hereafter mentioned, have not hitherto greatly assisted critics in assessing the travelled experience of Shakespeare.

The first local allusion we arrive at is in the second act, and is that of a town. The Earl of Kent says to the Steward, "If I had thee in Lipsbury pinfold, I would make thee care for me." Where Lipsbury is, or was, we do not know and cannot learn. It may be Limpsfield in Surrey, or Lesbury in Northumberland, but there is no reason to suppose that it was in Kent. Out of the three or four hundred parishes Kent contains, there did not at that time appear to be more than ten which had this peculiar termination, common enough in other counties: Blackmansbury, Canterbury, Frindsbury, Glassenbury, Hockenbury, Pembury, Stockbury (two), and Scadbury (two). Later on, in the same scene, Kent expresses a wish he had the unfortunate Steward on "Sarum Plain," so that he might drive him "cackling home to Camelot "references to Wiltshire and Wales. In the next scene Edgar speaks of "sprigs of rosemary," of "low farms, poor pelting villages, sheepcotes and mills." Then we arrive at 66 the blasted heath," where "for many miles about there's scarce a bush." This hardly applies to Kent, unless it be Blackheath; it might equally well refer to Salisbury Plain or Sutton Coldfield, in Warwickshire, far as they are from Dover. In Scene 2, Act 3, the rain "drenches the steeples and drowns the cocks." If this means towers it would apply to any county as well as Kent; if it means spires it would apply better to other districts. Then follow references to "bogs and quagmires," to "rank fumiter, and furrow-weeds,

"With harlocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow

In our sustaining corn.”

There is a special fitness in the selection of these weeds by Lear to form the garland woven by his mad fantasy, but have they any local significance? A very eminent and impartial authority shall here be quoted. Mr. C. Roach Smith, of Strood, in his interesting "Remarks on Shakespeare," speaking of a visit he made to Shottery, says :

"The fields through which the footpath leads, the hedges, the stiles, and the general aspect of the place, are perhaps, now, much the same as they were three centuries ago. Here the fumitory thrives rankly conspicuous

among

'The idle weeds that grow,

In our sustaining corn;'

and also the 'hind'ring knot-grass.' Here he is so much at home that we feel assured his boyhood and early youth were passed much, if not wholly, in the country; and that his acute powers of observation were strongly

exercised among rural scenery and country pursuits. The 'fumitory' we noticed in our walks to Shottery, recalled his ready and apt enumeration of the wild flowers plucked by Lear; and, as we strolled back to Stratford by another road which Shakespeare must have walked frequently, we could but imagine that the duckweed,' which we saw covering a large portion of a pond near a farmhouse, was the offspring of that which dictated the green mantle of the standing pool,' the unwholesome beverage he makes Edgar, in 'King Lear,' say he drank.”

There now remain two points on which those who contend in favour of the theory we are examining strongly insist. One is the following description of Dover Cliffs, of which the poet had before spoken as possessing a "bending head," and subsequently terms a "chalky bourn :".

"How fearful

And dizzy 'tis, to cast ones eyes so low !

The crows, and choughs, that wing the midway air,
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half-way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!
Methinks, he seems no bigger than his head :
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark,
Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge,
That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high: I'll look no more,
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.

Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,
So many fathom down precipitating,

Thou hadst shiver'd like an egg:

Ten masts at each make not the altitude,

Which thou hast perpendicularly fell."

On this a hypercritic might remark that if Shakespeare had seen the cliff he could have done so-at the time he was acquiring his extensive marine knowledge-from a ship, say that of that learned sea captain in whose mouth, in " Henry VI.," he places such classical language, or from the deck of the vessel of his friend Lord Southampton when on his way by sea to Titchfield—a fanciful theory enough, but one which the said hypercritic might support by referring to the standard of comparison employed by the poet, "ten masts at each" (? at reach end to end). A much less strained argument would be, that Shakespeare being compelled by the nature of his subject to place the scene near "some of our best ports," wherein the French power should have "secret feet," was sufficiently rich in artistic adaptability and imagination to write a description of Dover Cliffs without treading on them

or even seeing them, as he was of describing the barge of Cleopatra which, if it had ever existed, had been rotten more than a thousand years. The spot may have been described to him by any of his travelling friends, such as Drayton; but even as the sketch stands it would apply to any high sea bluffs. This single word-picture would not, as it seems to us, be sufficient, even from an expede point of view, to base any theory upon, and, if we remember aright, it was Wordsworth -no mean authority-who wondered that anyone "should have imagined this description to be, or to be intended as an accurate copy from nature."

Be this as it may, there is a subsidiary point which at first sight may be supposed to weaken the suggestion we have thrown out. In the scene from which we last quoted, Lear asks for the pass-word, and Edgar replies "Sweet marjoram." Miss Pratt, the botanist, believes that this pass-word was "suggested to the dramatist by the sweet marjoram which formerly grew in immense quantity on the heights between Folkestone and Dover." On this Mr. Roach Smith remarks :-"That he (Shakespeare) had visited this locality no one who is acquainted with it and has read King Lear can possibly doubt." We do not quite agree with Mr. Roach Smith as to the method by which he arrives at his opinion. Miss Pratt's contribution to a Shakespeare Itinerary would be the more valuable if we could be more certain on two points, namely, that sweet marjoram grew at Dover and nowhere else, and that it ever grew on the cliffs at all or at least in Shakespeare's time. The Sweet marjoram plant was introduced into England from Portugal about 1573, and was raised every year by seed ripened in France. Is not the marjoram which is found on calcareous soils the winter marjoram, or the origanum vulgare?

Leaving that point for the decision of the reader, we may state that there are several points which tend to prove that Shakespeare's imagination was not very "vividly impressed by Kent so far as "King Lear" is concerned; but as they are simply negative points it is profitless to accumulate them. Two shall suffice. Edgar as poor Tom is whipped from "tithing to tithing." In Kent there are no tithings. The tithings were borows and the tithing-men borsholders. The noble Edgar, in Act IV., Scene VI. (country near Dover), assumes the demeanour of a "bold peasant," a son of the soil, and tries a little dialectical deceit on the Steward. says:

He

"Good gentleman, go your gait, and let poor volk pass. And ch'ud ha' been swaggered out of my life, 'twould not ha' been so long as 'tis by

a fortnight. Nay, come not near th' old man; keep out, che vor'ye, or ise try whether your costard or my ballow be the harder."

This is not Kentish but Somersetshire dialect.

The remaining direct allusion to Kent of the slightest significance by Shakespeare is in the second part of Henry VI., where both Lord Say and the dramatist-he was young then-air their classical knowledge, Lord Say to astonish the ears of Jack Cade and Shakespeare to astonish the groundlings :

"Kent, in the commentaries of Cæsar writ,
Is termed the civil'st place of all this isle.
Sweet is the country, because full of riches,
The people liberal, valiant, active, wealthy."

If this can per se be said to prove anything, we should hold it to be a proof that both the dramatist and the dramatis persona knew nothing abont Kent. To bring Cæsar as a witness to character would imply an amount of ignorance and effrontery too great even for the modern domestic servant in search of a situation, and to recommend a grown man on the ground that he was a good boy at school, would form a scarcely less satisfactory guarantee.

Was then Shakespeare never in Kent? We certainly should answer this question in the affirmative, and although direct proof is altogether wanting, we shall state the reasons for the faith that is in us in a wider article on "Guesses at Shakesperian Biography" in our next number. EDITOR.

7

Dr. Syntax maketh a Voyage in search of the

Kentish Man.

SAGE Dr. Syntax, F.S.A.,

By Notes and Queries swore,
That the curious county question,
Should vex his soul no more.
By N. and Q. he swore it,

And one fine summer's day,
Prepared himself to travel forth,
Inquiring on his way.

His pamphlets antiquarian

His pockets can't contain ;
So armed with books and maps is he,
He scarce can hold a rein.

No trifling poet's works had he,

Not one, not even Tupper;

He'd Hasted on the saddle-bows
And Lambarde on the crupper.

With energy and industry

Doth Syntax ride him fast,
Till city, town and village
Reviewing he had passed.
His queries too persistent were
For people to ignore,
Albeit his questionings profound

One only burthen bore.

"I prithee gentle, smiling swain,

Whatever thy degree,

With truth and eke with carefulness

One question answer me.

What blood runs in thy yeoman veins

Thy lineage I would scan :

Claim'st thou to be a Man of Kent

Or art a Kentish Man?"