Antiquaries in the Age of Romanticism: 1789-1851 - Queen Mary ...

later. 134 It was, Britton admitted, no more than ‘a discriminating summary of former Essays on
the subject’ and it leaned heavily, for the critical part, on long quotations from Schlegel. 135 At
the time, however, he announced his ambition to readers ‘of eliciting some new and original light
[on] the life of the bard of Avon!...of concentrating the scattered rays into such a vivid and focal
point, as to afford a more familiar and specific Memoir than has hitherto been given, in a small
compass’. 136 It is Britton himself, however, whom the spotlight picks out most clearly in his
Preface, both in his business-like concern to promote the ‘newly engraved print from the bust at
Stratford’ that he was trying to sell, and in his important new persona as biographer: ‘Having
thus unpremeditatedly become associated with the greatest genius that ever honoured and
illumined the literary world: being thus retained in the retinue of the prince of dramatic poets.’ 137
The biography was not a particular success. It was in more conventionally antiquarian
activities, in establishing the physical context for the cult of Shakespeare, that Britton was best
engaged. Apart from the bust his most preoccupying venture was the restoration of the chancel of
Stratford parish church, for which he helped to raise funds in 1835. Reading between the lines of
the Autobiography, which gives lengthy footnoted accounts of the various committees, delays
and disputes that surrounded the enterprise, including ‘some captious comments in the
Leamington Spa Courier’ about his proposals, it seems that Britton’s interventions were not
entirely welcome and that the Royal Shakspere Club and others in Stratford somewhat resented
what was seen as outside interference. 138 The restoration nevertheless went ahead, although the
Courier stopped Britton from having the arms of the subscribers (presumably including his own)
painted on the roof. In the process Britton, like Planché and Douce, had to face the fact that
Shakespeare belonged to an age of what now appeared to be questionable judgement.
134
Britton, Remarks on the Life and Writings of William Shakespeare.
135
Britton, Autobiography, (1850), Appendix, p.10.
136
Britton, Remarks on the Life and Writings of William Shakespeare, p.v.
137
Britton, Remarks on the Life and Writings of William Shakespeare, p.v.
138
Britton, Autobiography, (1850), Appendix, p.29.
264