so general in the States, both on account of highway difficulties and social distribution, and partly because of the baggage problem incidental to cycling tours. Indeed, fashionable America has of late taken violently to "equestrian exercise" as a rival to golf in its summer holidays. But now as motorists it threatens to loom large on British highways, and I hear rumors of a great invasion. Such form of progress will especially appeal to American taste, being quick, convenient, and, above all, through scenes which, as a rule, they are better able and more eager to appreciate than the average Englishman himself. As a distributor of money along British highways I venture to think the American motorist is going to be a substantial addition to rural economy. It will be a long time before the roads in America will be comparable with those of Western Europe. Speaking broadly those of the North are fair for driving, but mostly rough for the cycle or motor. South of the Potomac they are still intolerable even for driving almost everywhere, and the saddle horse retains his eighteenth-century position. Moreover, it is in the least attractive parts of the United States that the roads are likely to be first improved for motoring purposes. In the more picturesque States I cannot imagine a motor of any kind within measurable time, and the attempts of cyclists during the brief craze for the wheel in America to grapple with Virginia roads were a frequent source of humorous illustration in the comic papers. America in this particular is far behind most of the world.

The Canadians, too, enjoyed a cycling boom a few years ago, but, save The Cornhill Magazine.

for occasional working men in the cities, few now use it. The country highways of the older provinces, though sufficiently good for wheeled traffic, are not tempting to the cyclist, and if they were, there are not the same temptations to utilize them as in this country for reasons here irrelevant. Another cause, too, which will drive the American motorist to seek alien pastures is the appalling dust that his machine must raise on an American summer road.

Upon the whole the highways of England are in a fair way to regain much more than their ancient prosperity, if by means less picturesque to the fastidious eye. Many of them will no doubt be put to it to carry their traffic. It is of a truth a strange thing that the coach road should not only spring into life once more but should actually threaten some measure of revenge on its old and ruthless enemy. A glance at the past would seem, as I have already remarked, to make prophetic utterances fatuous. But the motor-car in the nature of things can never be a serious rival to the cycle. For strenuous Britons, after all, will have exercise, and we now know that for very many people there is none better or more exhilarating. But the motorbicycle may some day develop into a contrivance extremely formidable to the popularity of the ordinary pedalling machine, which has really done such great work both for the country and the town. Since this paper went to press I have covered several hundred miles in the counties of Hereford, Monmouth, and Brecon, and have encountered at least twenty motor-bicycles for every motor-car.

A. G. Bradley.

1

The decision of the London County Council to provide a site for "an adequate Shakespeare Memorial" is one of those decisions arrived at by a pub lic body which it is impossible to regard without approval, but which compel misgivings. Now that a suitable site is assured, what is proposed is to collect funds and to organize a great international tribute to Shakespeare's memory, and for that purpose a Provisional Committee has been formed, with certain definite objects. It may be as well to state these in full. They are,-First, the memorial to be erected on some prominent site in London; the funds collected to be, in the first instance, devoted to the erection of some such monument in London as the Scott Memorial or the Albert Memorial; any sum over that required for the monument to be used for some object or objects tending to promote the study or appreciation of Shakespeare, to be determined by a General Memorial Committee. Second, the General Committee to consist of leading men and women belonging to all parts of the Empire, representatives of the American people, and distinguished foreigners. Third, a Shakespeare commemoration to be held in all parts of the world during "the Shakespeare week," 1905 (April 23rd to May 1st), so that a concentrated effort may be made in connection with the commemoration to collect the funds necessary for the memorial.

The last two provisions occasion no difficulty; but that cannot be said of the first, as to which obviously there will be the widest possible differences of opinion, even among those who do not hold that Shakespeare has built himself the only necessary monument in his works. The point is, of course, that the Provisional Committee have

set before themselves first, before everything else, the erection of "some such monument as the Albert Memorial," that many people dislike the Albert Memorial, and that many more would rather that, if a monument is to be erected to Shakespeare's memory, it should not take the form of a decorative column or statuary. We are certainly among the latter number ourselves, and think, not only that we are unlikely to get what is wanted if a column or statue is decided upon, but that, even if we were, it would be better to begin by deciding in the first instance for something else. There is, no doubt, a great deal to be said in favor of columns or statues as a means of perpetuating the memories of dead men-nobody who has watched the enthusiasm with which wreaths are sent every year to Trafalgar Square could deny that-and even as to the muchcriticised Albert Memorial itself, it is no more than the truth that it has its decorative aspects, though they may not exactly fit their surroundings, and though, in any case, such a monument must be left to be mellowed and graced by the mildew and lichen of time. [How many persons there must be who every year purchase old furniture and old decorative work of all kinds, and who sometimes admire such work simply because it is old, yet who do not reflect that some day the Albert Memorial will be at least interesting simply because it will be old.] There were plenty of people, probably, when King's College Chapel was first built, who thought it something garish and wrong. Not, of course, that the Chapel and the Memorial can be bracketed together; but still, any work of the nature of the Albert Memorial, which is to depend for its artistic value partly

on the effect of time in mellowing its color, must be so strikingly glaring and gilded at first as to appear almost cheap and showy.

But even granting the value of columns and statuary considered as means of perpetuating the memory of the dead, is there no better method of doing honor to Shakespeare's memory than the erection of a column or a statue? In the first place, it must be conceded that British art has not hitherto been conspicuous for its success in statuary work, and that there is, unfortunately, no reason to suppose that it is likely to achieve anything wonderful in the near future. Without going so far as the enthusiastic critic who declared that the best way of celebrating the Diamond Jubilee would be to pull down the Imperial Institute and to bury the statues which at present decorate the interior of Westminster Abbey, it is at least possible to contemplate without dismay the suggestion that a statue of Shakespeare is not the best memorial which could be erected to his memory. And what else, instead of a statue or column, might be built up? In the first place, ought it not to be remembered that the object to aim at is hardly so much to give a living sculptor or architect a chance of doing something “adequate," as to try to ensure that the work and memory of Shakespeare shall be kept green, -preserved, that is, not only before the eyes of those who are least likely to forget him, but in the memory of those who, by the queer chances of life, might not get to knowledge of his mind unless through the means of some public work or monument insistent on their daily attention? If so, then the first thing to do is to bring to the people Shakespeare's thought, not his face. And could that be better done than by erecting a real Shakespearian theatre, a theatre in which the plays should be acted and the great speeches

spoken, year after year, with just, so to speak, the simple setting of the written manuscript? The thought suggests possibilities which are surely not less practicable than they are fascinating. Imagine a building erected in Londen on some spacious site,-Elizabethan in design, a theatre, and more than a theatre. A library, with the quartos and folios stored so that every Englishman might see them; a reading-room, providing the student with ready reference to every atom of criticism or comment that has been given to the work of the greatest mind of English history; and besides library and reading-room, a theatre endowed with one object, to bring home Shakespeare's thought to the mind of the people. With that object, the theatre would be provided with funds which would make it possible for a Committee to arrange that once in a certain cycle of time-perhaps, since there are more than thirty plays that could be acted, a year would be too short a space-all the plays which can be acted should be acted. The acting, of course, must be as good as possible; and for that reason it would not be best to endow or provide for a single company of actors, rather, just as the old Italian signors called for this or that company of players, or, for that matter, just as companies are "commanded" by Royalty to play at Sandringham or Windsor to-day, it should be made possible for the Committee to invite the companies of the London theatres to play King John or The Tempest or The Merchant of Venice for a week or more at the Shakespeare Theatre. That would be done without loss of income to the players, and certainly with immensely increased opportunities of adding to their own reputations,-though that is, to be sure, not the highest aspect of the possibilities involved; still, it would make the theatre attractive. And if such an idea were realized-if, that is,

it should be permanently possible for every British subject to know that to the Shakespeare Theatre he could go any night, and that at the Shakespeare Theatre he would hear Shakespeare's poetry spoken by the best among British actors-who can suppose that there would not be added to British thought an increased appreciation of the greatness of the greatest of English minds? More so, surely, in this way than by the casual glance at a column of statuary, however finely conceived. It must be by the hearing of Shakespeare's own voice, rather than by the contemplation of what may or may not be like Shakespeare's face and figure, that his countrymen can best learn the magnificance of their heritage, and can know something of what Carlyle meant when he asked: "What item," as an ornament to our English household, "is there that we would surrender rather than him? Consider, now, if they asked us"-and let the reader, for the sake of argument, substitute a Shakespeare Theatre such as we have suggested for Shakespeare himself, and a column or a statue for the glory of the Indian Empire-"Will you give-up your Indian Empire, or never have had any Shakespeare? Really it were a grave question. Official persons would answer doubtless in official language; but we, for our part too, should not we be forced to answer: Indian Empire, or no Indian Empire; we cannot do without Shakespeare! Indian Empire will go, at any rate, some day; but this Shakespeare does not go, he lasts for ever with us; we cannot give-up our Shakespeare!" The parallel is not so inexact, applied to Shakespeare seen and Shakespeare heard. Shakespeare heard will last for ever; Shakespeare seen-that is, Shakespeare as represented by a great monument or memorial-is not Shakespeare, but our own modern translation of his spirit into an idol. Which Shakespeare should the great The Spectator.

memorial bring home to the thought of the inheritors of Shakespeare's king. dom,-the idol or the voice?

That is, we think, the danger which the Committee of the Shakespeare Memorial ought to consider, and no doubt will consider,-whether, in forwarding such ideas as the erection of great statues or memorial buildings, they may not misrepresent the personality of the man to whose work they wish to pay tribute. It would be, after all, so fatally easy to put up an enormously expensive but hopelessly unsatisfactory spectacular memorial to Shakespeare. At the outset, to mention the very first difficulty that occurs, would only British sculptors be allowed to compete in designing a memorial? If so, would it be right to exclude a design proffered by Mr. St. Gaudens because he is an American? The Americans are inheritors of Shakespeare's kingdom just as we are; and yet we suppose that it is likely that British opinion would prefer a British sculptor's work to that of Mr. St. Gaudens, even though the latter might suggest a design more Shakespearian than the other in breadth and nobility of conception. That is only one suggestion as regards the difficulties which are likely to arise if the great memorial is to represent Shakespeare seen rather than Shakespeare heard. There are others which will readily occur. We ourselves, at all events, see much more likelihood of a really satisfactory Shakespeare memorial in something on the lines of a library-theatre than in statuary work, which if it is to stand the test of time is quite likely to displease for the moment, and which in any case we are not likely to get. Whereas Shakespeare spoken, and Shakespeare heard, however worthily or unworthily modern actors may interpret him, is, after all, Shakespeare himself.