lled 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