Part 6

"What needs my Shakspeare for his honor'd bones, The labor of an age in piled stones? Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame! What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hath built thyself a long-lived monument."

But if this honor be not needed, what needs there for our Shakspeare, the still weaker witness of his name, of guzzling and gormandizing? Is there any the remotest connection between the achievements of pure intellect and seven-gallon barrel stomachs of anniversary topers? Between the still labors of a divine imagination, and the uproarious riot of a public feed when half-seas over? Let mock turtle do honor to mock heroes; but what has Shakspeare, and the honor of Shakspeare, to do with the "hip! hips!" and the swilling of mere herds of literary swine? To become part and parcel of such a herd, were Dickens and Talfourd invited down to Stratford this very year. They wisely eschewed the honor.

Let us suppose, for a moment, that the spirit of Shakspeare could hear the hiccoughings of the crew assembled in his name, to honor him forsooth! If he were permitted to descend from the serene glory of his seventh heaven, and appeared at the door of their dining-room with the meager descendants of the Shakspeare family crowding sadly behind him, what are the indignant words that he would address to the flushed and bloated throng of his _soi-disant_ worshipers? They have been already addressed to like ears by the great Master of love, and of the philosophy of true honor. "I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. * * * _Inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these, ye did it not to me._"[4] No, the sycophantic humbugs never did it to Shakspeare. What cares he, in his seventh heaven of glory and of poetry, for their guzzlings? What have they to do with him or his honor? Is it not a precious imposture, to make a feast to a man's honor, and not to invite to it his nearest relatives, especially when they live at the next door? In the name of the national reputation, let this wretched and egotistic farce be put down by the good sense of the British public. If these people will not honor Shakspeare by honoring his family, let them at least abstain from insulting their poverty and their neglect by this public parade, and this devouring of joints.

Hear what Robert Southey says: "The last descendants of Milton died in poverty. The descendants of Shakspeare[5] are living in poverty, and in the lowest condition of life. Is this just to these individuals? Is it grateful to those who are the pride and boast of their country? Is it honorable or becoming to us as a nation, holding--the better part of us assuredly, and the majority affecting to hold--the names of Shakspeare and Milton in veneration? To have placed the descendants of Shakspeare and Milton in respectability and comfort in that sphere of life where, with a full provision for our natural wants and social enjoyments, free scope is given to the growth of our intellectual and immortal part, simple justice was all that was required--only that they should have possessed the perpetual copyright of their ancestors' works--only that they should not have been deprived of their proper inheritance."[6]

The time is evidently not yet come for setting this great matter right; for doing this great act of justice toward the teachers of the world and glorifiers of our national name; for executing this due redress. We have yet much to learn from those divine minds, whom, in Southey's words, we profess to venerate. But still the public mind is not destitute of its glimmerings of the truth, and its responsibilities. Since I wrote the pages quoted, numerous individuals have written to inquire if nothing can be done to remove the opprobrium of our treatment to the Shakspeare family. Many visitors have desired to see the boy thus pointed out, and have made him presents, but he still remains unprovided for. A clergyman, about two years ago, wrote to me from the west of England, expressing the interest he felt in this youth, whom he had seen at Stratford, and his anxious desire to have a subscription raised to educate him, and put him into some honorable way of life. He begged me to make a move, in which he would zealously co-operate, to interest a sufficient number of literary and influential individuals to agitate the question, and commence the subscription. I made the attempt, but in vain. Some parties gave professions which ended in nothing, others which began in nothing; some doubted the chance of success, and some successfully chanced to doubt. One of the first persons whom I was naturally induced to write to for advice and co-operation was Mr. Charles Knight. Mr. Charles Knight had recently published a voluminous edition of Shakspeare's works, with elaborate criticisms and life; his apparent enthusiasm about Shakspeare suggested him instantly as a most likely person to unite in a plan for vindicating the honor of the nation toward the living representatives of the poet. I begged him to say whether he would do so, and whether he would be good enough to point out any means or parties by which this might be prosecuted. This enthusiast of Shakspearian honors did not even observe the ordinary courtesy of a reply. On the contrary, the Countess of Lovelace, the worthy representative of another great bard, expressed the readiest and most zealous desire to move all those within the reach of her influence in the matter. But, in a word, it did not succeed. The honor of Shakspeare lay too much on the national tongue instead of on the heart, yet to procure justice to the living members of his family.

Let us still trust that that time will come. I will not believe that this great and intellectual nation, which has given an estate and titles to the family of Marlborough, and the same to the family of Wellington, will refuse all such marks of honor to the Shakspeare family. Shall the heroes of the sword alone be rewarded? Shall the heroes of the pen, those far nobler and diviner heroes, be treated with a penniless contempt? In this nation the worship of military honors is fast subsiding, the perception of the greatness and beneficence of intellect is fast growing. We are coming to see that it is out of our immortal minds, and not out of our swords and cannons, that our highest, purest, and most imperishable glory has grown and will grow. The people every day are more and more coming to this knowledge, and making it felt by government and the world. Let the people, then, wait no longer of Shakspeare clubs; let them leave them to their bottles and their beef; let them wait of no dilettanti authors, commentators, or scribbling publishers; let them wait of no governments, but let the people stand forward, and pay a national honor to Shakspeare, and in Shakspeare to justice and to intellect. The money, I have said, which is spent in visiting the trumpery collected as his at Stratford would have purchased a large estate for the descendants of the Shakspeare family. That has not been done, and never will be done; but a penny a piece from every person in this kingdom, who has derived days and months of delight from the pages of Shakspeare, would purchase an estate equal to that of Strathfieldsaye, or of Blenheim. What a glorious tribute would this be from the people of England to their great dramatic poet--the greatest dramatic poet in the world! How far would it rise above the tributes to violence and bloodshed! The tribute of a nation's love to pure and godlike intellect! This estate should not be appropriated on the feudal principle of primogeniture; should not be the estate of one, but of the family; should be vested in trustees chosen by the people, to educate, and honorably settle in the world _every_ son and daughter of the Shakspearian family; and to support and comfort the old age of the unfortunate and decrepit of it. That it should not encourage idleness and a mischievous dependence, all such persons, when educated and endowed with a sufficient sum to enable them to make their way in the world, should be left so to make their way. The nation would then have discharged its parental duties toward them, and they could expect no more. They should be educated to expect no more, and more should not be extended to them, except in case of utter misfortune or destitution, and then only on a scale that should be in itself no temptation.

Such an estate, founded by the people, would be the noblest monument ever yet erected to any man, or on any occasion. Shakspeare has a decent monument at Stratford, and an indifferent one in Westminster Abbey; this would be one worthy of him and of the nation which produced him. It would take away from us a melancholy opprobrium, and confer on him and the British people an equal glory.

ABRAHAM COWLEY.

The chief places connected with the name of Cowley are Barn-Elms and Chertsey, both in Surrey. Cowley is one of those poets who had a great reputation in his own time, but who at the present day are only read by those who are anxious to know the real history of the poetry of their country. He is so overloaded with the most outrageous conceits, and his whole system of versification is at once so affected, artificial, and yet rugged and often mean, that he has, in the midst of so much more genuine inspiration, fallen into almost utter neglect. Johnson, often unjust to our poets, can hardly be said to have been so to Cowley, when he says of him and the other metaphysical poets, that "they were men of learning, and to show their learning was their whole endeavor; but unluckily resolving to show it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry, they wrote only verses, and very often such verses as stood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the modulation was so imperfect, that they were only found to be verses by counting the syllables."... From this account of their compositions it will be readily inferred that they were not successful in representing or moving the affections. "For these reasons," Johnson adds, "that though in his own time considered of unrivaled excellence, and as having taken a flight beyond all that went before him, Cowley's reputation could not last. His character of writing was, indeed, not his own: he unhappily adopted that which was predominant. He saw a certain way to present praise; and, not sufficiently inquiring by what means the ancients have continued to delight through all the changes of human manners, he contented himself with a deciduous laurel, of which the verdure in its spring was bright and gay, but which time has been continually stealing from his brows."

In Cowley, in fact, you will find many beautiful sentiments, and much learning; but he seems always playing with his matter, not dealing earnestly with it; constructing toys and gewgaws, not everlasting structures. You have artifice instead of feeling, and conceits and often downright fustian instead of heart, soul, and human passion. Who would now willingly wade through pages of such doggerel as this?

"Since 'tis my doom, Love's undershrieve, Why this reprieve? Why doth she my advowson fly, Incumbency? To sell thyself dost thou intend By candle's end; And hold the contract thus in doubt, Life's taper out? Think but how soon the market fails," &c.

Who can tolerate, after being raised to some expectation by a beginning like the following, the end which comes?

"Begin the song, and strike the living lyre: Lo! how the years to come a numerous and well-fitted quire, All hand in hand do decently advance, And to my song with smooth and equal measure dance; While the dance lasts, how long soe'er it be, My music's voice shall bear it company, Till all gentle notes be drowned In the last trumpet's dreadful sound.

*...*...*...*

But stop, my muse-- Hold thy Pindaric Pegasus closely in, Which does to rage begin-- 'Tis an unruly and a hard-mouthed horse 'Twill no unskillful touch endure, But flings writer and reader too that sits not sure."

As a specimen of his fiction, Johnson has quoted his description of the Archangel Gabriel:

"He took for skin a cloud most soft and bright, That e'er the mid-day sun pierced through with light; Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread, Washed from the morning beauties' deepest red; An harmless, fluttering meteor shone for hair, And fell adown his shoulders with loose care; He cuts out a silk mantle from the skies, Where the most sprightly azure pleased the eyes; This he with starry vapors sprinkles all, Took in their prime before they grow ripe and fall; Of a new rainbow, ere it fret or fade, The choicest piece cut out, a scarf is made."

This comes but indifferently after a passage of Byron or Shelley. But, in fact, Cowley seems to have been a man who could not be permanently and decidedly any thing. He could not rise out of affectations, and dubious, half-way sort of positions, either in poetry or in life. He would fain pass for an ardent lover, and general admirer of the fair sex, and published a poem called "The Mistress," on the ground stated in the preface to one of its editions, "that poets are scarcely thought freemen of their company, without paying some duties, or obliging themselves to be true to love." This is genuine Cowley: he did not write a poem on a love subject because he was full of the subject, but because it seemed to be expected of a poet. It was not passion and admiration that fired him, but it was necessary to appearances that he should do it. He was unluckily always spying about on the outside of his subject, and never plunging boldly into it. He was like a man who, instead of enjoying his house, should always be standing in the front and asking passengers what they thought of it, and if it did not look very fine; or, if not, where he could lay on some plaster, or put up a veranda. If his heart and soul had been engaged, there would have been less opportunity for his eternal self-consciousness; he would have done his work for the love of it, and because he could not help it, and not because he found it becoming to do some sort of work. Of love, therefore, says his biographer, he never knew any thing but once, and then dare not tell his passion.

He was a strong Loyalist; went over to France after the queen of Charles I. retired thither, and became secretary to Lord Jermyn, afterward Earl of St. Alban's, and was employed in such compositions as the royal cause required, and particularly in copying and deciphering the letters which passed between the king and queen. He afterward came back, and occupied the somewhat equivocal character of spy on the republican government, and detailer of its proceedings to the royal party abroad. "Under pretense of privacy and retirement, he was to take occasion of giving notice of the posture of things in this nation." This soon led to his arrest and incarceration; and he was not set at large without a guarantee of a thousand pounds. As it was supposed, he now published his poems, with the object of writing something in his preface which should give government an idea of the abatement of his loyalty. This gave great offense to the royal party, and was in subsequent editions withdrawn. Continuing to live in England as if contented with the existing government, on the death of Cromwell he wrote verses, as is said, in praise of him, and which verses he suppressed; and then went over again to France, as soon as the Commonwealth gave signs of dissolution; and came back in the crowd of royalists, eager for the spoil of the nation. Like many others, however, who had been more decided and consistent than himself, he did not get what he expected, the Mastership of the Savoy.

This, and the ill success of his play, "Cutter of Coleman-street," which also was accused of being a satire on the king, filled Cowley with a desperate desire of retreating into the country. Whenever he was in trouble at court, this passion for solitude came rapidly upon him. Under the Commonwealth, when imprisoned as a spy, he introduced into the preface to his poems, that "his desire had been for some days past, and did still very vehemently continue, to retire himself to some of the American plantations, and to forsake this world forever." His courtly ambition being now again disappointed, he styled himself the _melancholy_ Cowley, and resolved to ruralize in earnest. He had formerly studied physic, and obtained a diploma, but never practiced; having now, however, convinced himself that he was a lover of the country, he determined to practice that, and so betook himself to Barn-Elms. "He was now," says Sprat, "weary of the vexations and formalities of an active condition. He had been perplexed with a long compliance to foreign manners. He was satiated with the arts of a court, which sort of life, though his virtue made it innocent to him, yet nothing could make it quiet. These were the reasons that moved him to follow the violent inclinations of his own mind, which, in the greatest hurry of his own business, had still called upon him, and represented to him the delights of solitary studies, of temperate pleasures, and a moderate income below the malice and flatteries of fortune."

It was not from a mind like Cowley's that we should expect a deep contentment as the result of this choice, and it is said not to have been the case. At first his poverty debarred him the necessary domestic comfort, but through the influence of his old patrons, the Earl of St. Alban's, and the Duke of Buckingham, he secured a lease of some of the queen's lands, which afforded him an ample income.

Barn-Elms lies about half a mile from Barnes, near the road leading from Hammersmith suspension bridge to Wimbledon. It is an old estate, and in Cowley's time must have been tolerably solitary. Since then the road just mentioned has been made across the estate, and an inn built close to its entrance gate. It still, however, presents the aspect of antiquity. The land is rich and flat, and the present park is thickly scattered with the trees from which it derives its name. Some of these are reduced to mere massy fragments of trunks, which give a venerable aspect to the place. The house here is now occupied by Sir Lancelot Shadwell, the vice-chancellor of England. The spot is remarkable for many other associations than those with Cowley.

The old house here was called Queen Elizabeth's Dairy, and, from the richness of the meadow land, seems admirably calculated for a dairy on a grand scale. The property belonged to the canons of St. Paul's, having been granted to them by King Athelstan; but it was leased to Queen Elizabeth, and she granted her interest in it to Sir Francis Walsingham and his heirs. Here, in 1589, that subtle courtier entertained the queen and her whole court, where I suppose they would drink milk and be very rural. The Earl of Essex married Sir Francis's daughter, the widow of Sir Philip Sidney, and resided here frequently. No other man than Jacob Tonson afterward lived in this house, to which he built a gallery, wherein he placed the portraits of the members of the Kit-kat Club, which had been painted for him by Kneller. The members of the club were also entertained here frequently by the munificent bookseller, their secretary. Garth wrote the verses for the toasting-glasses of the club, which, as they are preserved in his works, have immortalized some of the principal beauties of the commencement of the last century: Lady Carlisle, Lady Essex, Lady Hyde, and Lady Wharton. Tonson's gallery was partly pulled down a good many years ago, and partly united to a barn, so as to form a riding-school. The pictures were removed to Bayfordberry, the seat of William Baker, Esq., near Hertford.

In George the Second's time, Heydegger, his master of the revels, was the tenant, and the following whim of his was played off on his royal master. The king gave him notice that he would sup with him one evening, and that he would come from Richmond by water. It was Heydegger's profession to invent novel amusements, and he was resolved to surprise his majesty with a specimen of his art. The king's attendants, who were in the secret, contrived that he should not arrive at Barn-Elms before night, and it was with difficulty that he found his way up the avenue to the house. When he came to the door all was dark, and he began to be angry that Heydegger should be so ill prepared for his reception. Heydegger suffered the king to vent his anger, and affected to make some awkward apologies, when, in an instant, the house and avenues were in a blaze of light, a great number of lamps having been so disposed as to communicate with each other, and to be lighted at the same instant. The king heartily laughed at the device, and went away much pleased with his entertainment.

Adjoining the park, and not far from the house, is the farm and farm-yard of William Cobbett. Here that extraordinary man, as much attached to agriculture as to politics, had a sort of domicile and sleeping-place made for him in the farm-buildings, and used to survey his planting and plowing as assiduously as if there were no corruptions to root up, and no rank weeds to extirpate in the great estate of the nation.

Cobbett's farm-yard still stands to remind you of him, but the house which Cowley inhabited has long been pulled down. From what I could learn on the spot, and it was little, it seems to have stood near the present stable-yard. The walls of the old gardens still remain, and old mulberry and other fruit trees bear testimony to the occupation by wealthy families for ages. The grounds are now disposed in the fashion of a considerable park, with these old gardens and extensive shrubberies adjoining. A carriage drive of considerable extent leads from the Barnes road down to the house, on one hand giving a level prospect over the meadows toward Hammersmith, and on the other bounded with the tall hedge and thick trees inclosing the park. The whole, with its rich meadow land, its old elms, and old gardens and shrubberies of fine evergreens, is almost too goodly for our ideas of the fortunes of a poet, and accords more truly with the prestige of a successful lawyer.

The house of Cowley at Chertsey yet remains, though it has been considerably altered: it is still called the Porch House, but the porch has been cut away because it projected into the street. Over the front door is a tablet of stone, let into the wall, on which is inscribed--

"Here the last accents fell from Cowley's tongue."