Читать книгу Shakespeare the Boy - W. J. Rolfe - Страница 7

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Warwickshire is the heart of England, and the country within ten miles or so of the town of Warwick may be called the heart of this heart. On one side of this circle are Stratford and Shottery and Wilmcote—the home of Shakespeare's mother—and on the other are Kenilworth and Coventry.

In Warwick itself is the famous castle of its Earls—"that fairest monument," as Scott calls it, "of ancient and chivalrous splendor which yet remains uninjured by time." The earlier description written by the veracious Dugdale almost two hundred and fifty years ago might be applied to it to-day. It is still "not only a place of great strength, but extraordinary delight; with most pleasant gardens, walls, and thickets such as this part of England can hardly parallel; so that now it is the most princely seat that is within the midland parts of this realm."

WARWICK CASTLE

The castle was old in Shakespeare's day. Cæsar's Tower, so called, though not built, as tradition alleged, by the mighty Julius, dated back to an unknown period; and Guy's Tower, named in honor of the redoubted Guy of Warwick, the hero of many legendary exploits, was built in 1394. No doubt the general appearance of the buildings was more ancient in the sixteenth century than it is to-day, for they had been allowed to become somewhat dilapidated; and it was not until the reign of James I. that they were repaired and embellished, at enormous expense, and made the stately fortress and mansion that Dugdale describes.

But the castle would be no less beautiful for situation, though it were fallen to ruin like the neighboring Kenilworth. The rock on which it stands, washed at its base by the Avon, would still be there, the park would still stretch its woods and glades along the river, and all the natural attractions of the noble estate would remain.

We cannot doubt that the youthful Shakespeare was familiar with the locality. Warwick and Kenilworth were probably the only baronial castles he had seen before he went to London; and, whatever others he may have seen later in life, these must have continued to be his ideal castles as in his boyhood.

It is not likely that he was ever in Scotland, and when he described the castle of Macbeth the picture in his mind's eye was doubtless Warwick or Kenilworth, and more likely the former than the latter; for

"This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air

Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself

Unto our gentle senses. This guest of summer,

The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,

By his loved mansionry, that the air

Smells wooingly here; no jutty, frieze,

Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird

Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle.

Where they most breed and haunt I have observed

The air is delicate."

Saint Mary's church at Warwick was also standing then—the most interesting church in Warwickshire next to Holy Trinity at Stratford. It was burned in 1694, but the beautiful choir and the magnificent lady chapel, or Beauchamp Chapel, fortunately escaped the flames, and we see them to-day as Shakespeare doubtless saw them, except for the monuments that have since been added. He saw in the choir the splendid tomb of Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and in the adjacent chapel the grander tomb of Richard Beauchamp, unsurpassed in the kingdom except by that of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey. He looked, as we do, on the full-length figure of the Earl, recumbent in armor of gilded brass, under the herse of brass hoops also gilt; his hands elevated in prayer, the garter on his left knee, the swan at his head, the griffin and bear at his feet. He read, as we read, in the inscription on the cornice of the sepulchre, how this "most worshipful knight decessed full christenly the last day of April the year of oure Lord God 1439, he being at that time lieutenant general and governor of the realm of Fraunce," and how his body was brought to Warwick, and "laid with full solemn exequies in a fair chest made of stone in this church" on the 4th day of October—"honoured be God therefor." And the young Shakespeare looked up, as we do, at the exquisitely carved stone ceiling, and at the great east window, which still contains the original glass, now almost four and a half centuries old, with the portrait of Earl Richard kneeling in armor with upraised hands.

The tomb of "the noble Impe, Robert of Dudley," who died in 1584, with the lovely figure of a child seven or eight years old, may have been seen by Shakespeare when he returned to Stratford in his latter years, and also the splendid monument of the father of the "noble imp," Robert Dudley, the great Earl of Leicester, who died in 1588; but in the poet's youth this famous nobleman was living in the height of his renown and prosperity at the castle of Kenilworth five miles away, which we will visit later.