But to recur to the proposal in your letter.  I would readily assist, according to my means, in erecting a monument to the memory of the Poet Chatterton, who, with transcendent genius, was cut off while he was yet a boy in years; this, could he have anticipated the tribute, might have soothed his troubled spirit, as an expression of general belief in the existence of those powers which he was too impatient and too proud to develope.  At all events, it might prove an awful and a profitable warning.  I should also be glad to see a monument erected on the banks of Loch Leven to the memory of the innocent and tender-hearted Michael Bruce, who, after a short life, spent in poverty and obscurity, was called away too early to have left behind him more than a few trustworthy promises of pure affections and unvitiated imagination.

Let the gallant defenders of our country be liberally rewarded with monuments; their noble actions cannot speak for themselves, as the writings of men of genius are able to do.  Gratitude in respect to them stands in need of admonition; and the very multitude of heroic competitors which increases the demand for this sentiment towards our naval and military defenders, considered as a body, is injurious to the claims of individuals.  Let our great statesmen and eminent lawyers, our learned and eloquent divines, and they who have successfully devoted themselves to the abstruser sciences, be rewarded in like manner; but towards departed genius, exerted in the fine arts, and more especially in poetry, I humbly think, in the present state of things, the sense of our obligation to it may more satisfactorily be expressed by means pointing directly to the general benefit of literature.

Trusting that these opinions of an individual will be candidly interpreted, I have the honour to be

                 Your obedient servant,
                         W. WORDSWORTH.[6]

[6] Memoirs, ii. 88-91.

(c) OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE, A MONUMENT TO SOUTHEY, &c.

Letter to John Peace, Esq., City Library, Bristol.

Rydal Mount, April 8. 1844.

MY DEAR MR. PEACE,

You have gratified me by what you say of Sir Thomas Browne.  I possess his Religio Medici, Christian Morals, Vulgar Errors, &c. in separate publications, and value him highly as a most original author.  I almost regret that you did not add his Treatise upon Urn Burial to your publication; it is not long, and very remarkable for the vigour of mind that it displays.

Have you had any communication with Mr. Cottle upon the subject of the subscription which he has set on foot for the erection of a Monument to Southey in Bristol Cathedral?  We are all engaged in a like tribute to be placed in the parish church of Keswick.  For my own part, I am not particularly fond of placing monuments in churches, at least in modern times.  I should prefer their being put in public places in the town with which the party was connected by birth or otherwise; or in the country, if he were a person who lived apart from the bustle of the world.  And in Southey’s case, I should have liked better a bronze bust, in some accessible and not likely to be disturbed part of St. Vincent’s Rocks, as a site, than the cathedral.