Preface

This book, a companion to Shakespeare’s England, relates to the gray days of an American wanderer in the British islands, and to the gold of thought and fancy that can be found there. In Shakespeare’s England an attempt was made to depict, in an unconventional manner, those lovely scenes that are intertwined with the name and the memory of Shakespeare, and also to reflect the spirit of that English scenery in general which, to an imaginative mind, must always be venerable with historic antiquity and tenderly hallowed with poetic and romantic association. The present book continues the same treatment of kindred themes, referring not only to the land of Shakespeare, but to the land of Burns and Scott.

After so much had been done, and superbly done, by Washington Irving and by other authors, to celebrate the beauties of our ancestral home, it was perhaps an act of presumption on the part of the present writer to touch those subjects. He can only plead, in extenuation of his boldness, an irresistible impulse of reverence and affection for them. His presentment of them can give no offence, and perhaps it may be found sufficiently sympathetic and diversified to awaken and sustain at least a momentary interest in the minds of those readers who love to muse and dream over the relics of a storied past. If by happy fortune it should do more than that,—if it should help to impress his countrymen, so many of whom annually travel in Great Britain, with the superlative importance of adorning the physical aspect and of refining the material civilisation of America by a reproduction within its borders of whatever is valuable in the long experience and whatever is noble and beautiful in the domestic and religious spirit of the British islands,—his labour will not have been in vain. The supreme need of this age in America is a practical conviction that progress does not consist in material prosperity but in spiritual advancement. Utility has long been exclusively worshipped. The welfare of the future lies in the worship of beauty. To that worship these pages are devoted, with all that it implies of sympathy with the higher instincts and faith in the divine destiny of the human race.

Many of the sketches here assembled were originally printed in the New York Tribune, with which journal their author has been continuously associated, as dramatic reviewer and as an editorial contributor, since August, 1865. They have been revised for publication in this form. Part of the paper on Sir Walter Scott first appeared in Harper’s Weekly, for which periodical the author has occasionally written. The paper on the Wordsworth country was contributed to the New York Mirror. The alluring field of Scottish antiquity and romance, which the author has ventured but slightly to touch, may perhaps be explored hereafter, for treasures of contemplation that earlier seekers have left ungathered. [This implied promise has since been fulfilled, in Brown Heath and Blue Bells, 1895.]

The fact is recorded that an important recent book, 1890, called Shakespeare’s True Life, written by James Walter, incorporates into its text, without credit, several passages of original description and reflection taken from the present writer’s sketches of the Shakespeare country, published in Shakespeare’s England, and also quotes, as his work, an elaborate narrative of a nocturnal visit to Anne Hathaway’s cottage, which he never wrote and never claimed to have written. This statement is made as a safeguard against future injustice.

W. W.

1892.

CONTENTS
	PAGE
Preface to Illustrated Edition	9
Preface to First Edition	11
CHAPTER I
Classic Shrines of England	25
CHAPTER II
Haunted Glens and Houses	36
CHAPTER III
Old York	53
CHAPTER IV
The Haunts of Moore	66
CHAPTER V
The Beautiful City of Bath	84
CHAPTER VI
The Land of Wordsworth	94
CHAPTER VII
Shakespeare Relics at Worcester	112
CHAPTER VIII
Byron and Hucknall-Torkard Church	122
CHAPTER IX
Historic Nooks of Warwickshire	141
CHAPTER X
Shakespeare’s Town	150
CHAPTER XI
Up and Down the Avon	172
CHAPTER XII
Rambles in Arden	181
CHAPTER XIII
The Stratford Fountain	188
CHAPTER XIV
Bosworth Field	198
CHAPTER XV
The Home of Dr. Johnson	209
CHAPTER XVI
From London to Edinburgh	223
CHAPTER XVII
Into the Highlands	230
CHAPTER XVIII
Highland Beauties	238
CHAPTER XIX
The Heart of Scotland	248
CHAPTER XX
Sir Walter Scott	265
CHAPTER XXI
Elegiac Memorials in Edinburgh	287
CHAPTER XXII
Scottish Pictures	297
CHAPTER XXIII
Imperial Ruins	305
CHAPTER XXIV
The Land of Marmion	314

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
		PAGE
York Cathedral	Photogravure	Frontispiece
Edinburgh Castle	Vignette	Title-page
Stoke-Pogis Churchyard		26
Gray’s Monument		28
Portrait of Thomas Gray		29
All Saints’ Church, Laleham		31
Arnold’s Grave	Photogravure	face 33
Portrait of Matthew Arnold		34
Hampton Lucy		37
Old Porch of Clopton		39
Clopton House	Photogravure	face 44
Warwick Castle, from the Mound		46
Warwick Castle, from the River		48
Leicester’s Hospital		51
From the Warwick Shield	Tailpiece	52
Bootham Bar		54
York Cathedral—West Front		57
York Cathedral—South Side		60
York Cathedral—East Front		62
Portrait of Thomas Moore		67
The Bear—Devizes		70
St. John’s Church—Devizes		73
Hungerford Chapel—Devizes		75
The Avon and Bridge—Bath		85
Portrait of Beau Nash		86
Bath Abbey		88
High Street—Bath		91
A Fragment from an Old Roman Bath		92
Remains of the Old Roman Bath	Tailpiece	93
Penrith Castle	Photogravure	face 94
Ullswater		95
Lyulph’s Tower—Ullswater		101
Portrait of William Wordsworth		103
Approach to Ambleside		104
Grasmere Church		106
Rydal Mount—Wordsworth’s Seat		108
An Old Lich Gate	Tailpiece	111
Worcester Cathedral, from the Edgar Tower		113
The Edgar Tower		117
Portrait of Lord Byron		123
Hucknall-Torkard Church	Photogravure	face 128
Hucknall-Torkard Church		131
Hucknall-Torkard Church—Interior		135
The Red Horse Hotel		142
The Grammar School, Stratford		146
Interior of the Grammar School		147
Trinity Church		152
The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre		154
An Old Stratford Character: George Robbins		158
Anne Hathaway’s Cottage		165
The Gower Statue	Photogravure	face 168
Tailpiece		171
Evesham		173
Clopton Bridge		174
Charlecote, from the Terrace		176
The Abbey Mills, Tewkesbury		179
Wootton-Wawen Church	Photogravure	face 183
Beaudesert Cross		186
Tailpiece		187
Portrait of Henry Irving, 1888		191
The Stratford Fountain	Photogravure	face 193
Mary Arden’s Cottage		196
Tailpiece		197
Bosworth Field	Photogravure	face 200
Higham-on-the-Hill		207
Tailpiece		208
Dr. Johnson		210
Lichfield Cathedral—West Front		211
Lichfield Cathedral—West Front, Central Doorway		213
House in which Johnson was born		217
The Spires of Lichfield		220
Peterborough Cathedral	Photogravure	face 224
Berwick Castle		228
Stirling Castle		231
Loch Achray		234
Loch Katrine		235
Tailpiece		237
Oban		240
Loch Awe	Photogravure	face 246
Corbel from St. Giles	Tailpiece	247
The Crown of St. Giles’s		249
Scott’s House in Edinburgh		252
The Maiden		255
Grayfriars Church		256
High Street—Allan Ramsay’s Shop		257
The Canongate		260
Holyrood Castle, and Arthur’s Seat	Photogravure	face 262
St. Giles’s, from the Lawn Market		263
Portrait of Sir Walter Scott		266
Edinburgh Castle		271
The Canongate Tolbooth		277
Grayfriars Churchyard		292
The Forth Bridge		298
Dunfermline Abbey		300
Northwest Corner of Dunfermline Abbey		303
The Nave—Looking West—Dunfermline Abbey		304
Loch Lomond		306
Loch Lomond		308
Dunstaffnage		312
Tantallon Castle		316
Norham Castle, in the Time of Marmion		321

“Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings.... All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune carries him to worse he may learn to enjoy it.”

DR. JOHNSON.

“There is given,
Unto the things of earth which time hath bent,
A spirit’s feeling; and where he hath leant
His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power
And magic in the ruined battlement,
For which the palace of the present hour
Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower.”

BYRON.

“The charming, friendly English landscape! Is there any in the world like it? To a traveller returning home it looks so kind,—it seems to shake hands with you as you pass through it.”

THACKERAY.

GRAY DAYS AND GOLD

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