Chapter II: Preface

_Beautiful and storied scenes that have soothed and elevated the mind naturally inspire a feeling of gratitude. Prompted by that feeling the present author has written this record of his rambles in England. It was his wish, in dwelling upon the rural loveliness and the literary and historical associations of that delightful realm, to afford sympathetic guidance and useful suggestion to other American travellers who, like himself, might be attracted to roam among the shrines of the mother land. There is no pursuit more fascinating or in a high intellectual sense more remunerative; since it serves to define and regulate knowledge, to correct misapprehensions of fact, to broaden the mental vision, to ripen and refine the Judgment and the taste, and to fill the memory with ennobling recollections. These papers commemorate two visits to England, the first made in _1877, _the second in _1882; _they occasionally touch upon the same place or scene as observed at different times; and especially they describe two distinct journeys, separated by an interval of five years, through the region associated with the great name of Shakespeare. Repetitions of the same reference, which now and then occur, were found unavoidable by the writer, but it is hoped that they will not be found tedious by the reader. Those who walk twice in the same pathways should be pleased, and not pained, to find the same wild-flowers growing beside them. The first American edition of this work consisted of two volumes, published in _1879, 1881, _and _1884, _called _The Trip to England _and _English Rambles. _The former book was embellished with poetic illustrations by Joseph Jefferson, the famous comedian, my life-long friend. The paper on _Shakespeare's Home,--_written to record for American readers the dedication of the Shakespeare Memorial at Stratford,_--_was first printed in _Harper's Magazine, _in May _1879. _with delicate illustrative pictures from the graceful pencil of Edwin Abbey. This compendium of the _Trip _and the _Rambles, _with the title of _Shakespeare's England, _was first published by David Douglas of Edinburgh. That title was chosen for the reason that the book relates largely to Warwickshire and because it depicts not so much the England of fact as the England created and hallowed by the spirit of her poetry, of which Shakespeare is the soul. Several months after the publication of _Shakespeare's England _the writer was told of a work, published many years ago, bearing a similar title, though relating to a different theme--the physical state of England in Shakespeare's time. He had never heard of it and has never seen it. The text for the present reprint has been carefully revised. To his British readers the author would say that it is neither from lack of sympathy with the happiness around him nor from lack of faith in the future of his country that his writings have drifted toward the pathos in human experience and toward the hallowing associations of an old historic land. Temperament is the explanation of style: and he has written thus of England because she has filled his mind with beauty and his heart with mingled joy and sadness: and surely some memory of her venerable ruins, her ancient shrines, her rustic glens, her gleaming rivers, and her flower-spangled meadows will mingle with the last thoughts that glimmer through his brain, when the shadows of the eternal night are falling and the ramble of life is done._

_W. W._

1892.

CONTENTS

Preface To Illustrated Edition

Old Preface

CHAPTER I.
The Voyage

CHAPTER II.
Beauty Of England

CHAPTER III.
Great Historic Places

CHAPTER IV.
Rambles In London

CHAPTER V.
A Visit To Windsor

CHAPTER VI.
The Palace Of Westminster.

CHAPTER VII.
Warwick And Kenilworth

CHAPTER VIII.
First View Of Stratford-Upon-Avon

CHAPTER IX.
London Nooks And Corners

CHAPTER X.
Relics Of Lord Byron

CHAPTER XI.
Westminster Abbey

CHAPTER XII.
Shakespeare's Home

CHAPTER XIII.
Up to London

CHAPTER XIV.
Old Churches of London

CHAPTER XV.
Literary Shrines of London

CHAPTER XVI.
A Haunt Of Edmund Kean

CHAPTER XVII.
Stoke-Pogis and Thomas Gray

CHAPTER XVIII.
At The Grave of Coleridge

CHAPTER XIX.
On Barnet Battle-field

CHAPTER XX.
A Glimpse Of Canterbury

CHAPTER XXI.
The Shrines Of Warwickshire