446 Poet-lore. " ^-jcpt . /t<f^ 



so, in the diplomatic treatment of disagreements in social life, the 

 first step is a sort of progress by error, and it is not the cause of 

 war which is forestalled, but the evil effects arising therefrom, 

 which are doctored. The world is still aching for the hygienic 

 treatment of the disease of militarism. 



Dr. W. J. RoLFE sends us a word on Shakespeare's town 

 which gives a different point of view from that of Mr. Kennedy in 

 our last issue : 



" I think my friend Kennedy must have been in an unfortunate 

 mood when he last visited Stratf ord-on-Avon. He appears to have 

 looked at everything in the old town with jaundiced eyes. I was 

 first there in 1 868, and have been there fifteen times since. In 

 recent visits, including that of last summer, I have noted very 

 few changes. The Memorial building has been put up, and 

 also the Childs fountain, but scarcely another structure, public or 

 private, worth mentioning. I cannot imagine where the 'rows of 

 shining new brick houses ' can be. Certainly they are not in any 

 of the old streets, which were well filled up long before our day. 

 There are many brick houses of ancient date, and many of the 

 half-timbered style that are older yet. If the reader would know 

 how much of the quaint old architecture remains, let him look at 

 the many reproductions of recent photographs in Mr. and Mrs. 

 Snowden Ward's ' Shakespeare's Town and Times,' pubhshed two 

 or three years ago, and on the whole the best book about the place 

 that I have seen. 



The Memorial building is quite a successful result of the 

 attempt to combine a hbrary, picture galleiy, and theatre in a 

 single edifice, and the red brick begins to be toned down with the 

 lapse of years. The Childs fountain is not bad Gothic, though 

 somewhat heavier in effect than it might have been ; but like the 

 Memorial, it will improve with age. New architecture, however 

 good it may be, seems at first more or less out of keeping with 

 ancient environments. 



The fault that has been found with the restoration of the 

 parish church shows ignorance alike of Gothic architecture and of 



Ltye and Letters. 



447 



the history of the edifice. The work has been a restoration in the 

 true sense, not an attempt at 'modern improvement,' as some have 

 called it. One writer, several years ago, bewailed the removal of 

 the 'ancient galleries,' which were a disfigurement of the side 

 aisles dating back only to 1840. Another denounced the demoli- 

 tion of ' the stone screens ' that filled up the lower half of two 

 windows on the north side of the chancel. He did not know that 

 these windows were origizially of the same length as the two oppo- 

 site them on the south wall, and that they had been partly walled 

 up to serve as a background for mural tablets. The one nearest 

 to Shakespeare's monument is now filled with the memorial glass 

 in honor of Halliwell-Phillipps. 



Other restorations of even more importance have been made. 

 The cliurch, as those who have seen it will recollect, is cruciform, 

 the transepts being longer than in many of the English parish 

 churches ; but for many years the south transept had been walled 

 off as a vestry, while the entrance to the north transept was 

 blocked up by the organ, then enclosed in a commonplace case. 

 The space under the tower, between these ugly obstructions, was 

 a mere, narrow passageway leading from the nave to the chancel. 

 The church was thus, as it were, cut in two, its unity and symmetry 

 being utterly disguised. The transepts are now thrown open, as 

 they were when first built, and the insignificant passage from 

 nave to chancel broadens out into its proper proportions as an 

 important division of the church. 



In the chancel what were supposed to be 'modern improve- 

 ments ' when they were introduced, but were really vile corruptions 

 and excrescences, defacing and degrading the purity and beauty 

 of the mediaeval Gothic, have been similarly cleared away ; but all 

 the original work has been carefully retained or restored. The 

 result is that the church looks older rather than newer, more as it 

 looked in the time of Shakespeare than it did ten years ago. 



The most important change in the nave, aside from the 

 removal of the galleries, is the placing of the enlarged organ above 

 the arch at the east end — the entrance to the transepts ; but as 

 this arch is unusually low — only about half the height from floor 

 to roof — there was ample space above it for the organ with its 

 admirably designed case of oak, which covers and adorns the 

 blank wall without seeming to be placed too high. When I first 

 saw it in position (in 1891), the oak looked new and out of keep- 

 ing with its venerable surroundings, but already it has become 

 sufficiently darkened to seem an integral part of the architecture. 



