that he rented from Robert Arden of Wilmcote, father of the poet's mother. There must have been a strain of something better than audacity in the tenant's son to win him the hand of Mary Arden. ”

“ Stratford-on-Avon, a picturesque town situated on the river Avon, in Warwickshire, is visited yearly by thousands of people desirous of seeing the birthplace of William Shakespeare. John Shakespeare, the father of William, bought the two half-timbered houses in Henley Street, where he practised his trade of wool-stapler, and it was in one of these houses that William Shakespeare was born in 1564. These houses are now practically in their original condition, although at one time the wool-shop was turned into an inn. ”

“ It stands on the banks of the Avon on an embowered point, and separated by adjoining gardens from the suburbs of the town. Its situation is quiet and retired; the river runs murmuring at the foot of the churchyard, and the elms which grow upon its banks droop their branches into its clear bosom. An avenue of limes, the boughs of which are curiously interlaced, so as to form in summer an arched way of foliage, leads up from the gate of the yard to the church-porch. The graves are overgrown with grass ”

“ This feeling was experienced by two out of the three passengers in the London coach ‘Tantivy,’ which on a certain afternoon in May, [13] at the end of the last century, drew up at the ‘White Hart’ in the town of Banbury: it was their last ‘stopping stage’ before they arrived at their destination—Stratford-on-Avon; and they wished (at least two of them did) that they had reached it already.
Mr. Samuel Erin, the senior and head of the little party, was a man of about sixty years of age, but looked somewhat older. ”