Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

will remain witt, as long as the English tongue is understood, for he handles mores hominum; now our present writers, reflect so much upon particular person's coxcombeities, that twenty years hence they will not be understood." Of Shakspeare's learning the same eccentric writer says, "Though as Ben Jonson said of him, that he had but little Latine and less of Greek, he understood Latine pretty well, for he had been in his younger years a school-master in the country." Relative to his taking his characters from nature, Aubrey gives the following anecdote: "The humour of the Constable in a Midsummer Night's Dream, he happened to take at Grendon in Bucks, which is the road from London to Stratford, and there was living that constable, about the year 1642. when I first came to Oxon; Mr. Jos. Howe, is of that parish and knew him. Ben Jonson and he, did gather humours of men daily wherever they came. One time as he was at the tavern at Stratford upon Avon, one Combes, an old rich usurer, was a going to be buried, he makes them this extemporary epitaph:

"Ten in the hundred the devil allows,

But Combes will have twelve, he swears and

YOWS.

If any one askes who lies in this tombe,

Hoh! quoth the devill "Tis my John-o'-Combe."

In the year 1741, a monument was erected to Shakspeare's memory in Westminster Abbey, under the direction of the Earl of Burlington, Dr. Mead, Mr. Pope, and Mr. Martin. It was the work of Sheemaker, (who received three hundred pounds for it,) after a design of Kent, and was opened in the January of that year. The performers of each of the London Theatres gave a benefit to defray the expenses, and the Dean and Chapter of Westminster generously TOOK NOTHING FOR THE GROUND;-the money received by the performance at Drury-Lane, amounted to above two hundred pounds; but the receipts at CoventGarden Theatre, did not exceed one hundred pounds, New Place, Shakspeare's house, whilst Mrs. Shakspeare resided in it after her husband's decease, became in 1634, the scene of royal grandeur. For here Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles the First, kept her court for three weeks, during the civil war was the house, or the Queen most honoured by this association? On the death, of her mother, New Place passed into the possession, first, of Mrs. Hall, Shakspeare's daughter; and, then, of Elizabeth Hall, his grand-daughter, afterwards Lady Barnard, from whom it reverted to its original possessors, the Clopton family. And in May, 1742, when Mr. Garrick, Mr Macklin, and Mr. Delane visited Stratford, they were

1

hospitably entertained under Shakspeare's Mulberry Tree by Sir Hugh Clopton, a Barrister at Law, knighted by George the First, who died in December, 1751, in the eightieth year of his age. Unfortunately for England, his executor, about the year 1752 or 53, sold New Place to the Reverend Francis Gastrell, Vicar of Frodsham in Cheshire, and Canon residentiary of Lichfield, 'an envious carle who lov'd no gentle muse, nor was by muse belov'd;' he attached no sanctity to the habitation of our immortal bard. The Mulberry Tree, Shakspeare's Mulberry Tree, planted by his own hand, was the first thing that fell under his sacrilegious hand. In 1765, to the infinite horror and rage of the inhabitants of Stratford, this Tree, though large and flourishing, and holied by the name of its planter, was doomed by his orders, to be cut down and cleft in pieces for firewood. Whether he was actuated by the petulance of a detestable temper, which could not bear to be subjected to gratify the frequent importunities of those travellers, whose zeal prompted them to visit it; or whether his dislike proceeded from that petty envy and feeling of rivalship, with which some of the Clergy regard the Theatrical Profession, for obtaining, by amusing and instructing the people, that money they might get by misleading and terrifying ; or whether his faculties were so besotted by

them

bigotry, that he could not see in Shakspeare, more lovely morality than in a thousand tomes of dull theology, and thought he was doing a service to the world in removing every relict of their idol, is not known; it is only certain, that the Reverend person rendered himself infamously famous by this Ephesian destruction. The Mulberry Tree is supposed to have been planted in 1609, about seven years before Shakspeare's death; it must therefore have been nearly one hundred and fifty years old. Alas! Alas!..

The Mulberry Tree was hung with blooming wreaths;
The Mulberry Tree stood centre of the dance;

The Mulberry Tree was hymn'd with dulcet airs;
And from his touchwood trunk the Mulberry Tree
Supplies such relics as devotion holds

Still sacred, and preserves with pious care.

For it is pleasing to add, that the Mulberry Tree was very considerately and profitably bought by Mr. Thomas Sharpe, of Stratford, who converted every fragment of it into little boxes, goblets, punch ladles, tobacco stoppers, and other small trinkets, all of which were so eagerly purchasedand so plentifully supplied-that, at length the people began to suspect, that, like those sacred cheats, the monks, with the Cross of the Salvator, Mr. S. was not selling them genuine wood, but

• Cowper.

that the relics were counterfeit; this was rebutted by affidavit, and faith was partially restored. The destruction of the Mulberry Tree was soon followed by another atrocity. In consequence of a dispute about some assessments for the poor, this modern Erostratus declared in a rage, the House should never be assessed again; and in 1759, ordered it to be razed to the ground, and sold the materials; this raised him to the climax of detestation in the hearts of his neighbours, and he was soon afterwards compelled to leave Stratford, loaded with their execrations, and leaving his memory a mark for every poet's curses, Several reliques of Shakspeare are still in existence, in particular his walking stick, his jug, and pencil-case; and a seal ring has lately been found near the garden of New Place, which Mr. Wheeler thinks must have belonged to him. His wainscot chair was sold in 1790, to a Russian princess. Mrs. Hornby, the late Cicerone of Shakspeare's House in Henley Street, possesses various reliques which, it is said,' the Hartes had cherished for several generations, and which her husband had bought as fixtures: this garrulous old lady, who is now a widow, used formerly to carry on his trade as a butcher; having been ejected from the house which she formerly used to shew, she now lives, in a house opposite, by shewing the reliques, and selling her printed plays. Having,

« AnteriorContinua »