Shakespeare and Architecture 



often wondered that no book has yet been written 

 on " Shakespeare as a Musician " ; it might be 

 made a most interesting book, but it would have 

 to be written by one who was a master of the art, 

 and who knew much not only of modern music, 

 but of old English music. He also evidently had 

 some knowledge of painting ; not so much as of 

 music, but enough to show that good painting 

 had an attraction for him, and that he knew 

 something, though perhaps not much, of its 

 technicalities, and that he had seen good and 

 celebrated pictures. But while he can speak 

 well, and even learnedly, on music and painting, 

 he is almost silent on architecture of every 

 description ; here and there he is forced to say 

 something about a building, but the architecture, 

 however beautiful, seems to have had no attraction 

 for him. Either he did not care for it, or he 

 knew nothing about it ; or he had some special 

 reason for keeping silence on it. I think it worth 

 while to go into this remarkable omission more 

 minutely. 



When we consider what the state of England 

 was in Shakespeare's time in respect of fine build- 

 ings, it would seem almost an impossibility that 

 any man who had a tithe of Shakespeare's powers 

 of observation could have passed through the land 

 and lived his life in it, and written largely on 

 almost every subject, and yet take no notice of 

 buildings which met his eye in every direction. 

 Yet so it is. Take the castles of England. We 

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