



Produced by Jim Adcock, Special Thanks to the Internet
Archive, American Libraries.







     SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND
          BY
     WILLIAM WINTER

     New Edition, Revised, with Illustrations

     _New York_
     THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
     LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
     1898

     _All rights reserved_

     Copyright, 1892,
     BY MACMILLAN AND CO.

     ------

     _Illustrated Edition,_
     COPYRIGHT, 1893,
     BY MACMILLAN AND CO.

     ------

     First published elsewhere.
     Set up and electrotyped by Macmillan & Co., April, 1892.
     Reprinted November, 1892; January, 1893.

     Illustrated edition, revised throughout, in crown 8v0, set up and
     Electrotyped June, 1893. Reprinted October, 1893; August, 1895;
     September, 1898.

     _Norwood Press_
     J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith
     Norwood Mass. U.S.A.



     To _Whitelaw Reid_


     IN HONOUR OF EXALTED VIRTUES
     ADORNING A LIFE OF
     NOBLE ACHIEVEMENT AND PATIENT KINDNESS
     AND IN REMEMBRANCE OF
     FAITHFUL AND GENTLE FRIENDSHIP
     I DEDICATE THIS BOOK


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     _"Tum meae, si quid loquar audiendum,
     Vocis accedet bona pars"_



     PREFACE TO THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND


_The favour with which this book has been received, alike in Great
Britain and America, is thought to warrant a reproduction of it with
pictorial embellishment, and accordingly it is offered in the present
form. I have revised the text for this reprint, and my friend Mr. George
P. Brett, of the house of Messrs. Macmillan and Company,--at whose
suggestion the pictorial edition was undertaken,--has supervised the
choice of pictures for its adornment. The approval that the work has
elicited is a source of deep gratification. It signifies that my
endeavour to reflect the gentle sentiment of English landscape and the
romantic character of English rural life has not proved altogether
in vain. It also shows that an appeal may confidently be
made,--irrespective of transitory literary fashions and of popular
caprice,--to the love of the ideal, the taste for simplicity, and the
sentiment of veneration. In these writings there is, I hope, a profound
practical deference to the perfect standard of style that is represented
by such illustrious exemplars as Addison, Goldsmith, Sterne, and Gray.
This frail fabric may perish: that standard is immortal; and whatever
merit this book may possess is due to an instinctive and passionate
devotion to the ideal denoted by those shining names. These sketches
were written out of love for the subject. The first book of them, called
_The Trip to England, _reprinted, with changes, from the _New York
Tribune, _was made for me, at the De Vinne Press. The subsequent growth
of the work is traced in the earlier Preface, herewith reprinted. The
title of _Shakespeare's England _was given to it when the first English
edition was published, by Mr. David Douglas, of Edinburgh. It has been
my privilege to make various tours of the British islands, since those
of _1877 _and _1882, _recorded here; and my later books, _Gray Days and
Gold, _and _Old Shrines and Ivy, _should be read in association with
this one, by those persons who care for a wider glimpse of the same
delightful field, in the same companionship, and especially by those who
like to follow the record