Shakespeare's England . e centre of the city —and found there only a pew-opener preparing for theservice, and an organist playing an anthem. It is abeautiful structure, with its graceful spire and its columnsof weather-beaten stone, curiously stained in gray andsooty black, and it is almost as famous for theatricalnames as St. Pauls, Covent Garden, or St. Georges,Bloomsbury, or St. Glement Danes. Here, in a vaultbeneath the church, was buried the bewitching andaffectionate Nell Gwyn; here is the grave of JamesSmith, joint author with his brother Horace — who wasburied at Tunbridge Wells — of T
Shakespeare's England . e centre of the city —and found there only a pew-opener preparing for theservice, and an organist playing an anthem. It is abeautiful structure, with its graceful spire and its columnsof weather-beaten stone, curiously stained in gray andsooty black, and it is almost as famous for theatricalnames as St. Pauls, Covent Garden, or St. Georges,Bloomsbury, or St. Glement Danes. Here, in a vaultbeneath the church, was buried the bewitching andaffectionate Nell Gwyn; here is the grave of JamesSmith, joint author with his brother Horace — who wasburied at Tunbridge Wells — of The Rejected Addresses ; LITERARY SHRINES OF LONDON 193 here rests Yates, the original Sir Oliver Surface; andhere were laid the ashes of the romantic and sprightlyMrs. Centlivre, and of George Farquhar, whomneither youth, genius, patientlabour, nor sterling achievementcould save from a life of mis-fortune and an untimely andpiteous death. A cheerier asso-ciation of this church is withThomas Moore, the poet of Ire-. Grays Inn Square. land, who was here married. At St. Giles-in-the-Fields,again, are the graves of George Chapman, who trans-lated Homer, Andrew Marvel, who wrote such lovely 194 SHAKESPEARES ENGLAND chap, xv lyrics of love, Rich, the manager, who brought outGays Beggars Opera, and James Shirley, the fine olddramatist and poet, whose immortal couplet has been sooften murmured in such solemn haunts as these — Only the actions of the justSmell sweet and blossom in the dust. Shirley lived in Grays Inn when he was writing hisplays, and he was fortunate in the favour of queen Hen-rietta Maria, wife to Charles the First; but when thePuritan times arrived he fell into misfortune and povertyand became a school-teacher in Whitefriars. In 1666he was living in or near Fleet Street, and his home wasone of the many dwellings that were destroyed in thegreat fire. Then he fled, with his wife, into the parishof St. Giles-in-the-Fields, where, overcome with griefand terror, th
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectshakespearewilliam15
