Stratford

“ Stratford is that gossip thrives in it; that its intellect is, with due exception, narrow and sleepy; and that it is heavily ridden by the ecclesiastical establishment. You will never find anything that can detract from the impression of beauty and repose made upon your mind by the sweet retirement of its situation, by the majesty of its venerable monuments, and by the opulent, diversified splendours of its natural and historical environment. ”

“ STRATFORD.
Our Canadian county Perth,
Commemorates great bard of earth,
Stratford and Avon both are here,
And they enshrine the name Shakespeare.
For here in Stratford every ward
Is named from dramas of great bard,
Here you may roam o'er Romeo,
Or glance on Juliet bestow.
And it is a railway centre,
Many a train doth here enter,
And railroad shops do men employ,
And gives them work and wealth and joy.
[Pg 65]
LINES ON THAMESFORD.
The middle branch of Thames doth flow
O'er pebble bed and it doth glow
And sparkle like silver in the sun,
As it through pasture lands doth run. ”

“ Why, you may ask, in the face of all this are the birthplace and the cottage and the relics and the rest of it still used to fool the tourists? For just that reason—that they do fool the tourist and make him spend his money in Stratford. Stratford lives on the open-mouthed credulity of its visitors. And you can't expect the Stratford trade-people and those who gain a reflected glory by living near Shakespeare's grave to examine too curiously into facts. ”

“ There was no artist in Stratford. Stratford had no skills to offer except death’s skill...death for all of us along with that triumvirate, love, marriage, children; with fornication for pallbearer, adultery for sexton, rape for choirmaster...
How weary and stale and flat are the uses of this world. Bring hebenon for O...
Youth’s falcon on his glove, Hamnet stands with his friends around him, most of them young, their well-groomed horses held by pages.
On the distant shore of a lake, a castle breaks through a grove of beech. ”

“ The best companion on the road to Stratford is Charles Knight’s Life of Shakspeare, which colours all the scenes of the poet’s life in Warwickshire with the atmosphere of the sixteenth century, and summons to meet us in the streets of Stratford costumes and characters contemporary with Falstaff, Shallow, and Dogberry so well, that we do not see the Clods in corduroys, the commercial Gents in paletots, and the Police in trim blue, whom we really meet. ”

“ But in even the spacious days of Elizabeth there was still something of mediæval ways and manners clinging to the life and habits of towns such as Stratford. It is difficult for us, who dwell in the twentieth century, with its almost fanatical cleanliness and idolisation of everything which can be described as progress, to realise the conditions prevailing in places like Stratford, which was probably not worse governed or overseen than other towns of similar size. ”

“ I have little doubt that, in early life, when running like an unbroken colt about the neighborbood of Stratford, he was to be found in the company of all kinds of odd anomalous characters, that he associated with all the madcaps of the place, and was one of those unlucky urchins at mention of whom old men shake their heads and predict that they will one day come to the gallows. To him the poaching in Sir Thomas Lucy's park was doubtless like a foray to a Scottish knight, and struck his eager, and as yet untamed, imagination as something delightfully adventurous. ”

“ She is very fond of the home she has made, and fond of the town in which it stands, and her reason for living in Stratford arises simply out of the old cherished sentiment of her childhood’s days when she was taught to consider the little town as the real “Heart of England,” where the greatest of poets had birth, and where her idolized stepfather had promised to “pass many happy days with her.” She takes the keenest interest in all the joys and sorrows of Stratford’s townspeople, and grudges{338} neither trouble nor expense in anything that may bring them pleasure or good. ”

“ I had come to Stratford on a poetical pilgrimage. My first visit was to the house where Shakespeare was born, and where, according to tradition, he was brought up to his father's craft of wool-combing. It is a small mean-looking edifice of wood and plaster, a true nestling-place of genius, which seems to delight in hatching its offspring in by-corners. ”

“ We will first encircle the exterior, where the many gravestones of departed Stratford worthies lean at every imaginable angle, the oldest of them, almost, or perhaps absolutely, contemporary with Shakespeare, grown or growing undecipherable. Some day Stratford will be sorry for neglecting them and their possible interest in the comparative study of Shakespeare and his fellow-townsmen. ”

“ As illustrative of life in a country town let us glance for a moment at the birthplace of Shakespeare. Stratford in early times possessed a famous guild, so famous that people from all parts of England were glad to become members of the Holy Cross. Not Stratford merchants alone, but nobles and even kings, were part and parcel of this time-honoured institution, from whose records we derive much of our information concerning ancient Stratford. If one can dissociate mountains and the sea from one's idea of natural beauty, Warwickshire leaves nothing to be desired. ”

“ Among the crowds who throng the streets of Stratford and lay wreaths on the grave of Shakespeare, gaze awed upon birthplace and relics, and make pilgrimages to the Grammar School and Anne Hathaway's cottage, how many can give any reason for the faith that is in them? ”

“ J. R. Wise, in his Shakespeare, His Birthplace and its Neighbourhood, says: "Take up what play you will, and you will find glimpses of the scenery round Stratford. His maidens ever sing of 'blue-veined violets,' and 'daisies pied,' and 'pansies that are for thoughts,' and 'ladies'-smocks all silver-white,' that still stud the meadows of the Avon.... I do not think it is any exaggeration to say that nowhere are meadows so full of beauty as those round Stratford. ”

“ The chimneys and the doors of Hadden are well able to give us lessons of construction, even for modest dwellings.
Stratford-on-Avon is a remarkably bright-looking cheerful town, and is, of course, more visited than any other of its size in England. The population is not quite 4000. In the sixteenth century Stratford was an exceedingly beautiful town. The houses were mostly of wood, and each situated in its own garden. One of them still stands in High Street, and has a well-carved front, resembling one of the many that remain in Chester. ”

“ IN the year 1564, a little more than three hundred years ago, an infant was born in the town of Stratford, in England, who grew to be one of the most wonderful men who has ever lived. Stratford was a quiet little town on the banks of the river Avon, and none of the people there were very rich or grand. ”

“ Lady Haigh ceased her sobs and looked at him in astonishment, while Dick uttered an inarticulate exclamation. Fitz alone retained the power of speech.
“Let me go, Mr Stratford,” he entreated. “Not you; you can’t be spared. My life isn’t of any value; but every one here depends on you in this fix. I would do anything for Miss Keeling, and be proud to do it. You will let me go, won’t you? It doesn’t signify what happens to me.”
“Stuff and nonsense, Anstruther!” said Stratford, good-humouredly. “There is plenty for you to do yet. ”

“ It was an American that discovered Stratford; and it is the Peter's pence of American tourists that now largely support the town. At Stratford, Washington Irving jostles the Master for the first place, and when we drink at the George W. Childs fountain we piously pour a libation to all three. ”

“ During the later stages of the war Stratford was greatly oppressed with the loss and destruction of life it involved, and painfully conscious of England's inability to keep on furnishing a continual supply of fresh troops, and he directed his influence towards a coalition with other powers. When the war was over he returned to London in 1858 and resigned his embassy for the last time, but paid a complimentary visit of farewell—his seventh journey to Constantinople—to Sultan Abd-el-Mejid, for whom he entertained a real regard and esteem. ”

“ And if the young gentleman come not back to Stratford, why, then, good fortune attend him, wherever he may be! for one that speaks so fair and is so modest sure deserves it. And if he come not back, then shall your heart be all the lighter, dear Prue; and as for mine, mine will not be troubled—only, that I wish him well, as I say, and would fain hear of his better estate. So all is so far happily settled, sweet mouse; and you may go in to supper with me with untroubled eyes and a free conscience: marry, there is need for that, as I bethink me ”

“ As we look into the red fire in the grate, we think of the scarlet coats we saw not long ago in Stratford,—when E.F., kindest of men and merriest of hosts, took us to the "meet." We gaze round the field again, and enjoy the enlivening scene. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ I remembered a promise I had nearly forgotten, that I would reserve my visit to Stratford till I could be accompanied by Miss Jane Porter, whom I was to have the honor of meeting at my place of destination; and promising an early acceptance of the kind landlady’s invitation, I hurried on to my appointment over the fertile hills of Warwickshire. ”

“ The vicar of Stratford Church and the curate of the chapel would most likely have a selection of volumes in their possession; the attorneys would have their law books, the doctors their medical books. We know from his will as well as from John Hall’s “cures” that Shakespeare’s son-in-law had a notable library, which people from a distance, even, came to see. Richard Field, the Stratford printer in London, had a very large and important list of publications, some of which were sure to have found their way down to his native town. ”

“ Clopton's chapel and bridge are still notable features of modern Stratford. He died 15 Sept, 1497. By his will, dated a week earlier, he provided for the due completion of the Stratford improvements, and left a hundred marks to twenty-four maidens of the town, and 2001. for rebuilding the cross aisle of the parish church. He also instituted exhibitions of 4l. a year each for five years for three poor scholars at each university of Oxford and Cambridge ”

“ Stratford on the Lea, named after the ancient ford that was in use between it and Bow, the Stratford-atte-Bow of Chaucer, till the river was spanned by the bridge built by Matilda, wife of Henry I., that was taken down as recently as 1839, was originally only an outlying hamlet of West Ham, but it has of late years grown into a densely populated manufacturing centre, well provided with modern places of worship, but retaining, alas, not a trace of the beautiful Cistercian abbey, founded in the twelfth century, that was once the pride of the whole neighbourhood. ”

“ The boy relapsed into sulky silence at once, and brooded all the way home over the disgusting state of Stratford’s temper, never guessing that it was with this very end in view, of detaching his thoughts from the tragedy of the morning, that the rebuke had been administered to him. In the courtyard of the Mission they found Dick engaged in superintending the preparations for the funeral, and Stratford noticed at once that among the riding-horses, which were those presented by the King a few days before, there were two hired mules carrying a curtained litter. ”

“ For some years Edward made no progress in the war, and was generally unsuccessful except at sea. Stratford, who belonged to the old Lancastrian party, disapproved of the constant waste of money, and recommended peace. Money on which the king reckoned was not forthcoming, and in 1340, excited probably by the misrepresentations of the court party, and especially by Bishops Burghersh [Pg 196] and Orlton, he returned suddenly to England, turned Stratford’s brother, the chancellor, and other ministers out of office, and imprisoned some of his judges and other officers. ”

“ Stratford had no adverse answer, Red Knoll it was from the beginning.
A house needs something besides a picturesque name to make it attractive even to an optimistic girl anxious to see the bright side of things.
The little farm-house that Mr. and Mrs. Stratford had so impulsively bought, was barely large enough for the three persons who were now to make it the summer home. The two square rooms on each side of the front door, if thrown together, would have been smaller than the bedroom which had been Martine's in her father's house. ”