Visit To Stratford-On-Avon And Its Vicinage.

VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON AND ITS VICINAGE .

Br BRO . GEOEGE MAEKHAM TWEDBEEI , Author of "Shakspere .- Ms Times and Contenvporaries , " Spa . ( Continued from page 430 . ) A shilling in the hands of the sexton , and he was soon accompanying me , with willing steps , along the bleached avenue of lime-trees which leads up to the fine old

parish church of Stratford . This avenue reaches from the gateway into the churchyard , up to the north porch or doorway of the nave of the church . Peace to the ashes of him or her who planted these trees ; and may the name of the vicar * be held in remembrance , who , in 1798 , had the good taste to cause the boughs to be so

intertwined as to form a pleasant bower . I question whether any other church in England can boast of such an avenue as this . The church , which is dedicated to the Hol y Trinity , is situated on the right bank of the Avon , to the south of the toivn . In the churchyard repose the ashes of some ofthe inhabitants of Stratford and its nei ghbourhood who had attained to unusual longevity ,

There , fast rooted in his bank , Stand , never overlook'd , our English elms . - —COAVPEU . So that Shakspere had not far to go in order to see " the female ivy" entwining "the bark y fingers of the elm " AA'hich supplied him AA'ith that fine comparison in which Titania indulges in the fourth act of " A Midsummer Niht ' s

g Dream : " for elms and vrilloAvs about Stratford are as p lentiful as blackberries . It is a pleasent spot , this God ' s-acre of Stratford , and i * ery near to that New Place where Shakspere spent the evening of his life , and where he at last " shuffled off this mortal coil . " Who would not much sooner choose to be interred in suehaplace

as this , than in those odious black burial-grounds in large towns ? Avhere , as my friend Procterf graphical ] . } ' observes , " treeless , fioAverless , grassless , and completely Availed iu , the dead seem imprisoned , rather than buried . " The church is a A * enerable looking and spacious edifice , —a fit one to contain the ashes of Shakspere . It is a cruciform building , as every Christian church ought to be ; AA'ith a low square tower , surmounted by an octangular spire . Tlie fabric appears to have been

erected by our ancient brethren at various periods . Tlie toAver is twenty-eight feet in length , by the same in breadth , and eighty feet in height ; is built in the earl y Norman Gothic st yle , upon four pointed arches , supported by massy clustered pillars . Tlie entire hei ght of the toAver and spire is one hundred and sixty-three feet ; and it not for the

, were IOAV situation of the church , it would shoiv to a great distance . Washing ton Irving , in his delightful Sketch Boole , has observed : — " HOAV would it have cheered tlie spirit of the youthful bard , when , wandering forth in disgrace upon a doubtful world , lie cast back a heavy look upon his paternal home , could he have foreseen that

, before many years , he should return to it covered with renown ; that his name should become the boast and glory of his native place ; that his ashes should be reli giously guarded as its most precious treasure ; and that its lessening spire , on AA'hich his eyes were fixed in tearful contemplationshould one day

, become the beacon , towering amidst the gentle landscape , to guide the literary pilgrim of every nation to his tomb !" But the [ spires on AA'hich Shakspere and Washington Irving gazed were not identical , though they both rose

from that same old tower . "There was , originally , " says Wheler , * " on this tower , a timber steeple , covered with lead , and measuring in height about forty-two feet ; which , besides wanting frequent repairs , seemed of too mean and diminutive a size for so noble an edifice ; the parishioners , therefore , in the year 1763 , obtained a facult y from the Bishop of Worcester to take do * vn

their decayed spire , and erect a new one of Warwick hewn stone , " which Avas done the year folloAving—when tlie first centenary of the birth of Shaksi ^ ere ought to have been celebrated . No portion of the present church seems to go back to the Norman Conquestthough it is supposed to occupy

, the site of St . Eg-vin ' s monastery ; but a charnel-house , taken doAvn in the year 1800 , is supposed to have been a Saxon building . One cannot help regretting the destruction of this receptacle for the last remains of mortality , for doubtless to it we oive some of the fine meditations of our great dramatist , in AA'hose plays the charnel-house

is far from being overlooked;—take , for instance , his traged y of " Romeo and Juliet , " of AA'hich Schlegel has said : — " The SAi'eetest and the bitterest love and hatred , festivity and dark forebodings , tender embraces and sepulchres , the fulness of life and self-annihilation , are all here brought close to each other ; and all these contrasts are so blended , in the harmonious and wonderful ivork , into a unity of impression , that the echo which the whole leaves behind in the mincl resembles

a single but endless sigh . " But old ELempe has opened a sort of side-door , and we soon stand in the magnificent church , ivhich is doubly sacred in my eyes as the mausoleum of Shakspere . It is indeed a noble building ; the nave being one hundred and three feet long , twent j ' -eight broad , and fifty in hei ght ; the side aislesthe same length as the

navetwentfeet-, , y broad , and twenty-five high ; the transept , ninety-four feet long , twenty broad , and thirty in height ; the chancel—in AA'hich the bard and his famil y lay buried—is sixty-six feet in length , twenty-eight in breadth , and forty in height ; and the entire length of the church from east to west is a hundred and ninety-seven feet .

The nave is Avell described by Wheler as " a regular and handsome structure , raised on six hexagonal pillars , terminating in pointed arches ; above which the sides are diA'ided into twelve compartments , forming as many well furnished Gothic AVUHIOAVS in trisections . The principal , and by far the grandest , entrance into the nave , is at the west end , under a Gothic receding arch

or doorway : over which are three niches conjoined , evidently designed to contain three statues , and probably of tutelary saints ; the spiral canopies , which are much carved and ornamented , shoot into the large and noble west window , which is nearly the Avidth of the naA'e , and is justly admired , as AVCII for the masterly design as the beautiful workmanshi . Under this window

p is placed the font , which is a large vase of blue marble , put up in the beginning of the last century . " Ofthe old font I shall have occasion to say something by-andbye . The roof of the nave is surmounted by battlements , which need something to break their monotony . Mr . Wheler informs us that they are " greatly inferior in

elegance and grandeur to those taken CIOAAUI in 1764 , which were much ornamented , and Avere further enriched by six fine pinnacles on each side . " The eighteenth century was a barbarous one for church architecture , and our lodges , which ought to be schools wherein all the liberal arts and sciences are cultivated , as Avell as the moral virtues , proved recreant to their trust . There is a revival of architecture in our day ; literature ,