Shakespeare's environment

I had been searching for years for contemporary notices of the alteration, in every possible direction, but I only discovered what I wanted a few months ago, viz., the letters of those concerned in the restoration.

The figures are not so large, nor the details quite so full, as I had hoped they would be; but, such as they are, they ought to be laid before the public. They are taken from the Wheler Collection, Stratford-on-Avon, a number of copies from the MSS. of the Rev. Joseph Greene, Master of the Grammar School. The series begins with the account of the reasons for the movement towards restoration:

Then follows a “copy of an old play-bill at the time of repairing and beautifying Shakespeare’s monument, with the Rev. Joseph Greene’s remarks on the performers. The printed bill was drawn up by Greene himself, and somewhat corrected by Mr. John Ward, grandfather of the present celebrated Mrs. Siddons (MSS. penes Mr. George).” The annotations by Greene give some suggestions of the quality of the players.

In these days of Shakespeare Memorial Schemes, Shakespeare Societies, and Shakespeare Exhibitions, it is well to remember the simple aims and methods of eighteenth-century Memorial Committees in their early proceedings, and take warning from the results of delay, the causes for which are not clearly explained. It was not the fault of the players that there was even so much delay as there was.

By the following copies from Greene’s MSS. it appears “that some disputes arose between the cashier-churchwardens for 1746, and the contributors towards repairing Shakespeare’s Monument, which reparation did not take place till 1748. Meetings took place, and forms were proposed for the churchwardens’ signatures to compel the cashier to pay the money to the artist when he had completed his undertaking.”

Copy of a notice published on Sunday, November 20, 1748, in Stratford Parish Church by the clerk, me ibid concionant. MSS. Greene:—

It seems that few or none attended, and that nothing was then done. There was, however, a form drawn up which was meant to be signed by those present:

This was not then and there signed, but apparently was brought forward again at a meeting held at the Falcon Inn, at which were “present Sir Hugh Clopton, Rev. Mr. Kenwrick, Rev. Mr. Preston, ye Master of the Free School (Greene), Mr. Alderman Haynes, Mr. Joseph Broom, Mr. John Hall. A form proposed by Mr. Greene to the gentlemen at the Falcon, but rejected by Mr. Kenwrick (the vicar), who thought it did not sufficiently limit what was to be done by Mr. Hall, as a form which he himself had drawn up. November 30, 1748.” The differences were trifling. “Agreed: That Mr. John Hall, Limner, shall repair and beautify, or have the direction of repairing and beautifying, the original monument of Shakespeare the poet, etc.”

Mr. Joseph Greene, who seems to have had the work of restoration very much at heart, had before the meetings at the Falcon written a letter to Mr. John Ward, who was then at Hereford:

Mr. Ward replied to this:

The Second Meeting at the Falcon.

On Saturday evening, about nine o’clock, Mr. Kenwrick having exhibited at Lilly’s at the Falcon a paper signifying what Mr. Hall was to do, and of what materials to repair the monument of Shakespeare, he proposed that Mr. Hall and Mr. Spur should sign the agreement, the former that he might be obliged to do the work in a compleat manner, and the latter that upon its being finished he should pay to Mr. Hall the sum of twelve pounds ten shillings; but though Mr. Hall seemed ready to sign this, and a pen and ink were called for publicly, yet John Spur absolutely refused, and said he would never sign any paper for the delivery of the money, ridiculously vaunting it that his word ought to be taken as credibly as his bond, and his word would go for £1,000. However, at last he was prevailed upon to declare before the undermentioned witnesses that as soon as the monument was finished he would, without further delay, pay the money. This affair happened December 10, 1748.

Another set of letters were “transcribed from the Greene MSS. penes Mr. Wright, Lichfield.” The first from Mr. George Steevens, editor of the Quarto edition of Shakespeare, dated Hampstead, 25th June 1770, to the Honourable James West, Esq., formerly President of the Royal Society, then residing at Alscot, near Stratford-on-Avon. He enclosed a letter from Mr. Theophilus Lane, of Paston Court, near Hereford, addressed to himself, and asked Mr. West to inform him whether the fact relative to Shakespeare’s monument may be depended on, “as it should be added to the other little anecdotes already known concerning him, if it can be well ascertained.” He also asked a confirmation of some conversations he had once had with his honourable friend some years previously.[113]

The letter Steevens enclosed from Mr. Theophilus Lane itself encloses another from a friend of his who had missed seeing him on the day they both visited Shakespeare’s tomb. This friend had misread the date of Mrs. Hall’s tombstone, and could not harmonize it with the date on Shakespeare’s. He considered that Shakespeare’s monument had little authority as to its date and inscription, and thought that the monument must have been put up after everybody had died who knew him.

This letter Theophilus Lane had forwarded to Steevens, and Steevens to the Honourable James West. He apparently in his turn had submitted it to the Rev. Joseph Greene, as the latter writes to Mr. West a long letter containing his strictures on it. He shows that the confusion of dates arose from misreading the date of Mrs. Hall’s death as 1640 instead of 1649, which can be corrected from the parish registers, and therefore that the other arguments based upon this mistake are, of course, valueless; and adds:

This letter is only of importance as illustrating a great deal of the shallow criticism of Shakespeare, which is based upon preliminary errors made by the critics themselves. In this case, we might have hoped that the Rev. Joseph Greene would have explained about the restoration of the tomb, so lately carried out under his supervision, and settled the degree of fidelity with which Mr. John Hall had carried out his instructions. Unfortunately, the unnamed writer having only attempted to criticise the dates, which were quite able to be checked, the Rev. Joseph Greene did not think fit to account for the extraordinary freshness of the tomb so lately “beautified,” a freshness which was very likely to have first roused the doubt as to “its authority” in the writer’s mind, if he had not known all the circumstances.

This is all my new information, but it is something to go on. I have not italicized the important words in my transcripts, but I may now remind my readers that by 1746 the “curious original” was much “impaired and decayed,” a decay so serious as to rouse the actively sympathetic feelings of Mr. John Ward towards necessary restoration. The fact is recorded that Mr. John Hall was to have the doing of the work of “repairing and rebeautifying,” or “the direction” of it. But that “materials” were to be used.

My arguments are these. No one would call the present tomb a “curious” one; but, as represented by Dugdale in his “Antiquities of Warwick” (1651), it is “curious,” a curiousness which had increased, by the process of decay, when Rowe produced it in his “Life,” 1709. Mr. John Hall, acting in all good faith, after provincial notions of restoration in the eighteenth century, would fill up the gaps, restore what was missing, as he thought it ought to be, and finally repaint it according to the original colours, traces of which he might still be able to see in the hollows of the bust.

It would only be giving good value for his money to his churchwardens if he added a cloak, a pen, and manuscript. He could not help changing the expression, from the worn and thoughtful face preserved by Dugdale, to the plumped-out foundation he made in some “material” convenient for his re-beautifying colours. I have stated elsewhere that I consider the so-called “portrait” at the birth-place to have been painted either by Hall or from Hall, and the little, old representation of Shakespeare’s tomb lent by the Earl of Warwick for the present Shakespeare Exhibition at Whitechapel Art Gallery probably dates from the same period.

I myself consider Dugdale and his draughtsmen wonderfully careful for their period. Those tombs which have not been altered are remarkably faithful representations. See, for instance, the tomb of Sir Thomas Lucy at Charlecote. Now, Dugdale was a Warwickshire man, born only a comparatively short distance from Stratford, eleven years before Shakespeare died. He was an admirer of Shakespeare, and knew the bust he engraved. He was in Stratford in attendance on Queen Henrietta Maria when, at the outbreak of the Civil War, she stayed in Shakespeare’s house as the guest of his daughter, Mrs. Hall. There was every reason to believe that he would be more careful in regard to representing Shakespeare’s tomb (instead of less careful) than he was with others.

The second edition of Dugdale’s “Warwickshire” was revised, corrected, expanded, the illustrations checked, and added to by Dr. Thomas, who was also a Warwickshire man, residing very near Stratford-on-Avon. And he produced the representation of the original tomb from the same unaltered block which Dugdale used. There is, therefore, little reason to doubt that Dugdale was fairly correct both in the face and figure of the “curious monument,” and that the alterations made in 1748-9, great as they are, did not strike the gentlemen of Stratford-on-Avon as anything worse than “beautifying.” The dates and verses were left as they were, and the monument, thus strengthened, survives to preserve the memory of the “Sweet Swan of Avon!”

All this has no bearing on the Baconian controversy. It only relates to the likeness of the presentment and the reliability of Dugdale.

“Pall Mall Gazette,” 18th and 21st November 1910.

P.S.—My later discoveries appear on p. 122.

FINIS