That amiable
sentiment which would treat the realisation of the commemorative aim
as a patriotic obligation--as an obligation which no good citizen
could honourably repudiate--has often produced discord rather than
harmony among the Shakespearean scholars who cherish it. One school of
these has argued in the past for a work of sculpture, and has been
opposed by a cry for a college for actors, or a Shakespearean theatre.
"We do not like the idea of a monument at all," wrote _The Times_ on
the 20th of January 1864. "Shakespeare," wrote _Punch_ on the 6th of
February following, "needs no statue." In old days it was frequently
insisted that, even if the erection of a London monument were
desirable, active effort ought to be postponed until an adequate
memorial had been placed in Stratford-on-Avon where the poet's memory
had been hitherto inadequately honoured. At the same time a band of
students was always prepared to urge the chilling plea that the
payment of any outward honour to Shakespeare was laboursome futility,
was "wasteful and ridiculous excess." Milton's query: "What needs my
Shakespeare for his honoured bones?" has always been quoted to satiety
by a vociferous section of the critics whenever the commemoration of
Shakespeare has come under discussion.
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