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By the Silver Avon 
 
 iHET'l^S is nothing new to tell of William Shakespeare. But there is m him and m the 
 too meagre details which we possess of his life, an undying interest and an indefinable charm 
 p"^'" ' which can never groAV old — never suffer from too frequent repetition, nor the weariness of a 
 ■' twice-told tale. Whenever we tliink of him, we long to have a clearer vision of the man himself — 
 what he did da}^ by day, year by 5'ear ; what he suffered in the briars of his " working-day 
 world " ; what were his hopes, his aims, his successes, and his failures. 
 
 Of all this we know but little, but he must have had varied experiences, else hoAV is it that 
 we, who live three hundred years after him, find no hand touches our own joys and sorrows, 
 perplexities and disappointments, with wonderful sympathy like his ? 
 
 Are we glad in the merry month of May — he sings the song of responsive joy for us. We 
 sit in a "pleasant shade," and we repeat his words, and while we see "the trees grov/ and the plants 
 upspringing," we say with him — 
 
 " Ever}'thing doth banish moan, 
 The dew in the chaliced flower cup 
 The golden eyes of winking- I\Iary-buds." 
 
BY THE SILVER AVON, 
 
 Wlio can fail to recognise this portrait of tlie glory of tlie Spring-time ? — and wlnlo recognising 
 it, it gladdens the heart that niahes it its own. 
 
 Are we sad in the Autumn of life and of the year, we find tlie most perfect expression ot tlie 
 sadness in the immortal sonnet : — 
 
 " I'hat time of 3'car thnu inay'st in mc bclmld 
 
 When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 
 Upon those bouyhs which shake agMinst the cold, 
 
 Bare mind choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. 
 In me thou seest the twilight of such day 
 
 As after sunset fadeth in the west. 
 Which by-and-by black night doth take away. 
 
 Death's second self, that seals up all in rest: 
 In me thou sccst the glowing of such fire, 
 
 That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, 
 As the death-bed whereon it must expire, 
 
 Consura'd with that which it ■\\'as nourish'd by. 
 This thou perceiv'st, \\hieh makes thy love more strong. 
 
 To love that well which thou must lea\'e ere long." 
 
 Can any words of our own in the time of fallen liopes, as of fallen leaves, better express what 
 we feel ? 
 
 In every mood, in every phase of our mutable life, William Shakespeare has a word for lis, 
 and thus he lives in every heart for ever and a day. 
 
 It is chiefly by his work we know him, and can k'eep before our mind's eye our own idea of him; 
 but, as I said before, the details of his common life whieli are left to us are few, and what few there 
 are are often disputed as to their antliority. Of "poor, proud, passionate Dante" we know more, 
 
iJi i --L jk. Ja^ s-/- J-d-^ ' 
 
 
 BF THE SILVER AVON. 
 
 - 1 
 even though his stately figure is shadowed in the mist of 
 
 a farther time and a foreign land. The marvellous story of 
 his pilgrimage in the unseen is in the form of an autobio- 
 graphy. His "Vita Nuova" brings him vividly before us; 
 his "Beatrice" becomes a very real and living personality. 
 But we form an idea of our ov^m great poet from no 
 stor)r in which he is the supposed actor, except, indeed, the 
 Sonnets, which bring the writer before us as the passionate 
 lover of a mysterious W. H., about whom, of late, there 
 has been a discussion which need have no pl?.ce here. 
 
 It was in "proud pied April dressed in all his 
 trim" that William Shakespeare was born, on its 22nd day, in the year 1564. 
 
 The old house in quiet Stratford town still stands, and is a shrine visited by thousands and 
 tens of thousands of pilgrims, of whom I fear it may be said, their zeal is greater than their 
 discretion, as on the little diamond panes of the windows and on every conceivable place where the 
 feat is possible, are scratched the names of many, whose only chance of being remembered is by 
 this means. Some of them have come in for anj'thing but a benediction from those who would be 
 ashamed so to desecrate the windows which let in the first ray of light on which William Shakespeare 
 opened his eyes on that April day more than 300 years ago. 
 
 The baby was taken to the old church within sound of the gentle murmur of the silver Avon, 
 and baptised when only two days old. His mother's maiden name was Arden, and the picture of her 
 early home seems to show that she had lived in comfort and in rural peace, if not in afHuence. We 
 should like to know something of this mother of William Shakespeare, and whether she discerned in 
 
BY THE SILVER AVON. 
 
 him, with the quick instinct of motherhood, something that she did not find in his httle brother 
 Gilbert who was born two years later. 
 
 His father, John Shakespeare, was, we fancy, a hard-working, well-to-do glover, a trade he 
 followed in the old timbered home, with that of a wool stapler, and was of good repute in the town. 
 But we may fancy he left the care of the children to their mother, and we may please ourselves 
 with believing that it was Mary Shakespeare who saw in her eldest boy the promise which made 
 her anxious he sliould have an education superior to that of his father and mother; for John Shakespeare 
 could not write his name, though when his second boy Gilbert was born he was Chamberlain of the 
 borough and Mayor of Stratford. 
 
 Mary Shakespeare's maternal pride may have led her to send her boys to the Grammar School 
 which had lately been refounded by Edward VI. That Gilbert went thither when he was seven years 
 old we know, and we may believe that Will led him there on the first morning, having already been 
 a scholar for two years, and his champion if bigger boys attempted to bully the little fair-headed 
 brother, as big boys whether at Stratford or elsewhere have been known to bully little boys from time 
 immemorial. 
 
 The old Grammar school still stands, and here it is certain that Will learnt his Latin from two 
 old and well-known books, the Accidence and SententijE Pueriles. We know this much because of 
 Master Page's examination in the Accidence — another instance of the clue given to the personality of 
 the man by reference to his work. 
 
 It seems also that when the school was under repair, the boys and the masters took up their 
 quarters for a time at the Guild Chapel next door ; this was surely in the poet's mind when he 
 talks of "The pedant who keeps a school in the church." 
 
 Of pedants he knew something, for Holofernes must be a study from the life, and how inimitable. 
 
let tliose who Ijavc seen him weil- 
 personated bear witness. So many 
 questions arise as we stand in the 
 old Grammar School, for how gladly 
 would we call up some companion 
 of Shakespeare's in those far-off days and hear from him what his school- 
 mate was like ! Was he grave or gay, studious or iillc ; did he love 
 taking the chaffinches' nests and blov/ing the eggs, stringing them as a 
 necklace for his little sister Joan; did he rob orchards of "sour crabs," 
 and make raids on the dairy of his mother's farm at Wilmcote, wliither 
 he and his brotlicr Gilbert must sureh' have made many an excursion ? 
 
 Did they not meet here Cliristopher Sly, who had been Jack-of-all-tradcs — pedlar, card-maker, 
 and bear-herd, and must have had a fund of funny stories wherewith to beguile the time as they 
 watched him in his present occupation of tinker, mending the kettle of the cowherd's wife? 
 
■ 1i^~" — ■ 
 
 BY THE SILVER AVON. 
 
 I am inclined to think tliat William Shakespeare's education — that 
 building up of the marvellous structure which was illuminated by the light 
 of his transcendent genius — was gathered from men and things rather than 
 from books, whether Accidence or Sententiffi Pueriles. Also I like to think 
 his mother had a large share in this education ; that from her he inherited 
 his love of flowers, and his keen enjoyment of all the treasures of the field 
 and copse, and hill and dale. I like to picture her with her boys on 
 either side, and her baby, Joan, on her knee, in the fields where the 
 daffodils dance in golden companies in the Spring, bidding her children 
 welcome them as the flowers which come before the swallows, and fear 
 neither wind nor storm. 
 
 I like to picture Will, with his large, capacious forehead, shadowed 
 then perhaps with the brown curls that so soon retreated from it, as from 
 most thoTightfal broAvs, seated on a fallen tree, perhaps cutting a stick — boy fashion — and pausing 
 to look up at the sky where a few white clouds were lying calm, like ships at anchor in the blue 
 depths, and asking, perchance, where do the swallows come from, and where have they been. 
 
 Not the least astonishing part of the poet's wonderful prescience is the fact that the sunny lands 
 from which the swallows yearly come, became the scene of many of his plays, and that he could so throAV 
 himself into the surroundings of Shylock and Othello, of Romeo and Juliet, and many another of his 
 men and women, that it is hard to believe their homes in sunny Italy were entirely unknown to him 
 except in the spirit. 
 
 It is true that the influx at that time of Italian literature into England, and the frequent translations 
 which were made, may have helped William Shakespeare to give his creations a habitation and a name. 
 
 Douic. 
 
 
BY THE SILVER AVON. 
 
 It is pleasant to belie\'e our great poet's cliildhood was a happy one, and that while plajing in the 
 flower-strewn meadows that lie around his native town, he was, unconsciously to himself, laying in a 
 store of fair images which in after years would t)e sprinkled over his pages, as the daisies and butter- 
 cups made a mosaic of gold and silver in the fields about his home. 
 
 But it was not only peaceful recreations that were features in Will's childhood. There were 
 the noisy Mop fairs, when the October ale was brewed, and the apple trees were stripped of their 
 mellow fruit, now lying in great rosy heaps in the orchards, ready to be thrown into the big cider vats. 
 
 We may fancy Will in the market place, with his brother Gilbert, watching with keen interest 
 the bull and bear baiting — that cruel sport which was part of the programme provided at Kenilworth 
 in 1575, for the amusement of the maiden queen, Ehzalieth! Rope-dancers and mountebanks all thronged 
 the market-place of Stratford on Mop Fair Day, when country lads and lasses came into the town 
 from all parts of the district to be hired for the coming year. 
 
 During the year when John ,...,, _ ^ - ^ -\ . 
 
 Shakespeare held the office of Idigh ^_, , , __,^ 
 
 Bailiff, a company of strolling players 
 applied to the chief magistrate for 
 permission to perform their play before 
 him and the council. Permission was 
 given, and the townsfolk were admitted 
 free of charge, the Mayor giving the 
 players a reward in money — a fee of Vi, 
 nine shillings, which it is supposed 
 satisfied them. 
 
 \ w. .^.^L'^ul^.A^- 
 
 
 3^J<?* 
 
 13nclo£ A.I 
 
BY THE SILVER AVON. 
 
 Who can doubt that there was one earnest httle spectator on that occasion — Will, seated by his 
 father's side — perhaps, for a better vicAV, on his knee — taking in the scenes with hungry eagerness. How 
 we should like to know what the play was on which those large wondering child-eyes were fastened. 
 Probably there was a goodly number of princes and fair ladies, and demons in red masks, with all the 
 accessories which the time and place afforded. 
 
 There was no scenery in those days to heighten the effect, but little Will needed nothing more 
 than the presentation of the characters. His own imagination doubtless supplied the rest, and he 
 dreamed that night of the new world of wonder into which those players had introduced him. 
 
 Again at Ivenilworth, when Will was eleven years old, he was present with his father at some 
 of the plays which were given in turn with the bear-baiting and bull-fighting for the Queen's 
 gratification. 
 
 We can well believe how the latent power in the boy sprang to life, and that he and Gilbert 
 went through many performances in imitation of what they had seen — William taking the lead, and 
 calling in his mother and his sisters Joan and Anne to be spectators. It is pleasant to linger on 
 these probable scenes in the poet's life. But childhood must pass like a dream, and, then as now, 
 men and women must stand where the children stood as it seems to us but yesterday, and the battle 
 of life must begin for them, as for their fathers and mothers before them. 
 
 It seems that John Shakespeare found his business too much for him single-handed, and he 
 removed William, his eldest son, from school to help him in his daily toil. Now in those days it was 
 unusual to take a boy from school at thirteen, and we may imagine Marj' Shakespeare's pleading for 
 delay. Whether William failed to Ije as useful in the glove and wool trade as his father expected, 
 we do not know, but whatever the reason might be, he was apprenticed to a butcher in the year 
 1579, when in his sixteenth year. At tliis point of his young life we fail to call up the picture of 
 
Che 
 
 Mrdrr\rndr 
 
 
 our great poet, for killing the meek-eyed calves and tender 
 lambs must have been utterly out of harmony with his nature. 
 
 But it was about this time that the great magician, Love, 
 touched his life and shed over all his surroundings a golden light. 
 
 Not far from the town of Stratford lived the woman at 
 whose feet William Shakespeare worshipped as at the shrine of 
 when his work was over, a work which we may well believe 
 hasten to make himself spruce, and putting on his best jerkin would wend his way to the 
 
 ft ^:„ 
 
 'f *■•«■ ^^ Crinitu CKurcli 
 
 a saint. On' Summer evenings 
 was hateful to him, he would 
 
 •? 
 
BY THE SILVER AVON. 
 
 place where Anne Hathaway would be perhaps leaning over the gate watching for her boyish 
 lover's approach. 
 
 Anne Hathaway was much older than he was, but still in the bloom of early womanhood ; and 
 it is probable that she knew more of William Shakespeare's inner life than anyone else. For the love 
 of a boy for a woman who is much his senior generally begins by laying open his heart to her, and 
 receiving sympathy in return for his confidence. So we may fancy the young lover pouring all his 
 griefs into her willing ears — his hatred of his calling — his longing for a freer life — his aspirations after 
 things which were denied him — his scanty education, the want of books, of which he knew there were 
 plenty in the world beyond from which he was shut out ; and many desires stirring within him of 
 which none but Anne Hathaway knew. The taste for the drama, quickened in him by the visit of 
 the strolling players to Stratford and the neighbouring towns, grew in him, and he would moan 
 over the rare opportunities afforded him for indulging this taste. 
 
 Perhaps this sympathetic listener would cheer him, by the assurance that he had greater wit 
 than most bookworms, and that the dwellers in large cities — "the world" of which he spoke, had few or 
 none of the pleasures which he enjoyed to the full in the fair and smiling country which he loved so well. 
 
 We can imagine how, when the shadows were 
 gathering over the fields, and one by one the stars 
 came out in the deep-blue heaven above, while the 
 daylight yet lingered in the west, and the old church- 
 tower was clearly defined against the daffodil sky of 
 the eventide, William Shakespeare would tell the story 
 of his love, and Anne Hathaway would lend a willing 
 ear to his passionate declaration, that if she would be 
 
 i 
 
 •^ l^lvc Oarbei^, 
 
 .JKak'-jp<vuc> T)aui^ 
 
 W^'-'^lll)lri»inninniir,H.r,rrVl ■ H ' 
 
max,. < ! I , t 
 
 his wife, all other longings wouliJ 
 be set at rest, for she held his life 
 and happiness in her hands. 
 
 At last Anne Hathaway con- 
 
 ^ sented to his proposal. Disparity of 
 
 years melted away in the sunshine 
 
 of mutual love ; and in November, 
 
 ♦ J' 15S2, the contract of marriage was 
 
 . ■ ' '" completed, and she became his wife. 
 
 How little did she dream that, in 
 
 I thus linking her fate to that of the 
 
 " butcher's apprentice," she was 
 
 JcKtKjL rendering her own name immortal ! 
 
 As little as Mary Shakespeare could 
 
 discern, hovering over the head of her first-born son, the laurel 
 
 crown of fame which, even in his lifetime, encircled his noble brow. 
 
 Both these women who loved him, may, with the instinct of love — 
 
 - the love of the wife and the mother — have felt that there was 
 
 something in him separating him from the common herd ; but even 
 
 of this we have no sure testimony. 
 
 That Anne Hathaway, in spite of separation and division of interest, and, it 
 may be, departure from the straight road of strict morality, loved him — her boyish 
 juver, and the young father of their first-born child Susanna, — to the end, we may 
 
 lid Chape 
 jj- Cjr,imnA^i- f. 
 
BY THE SILVER AVON. 
 
 
 
 consider ceriain, from the early local traditions that she " did earnestly 
 desire to be laid in the same grave with him." 
 ;?v It was in the fourth year of his marriage that William Shake- 
 
 speare fell into evil company — causing, we may be sure, many heart- 
 aches to his mother and his wife. We may imagine them mingling 
 ^^ their tears as they talked of him, and yet, true-hearted women as they 
 ,(; were, patient in the present, and hopeful for the future. 
 ,^ Tnrtisw CKuvck At last a crisis came; and the countryside rang with the news 
 
 that Master John Shakespeare's eldest son had been caught in the 
 very act of deer-stealing in the park of Sir Thomas Lucy at Charlecote, near Stratford. William 
 Shakespeare does not appear to have been at all ashamed of, or penitent for, his offence, which 
 prouably was the first of the kind. Indeed, he was furious at what he thought a most severe 
 and unjust punishment, and gave vent to his feelings in a ballad so bitter in its tone, and so 
 offensive to Sir Thomas Lucy, that he was obliged to fieo from Stratford in haste and shelter 
 himself from observation in London, leaving his wife with the little Susanna and twins, a bo)' and 
 girl, who were baptised in the old church as their father had been before them on the 2nd of 
 February, 1585, by the name of Hamnet and Judith. 
 
 W^illiara Shakespeare is known, with almost absolute certainty, to have lived in London, separated 
 from his wife and children, for twelve years — from 1585 to 1507. 
 
 In the same year, 1597, the poet must have realised no inconsideralilc sum liy hi-; work, for at 
 that time he made his first investment b}' purchasing "New F'lace," a mansion with an adjoining 
 estate in the centre of the town. 
 
 We may please ourselves bj' thinking that lie found some consolation for himself in a time of 
 
BY THE SILVER AVON. 
 
 deep sorrow tlrrough which he had so kitely passed, and in which his faithful wife had shared, in 
 setthng her in competence and comfort in a house wliich was to be a permanent home for her and 
 her daughters. Of the house of New Place itself, a few fragments alone remain, but the estate is held 
 for ever by the Corporation of Stratford in memory of the great dramatist. 
 
 f think we may be sure that however much divided the husband and wife had been for all those 
 
 years, when William Shake- 
 speare was making his name 
 and fame in London, the 
 separation was bridged over 
 as they stood together one 
 August day weeping bitter 
 tears over the grave of their 
 only son Hamnet, Judith's 
 twin brother. fie was a fine 
 promising boy of twelve, on 
 
 Z.^"- 
 
 Komco and Juliet had awoke 
 died away, when the tidings 
 came to summon the father to 
 the death-bed of his only son. 
 
 rpc Anne fiathaway's sym- 
 
 pathy would not fail her husband 
 in this hour of mutual grief, 
 
 % and perhaps from this time 
 the old love re-asserted itself, 
 and Shakespeare was more 
 frequently found separating him- 
 self from the world which 
 delighted to honour him, and 
 
 whom many high hopes had q^^ CmlcL. 
 
 been set ; and scarcely had CKapsL 7 
 
 tlie ringing applause wliich j^oi-oLy. 
 
 fmding rest and peace at New Place, the home where he went from time to time, sometimes a-weary 
 
 of the world, and perhaps, acknowledging in his secret heart that the plaudits of an admiring crowd 
 
 were but a poor compensation after all for the s\veets of domestic love. 
 
 He is now described in the records as William. Shakespeare, gentleman, and he paid 
 the goodly sum of £^2^ sterling as the purchase money of an estate of one hundred and seven 
 
BY THE SILVER AVON. 
 
 acres in the immediate neighbourhood in 1602, the year in which he is supposed to have retired permanently 
 from what may be called his public life to the country associated with his childhood and boyhood. 
 
 The old scenes had a charm for him, and we may trace his footsteps in Warwickshire in the 
 very heart of Old England, which still retains the salient points associated for ever with the work 
 of her greatest son. 
 
 The flowers still grow in the shady lanes and hedges with which he makes his plays fragrant. 
 There you may gather the hot mint and lavender, while the hawthorn buds and damask roses make the air 
 sweet as you pass. Waggons with familiar names rumble along ; Parkes and Jacques, spelt now 
 Jakes, are names very often to be seen in white letters at the back of the heavy lumbering vehicles. 
 The country is still peaceful with far-stretching woods and slow streams, and tall trees ; while in flower- 
 strewn meadows the meek-ej-ed cows stand knee-deep in buttercups and daisies. There is an air of 
 repose in this midland country, and a somewhat sleepy indifference to the rest of the world. Meditation 
 would seem to have its natural home in these quiet fields and woods even now, and in Shakespeare's time 
 a walk to Bidford must have been a quiet stroll by the silver Avon, where the rushes grew in company 
 with the yellow iris, and where the water rats shot in and out amongst the reeds in search of prey 
 for their young ones, safely hidden in their nests. 
 
 Bidford had the unenviable notoriety of being the resort of two drinking clubs — the Topers and 
 the Sippers, and Shakespeare is said to have joined the latter. On a memorable occasion, when the 
 ale brewed by Master Norton, of the Falcon Inn, proved too much for his head, he slept so 
 soundly under a crab-tree on a hill above the village that he lost a da}', and, awoke by the whistling 
 of a ploughboy, reproached him for going to work on Sunda}-'. At this the ploughboy laughed in 
 derision and said — " Master, it be Monday, you be dreaming.'' 
 
 It is supposed that the friends who had joined him in his drinking match were also overcome 
 
iWt'.'j^ 
 
 
BY THE SILVER AVON. 
 
 in the same way. Perhaps it was here, under the crab-tree, from 
 which tlie eight villages are all to be seen, that Shakespeare 
 strung together the jingling rhymes, still held to be descriptive, of — 
 
 Piping Pebworth, dancing Marston, 
 Haunted Hilborough, hungry Grafton ; 
 Dudging Exhall, Papish Wixford, 
 Beggarly Broom and drunken Bidford ! 
 
 For to this day a countryman will, if mentioning the village of Grafton add — " Hungrj' Grafton," 
 as Shakespeare calls it. The crab-tree was cut down in 1S25, and the stump removed to Bidford 
 Grange to be preserved from further depredation, as only the stump remained, and that was getting 
 small bj' degrees and beautifully less. 
 
 The local colour, which gives a charm to the work of our great poet, still lingers in his neighbour- 
 hood. Clifford Chambers, a village about three miles from Stratford, still possesses a splendid old 
 black and white half-timbered house, and in the garden round it may be seen on 
 a bright June day a gorgeous clump of mule pinks, so hard to meet with nowadays. 
 Then there is the old Manor House with its twisted chimneys, surrounded by 
 an old garden, such as Shakespeare must have revelled in, with its clove pinks, 
 mule pinks, columbines and larkspurs. An ancient mulberry tree is to be seen on 
 a grass plot near the house, supported by timber, but still bearing an abundance 
 of the juicy fruit Titania chose with " apricocks and dew-berries" for Bottom's 
 feast. Let any one who loves to trace the footsteps of the poet, to walk where he 
 walked, and fill his soul with the "dear delights" of flower and fruit, visit Clifford 
 
^tig^- 
 
 ChaniberS ai^ he will be well repaid for his trouble. 
 
 Even if the Manor House was not built till after his 
 
 death, tlie old black and white house, since used as ■'©lliirart'K '' 
 
 a rectory, must look very much now as it looked jl^ '■ 
 
 then, and by the still pond, with its border of sedges b}' the little mill bridge, he must often ha^-e stood. 
 
 Shakespeare's rhyme calls Marston — dancing Marston, and the old inhabitants remember that 
 tlie morris dancers of Marston were celebrated and much in request at all the fairs in the countr3^ 
 
 Tlicn how charming is Pebworth — Piping Pebworth, where to this verj? day penny whistles and 
 concertinas keep up the tradition of Shakespeare's name for it, for nearly CA'ery boy plaj's on one or 
 other of these musical or unmusical instruments ! 
 

 i#-*^///?. 
 
 BY THE SILVER AVON. 
 
 The roses at Pebworth are miracles of loveliness. 
 Tlicy grow in the wildest profusion, and have been growing 
 j'ear after year in the June sunshine ever since Shakespeare 
 drank beer at the village inn. Even the mythical musk 
 rose is to be found in the old garden in that village, if 
 it is to be found anywhere. 
 
 Of all Shakespeare's epithets the name he applies to 
 Broom is best deserved. Beggarly Broom it was then, 
 beggarly Broom it is now. The houses are old and tumble- 
 down ; the people low, poor and squalid, and the big steam 
 mill in the village seems to monopolise all its prosperity, for 
 the rest of the place looks as if prosperity was unknown. 
 
 Many words and allusions in Shakespeare's plays are 
 
 familiar to the Warwickshire folk — as familiar as household 
 
 words. Justice Shallow's "leather coats" are a trim russet 
 
 apple peculiar to the neighbourhood, "bitter sweetings," 
 
 "iJ' about which Romeo and Mercutio talk, is prized as a 
 
 '-'■■' '^^' ''"^ cider apple. Then there is a large wild and sour apple, 
 
 fair to look at, but exceedingly bitter to taste, which exactly answers Holofernes' grandiloquent 
 
 description — " the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of ccclo — the sky, the welkin, 
 
 the heaven ; and anon falleth like a crab on the face of ttrva — the soil, the land, the earth." 
 
 • Love-in-idleness is the Warwickshire name for the little wild pansy. Hedgehogs are "urchins," 
 and scarecrows " mawkins." 
 
BY THE SILVER AVON. 
 
 Clopton is a fine old place scarcely a mile from Stratford. At the back of the house there is 
 a fine mullioned window— and there is a carved stone arch — under which Shakespeare must many a 
 time have walked with his friend John Combe, whose daughter married a Clopton. 
 
 Then from Clopton across a few green fields are Welcombe and the Dingles. That Shakespeare 
 loved the Dingles, a curious winding gulley on the crest of a hill, just abo\'e the town, is almost 
 
 certain. This little 
 hill of Welcombe, 
 these Dingles, with 
 their scattered thorn 
 bushes, must have 
 been a favourite 
 walk in the Poet's 
 days as now, for 
 the townspeople. 
 
 He must haA'e 
 listened to the 
 nightingales which 
 make the woods 
 ring with their 
 
 
 1*1 
 
 
 dv 1^,^. 
 
 songs even now, and 
 then between \\'el- 
 cornbe and Ingon 
 Meadow, the latter 
 Farm rented by his 
 father, there was a 
 wide outlying tract 
 of Arden Forest. 
 When an attempt 
 was made to enclose 
 this in 1614, Shake- 
 speare resisted the 
 encroachment with 
 all the zeal of one 
 
 who loved to preserve it for the delight of the Stratford people in the Avon Valley. 
 
 Standing on Welcombe Hill, a dense rich mass of trees and a church tower show where 
 Charlecote Hall lies, and here, indeed, at all seasons and all times, the poet's memory lingers. In 
 the Spring-time, when the horse-chesnuts are in their full glory, and the lilacs and hawthorns scent 
 
BY THE SILVER AVON. 
 
 tlie air, we can fancy him, according to old tradition, looliing over the parlv railings, and watching 
 the fallow deer and fawns as they start at some distant sound, and bound over the undulating turf. 
 The noble stags, with brandling horns, raise their heads and stare for a few moments at the watcher 
 by the railings, and then, with stately yet swift tread, disappear amongst the trees. 
 
 Beautiful Charlecote looks very much now as it did three hundred years ago ; the house with 
 its white stone balustrade, and the maiden Queen's monogram on the porch, whereby Sir Thomas 
 Lucy commemorated the Queen's visit when the players pla3'ed before her, and, as we have said, 
 Shakespeare was probabi)' one of the audience. 
 
 The tradition of the stolen deer, and of the punishment which followed the offensive rhyme 
 posted, some sa}', on the gate of the park, and expressing in no reserved terms what the 3'oung poacher 
 felt, — all this is a familiar tale. As we stand where Shakespeare stood, under the magnificent 
 elms, and the stags measure their strength till the click of their horns as the_y close rings in the 
 still Autumn air, while the golden glory is on the lower branches of the elms, and one by one, 
 
 silentl}' and sadly, the leaves fall to the ground, 
 we almost expect to see gallants in ruffs and 
 doublets, and fair ladies riding up on palfreys gaily 
 caparisoned — and the present fades, and the past lives, 
 and Shakespeare is a living man — so unchanged are 
 , many of his haunts, so true and so faithful are 
 the descriptions with which he has made those haunts 
 immortal. 
 
 In the last days of the Poet's life many whom 
 he had lo\'ed had vanislied into the unseen ; his 
 
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 fatlier, his motlier, his brothers, and his dearly-loved and only son, Hamnet, were all gone. But 
 the places that knew tliem no more were dear to liim ; and as we pictured him in liis 
 boyliood in tlic old school-house, with its darlc overhanging rafters ; in the fields, and by the ri^'erside, 
 where the winking Mar^-buds glistened in the sunshine ; so may we picture him Avhcn his genius had 
 been recognised by his countrymen, when the reward of his work was to be seen in the mansion of 
 
BY THE SILVER AVON. 
 
 New Place, and the estate adjoining it, standing on the old bridge and looking back over the past, 
 as the murmur of the silver Avon told its story like the ever-flowing stream of time, hastening on 
 
 to the great Ocean of Eternity. " To be or not to be," the great 
 question put into the mouth of one of his finest creations, might often 
 demand an answer from the Poet himself, as lie thouglit over the last 
 journey lying before him, as before us all, to that "undiscovered 
 bourne whence no traveller returns." 
 
 In these days the fierce light of popular curiosity beats upon the 
 life of anyone who makes a mark in literature or art. People are 
 interviewed in life, and at their death a biography starts up, in 
 which the scenes of domestic and social life are often laid bare with 
 a pitiless disregard of the feelings of survivors and in deplorably bad 
 taste ; but there are no such contemporary records of life and work in 
 the time of our great poet. 
 
 But as the last 5'ears of William Shakespeare's life were passed, 
 we believe, principally in and near Stratford-upon-Avon, we can make a 
 picture of what we may think probable, if not certain. We know the 
 neighbourhood was faiuiliar to him, and in the bright Spring-time of 
 1616, when rare Ben Jonson and Drayton, his two intimate friends, paid 
 him a visit at New Place, he would like to show them all his favourite 
 haunts. We may fancy Shakespeare walking with his friends to 
 Eidford, and recalling for their amusement that "sipping" feat of his 
 youthful days — Ben Jonson's laughter and Drayton's merriment, as the 
 
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 BY THE SILVER AVON. 
 
 Poet repeated the jingling rliymcs wliich, as we have said, from 
 time immemorial have been known throughout the country. 
 There is no doubt that Shakespeare, whose pathos can move us so 
 deeply at one moment, and his keen wit and humour provoke our 
 merriment the next, must have known the alternations of mood 
 which he touches with so masterful a hand. And it may be 
 that in the company of his two chosen friends he was in the 
 mood for convivial enjoyment, and that he entertained them with 
 some of the townsfolk and neighbours at the Tavern at Stratford, 
 perhaps thinking that grave Anne Hathaway might object to so noisy 
 a party at New Place. However this may be, this is the last occasion 
 when he ever sat as host at any social board, the last time when he and Ben Jonson exchanged their brilliant 
 repartees, and sharpened their wits as iron sharpeneth iron. Almost immediately afterwards, even on 
 his way home, William Shakespeare was seized with the consuming fever, which ran its course 
 so swiftly, that on April the 23rd the bell of Stratford Parish Church, tolling fifty-two strokes in solemn 
 tones, announced to the people of his native town that the last of William Shakespeare's 3'ears had 
 been counted out, and that he was gone from among them — never to return. 
 
 Again it was "proud pied April" when the grave opened in the beautiful parish church of 
 Stratford-upon-Avon to receive all that was mortal of one of England's greatest sons. 
 
 Under the chancel window, where the earliest beams of the morning sun strike through the 
 panes, and lie in bands of light upon the floor — he rests. When those who had loved him — the wife 
 of his youtli, the friends of his riper years — gathered round his grave, I doubt not his own words were 
 proved true, " I forgive and quite forget old faults." To them his memory was a priceless possession, 
 

 
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BY THE SILVER AVON. 
 
 which made them feel wlien he had left them, how a great man and a prince had fallen that day, 
 and that none then living would lool< on his lil-:e again. 
 
 For ourselves, as we leave him in the quiet grave under the chancel window of the church 
 sacred to his memory from the cradle to the grave, no parting words can be found more appropriate 
 than liis own dirge in Cymbeline : — • 
 
 " Fear no more the heat o' the sun, 
 Nor the furious winter's rages; 
 Thou thy worldly task hast done, 
 
 Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages. 
 Golden lads and girls all must, 
 As chimney sweepers, come to dust. 
 
 Fear no more the frown o' the great, 
 
 Thou art past the tyrant's stroke; 
 Care no more to clothe, and eat, 
 
 To thee the reed is as the oak. 
 The sceptre, learning, physic, must 
 _ All follow this, and come to dust. 
 
 Fear no more the lightning-flash. 
 
 Nor the all-dreaded thunder-tone ; 
 Fear not slander, censure rash, 
 
 Thou hast finish'd joy and moan : 
 Quiet consummation have. 
 And renowned be thy grave ! " 
 
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