n
playhouse or private residence. Pictorial representations of the Globe
Theatre survive, and it might be possible to construct something that
should materialise the extant drawings. But the _genius loci_ has
fled from Southwark and from Shoreditch. It might be practicable to
set up a new model of an Elizabethan theatre elsewhere in London, but
such a memorial would have about it an air of unreality,
artificiality, and affectation which would not be in accord with the
scholarly spirit of an historic or biographic commemoration. The
device might prove of archaeological interest, but the commemorative
purpose, from a biographical or historical point of view, would be ill
served. Wherever a copy of an Elizabethan playhouse were brought to
birth in twentieth-century London, the historic sense in the onlooker
would be for the most part irresponsive; it would hardly be quickened.

VI

Apart from the practical difficulties of realising materially
Shakespeare's local associations with London, it is doubtful if the
mere commemoration in London of Shakespeare's personal connection with
the great city ought to be the precise aim of those who urge the
propriety of erecting a national monument in the metropolis.
Shakespeare's personal relations with London can in all the
circumstances of the case be treated as a justification in only the
second degree. The primary justification involves a somewhat different
train of thought. A national memorial of Shakespeare in London must be
reckoned of small account if it merely aim at keeping alive in public
memory episodes of Shakespeare's London career. The true aim of a
national London memorial must be symbolical of a larger fact. It must
typify Shakespeare's place, not in the past, but in the present life
of the nation and of the world. It ought to constitute a perpetual
reminder of the position that he fills in the present economy, and is
likely to fill in the future economy of human thought, for those whose
growing absorption in the narrowing business of life tends to make
them forget it.

The day is long since past when vague eulogy of Shakespeare is
permissible. Shakespeare's literary supremacy is as fully recognised
by those who justly appreciate literature as any law of nature. To the
man and woman of culture in all civilised countries he symbolises the
potency of the human intellect. But those who are content to read and
admire him in the cloister at times overlook the full sign