peared in 1623, with a portrait by Martin Droeshout, representing him probably in the dress of one of his characters, Adam, and accompanying lines by Ben Jonson indicating its correctness as a likeness. Now, reader, there is Shakspeare's life, if you choose to consider it that, and not, as some think, the mask of a life. Nay, do we not all feel, at every insignificant point of it, the presence of shadows? Has not each of us asked of him, as he of another, "What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend ?" Of course we all laughed at these fever-stricken simpletons. I for one ventured, when the talk about Shakspeare became overpowering, to defend myself by telling the story of the manager in Memphis, Tennessee, who declared to Mr. Macready that "thet ere Shakespur was clean played out in Memphis.". But, alas, it is only as people launched for a sea-voyage laugh It is, brother-in-curiosity, up into the very region at the first victims-with a laugh that frequentof these shadows, and to a week's play of hide-ly terminates gravely and grimly. Before I and-seek with them, that the great Tercentenary knew it, I found myself looking up old Shakscalls us. And I will suppose you all the more pearian MSS. at the British Museum; then-a eager to go because it does not imply the re- fatal sign—trying to read his will in its old letmoval of guineas from your pocket, which, I tering; until at length the fever was full on me have reason to assure you, is the final test of and I on Stratford. Hero-worship. Whirled along now, past the towers of Windsor, past the minsters of Oxford, we pause not until we reach the porch of our temple-which happens to be a little station, manifestly built irrespective of Tercentenaries-and are intrusted, four hundred strong, with luggage, to Stratford's extra accommodating force of nine cabs, to be taken to our various quarters. Nevertheless, thou and I, reader, find ourselves, in some inexplicable way, snugly quartered in the Old White Lion Hotel, next door to the Birth-house of Shakspeare. We would indeed visit that house this very evening-the eve of the Festival kind, is ever allowed within those sacred walls, hot water in pipes being introduced from a neighboring house to keep the walls from suffering by dampness. So we lounge about the hotel, and find what characters we have about us. Emerson declares us very clumsy writers of history, in that, concerning a man, we simply "tell the chronicle, parentage, birth, birth-place, schooling, school-mates, earning of money, marriage, publication of books, celebrity, death." Well, in the lack of more details, let it be recorded in future, as a chapter in Will Shakspeare's biography, that three hundred years after his death he was still powerful enough to stir as terrible a tempest as Ariel's in the theatrical and literary worlds of England; that he still magically evoked long ears on the heads of roaring Bottoms; that he was still potent to discov--but it is forbidden: no lamp, nor fire of any er innumerable Shallows in England; and that Louis Napoleon's knees trembled at his ghost, and forbade it to appear in Paris. Vainly should I attempt to describe the epidemic fever which seized us here previous to this Festival. The Phelpsites glared on the Fechterites, and the programmes of Drury Lane were covered with such words about a foreigner's daring to play Hamlet over the grave of Shakspeare, that poor Mr. Fechter must have been beaten (morally) black and blue; for even at last he failed to appear. Then came the strife as to who should say or do the finest thing about Shakspeare that ever was said or done. One lady I heard of determined that nothing edible not mentioned by Shakspeare should come upon her table. Her husband, who had been fond of his omelet for breakfast, was much alarmed at this; but his wife relieved his heart by Anglicizing the viand into 'Amlet, and giving the A a broad Teutonic sound. A Stratford committeeman meets a London committeeman, and they shake hands in preparation for a Shakspearian duel. STRATFORD. "Have you seen the morning's paper?" LONDON. "Pah! paper! What's the use of a paper now? Shakspeare has written every thing down beforehand." STRATFORD. "Stuff! Did Shakspeare write about that treadmill there?" LONDON. "Certainly. Down, down! thou climbing sorrow!'" Passing now into the smoking-room, we find a group with punch, pipes, and tobacco, who are listening to some profound physiognomical remarks from a young man on the bust of Shakspeare in the church. As we seat ourselves, one of the group leans over and whispers to us: "Look carefully at that face and head," says he, taking his pipe out of his mouth, and motioning with it toward the physiognomical speaker. We look. Again he whispers, "That, Sir, is a real descendant of William Shakspeare! You have only to look carefully to see the resemblance to the bust." Of course we look eagerly with our new light. Baldish at the top of the forehead the gentleman decidedly is; yes, and he has mustaches, undoubtedly, which are Shakspearian characteristics. But as his discoursings proceed I, for one, have an impression that King John is preferable for style; and, in fact, find no difficulty in responding to the announcement of a steak in the dining-room, which room mine host of the White Lion has notably named The Tempest. Bright and early next morning we enter the Shakspeare House, already filled with groups. An old lady, a young lady, and a policeman, for guides and guards, attend us. First of all, "you wish to see the room in which He was born.' Of course. And yet one can not help remembering that this first room, now so guarded, was a few years ago a butcher's shop; and one half of the house was a public house, known as The Swan and Maidenhead. The idea of making this house into a shrine is one of very recent date. Up the old stair-way we grope, and presently stand in the room where the immortal Shakspeare was born. The walls of the room are covered over with millions, one may say, of autographs. And among them all one may count on one's fingers those which recall any real name, these being pointed out by the old lady. We now enter the Museum, and are shown, first, an old desk from the Grammar School, at which it is alleged the boy Shakspeare sat learning his "small Latin and less Greek," as Ben Jonson's line persists in putting it. Then we have, neatly carved in greenstone, the figure of the young man under the crab-tree, preserving the story which is always told with that of the deer-stealing, although not half so authentic. This legend relates that in the village of Bidford, seven miles below Stratford, two clubs used to meet, known as the Topers and the Sippers. The Topers enjoyed the highest reputation as masters of the art of drinking-that is, of drinking a great deal without getting drunk-and on one occasion challenged all England to drink with them on a Whit-Monday. Stratford accepted the challenge, and among those who went to the contest was Shakspeare. On arriving at Bidford, they found that the Topers had gone on a frolic to Evesham. The Sippers, however, took up the challenge, and conquered. Thoroughly muddled, the Stratfordians started homeward; but Shakspeare could not go farther than a certain crab-tree, where he lay in profound slumber until morning. He was awakened by a detachment of his comrades who wished to renew the contest; but Shakspeare, quite penitent, declined, alleging that he had already drank with "Piping Pebworth, dancing Marston, Haunted Hillborough, hungry Grafton; With dodging Exhall, papist Wixford, Beggarly Broom, and drunken Bidford;" referring to the villages around to which his opponents belonged. Apocryphal as this story is, it certainly was extant in 1790, and has been the means of labeling the surrounding villages. The old crab-tree perished by natural decay in 1824, and an old gate-post is now all that marks the spot. The room is shown at Bidford where the battle took place, and the old sign of the Falcon Inn associated with it is preserved in this Museum, with pieces of the crab-tree. actors Garrick, Macklin, and Delane under the old mulberry-tree in the garden, which, according to tradition, Shakspeare himself had planted. In 1751 Rev. Francis Gastrell came into possession, and in a fit of anger at the number of people who came to see the mulberry-tree, cut it down. He also pulled down the house, to avoid paying poor-rates for a house he did not occupy; and soon afterward was forced by the wrath of Stratford to leave the place. His miniature is kept here for execration. The mulberry-tree was cut up into many relics and trinkets, some of which are preserved in this Museum, as also is a small vial with some of the mulberries. At New Place one now sees only a cellar, with an old well nearly filled up in the centre. Thorough excavations have of course been made there with the following results: 24 clay pipes, 3 old-fashioned thimbles, 1 knife, 1 fork, 1 button, 1 old candlestick. When my reader reflects what mouth may have been fed by that knife and fork, what lips may have held those pipes, what immortal pantaloons may have been fastened by that button, and that the candlestick (found, like truth, at the bottom of the well) might have held a light for the writing of Othello, he will pardon the enthusiasm with which I looked upon these relics. Another curiosity is a pair of stirrups--steel, with brass tops-which were found in the garden of the Shakspeare House itself, I believe, and are called "Shakspeare's stirrups ;" but a matter of real interest is an old ring, found near Stratford church-yard by a workman. It is a gold signetring, inscribed with the initials W. S., with a true-lover's knot between the letters. We now turn from the Museum; but ere we leave the Shakspeare House pass into the wellkept garden devoted to the nurture of such flowers and other plants as have been named in the works of the Poet. As we return we observe a London swell-an exasperated case of the same-who has entered with two magnificent young ladies. The first thing Milord does is to take out his superb gold pencil and move toward the wall, whereupon the old lady lays her hand upon his arm: "We don't allow visitors to write on the walls." "Oh!-ah!-why there are a great many written alweady." "Yes, but now we have a book for visitors' names." why don't you allow any more on the walls?" "Why, of course now and then we might get the name of some distinguished man, and that we would like; but, Sir, the most of people who want to write on the walls are people of no 'count at all, Sir-no 'count at all!" Whereupon Milord turns red, girls smile faintly, and the old lady passes to the next antiquity. "But New Place, where the poet resided in his last But we must now pause in our sight-seeing, years, was sold by the trustees of Lady Barnard, for the time of the Grand Banquet, with which a descendant of Shakspeare, to Sir Edward the Festival opens, is at hand. Thither we go, Walker, and finally came to Sir John Clopton, then, and are at once dazzled by the splendor of who married Sir Edward's daughter. Sir John the scene. Long lines of tables, beautifully orbuilt a fine house in place of the venerable struc-namented with flowers and figures. Saccharine ture. Sir Hugh Clopton, Sir John's successor, Romeos, pasty Hamlets, iced Portias, on cake afterward owned the place, and entertained the pedestals, make eye and palate juicy simultaneVOL. XXIX.-No. 171.-Z ously. And the Bill of Fare seems to indicate white gowns; meditate on the humility of the 66 noble family who sit in raised pews curtained off from the rest of the congregation, with coats of arms on the walls around them; observe the beadle, with his red coat, distinguished air, and long staff, who frequents the aisle, until at last the Archbishop enters upon a discourse in which Shakspeare-the gastronomic S., as I thought last night-appears before me as a saint. "O rare Ben Jonson!" why did you not tell us this? But in the afternoon I learn that he is not only a saint, but an especially English saint. He is the intensely national his representations of Venice and Verona, and those scholars who find all ancient Rome in him, must be careful to remember that, after all, he is the beef-and-ale saint. Nevertheless I could not help reflecting that the greatest Hamlet of the stage is Fechter, the finest Juliet Stella Colas; on those telegrams from Russia, that address from Frankfort; and the celebrations that were then going on in America in homage to that genius which is a flower with hues from the sky bending over all nations, whose fragrance is the joy of the whole earth. that, after all, the secret of Shakspeare's genius lay in a transcendent gastronomy. We feasted on a very, very peacock ;” our bills, like Falstaff's, contained, "Item, a capon, 2s. 2d. ;" we picked the "dainty duck" without any such terrible indigestion as the fat knight experienced at Herne's Oak; we conquered "the full-acorned boar." Then came the "queen of curds and cream." Meanwhile the butlers cried with obligato of pops, "He calls for wine; 'a health,' quoth he." Alcott used to tell us that we should breakfast on bowls of sunshine; but even he did not anticipate epic roasts and lyric flagons.prophet and poet. So these Italians who admire Looking at the long line of distinguished visitors present-i. e., those who were to make the speeches-I was sorry to see only one or two literary men, and those scarcely of the first class. Richard Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton) was the most notable of these. There was also Archbishop Trench. But chiefly there were Lords and Sirs. The Earl of Carlisle-a lively, grayhaired old man, with ribbons and stars on his breast presided, and made a fair speech. Mayor Flower, of Stratford, made the heartiest address. An address from the institution founded in the "fatherhouse of Göthe," at Frankfort, richly engrossed with pictures of the birth-places of Göthe and Shakspeare, was presented; and felicitations from Russia were received. There were plenty of those sharp cries of agony which Englishmen call "cheers." The health of the American poets was proposed by a gentleman who evidently did not know the name of any author in America, but was gracious enough to declare that "they [the American poets] drew their inspiration from the same source with ourselves." And the company dispersed, pending a metaphysical argument by a German Professor, showing that Göthe, Shakspeare, and Homer had a kind of hypostatic unity. On the whole, I left the banquet more than ever impressed with the conviction that the fault of every English public dinner is its hopeless conventionality. Not more regularly does the clockhand move round than it brings the toasts to the Queen, the Prince and Princess of Wales, the toast of the evening, the chairman, etc., etc., each bawled out by the liveried and whitecravatted beadle behind the chairman. There is no spontaneity-no fun. The speeches are simply cut-and-dried eulogies with appended quotations. The Queen is, of course, "born to command," and Alexandra "the glass of fash-I could scarcely wonder that poor Miss Delia ion and the mould of form," and Shakspeare "a man, take him for all in all," etc. The second day of the Festival is Sunday, and those of us who do not go a-boating on the Avon, to be logically and theologically upset, or to walk along the banks and watch the beautiful swans, will hear the new Archbishop of Dublin (Trench) in the morning, and the Bishop of St. Andrews (Wordsworth, a relative of the poet) in the afternoon. I take my position in the crowded church, hear the service intoned, and the anthems sweetly sung by the little boys in A better sermon it was when, after the Bishop was done, a group of men and women from all parts of the world gathered about the grave in the chancel to gaze on the features of the man who owned a shrine in each of them. The bust, which, with its carefully carved and colored clothing, undoubtedly presented Shakspeare as he appeared to his contemporaries, was, it will be remembered, painted white by poor silly Malone, just as his real mind and character had been by the Bishop's during the day. But it has now been pretty well restored to its original condition. It is very plain, however, that when Shakspeare died no fine tomb or bust was thought of. Yet it could not have been long after the publication of his works, seven years after his death, that all who had known the poet had reason to be proud of it. I remember well to have often seen an old grave-stone in the colonial parish church-yard at Fredericksburg, Virginia, on which it was written that beneath was the dust of one who had been “a pall-bearer at the funeral of William Shakspeare," that being the one thing memorable in a life which ended in the early part of the 17th century. As I read and re-read the well-known lines, "Good frend for Jesus sake forbeare," etc., Bacon believed that they contained a deeper sense, and I pictured her there at midnight, with lantern and pick, about to dig for the secret of the Baconian authorship of the plays-there with the shadow of lunacy closing upon her. Monday morning shines bright and clear upon us. Let us use its first hours in strolling through the "Shakspeare Gallery;" for perhaps the most interesting feature of the Stratford celebration is, that it has brought together between four and five hundred of the finest pictures in England. The Queen, fortunately, had set the example by sending her magnificent | history as to date, and its being brought from painting, by Sir T. Lawrence, of John Philip London at that time. Owen and other men of Kemble as Hamlet; and, of course, the nobility followed, the result being a collection never again to be seen, and one worthy a journey over the Atlantic to see. Walking through these rooms we are thrilled with a sense of the fullness of that genius which, after filling all the moulds of its own art, had yet enough to enrich other arts with such pictures as these and such music as the Somernachtstraum music of Mendelssohn and "Coriolanus" of Beethoven. Our first attraction is to the portraits of Shakspeare, of which there are thirty here, all claiming a degree of authenticity. We have here the courtly Shakspeare, whom aristocracy loves to think of as reading his plays to Queen Elizabeth; the scholarly Shakspeare, as thinkers love to enshrine him, "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," pen in hand, library around; and we have the theatrical Shakspeare as the followers of his art love to picture him. After closely examining these old paintings I am convinced that they have all branched off, under training of the above-named several conceptions, from the portrait in the Folio of 1623 (the Droeshout portrait), and the bust in the church. Three of these portraits are remarkable as giving the bard a long Puritanic face, strongly resembling Calvin's, and I can not help thinking that they date from the time when the Puritans began to claim this play-actor. What a tribute it is to the catholicity of the Bard that the Puritan, the Churchman, and the Catholic all claim him as of their faith! It is simply true that he painted them all without the bias of the parties of his age, and that they were included in his all-enfolding genius as they were in Nature, and for the same reason. Among other images I was somewhat interested in the alleged mask of Shakspeare, which has been of recent years intrusted to Professor Owen. It is said to have been purchased by a German nobleman (Kesselstadt) an embassador in London, and a devotee of the theatre in Shakspeare's time. Max Müller certifies to the genuineness of its THE KESSELSTADT MASK. ability believe it to be as the German family tradition asserts, the real mask of the dead Shakspeare. So does Fanny Kemble. Mr. Carlyle disbelieves it. If, as there is much reason to believe, the bust in the church was from a mask of Shakspeare, then the other is not; nevertheless it is a subject of interest and discussion. My belief is that, after all, we have no satisfactory likeness of Shakspeare other than that which is found in the first Folio, by the side of which Ben Jonson, who knew the poet best, wrote these lines: This Figure, that thou here seest put, B. I. Turning now to other pictures, we are first of all moved to admire the superb painting sent by the Queen. Such a man as Kemble might have been created simply to interpret for mankind the noble forms conceived by Shakspeare. As he stands there with Yorick's skull in his hand he is Hamlet. But even more is the satisfaction with which we turn to look at Mrs. Siddons as The Tragic Muse, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Sir Thomas Lawrence declared this to be the finest female portrait in the world. Sir Robert Harvey, an eminent patron of art in the last century possessed a valuable picture which Sir Joshua coveted. But there was a picture which Sir Joshua had painted on the hem of Mrs. Siddons's garment that Sir Robert coveted. Upon agreement Sir Joshua painted from it the present picture, a duplicate, and received in return for it that other which Harvey owned. It is in most perfect condition, and a picture that I could spend days gazing at. But we must hasten along these fascinating rooms where one may get to know so well the faces of Garrick and his wife, of the beautiful Mrs. Twiss, of Mrs. Fitzwilliam, of Foote, Kean, Macklin, Lady Hamilton, and a host of others, in many rich Shakspearian scenes, and each in their favorite character. How many do I know who would take delight in this painting by Briggs of Fanny Kemble dressing for her first appearance on the stage (in the character of Juliet), with Mr. and Mrs. Kemble and Mrs. Davenport about her? It is cruel to those who have not seen these pictures to dwell on them, so let me close with a mention of one sweet conception by Green, The Dream of Shakspeare. Partly it relates to the deer-stealing anecdote. Under a broad forest tree lies a noble youth asleep. By his side is the newly-slain deer. A hound pokes his nose close up to the youth's face, and danger follows close in the low- | it told of Sir Thomas in MS.-"the same that ering face, peering between the bushes, of the prosecuted Shakspear for taking a buck from his game-keeper. This scene fills one-fourth of the park." Now this might be otherwise accounted picture, in the fore-ground. The young Shaks- for, if it was accompanied with any family pride peare's face is meanwhile turned away from the in the association; but, incredible as it may deer and the keeper: and before him, in the seem, the Lucys have always had a ludicrously bright or shadowy forms of a dream, there crabbed feeling toward Shakspeare! That blood stretch those wondrous scenes and ideals which will tell across three centuries may be judged are in the future to be evolved from that brain. by the fact that when it was suggested to the There see we the weird spirits of Macbeth, and late Sir George Lucy that he should send a the radiant pageant of the Tempest; passionate haunch of venison to the annual Shakspeare Juliet is awaking to the death of love; Hamlet dinner of Stratford, he replied-"What! send stands like Fate beside blighted Ophelia. Ah-venison to a dinner for a man that stole deer out it is exquisite: any description would be poor to represent this painting which, not perhaps in the first class as to execution (though rich in coloring), is transfigured by its subject into pure beauty. of Charlecote Park? Never!" This was told me by one who knew it to be true. It is also in keeping with it that Charlecote Hall has never been open to Shakspearian visitors. The present representative of the family, Sir Spencer Lucy, a young unmarried man of 32, threw it open on this occasion; but rather, it would seem, because it would have been scandalous not to do so than for any better reason. It was a fine opportunity for a very wealthy country gentleman to have shown liberality, and it would have been creditable to his bonhomie to have provided a venison lunch; but instead of that none of the family were seen, and the house was filled with policemen who suggested so strongly those who pounced upon Shakspeare that a story went the rounds in the evening that a young gentleman, on being addressed by a policeman with a request that he would not touch a certain work of art, started back exclaiming, "I didn't steal it, Sir!" In vain might one look about Charlecote Hall for a Shakspearian picture, or even for the great Poacher's works: except the one MS. line mentioned there was no sign about him; and it is clear that a traditional unfriendliness to him has survived to this day in Charlecote Hall. But now the time has come when we are to hear Handel's Messiah, that Oratorio with which England always opens festivals which it means shall be grand. To me the novelty of the performance was that I heard Sims Reeves in it. This dark little man, with his jet-black hair and mustache, is not very prepossessing; he has a heavy, used-up look, and makes a stiff bow. Doubtless he has sung in the "Messiah" more than any person living-unless it be Jenny Lind. But hark! what voice is that falling out of the sky? O may all I love hear ere they die Sims Reeves break forth with the strain "Comfort ye my people!" This dark little man is now bright and grand; and ere he has uttered that last cry allotted him in the Oratorio, "Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel," there is no chord within us that he has not surprised with emotions before unknown. In the evening we hear him again in a concert which is, in the musical direction, what the Shakspearian Gallery is in the pictorial; for here we have the music Shakspeare has inspired-the "singing Four miles, under a blue sky, on the bank of leaves," as it were, which he has put forth in the soft-flowing Avon-by a path fringed with climbing to the clusters of his own proper fruit."daisies pied and violets blue"-above us the Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Weber, Haydn, Schu- lark singing "at heaven's gate"-on every tree bert, Verdi, Macfarren, Shield, Arne, Horne, Ste-Philomel with melody;" thus did my friend venson, Stevens, Hatton, Bishop, Allridge, and Mellon have joined to come and lay this beautiful tone-wreath on his grave. and I walk to Charlecote Hall. As we turned then into the park we saw the deer-the descendants of those which the immortal poacher invaded—and a little further the policemen, the descendants, it may be, of those who pounced upon him in turn. Then came into view the beautiful old mansion, built in the form of the letter E, in honor of Queen Elizabeth, and ap Tuesday has come-the day fixed for the excursion to Charlecote Hall. My companion for the excursion is Howard Staunton, Esq., editor of the Shakspeare Folio, a keen critic, very skeptical about Shakspearian anecdotes, but inclined to believe this one about the deer-steal-proached through a noble Elizabethan gate. ing In fact there are some very good reasons for crediting it. In the first place it seems certain that the poet meant a personal satire in the character of Justice Shallow, and the allusion in the opening scene of the "Merry Wives of Windsor" to the luce or pike-fish, for 700 years the device of the Lucy family, gives point to it. But this story of the deer-stealing and the trial, which is too well known to call for repetition here, receives an indirect and droll confirmation in the fact that the affair is noted in the private family records of the Lucys, where I myself saw Already merry groups were filling the Hall where the poet's trial occurred, and others were thronging the rooms where many fine paintings by old Italian and German masters are to be seen. I was exceedingly interested in a portrait from life of Charles I., and also in some ebonyand-ivory inlaid furniture (cabinets, chairs, and lounge), which Queen Elizabeth had presented to the Earl of Leicester, and which had come to the Lucys by purchase, from Kenilworth. Re pairing then to the Church, a gem in its way, we saw the old marble tomb, representing Sir |