The Stratford Jubilee of 1769
BY E. M. FORSTER.
ABOUT a hundred and fifty years ago the world of culture was convulsed by the fall of a mulberry tree. A clergyman had cut it down, since it overhung his house, and he could not have supposed that anyone would have objected to such a natural proceeding. But he had reckoned without the Zeit-geist. The mulberry tree had been planted by Shakespeare, and the worship of Shakespeare was just ready to begin. A storm of indignation arose, which the clergyman increased by refusing to pay his rates ; he was hounded out of Stratford, and it was decreed that no one of his name (which was fortunately Gastrell) should ever be allowed to reside there again. The fallen tree became a sacred object. Relies were made from its wood, and one of these—a casket—was sent up by the Corporation to Garrick, the leading actor of the day. Inside the casket was a flattering address, and the freedom of the town. Now Garrick was already a Shakespeare expert : he had improved the last act of Hamlet almost out of recognition besides transfiguring Romeo and Juliet, and he was delighted with the attention. In a letter, still preserved, he thanks the Corporation warmly for the " elegant and inestimable box," and he decided to organize a celebration at Stratford which should place the bard's fame and his own upon a permanent and mutual basis.
It was not the first Shakespeare celebration: The first may have resulted in the death of Shakespeare. Drayton and Jonson, it is said, paid a visit to their friend in 1616, and drank him-into his grave. But this only rests on the testimony of another clergyman ; nor do we know much about a celebration for which there is historical evidence—the festivities of 1746. These were held in a meadow near the church for the purpose of restoring Shakespeare's monument, and brought in £12 10s., not a large sum, but sufficient to do considerable damage. So Garrick had his precedents. But he worked on a larger scale and in accordance with his own vivid per- sonality. From the stage of Drury Lane he announced that :
" On Avon's Banks, where flowers eternal blow, Like its full stream our gratitude shall flow,"
and he planned a three days' Jubilee for the autumn of 1769 which should include almost everything except the performance of a Shakespeare play—turtles and fire- works, processions, masked balls and transparencies, all centring round a rotunda on the model of Ranelagh to be erected on the Bancroft. "Why bring in Shakes- peare P " the purist will murmur. But why not ? There is no reason to suppose that Shakespeare would have minded being brought in, or that he would have found a rotunda less congenial than the formidable precipices of red brick which await him to-day a few yards down stream.
The graver and grander minds of the epoch held aloof from " Garriek's Vagary." They suspected frivolity and self-advertisement. Gray was dubious. Doctor Johnson went to Brighton. Horace Walpole, over in Paris, announced with concern that the French were laughing at us: The French were welcome to laugh at us. Quaffing our mulberry tree goblets, wearing our mulberry tree medals, waving our "Shakespeare Ribbands in imitation of the Rainbow which unites the colours of all parties," and singing :
" The pride of all nations was the Sweet IVilley 0 The first of the Swains He gladdened the plains None ever was like to the Sweet Willey 0 "-
- what did we care for the French ? And here were the cannons and guitars to usher in the 'Amin, and there wa.. Judith, an oratorio by Isaac Bickerstaffe, being per- formed in the church to the music of Dr. Arne, and there was Boswell dressed as a Corsican chief with " Corsica Boswell " in his hat, and duchesses as witches, and Garrick wearing Shakespeare's own gloves, and the Birthplace in Henley. Street illuminated, and the Jubilee Stakes won by a jockey who admitted that he had no great taste for reading. All—all was English ; so what more did we want ?
Well, one thing more : less English weather.
Ye gods, how it rained ! It poured and poured for the whole three days ; the procession had to be given up, the fireworks would not go off, the Jubilee Stakes were run knee-deep, and as a final irony the Avon rose during the midnight masquerade and isolated the rotunda. With great difficulty were the ladies got out of it in time ; screaming and splashing and dressed as witches, Cordelias and what not, they were led over slippery planks to their coaches through darkness and storm. The horses tugged, the wheels sank two feet in water and mud ; the Ban- croft became a raging sea, and no one in these circum- stances paid any attention to Boswell, who tried to recite a poem of his own -composition about Corsica, with a mulberry wood staff in his hand.
Nor was the weather the only disappointment. The citizens of Stratford failed to give satisfaction too. They seem to have been in the grip of two passions—fear and avarice—and the oddest tales about them occur in the contemporary newspapers. Many of them thought that Garrick was the Devil, and barred themselves up in their houses ; they were terrified by the decorations, particularly by a transparency of Caliban and Trinculo, and their belief that God's Judgement impended was confirmed by the abnormal floods. Others, more courageous, sallied forth through the sheets of rain to fleece the visitors. Ninepence was charged for washing out a pocket-handkerchief, one-and-sixpence for the Temple of the Graces, and two shillings for telling- the time. One of the victims gives details of his expenses. It cost him £49 from London and back for the three days, and he was trying to do things as cheaply as he could. Certainly the cult of Shakespeare starts off with rather a jerk.
However, Garrick managed to recite his Dedicatiod Ode, which was to him and to his patrons the chief item in the Jubilee. He said it with gusto, .in spite of a cut chin, caused through the drunkenness of his barber, and he stood in the middle of a line of female singers, who led the choruses. The Ode is an empty piece of writing, but its tone is significant ; it blends the exalted and the intimate. The same note is struck in Gainsborough's portrait. There Garrick is depicted with his arm round Shakespeare's waist—if a bust can be said to have a waist. His expression is at once loyal and independent. " Stick to me and I will stick to you," he seems to be saying. It is pleasant to reflect that Shakespeare did not betray him. Although he lost heavily over the fiasco, he got his money back, and more than back, on the stage of Drury Lane, where he presented his "Stratford Jubilee " with enormous success during the following winter.
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