" Mathews's endeavour achieved only a specious
success. George the Fourth, readily gave his "high sanction" to a
London memorial. Sir Walter Scott, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Tom Moore,
and Washington Irving were among the men of letters; Sir Thomas
Lawrence, [Sir] Francis Chantrey, and John Nash, the architect, were
among the artists, who approved the general conception. For three or
four years ink was spilt and breath was spent in the advocacy of the
scheme. But nothing came of all the letters and speeches.
In 1847 the topic was again broached. A committee, which was hardly
less influential than that of 1821, revived the proposal. Again no
result followed.
Seventeen years passed away, and then, in 1864, the arrival of the
tercentenary of Shakespeare's birth seemed to many men of eminence in
public life, in letters or in art, an appropriate moment at which to
carry the design into effect. A third failure has to be recorded.
The notion, indeed, was no child of the nineteenth century which
fathered it so ineffectually. It was familiar to the eighteenth. One
eighteenth century effort was fortunate enough to yield a little
permanent fruit. To an eighteenth-century endeavour to offer
Shakespeare a national memorial in London was due the cenotaph in
Westminster Abbey.
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