122 



MR. DOWNINGS LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



or farm crops or flowers, almost to the very 

 rails. 



The ruins of Kenilworth, only five miles 

 from Warwick, have been so often visited and 

 described that they are almost familiar to 

 jon. Though built long after Warwick cas- 

 tle, this vast palace, which covered (including 

 the garden walls,) six or seven acres, is entire- 

 ly in ruins — like most of the very old castles 

 in England. The magnificent suites of apart- 

 ments where the celebrated Earl of Leices- 

 ter, the favorite of Elizabeth, entertained 

 his sovereign with such regal magnificence, 

 are roofless and desolate — only here and there 

 a fragment of a stately window or a splendid 

 hall, attesting the beauty of the noble architec- 

 ture. Over such of the walls and towers as are 

 yet standing, grows however, the most gigantic 

 trees of ivy — absolutely trees — with trunks 

 more than two feet in diameter, and rich masses 

 of foliage, that covered the hoary and crumb- 

 ling walls with a drapery so thick that I could 

 not fathom it with an arm's length. When 

 the ivy gets to be a couple of hundred years 

 old, it loses something of its vine-like charater, 

 and more resembles a gigantic laurel tree, 

 growing against and partly hiding the venera- 

 ble walls. 



In the ancient pleasure grounds of Kenil- 

 worth — those very pleasure grounds whose 

 alleys, doubtless Elizabeth and Leicester 

 had trodden together, I saw remaining the most 

 beautiful hedges of old gold and silver holly — 

 almost (to one fond of gardening) of them- 

 selves worth coming across the Atlantic to 

 see— so rich were they in their variegated 

 glossy foliage, and so large and massive in 

 their growth. As these ruins are open to the 

 public, and are visited by thousands, the keep- 

 ers find it to their account to preserve, as 

 much as possible, the relics of the old gar- 

 den in good order, though the palace itself is 

 past all renovation. 



In this neighborhood, at a distance of eight 



miles, is also that spot dearest to all who speak 

 the English language, and all who respect 

 human genius, Stratford-on-Avon. The coach- 

 man who drove me thither from Warwick Castle, 

 and whose mind probaly measures greatness by 

 the size of the dwelling it inhabits — volunteer- 

 ed the information to me on the way there that 

 it was " a very smallish, poor sort of a house," 

 that I was going to see. As I stood within 

 the walls of the humble room, little more 

 than seven feet high, and half a dozen yards 

 long, where the greatest of poets was born 

 and passed so many days of his life, I invol- 

 untarily uncovered my head, and felt how much 

 more sublime is the power of genius, which 

 causes this simplest of birth places to move 

 a deeper chord in the heart than all the pomp 

 and external circumstance of high birth or 

 heroic acheivements, based as they mostly are, 

 upon the more selfish side of man's nature. 

 It was, indeed, a very " smallish" house, but 

 it was large enough to be the home of the 

 mightiest soul that England's sky ever co- 

 vered. 



Not far distant is the parish church, where 

 Shakespeare lies buried. An avenue of 

 lime trees, singularly clipped so as to form an 

 arbor, leads across the churchyard to the 

 porch. Under a large slab of coarse stone 

 lies the remains of the great dramatist, bear- 

 ing the simple and terse epitaph composed by 

 himself; and above it, upon the walls, is the 

 monumental bust which is looked upon as the 

 most authentic likeness. It has, to my eye, 

 a wooden and unmeaning expression, with no 

 merit as a work of art — and if there is any 

 truth in physiognomy could not have been a 

 likeness — for the upper lip is that of a man 

 wholly occupied with self-conceit. I prefer^ 

 o-roatly, the portrait in Warwick Castle — which 

 shows a foce paler and strongly marked with 

 traces of thought, and an eye radiant with the 

 fire of genius — but ready with a warm, light- 

 ning glance, to read the souls of others. 



