ENGLISH MONUMENTS.

England relegates her poets to a “Corner.” The earth and the fullness thereof belongs to the men who can kill; on this rock have her State and Church been built.

As the tourist approaches the city of London for the first time there are four monuments that probably will attract his attention. They lift themselves out of the fog and smoke and soot, and seem to struggle toward the blue.

One of these monuments is to commemorate a calamity—the conflagration of 1666—and the others are in honor of deeds of war.

The finest memorial in St. Paul’s is to a certain Irishman, Albert Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. The mines and quarries of earth have been called on for the richest contributions; and talent and skill have given their all to produce this enduring work of beauty that tells posterity of the mighty acts of this mighty man. The rare richness and lavish beauty of the Wellington mausoleum is only surpassed by that of a certain tomb in France.

As an exploiter the Corsican overdid the thing a bit—so the world arose and put him down; but safely dead his shade can boast a grave so sumptuous that Englishmen in Paris refuse to look upon it.

But England need not be ashamed. Her land is spiked with glittering monuments to greatness gone. And on these monuments you often get the epitomized life of the man whose dust lies below.

On the carved marble to Lord Cornwallis I read that “He defeated the Americans with great slaughter.” And so, wherever in England I see a beautiful monument I know that probably the inscription will tell how “he defeated” somebody. And one grows to the belief that, while woman’s glory is her hair, man’s glory is to defeat someone. And if he can “defeat with great slaughter” his monument is twice as high as if he had only visited on his brother man a plain defeat. In truth I am told by a friend who has a bias for statistics, that all monuments above fifty feet high in England, are to men who have defeated other men “with great slaughter.” The only exceptions to this rule are the Albert Memorial, which is a tribute of wifely affection rather than a public testimonial, so therefore need not be considered here, and a monument to a worthy brewer who died and left three hundred thousand pound to charity. I mentioned this fact to my friend, but he unhorsed me by declaring that modesty forbade carving truth on the monument, yet it was a fact that the brewer, too, had brought defeat to vast numbers and had, like Saul, slaughtered his thousands.

When I visited the site of the Globe Theater and found thereon a brewery whose shares are warranted to make the owner rich beyond the dream of avarice, I was depressed. In my boyhood I had supposed that if ever I should reach this spot where Shakespeare’s plays were first produced I should see a beautiful park and a splendid monument; while some white-haired old patriarch would greet me and give a little lecture to the assembled pilgrims on the great man whose footsteps had made sacred the soil beneath our feet.

But there is no park, no monument and no white-haired old poet to give you welcome—only a brewery.

“Aye, mon, but ain’t ut a big ’un?” protested an Englishman who heard my murmurs.

Yes, yes, we must be truthful. It is a big brewery, and there are four big bulldogs in the court way; and there are big vats; and big workmen in big aprons. And each of these workmen is allowed to drink six quarts of beer each day without charge, which proves that the true Christian spirit is not dead. Then there are big horses that draw the big wagons and on the corner is a big tap room where the thirsty are served with big glasses.

The founder of this brewery became very rich; and if my statistical friend is right, the owners of these mighty vats have defeated mankind “with great slaughter.”

We have seen that although Napoleon, the defeated, has a more gorgeous tomb than Wellington, who defeated him, yet there is consolation in the thought that although England has no monument to Shakespeare, he now has the freedom of Elysium; while the present address of the British worthies, who have battened and fattened on poor humanity’s thirst for strong drink since Samuel Johnson was executor of Thrale’s estate, is unknown.

We have this on the authority of a Spirit Medium, who says: “The virtues essential and peculiar to the exalted station of the British worthy debars the unfortunate possessor from entering Paradise. There is not a Lord Chancellor, or Lord Mayor, or Lord of the Chamber, or Master of the Hounds, or Beefeater in Ordinary, or any sort of British bigwig out of the whole of British Beadledom, upon which the sun never sets, in Elysium. This is the only dignity beyond their reach.”

This Mejum is an honorable person, and I am sure he would not make this assertion if he did not have proof of the facts. So for the present we will allow him to go on his own recognizance, believing that he will adduce his documents at the proper time.

But still should not England have a fitting monument to Shakespeare? He is her one universal citizen. His name is honored in every school or college of earth where books are prized. There is no scholar in any clime who is not his debtor.

He was born in England, he was never out of England, his ashes rest in England.

But England’s Budget has never been ballasted with a single pound to help preserve inviolate the memory of her one son to whom the world uncovers.

Victor Hugo has said something on this subject about like this:

Why a monument to Shakespeare? He is his own monument and England is its pedestal. Shakespeare has no need of a pyramid; he has his work.

What can bronze or marble do for him? Malachite and alabaster are of no avail. Jasper, serpentine, basalt, porphyry, granite; stones from Paros and marble from Carrara—they are all a waste of pains; genius can do without them.

What is as indestructible as these: The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale, Julius Cæsar, Coriolanus? What monument sublimer than Lear, sterner than The Merchant of Venice, more dazzling than Romeo and Juliet, more amazing than Richard III?

What moon could shed about the pile a light more mystic than that of A Midsummer Night’s Dream? What capital, were it even in London, could rumble around it as tumultuously as Macbeth’s perturbed soul? What framework of cedar or oak will last as long as Othello? What bronze can equal the bronze of Hamlet?

No construction of lime, of rock, of iron and of cement is worth the deep breath of genius, which is the respiration of God through man. What edifice can equal thought? Babel is less lofty than Isaiah; Cheops is smaller than Homer; the Colosseum is inferior to Juvenal; the Giralda at Seville is dwarfed by the side of Cervantes; St. Peter’s at Rome does not reach to the ankle of Dante.

What architect has the skill to build a tower so high as the name of Shakespeare? Add anything if you can to mind! Then why a monument to Shakespeare?

I answer, Not for the glory of Shakespeare, but for the honor of England!

Elbert Hubbard.