Suppose a monument. Suppose it splendid; suppose it sublime,--a triumphal arch, an obelisk, a circus with a pedestal in the centre, a cathedral. No people is more illustrious, more noble, more magnificent, and more magnanimous than the English people. Couple these two ideas, England and Shakespeare, and make an edifice arise therefrom. Such a nation celebrating such a man, it will be superb. Imagine the monument, imagine the inauguration. The Peers are there, the Commons give their adherence, the bishops officiate, the princes join the procession, the queen is present. The virtuous woman in whom the English people, royalist as we know, see and venerate their actual personification,--this worthy mother, this noble widow, comes, with the deep respect which is called for, to incline material majesty before ideal majesty; the Queen of England salutes Shakespeare. The homage of Victoria repairs the disdain of Elizabeth. As for Elizabeth, she is probably there also, sculptured somewhere on the surbase, with Henry VIII., her father, and James I., her successor,--pygmies beneath the poet. The cannon booms, the curtain falls, they uncover the statue, which seems to say, "At length!" and which has grown in the shade during three hundred years,--three centuries; the growth of a colossus; an immensity. All the York, Cumberland, Pitt, and Peel bronzes have been made use of, in order to produce this statue; the public places have been disencumbered of a heap of uncalled-for metal-castings; in this lofty figure have been amalgamated all kinds of Henrys and Edwards; the various Williams and the numerous Georges have been melted, the Achilles in Hyde Park has made the great-toe. This is fine; behold Shakespeare almost as great as a Pharaoh or a Sesostris. Bells, drums, trumpets, applause, hurrahs. What then? It is honourable for England, indifferent to Shakespeare. What is the salutation of royalty, of aristocracy, of the army, and even of the English populace, ignorant yet to this moment, like nearly all other nations,--what is the salutation of all these groups variously enlightened to him who has the eternal acclamation, with its reverberation, of all ages and all men? What orison of the Bishop of London or of the Archbishop of Canterbury is worth the cry of a woman before Desdemona, of a mother before Arthur, of a soul before Hamlet? And thus, when universal outcry demands from England a monument to Shakespeare, it is not for the sake of Shakespeare, it is for the sake of England. There are cases in which the repayment of a debt is of greater import to the debtor than to the creditor.