of society beings who have the national honor to be relics and mementos of the person worshiped, as well as to old chairs, and whitewashed butchers' shops. Does it never occur to the votaries of Shakspeare, that these are the only sentient, conscious, and rational things connected with his memory which can feel a living sense of the honor conferred on him, and possess a grateful knowledge that the mighty poet of their house has not sung for them in vain, and that they only, in a world overshadowed with his glory, are not unsoothed by its visitings?"[3]
Seven years have gone over since this was written, and what has been the effect? The Shakspeare Club have gone down to Stratford, and feasted and guzzled in honor of Shakspeare, and the representatives of Shakspeare in the place have been left in their poverty. There seems to be some odd association of ideas in the minds of Englishmen on the subject of doing honor to genius. To reward warriors, and lawyers, and politicians, places, titles, and estates are given. To reward poets and philosophers, the property which they honestly, and with the toil of their whole lives, create, is taken from them, and that which should form an estate for their descendants to all posterity, and become a monument of fame to the nation, is conferred on booksellers. The copyright of authors, or, in other words, the right to the property which they made, was taken away in the reign of Queen Anne, "for the benefit of literature;" so says the act. Let the same principle, in God's name, be carried out into all other professions, and we shall soon come to an understanding on the subject. Take a lord's or a squire's land from him and his family forever, after a given number of years, for the benefit of aristocracy; take the farmer's plow and team, his harrows and his corn, for the benefit of agriculture; take the mill-owner's mills, with all their spinning-jennies, and their cotton, and their wool, and their silk, and their own new inventions, for the benefit of manufacturing; take the merchant's ships and their cargoes, the shopkeeper's shop and his stores, the lawyer's parchment and his fees, the physician's and surgeon's physic and fees, for the benefit of commerce, trade, law, and physic: and let the clergy suffer no injury of neglect in this respect; let their churches, and their glebes, and tithes, be taken for the benefit of religion; let them all go shares with the authors in this beautiful system of justice and encouragement, and then the whole posse will soon put their heads together, and give back to the author his rights, while they take care of their own.
But till this be done—so long as the children and descendants, and nearest successors of the author are robbed by the state, while the poet and philosopher crown their country with glory, and fill it with happiness, and their country in return brands their children with disgrace, and fills them with emptiness—while they go in rags, and the bookseller in broad-cloth—in leanness, and the bookseller, endowed by the state with the riches of their ancestors, in jollity and fat—so long let those who are anxious to do honor to the glorious names of our literature, honor them with some show of common sense and common feeling. Honor Shakspeare, indeed! Has he not honored himself sufficiently? What says John Milton, another glorious son of the Muse?
"What needs my Shakspeare for his honor'd bones,
The labor of an age in piled stones?
Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid
Under a star-ypointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame!
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hath built thyself a long-lived monument."
But if this honor be not needed, what needs there for our Shakspeare, the still weaker witness of his name, of guzzling and gormandizing? Is there any the remotest connection between the achievements of pure intellect and seven-gallon barrel stomachs of anniversary topers? Between the still labors of a divine imagination, and the uproarious riot of a public feed when half-seas over? Let mock turtle do honor to mock heroes; but what has Shakspeare, and the honor of Shakspeare, to do with the "hip! hips!" and the swilling of mere herds of literary swine? To become part and parcel of such a herd, were Dickens and Talfourd invited down to Stratford this very year. They wisely eschewed the honor.
Let us suppose, for a moment, that the spirit of Shakspeare could hear the hiccoughings of the crew assembled in his name, to honor him forsooth! If he were permitted to descend from the serene glory of his seventh heaven, and appeared at the door of their dining-room with the meager descendants of the Shakspeare family crowding sadly behind him, what are the indignant words that he would address to the flushed and bloated throng of his soi-disant worshipers? They have been already addressed to like ears by the great Master of love, and of the philosophy of true honor. "I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. * * * Inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these, ye did it not to me."[4] No, the sycophantic humbugs never did it to Shakspeare. What cares he, in his seventh heaven of glory and of poetry, for their guzzlings? What have they to do with him or his honor? Is it not a precious imposture, to make a feast to a man's honor, and not to invite to it his nearest relatives, especially when they live at the next door? In the name of the national reputation, let this wretched and egotistic farce be put down by the good sense of the British public. If these people will not honor Shakspeare by honoring his family, let them at least abstain from insulting their poverty and their neglect by this public parade, and this devouring of joints.
Hear what Robert Southey says: "The last descendants of Milton died in poverty. The descendants of Shakspeare[5] are living in poverty, and in the lowest condition of life. Is this just to these individuals? Is it grateful to those who are the pride and boast of their country? Is it honorable or becoming to us as a nation, holding—the better part of us assuredly, and the majority affecting to hold—the names of Shakspeare and Milton in veneration? To have placed the descendants of Shakspeare and Milton in respectability and comfort in that sphere of life where, with a full provision for our natural wants and social enjoyments, free scope is given to the growth of our intellectual and immortal part, simple justice was all that was required—only that they should have possessed the perpetual copyright of their ancestors' works—only that they should not have been deprived of their proper inheritance."[6]
The time is evidently not yet come for setting this great matter right; for doing this great act of justice toward the teachers of the world and glorifiers of our national name; for executing this due redress. We have yet much to learn from those divine minds, whom, in Southey's words, we profess to venerate. But still the public mind is not destitute of its glimmerings of the truth, and its responsibilities. Since I wrote the pages quoted, numerous individuals have written to inquire if nothing can be done to remove the opprobrium of our treatment to the Shakspeare family. Many visitors have desired to see the boy thus pointed out, and have made him presents, but he still remains unprovided for. A clergyman, about two years ago, wrote to me from the west of England, expressing the interest he felt in this youth, whom he had seen at Stratford, and his anxious desire to have a subscription raised to educate him, and put him into some honorable way of life. He begged me to make a move, in which he would zealously co-operate, to interest a sufficient number of literary and influential individuals to agitate the question, and commence the subscription. I made the attempt, but in vain. Some parties gave professions which ended in nothing, others which began in nothing; some doubted the chance of success, and some successfully chanced to doubt. One of the first persons whom I was naturally induced to write to for advice and co-operation was Mr. Charles Knight. Mr. Charles Knight had recently published a voluminous edition of Shakspeare's works, with elaborate criticisms and life; his apparent enthusiasm about Shakspeare suggested him instantly as a most likely person to unite in a plan for vindicating the honor of the nation toward the living representatives of the poet. I begged him to say whether he would do so, and whether he would be good enough to point out any means or parties by which this might be prosecuted. This enthusiast of Shakspearian honors did not even observe the ordinary courtesy of a reply. On the contrary, the Countess of Lovelace, the worthy
