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NOTE ON THE SHAKSPERIAN LOCALITIES.

We have endeavoured to render the local descriptions and allusions in this chapter, and in preceding passages, more intelligible, by subjoining a map of the neighbourhood of Stratford. In this neighbourhood there is little of that scenery which we call romantic; but the surpassing fertility, the undulating surfaces, the rich woodlands, the placid river, and the numerous and beautiful old churches, render it an interesting country to walk over, independent of its associations. Those associations impart to this neighbourhood an unequalled charm; and the outline map here given may probably assist the lover of Shakspere in a ramble through his

"Daily walks, and ancient neighbourhood."

The very beautiful sketches of Mr. Harvey, of which we can attest the fidelity, as far as regards their local accuracy, may also lend an interest to such a visit. The map has been constructed with reference to the insertion of places only which are either named in Shakspere's works, or with which he or his family were connected, or which have appeared to us demanding mention or allusion in his biography. The map is, of course, a map for the present day, but there are very few names inserted which are not found in Dugdale's Map of the hundreds which contain this neighbourhood. Many, of course, are omitted which are there found,

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THE poet who has described a man of savage wildness, cherishing "unshaped, half-human thoughts" in his wanderings among vales and streams, green wood and hollow dell, has said that nature ne'er could find the way into his heart:"A primrose by a river's brim

A yellow primrose was to him,

And it was nothing more."

These are lines at which some of the worldly-wise and clever have been wont to laugh; but they contain a deep and universal truth. Without some association, the most beautiful objects in nature have no charm; with association, the commonest acquire a value. The very humblest power of observation is

necessarily dependent upon some higher power of the mind. Those who observe differ from those who do not observe in the possession of acquired knowledge, or original reflection, which is to guide the observation. The observer who sees accurately, who knows what others have observed, and who applies this knowledge only to the humble purpose of adding a new flower or insect to his collection, we call a naturalist. But there are naturalists, worthy of the name, who, without bringing any very high powers of mind to their observation of nature, still show, not only by the minuteness and accuracy of their eye, but by their genial love and admiration of the works of the Creator, that with them nature has found the way into the heart. Such was White of Selborne. We delight to hear him describe the mouse's nest which he found suspended in the head of a thistle; or how a gentleman had two milk-white rooks in one nest: we partake in his happiness when he writes of what was to him an event: "This morning I saw the golden-crowned wren whose crown glitters like burnished gold ;" and we half suspect that the good old gentleman had the spirit of poetry in him when he says of the goat-sucker, "This bird is most punctual in beginning its song exactly at the close of day; so exactly that I have known it strike up more than once or twice just at the report of the Portsmouth evening gun." He wrote verses; but they are not so poetical as his prose. A naturalist endowed with higher powers of association has taught us how philosophy looks upon the common aspects of the outer world. Davy was a scientific observer. He shows us the reason of the familiar prognostications of the weather the coppery sunset, the halo round the moon, the rainbow at night, the flight of the swallow. Even omens have a touch of science in them; and there is a philosophical difference in the luck of seeing one magpie or two. But there is an observer of nature who looks upon all animate and inanimate existence with a higher power of association even than these. It is the poetical naturalist. Of this rare class our Shakspere is decidedly the head. Let us endeavour to understand what his knowledge of external nature was, how it was applied, and how it was acquired.

Some one is reported to have said that he could affirm from the evidence of his Seasons' that Thomson was an early riser. Thomson, it is well known, duly slept till noon. Bearing in mind this practical rebuke of what is held to be internal evidence, we still shall not hesitate to affirm our strong conviction that the Shakspere of the country was an early riser. Thomson, professedly a descriptive poet, assuredly described many things that he never saw. He looked at nature very often with the eyes of others. To our mind his celebrated description of morning offers not the slightest proof that he ever saw the sun rise.* In this description we have the meek-eyed morn, the dappled east, brown night, young day, the dripping rock, the misty mountain: the hare limps from the field; the wild deer trip from the glade; music awakes in woodland hymns; the shepherd drives his flock from the fold; the sluggard sleeps:

* Summer. Line 43 to 96.

"But yonder comes the powerful king of day,
Rejoicing in the east! The lessening cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow,
Illum'd with fluid gold, his near approach
Betoken glad. Lo, now apparent all,
Aslant the dew-bright earth and colour'd air,
He looks in boundless majesty abroad,

And sheds the shining day, that burnish'd plays

On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streams,
High-gleaming from afar."

This is conventional poetry, the reflection of books ;-excellent of its kind, but still not the production of a poet-naturalist. Compare it with Chaucer :—

"The besy larke, the messager of day,
Saleweth in hire song the morwe gray;
And firy Phebus riseth up so bright,
That all the orient laugheth of the sight,
And with his stremes drieth in the greves
The silver dropes, hanging on the leves." *

The sun drying the dewdrops on the leaves is not a book image. The brilliancy, the freshness, are as true as they are beautiful. Of such stuff are the natural descriptions of Shakspere always made. He is as minute and accurate as White; he is more philosophical than Davy. The carrier in the inn-yard at Rochester exclaims, "An't be not four by the day, I'll be hanged: Charles' wain is over the new chimney." Here is the very commonest remark of a common man; and yet the principle of ascertaining the time of the night by the position of a star in relation to a fixed object must have been the result of observation in him who dramatized the scene. The variation of the quarter in which the sun rises according to the time of the year may be a trite problem to scientific readers; but it must have been a familiar fact to him who, with marvellous art, threw in a dialogue upon the incident, to diversify and give repose to the pause in a scene of overwhelming interest:

"Decius. Here lies the east: Doth not the day break here?
Casca. No.

Cinna. O, pardon, sir, it doth; and yon gray lines,

That fret the clouds, are messengers of day.

Casca. You shall confess that you are both deceiv'd.

Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises;

Which is a great way growing on the south,

Weighing the youthful season of the year.

Some two months hence, up higher toward the north

He first presents his fire; and the high east
Stands, as the Capitol, directly here."

It was in his native fields that Shakspere had seen morning under every aspect;

* The Knight's Tale. Line 1493.

+ Henry IV., Part I., Act 11., Scene 1.

Julius Cæsar, Act 11., Scene 1.

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