. William Shakespere : a biography. as-tated by fires. In 1594 and 1595 a vast number of houses had been thusdestroyed; but they were probably small tenements and hovels. New housesarose of a better order ; and one still exists, bearing the date on its front of1596, which indicates something of the picturesque beauty of an old countrytown before the days arrived which, by one accord, were to be called elegantand refined—their elegance and refinement chiefly consisting in sweeping awayour national architecture, and our national poetry, to substitute buildings andbooks which, to vindicate their
. William Shakespere : a biography. as-tated by fires. In 1594 and 1595 a vast number of houses had been thusdestroyed; but they were probably small tenements and hovels. New housesarose of a better order ; and one still exists, bearing the date on its front of1596, which indicates something of the picturesque beauty of an old countrytown before the days arrived which, by one accord, were to be called elegantand refined—their elegance and refinement chiefly consisting in sweeping awayour national architecture, and our national poetry, to substitute buildings andbooks which, to vindicate their own exclusive pretensions to utility, rejectedevery grace that invention could bestow, and in labouring for a dull uniformity,lost even the character of proportion. Shakspere^s own house was no doubt oneof those quaint buildings which were pulled down in the last generation, to setup four walls of plain brick, with equi-distant holes called doors and garden was a spacious one. The Avon washed its banks; and within its. [I^ishopron Chapel.] enclosures it had its sunny terraces and green lawns, its pleached alleys andhoneysuckle bowers. If the poet walked forth, a few steps brought him intothe country. Near the pretty hamlet of Shottery lay his own grounds ofBishopton, then part of the great common field of Stratford. Not far from theancient chapel of Bishopton, of which Dngdale has preserved a representation500 A BiO(;i;Ariiv. and the walls of which still remain, would lie watch the operation of seed-timeand harvest. If he passed the cinirch and the mill, he was in the pleasant mea-dows that skirted the Avon on the palliway to If he desired tocross the river, he might now do so without going round hy the great bridge;for in 1599, soon after he bought New Place, the i)retty foot-bridge was erectedwhich still bears that date. His walks and his farm-labours were his recrea-tions. But they were not his only pleasures. It is at this period that we canfix the
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookpublisherlondon, booksubjectshakespearewill
