Neither
cloistered study of his plays, nor the occasional representation of
them in the theatres, brings home to either the English-speaking or
the English-reading world the full extent of the debt that England
owes to Shakespeare. A monumental memorial, which should symbolise
Shakespeare's influence in the universe, could only find an
appropriate and effective home in the capital city of the British
Empire. It is this conviction, and no narrower point of view, which
gives endeavour to commemorate Shakespeare in London its title to
consideration.
VII
The admitted fact that Shakespeare's fame is established beyond risk
of decay does not place him outside the range of conventional methods
of commemoration. The greater a man's recognised service to his
fellows, the more active grows in normally constituted minds that
natural commemorative instinct, which seeks outward and tangible
expression. A strange fallacy underlies the objection that has been
taken to any commemoration of Shakespeare on the alleged ground that
Milton warned the English people of all time against erecting a
monument to Shakespeare.
In 1630 Milton asked the question that is familiar to thousands of
tongues:
What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones?
By way of answer he deprecated any such "weak witness of his name" as
"piled stones" or "star-y-pointing pyramid.
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