The Finance of Literary Shrines

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIX, Issue 15, 12 October 1907, Page 2

The Finance of Literary Shrines

By

WM. G. FITZGERALD

The great sums paid in tribute by pilgrims to the homes of famous authors—How Stratford li es on the name of Shakespeare, and Ayr trades on the memory of Burns.

LOOKING back upon years of European travel and reverent visits to scenes hallowed by memories of the great masters of literature —the birthplace of Shakespeare at Stratford, of Burns at Ayr; Milton’s home at Chalfont; the haunts of Scott at Abbotsford, of Goethe and Schiller at Weimar, of Dance at Florence ami Kavelina I hope I shall not be considered unduly mercenary if 1 suggest that an interesting phase of the subject is the financial aspect of these sentimental pilgrimages. Coming down to pounds, shillings, ami pence, the money value of those literary

shrines is enormous. Some of them, indit'd. furnish a considerable community with its principle means of support. Their visitors' books show huge catalogues of the names of men ami women from every nation on earth, from Thackeray. Tennyson, ami B«• .'wning to unknown Chinese literates, educated Hin dus. ami copper hued Malagasy chieftains. Th« unceasing Stream of travel ’eaves money on all hands. There are steamers ami railroads ami coaches; th»*re arc hotel* ami inn* and boarding-hou*es of all grade*, with minor places of rest ami refreshment for the transient hour. We mu*t estimate, too. admission fees to birthplaces and libraries, to baronial luin ami ploughman’s cottage. Nor mu*t we forget the *um* *pcnt on photograph* ami *oiivcnir* which the*c modern Mcrca* p«»ur forth in limitiless qiianTHE ''URINE OF "H A K EM’EARE. Greatc*t and im»*t famuli* of them all. perhap*, i* <t rat ford -<»ii Avon, the little Warwick*hirc town which i* almost the same to-day. with it* ancient timl>vred hou*< *. elm-*haded ami rosv-i inbowered. as it wa* when Shake*peare a few <lays before his death, entertains! "rare’’ Ben Jonson at New Place. The clirfew still ring* at du*k; the town crier still makes

his rounds, bell in hand: and in October, during the annual “mop fair,” oxen and sheep are still roasted whole as they were three centuries ago. Nearly all visitors to Stratford pay sixpence for admission to Shakespeare’s birthplace, another sixpence to go into the museum, and a third fee for admission to the Memorial Theatre. Besides, there is a fourth sixpence for seeing the tombs of the poet and Ann? Hathaway. Last year more than forty thousand persons paid to see the birthplace. Seven-eighths of them signed the book, and of these nearly one third—about eleven thousand —registered from the

United States, the remainder hailing from sixty-live countries all over the world. In sixpenny fees alone, we have here a total of nearly four thousand pounds annually: but this is only a small fraction of the revenue that Stratford. ami th<‘ railways that carry its army of pilgrims, draw from the magnet of Shakespeare’s immortal name. Once a year a Shakespeare Festival is held in tin' Memorial Theatre, whose magnificence contrasts oddly with the quaintness of the siinph old town. One ardent Shakespearian. U. E. Mower, contributed no less than, twenty-five thousand pounds towaid the Memorial—which, as everyone knows, comprises a theatre. a picture-gallery, ami a library. The festival lasts a fortnight or three weeks, and usually includes the poet's birthday April 23. The trains to Stratford are thronged, ami the town cannot contain all its ghosts, who overflow into quiet Leamington am l stately Warwick, ami even into busv Coventry. ’The town practically lives on Shakespeare and the cult. Shakespeare is its trade mark. *o to speak. There is a Shake*peai e Hotel, with rooms name I after the play*: ther.° are Shakespeare tea-room*: Shak-*|»eare busts met us at every turn: not to *j»eak nf picture po*t <ard*. plate* ami cup*, handkerchief*. coloured nio<L •!* of the birthplace,

and a thousand odds and ends more or less remotely connected with the poet’s name and fame. New Place, where Shakespeare spent his last years, was long ago demolished; but the conscientious pilgrim must pay sixpence to see the site of the mansion and a mulberry-tr.ee said to be a scion of the one that the poet planted with his own hand. The original tree was cut down in 1756 by a tenant who disliked the importunities of visitors; but to this day men come to you on the streets of Stratford and offer you, in mysterious whispers, pipes, brooches, and toys made out of the last remaining fragments of its wood. Scattered through the surrounding

country ar.? subsidiary shrines. More famous than many a royal palace is the long. low cottage where dwelt Anne Hathaway, in the village of Shottery. a mile from Stratford. The visitor may tread to-day the very footpath through the fields along which, no doubt, th.? lad Shakespeare often hurried to court his sweetheart: and for a fee he may enter the cottage and inspect its relies. Then there is another fee for the cottage at Wilmeote where Mary Arden —Shakespeare’s mother—was born; and you must pay for a carriage and guide to Charlecote. the ancient home of Sir Thomas Lucy, whom the poet satirised as Justice Shallow. A little farther away is the majestic

pile of Kenilworth, with its memories of Simon de Montfort and John of Gaunt, of Queen Elizabeth, the Earl of Leicester. and Amy Robsart. Every year some 40,000 people pay (id apiece—£looo, collectively—to roam through the magnificent halls in which Leicester entertained his royal patroness, and which Cromwell’s soldiers dismantled and >uined. The

“small octangular chamber” on the second floor of the massive Melvyn’s Tower, which Sir Walter Scott’s famous romance assigned to Amy Robsart, is surely worth a second fee, though the castle pleasance, overlooked by its windows, has become a prosaic kitchen-garden. THE HOME OE SIR WALTER SCOTT. From Kenilworth Cactle it is a natural transition, although a long railway journey, to the home of the author of “Kenil-

worth”—Abbotsford. the picturesque mansion that Scott built for himself on the banks of the brawling Tweed. More than 20,000 people paid a shilling apiece, last year, to see the house, which now belongs to the Hon. Mrs. Maxwell-Scott, a great-granddaughter of the Wizard of th.e North. Most of them drove from Melrose station. 370 miles from London

on the so-called “Waverley Route” to Edinburgh. The showrooms are the en-tranee-hall. with its fine carved *ak from Dunfermline Palace; the diningroom, with its family portraits, including one of Sir Walter’s great-grandfather, who refused to cut his beard after the execution of Charles I.; the drawingroom, with Raeburn’s portrait of Scott;

the library, the armoury, and the great novelist’s study. The drive from Melrose to Abbotsford will eost the visitor six or eight shillings, and he will pay as much or more for an excursion to Dryburgh Abbey. Here, for another shilling, fee, he may view the spot where the wizard lies buried, in company with Lady Scott, his eldest son, and John Gibson Lockhart, his son-in-law and biographer. His resting-place under the shattered and

ivy-covered walls of St. Mary’s Aisle, the most interesting part of the ruined abbey, is a fiting one for the great Scottish master of balladry and romance. THE LAND OF ROBERT BURNS. But of all the literary shrines of Scotland. the greatest and most sacred, and the most frequented by pilgrims are

those hallowed by the memory of Robert Burns. The traveller from the south comes first to Dumfries, where the peasant, poet spent his last year, and where he died in 1796. Here there are many things that must be seen, usually for a toll varying from threepence to sixpence.

There is Burns’ house in Bank Street, known by its inscription; there is the house in which he died, in Burns-street, and there is his grave in the churchyard of St. Michael, covered by a mausoleum in the most tasteless of classical styles. The vault contains the remains of his wife, Jean Armour. But the real “ Land of Burns ” is far-

(her north, with Ayr as its centre. Hero we see great traffic made with an bon cured name. A couple of miles out, at Alloway, we reach the scenes described in “ Tarn o' Shanter.” ami >OOll stand before the Burns cottage—a humble “Rigging" consisting of two apartments only.

the kitchen and the “spence,” or sittingroom. Entering the low. thatched building, we are shown the bunk in which the poet was born, his mother's old spinning-wheel, and some original manuscripts — part of “Tam o’ Shanter” among them. It was a long time before the owner of

this cottage thought of exploiting its association with the ploughman poet; but to-day, although the charge for admission is only twopence, it yields a considerable revenue. Last year's record showed nearly sixty thousand visitors, of whom 32,637 hailed from Scotland. 13.568 from England, and 5324 from the United States. It is a little incongruous, in

view of Burns’s convitial proclivities, that a •'temperance refreshment room” should now be connected with it. A few hundred yards from the poet'a birthplace is the Burns Arms Inn. where

we pay threepence to descend to the side of the little River Doon and to inspect a shell grotto containing some unimportant relies. Another fee gives us a good view of the old bridge—the “ Auld- Brig o’ Doon,” over which “ Tam o’ Shanter” escaped from the witches. The village church—“Allway’s auld haunted kirk” ■ —takes at least a shilling from us; and we shall be mean indeed if. we do. not buy an imitation antique snuff-box, made —or represented as having been made—from the timbers of this ruined shrine. It costs only twopence to enter the grounds, in which’ the Burns .Monument stands, but we are invited to buy' sonic trifle in the museum apartment on the ground floor. I have mentioned only a few of the many shrines to which a host of reverent pilgrims throngs each year, bringing golden tribute to enrich the custodians and their neighbours. Without going outside of England, I might speak of the Dickens country, around Rochester, in Kent, with an outpost, as it were, at Broadstairs, in the shape of the original Bleak House; of Thomas Carlyle’s house in Chelsea, open to any one who will pay a shilling to inspect it; of Byron’s birthplace, Xewstead Abbey, in Nottinghamshire; of Haworth, the moorland village of the Brontes; of Elstow, the home of Bunyan; and of Devonshire, which counts among its local glories the associations of “Dorna Doone” and “Westward Ho!” But lack of space prevents me from continuing the list of places that derive much of their present livelihood from the memories of the great poets and novelists of the past.

Here the Puritan poet finished "Paradise Lost” and wrote “Paradise Regained.”