he features
are singularly attractive; but the chain of evidence which would identify
them with Shakespeare is incomplete. {296b}

Memorials in sculpture.

A monument, the expenses of which were defrayed by public subscription,
was set up in the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey in 1741. Pope and
the Earl of Burlington were among the promoters. The design was by
William Kent, and the statue of Shakespeare was executed by Peter
Scheemakers. {297} Another statue was executed by Roubiliac for Garrick,
who bequeathed it to the British Museum in 1779. A third statue, freely
adapted from the works of Scheemakers and Roubiliac, was executed for
Baron Albert Grant and was set up by him as a gift to the metropolis in
Leicester Square, London, in 1879. A fourth statue (by Mr. J. A. Q.
Ward) was placed in 1882 in the Central Park, New York. A fifth in
bronze, by M. Paul Fournier, which was erected in Paris in 1888 at the
expense of an English resident, Mr. W. Knighton, stands at the point
where the Avenue de Messine meets the Boulevard Haussmann. A sixth
memorial in sculpture, by Lord Ronald Gower, the most elaborate and
ambitious of all, stands in the garden of the Shakespeare Memorial
buildings at Stratford-on-Avon, and was unveiled in 1888; Shakespeare is
seated on a high pedestal; below, at each side of the pedestal, stand
figures of four of Shakespeare's principal characters: Lady Macbeth,
Hamlet, Prince Hal, and Sir John Falstaff.

At Stratford, the Birthplace, which was acquired by the public in 1846
and converted into a museum, is with Anne Hathaway's cottage (which was
acquired by the Birthplace Trustees in 1892), a place of pilgrimage for
visitors from all parts of the globe. The 27,038 persons who visited it
in 1896 and the 26,510 persons who visited it in 1897 represented over
forty nationalities. The site of the demolished New Place, with the
gardens, was also purchased by public subscription in 1861, and now forms
a public garden. Of a new memorial building on the river-bank at
Stratford, consisting of a theatre, picture-gallery, and library, the
foundation-stone was laid on April 23, 1877. The theatre was opened
exactly two years later, when 'Much Ado about Nothing' was performed,
with Helen Faucit (Lady Martin) as Beatrice and Barry Sullivan as
Benedick. Performances of Shakespeare's plays have since been given
annually during April. The library and picture-gallery were opened in
1881. {298}