II
The suggestion of commemorating Shakespeare by means of a monument in
London has thus something more than a "smack of age" about it,
something more than a "relish of the saltness of time"; there are
points of view from which it might appear to be already "blasted with
antiquity." On only one of the previous occasions that the question
was raised was the stage of discussion passed, and that was in the
eighteenth century when the monument was placed in the Poets' Corner
of Westminster Abbey. The issue was not felicitous. The memorial in
the Abbey failed to satisfy the commemorative aspirations of the
nation; it left it open to succeeding generations to reconsider the
question, if it did not impose on them the obligation. Most of the
poets, actors, scholars, and patrons of polite learning, who in 1741
subscribed their guineas to the fund for placing a monument in
Westminster Abbey, resented the sculpturesque caricature to which
their subscriptions were applied. Pope, an original leader of the
movement, declined to write an inscription for this national memorial,
but scribbled some ironical verses beginning:--
Thus Britons love me and preserve my fame.
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