Punch (12.1847)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

•with the worn-out attributes of Juno, Minerva, and Venus ; while a
nude young man in a Phrygian cap is offensive to modern delicacy.
I shall be happy to execute either of the above subjects, on my new
principle, on the most moderate terms, which may be ascertained at
the bar of the G. and G.

" Respectfully yours,

" Oimabue Potts."

"Sir,

" I am a surveyor and a practical man. Visiting the Exhibition
of the Royal Academy the other day, I was astonished and disgusted to
find that Mr. Ettv had grossly violated proportion and probability in
his Joan of Arc. He says that he has studied the localities for twenty
years ; but I beg you to compare the gate in his centre compartment
with the female on horseback, (Joan of Arc, I suppose), and you will
at once see that she could only have passed through the gate in this
manner—

unless indeed she got over the difficulty thus—

If she did, it ought to have been mentioned in the Catalogue.

" I remain, sir, yours,

" P. Plummet."

SHAKSPEARE'S HOUSE.

(contributed by the olde8t inhabitant.)

"Dear Mr. Punch, "Stratford-upon-Avon, May 26.

" Your goodness in printing ray last letter has made me bold
to trouble you with a second. I do assure you, sir, that since I appeared
in your pages, I am become very famous in this my native place. Old
as I am, sir, people did not think I had so much printer's ink in me.
And now folks look at my head—bare and shining, sir, as a billiard-
ball—as much as to say, ' sure there's something more in it that must
go to paper.' And they are right, sir ; and here it is.

"Though an old man, sir, I am not given to nurse signs and omens
into points of faith. Nevertheless, sir, when the martlets this year
failed to mend and take possession of their clay nests under the eaves
of Shakspeare's house, I did, despite of myself, forbode some mis-

chance. I may be wrong ; but I think I have known the birds, from-
year to year, down I can hardly count how many generations.

" ' This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve
By his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here.'

"And Shakspeare's martlets—but it's no doubt a fancy, sir—
always seemed to me gentler and prettier than any beside. It is-
seveuty years and upwards, sir, since I well remember watching 'em
under Shakspeare's eaves. As a tiny boy, I can remember the bills
of the little ones opening like opening scissors, and their small white
throats thrust out of their nests to swallow gnats aDd flies brought
with a thought, and away again, by cock and hen. Well, sir, the
season is past—I have watched and watched—and this spring not a
bird has returned. The nests, cracked by frost and wind, and wet, are
crumbling away, and never a winged mason is there to mend thenu
Shakspeare's house is deserted by the martlets, for—I can hardly
write the words—it is, I learn, deserted by men.

" Shakspeare's house—the world's temple, sir—is, as I hear, to be
sold. The owners of that glorious hut are, as I am told, about to turn
it into hard cash, as though it were a stack of firewood. A foreign
gentleman, as I understand, has offered money for the wondrous
building, to turn it into a show somewhere across the seas. And when
the wonder is past as a show, I further learn that the same gentleman
intends to manufacture the timber into boot-jacks and clothes-pegs.
A London playhouse master—I forget his name, Munn or GoNN,or some-
thing like it—has, as I hear, bespoke a horse-trough to be made from
Shakspeare's roof tree.

" Well, I confess all these reports—coupled with the keeping away of
the martlets—did at first make my heart sink like a dead thing
Another minute, and I was all restored ; for I recollected the visit of
my Gracious Queen, and amiable Prince, and darling children, to the
house of Shakspeare ; and I knew—I was sure of it—that the memory
of that house was a sacred thing in the bosom of Gracious Majesty.
Shakspeare grew his laurels under an Elizabeth, and a Victoria
would protect them ! And I said so ; but—I almost blush for the un-
belief of some people—I was laughed at for so saying.

" Nevertheless, I have heard from a neighbour just come from London
—who would not have his name known—that the Queen is so much
pleased with her visit to Shakspeare's house, that she has ordered a
picture to be painted of it; and that the picture may be done properly,
the Queen has ordered a foreign painter—of the name, I think, of
Winterhater—to paint it. The picture, as I am told—but of course,
sir, you know better than I do—will bring in the Prince of Wales in
the Queen's lap, signing his name in Shakspeare's birth-room. Prince
Albert and the two little girls looking on. It must, of course, sir, be
a beautiful thing when doDe ; and I only hope that all the people will be
allowed to see it—they will so love our darling Queen for her honour
of Shakspeare.

" However, sir, it seems the Pcet's house is really to be sold. Now,
as I am informed that your paper—printed in golden letters, they tell
me, and on white satin—is laid upon the Queen's breakfast-table, with
camellias, and azalias, and heliotropes, and other beautiful and fragrant
things, every Thursday morning, I humbly write the following lines, in
the fearful hope that they may catch the starry and vouchsafing
eye of condescending Majesty.

."I do, then, humbly propose—to save the nation from a blistering
shame—that the house of Shakspeare be purchased by the State.—
And further, that there be a poetic guardian, or—as I believe it is called*
custode—of the premises, with a gentlemanly and sufficing in-coming.
His title might be the Poet-Laureate of Stratford ; and, crowned with
poetic wreath—it is a pity that mulberry doth not leaf so early—he
might deliver an ode, or sing a song, as his voice might be, on every
anniversary of Shakspeare's birth-day. This gentleman — in his
own poetic right—should do the honours of Shakspeare's house on
certain ceremonious occasions. For, of course, the Literary Eund (if
I am not wrong in the name) would now and then, after visiting the
house, keep festival in Stratford ; and, no doubt, the Shakspeare
Society would occasionally take an early train, and hold a solemn
sitting under the roof of Shakspeare. Mr. Payne Collier —
(we have his edition of the Poet in sweet-smelling Russia, also Chakles
Knight's, lustrous with pictures, at the Falcon)—would pen a right
merry chronicle of such a gathering. And on these occasions, as I
have said, the custode should be, so to say it, master of the ceremonies.
And this custode I would have some dramatist ; and, to begin with,
say Mr. Sheridan Knowles, a man who hath done good service,
and faithfully earned his future ease. v

"And, sir,—if the State and the Queen be too poor to save the
house of Shakspeare; if they be all too straitened to purchase
the premises, and keep them in due honour,—permit me to suggest the
present as an opportunity well worthy of the attention of the affluent
desirous of compassing a lasting renown, and at the same time
fulfilling a debt of gratitude to him, who hath made all men, of all
nations and all times, his largest creditors. Yours, sir,

" The Oldest Inhabitant."