The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon
a variety of the most fancy doublings and windings through a wide and
fertile valley--sometimes glittering from among willows which fringed
its borders; sometimes disappearing among groves or beneath green banks;
and sometimes rambling out into full view and making an azure sweep
round a slope of meadow-land. This beautiful bosom of country is called
the Vale of the Red Horse. A distant line of undulating blue hills seems
to be its boundary, whilst all the soft intervening landscape lies in a
manner enchained in the silver links of the Avon.
After pursuing the road for about three miles, I turned off into a
footpath, which led along the borders of fields and under hedgerows to a
private gate of the park; there was a stile, however, for the benefit of
the pedestrian, there being a public right of way through the grounds.
I delight in these hospitable estates, in which every one has a kind
of property--at least as far as the footpath is concerned. It in some
measure reconciles a poor man to his lot, and, what is more, to the
better lot of his neighbor, thus to have parks and pleasure-grounds
thrown open for his recreation. He breathes the pure air as freely and
lolls as luxuriously under the shade as the lord of the soil; and if he
has not the privilege of calling all that he sees his own, he has not,
at the same time, the trouble of paying for it and keeping it in order.
I now found myself among noble avenues of oaks and elms, whose vast size
bespoke the growth of centuries. The wind sounded solemnly among
their branches, and the rooks cawed from their hereditary nests in the
tree-tops. The eye ranged through a long lessening vista, with nothing
to interrupt the view but a distant statue and a vagrant deer stalking
like a shadow across the opening.
There is something about these stately old avenues that has the effect
of Gothic architecture, not merely from the pretended similarity of
form, but from their bearing the evidence of long duration, and of
having had their origin in a period of time with which we associate
ideas of romantic grandeur. They betoken also the long-settled dignity
and proudly-concentrated independence of an ancient family; and I have
heard a worthy but aristocratic old friend observe, when speaking of the
sumptuous palaces of modern gentry, that “money could do much with
stone and mortar, but thank Heaven! there was no such thing as suddenly
building up an avenue of oaks.”
It was from wandering in early life among this rich scenery, and about
the romantic solitudes of the adjoining park of Fullbroke, which then
formed a part of the Lucy estate, that some of Shakepeare’s commentators
have supposed he derived his noble forest meditations of Jaques and
the enchanting woodland pictures in “As You Like It.” It is in lonely
wanderings through such scenes that the mind drinks deep but quiet
draughts of inspiration, and becomes intensely sensible of the beauty
and majesty of Nature. The imagination kindles into reverie and rapture,
vague but exquisite images and ideas keep breaking upon it, and we revel
in a mute and almost incommunicable luxury of thought. It was in some
such mood, and perhaps under one of those very trees before me, which
threw their broad shades over the grassy banks and quivering waters of
the Avon, that the poet’s fancy may have sallied forth into that little
song which breathes the very soul of a rural voluptuary
Unto the greenwood tree,
Who loves to lie with me
And tune his merry throat
Unto the sweet bird’s note,
Come hither, come hither, come hither.
Here shall he see
No enemy,
But winter and rough weather.
I had now come in sight of the house. It is a large building of brick
with stone quoins, and is in the Gothic style of Queen Elizabeth’s day,
having been built in the first year of her reign. The exterior remains
very nearly in its original state, and may be considered a fair specimen
of the residence of a wealthy country gentleman of those days. A great
gateway opens from the park into a kind of courtyard in front of the
house, ornamented with a grassplot, shrubs, and flower-beds. The gateway
is in imitation of the ancient barbacan, being a kind of outpost and
flanked by towers, though evidently for mere ornament, instead of
defence. The front of the house is completely in the old style with
stone-shafted casements, a great bow-window of heavy stone-work, and a
portal with armorial bearings over it carved in stone. At each corner
of the building is an octagon tower surmounted by a gilt ball and
weather-cock.
The Avon, which winds through the park, makes a bend just at the foot
of a gently-sloping bank which sweeps down from the rear of the house.
Large herds of deer were feeding or reposing upon its borders, and
swans were sailing majestically upon its bosom. As I contemplated the
venerable old mansion I called to mind Falstaff’s encomium on Justice
Shallow’s abode, and the affected indifference and real vanity of the
latter:
“Falstaff. You have a goodly dwelling and a rich. Shallow. Barren,
barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all, Sir John:--marry, good air.”
Whatever may have been the joviality of the old mansion in the days of
Shakespeare, it had now an air of stillness and solitude. The great iron
gateway that opened into the courtyard was locked, there was no show
of servants bustling about the place; the deer gazed quietly at me as I
passed, being no longer harried by the moss-troopers of Stratford. The
only sign of domestic life that I met with was a white cat stealing with
wary look and stealthy pace towards the stables, as if on some nefarious
expedition. I must not omit to mention the carcass of a scoundrel crow
which I saw suspended against the barn-wall, as it shows that the Lucys
still inherit that lordly abhorrence of poachers and maintain that
rigorous exercise of territorial power which was so strenuously
manifested in the case of the bard.
After prowling about for some time, I at length found my way to a
lateral portal, which was the every-day entrance to the mansion. I was
courteously received by a worthy old housekeeper, who, with the civility
and communicativeness of her order, showed me the interior of the house.
The greater part has undergone alterations and been adapted to modern
tastes and modes of living: there is a fine old oaken staircase, and the
great hall, that noble feature in an ancient manor-house, still retains
much of the appearance it must have had in the days of Shakespeare. The
ceiling is arched and lofty, and at one end is a gallery in which stands
an organ. The weapons and trophies of the chase, which formerly adorned
the hall of a country gentleman, have made way for family portraits.
There is a wide, hospitable fireplace, calculated for an ample
old-fashioned wood fire, formerly the rallying-place of winter
festivity. On the opposite side of the hall is the huge Gothic
bow-window, with stone shafts, which looks out upon the courtyard. Here
are emblazoned in stained glass the armorial bearings of the Lucy family
for many generations, some being dated in 1558. I was delighted to
observe in the quarterings the three white luces by which the character
of Sir Thomas was first identified with that of Justice Shallow. They
are mentioned in the first scene of the “Merry Wives of Windsor,” where
the Justice is in a rage with Falstaff for having “beaten his men,
killed his deer, and broken into his lodge.” The poet had no doubt the
offences of himself and his comrades in mind at the time, and we may
suppose the family pride and vindictive threats of the puissant Shallow
to be a caricature of the pompous indignation of Sir Thomas.
“Shallow. Sir Hugh, persuade me not: I will make a Star Chamber matter
of it; if he were twenty John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Sir Robert
Shallow, Esq.
Slender. In the county of Gloster, justice of peace and coram.
Shallow. Ay, cousin Slender, and custalorum.
Slender. Ay, and ratolorum too, and a gentleman born, master parson; who
writes himself Armigero in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation,
Armigero.
Shallow. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three hundred
years.
Slender. All his successors gone before him have done’t, and all his
ancestors that come after him may; they may give the dozen white luces
in their coat....
Shallow. The council shall hear it; it is a riot.
Evans. It is not meet the council hear of a riot; there is no fear of
Got in a riot; the council, hear you, shall desire to hear the fear of
Got, and not to hear a riot; take your vizaments in that.
Shallow. Ha! o’ my life, if I were young again, the sword should end
it!”
Near the window thus emblazoned hung a portrait, by Sir Peter Lely,
of one of the Lucy family, a great beauty of the time of Charles
the Second: the old housekeeper shook her head as she pointed to the
picture, and informed me that this lady had been sadly addicted to
cards, and had gambled away a great portion of the family estate, among
which was that part of the park where Shakespeare and his comrades had
killed the deer. The lands thus lost had not been entirely regained by
the family even at the present day. It is but justice to this recreant
dame to confess that she had a surpassingly fine hand and arm.
The picture which most attracted my attention was a great painting over
the fireplace, containing likenesses of Sir Thomas Lucy and his family
who inhabited the hall in the latter part of Shakespeare’s lifetime.
I at first thought that it was the vindictive knight himself, but the
housekeeper assured me that it was his son; the only likeness extant
of the former being an effigy upon his tomb in the church of the
neighboring hamlet of Charlecot.*
* This effigy is in white marble, and represents the knight
in complete armor. Near him lies the effigy of his wife, and
on her tomb is the following inscription; which, if really
composed by her husband, places him quite above the
intellectual level of Master Shallow:
Here lyeth the Lady Joyce Lucy wife of Sir Thomas Lucy of
Charlecot in ye county of Warwick, Knight, Daughter and heir
of Thomas Acton of Sutton in ye county of Worcester Esquire
who departed out of this wretched world to her heavenly
kingdom ye 10 day of February in ye yeare of our Lord God
1595 and of her age 60 and three. All the time of her lyfe a
true and faythful servant of her good God, never detected of
any cryme or vice. In religion most sounde, in love to her
husband most faythful and true. In friendship most constant;
to what in trust was committed unto her most secret. In
wisdom excelling. In governing of her house, bringing up of
youth in ye fear of God that did converse with her moste
rare and singular. A great maintayner of hospitality.
Greatly esteemed of her betters; misliked of none unless of
the envyous. When all is spoken that can be saide a woman so
garnished with virtue as not to be bettered and hardly to be
equalled by any. As shee lived most virtuotisly so shee died
most Godly. Set downe by him yt best did knowe what hath byn
written to be true.
Thomas Lucye.
The picture gives a lively idea of the costume and manners of the time.
Sir Thomas is dressed in ruff and doublet, white shoes with roses in
them, and has a peaked yellow, or, as Master Slender would say, “a
cane-colored beard.” His lady is seated on the opposite side of the
picture in wide ruff and long stomacher, and the children have a most
venerable stiffness and formality of dress. Hounds and spaniels are
mingled in the family group; a hawk is seated on his perch in the