After alluding to the various proposals for the Caxton Memorial,
and the correspondence between MR. BOLTON CORNEY and MR. BERIAH
BOTFIELD in "NOTES AND QUERIES," Sylvanus Urban proceeds:
"But the discussion will do good. If neither proposal can be carried
out, we shall probably have a better suggestion than either. The money
in hand is said to be _far short_ of the sum necessary to erect a statue
or to print the works; if so, why not repair Chaucer's tomb with it?
Nothing would be more agreeable to Caxton himself. He not only printed
Chaucer's works, and re-imprinted them merely to get rid of errors; but,
feeling that the great poet 'ought eternally to be remembered' in the
place where he lies buried, he hung up an epitaph to his memory over
that tomb which is now mouldering to decay.
"'Post obitum Caxton voluit te vivere, cura
Willelmi, Chaucer clare poeta, tui,
Nam tua, non solum, compressit opuscula formis,
Has quoque sed laudes jussit hic esse tuas.'
"The epitaph, touching evidence of Caxton's affection for the poet, has
disappeared. In a few years the tomb itself will have submitted to
inevitable fate. What better mode of keeping alive the memory of both
Chaucer and Caxton, or of doing honour to the pious printer, than by
showing that even after the lapse of centuries his wishes for the
preservation of Chaucer's memory in that place are not forgotten? If the
fund is more than sufficient for the purpose, the surplus might be
invested on trust to perform the wish of Caxton, by keeping Chaucer's
monument in repair for ever."--_Gentleman's Magazine_, August, p. 167.
Here we leave the matter for the present not, however, without the
hope that the present age will do honour to the memories of two
of our Illustrious Dead, and that few months will witness both a
Caxton Memorial in the shape of a collective edition of his
original writings, and the Restoration of the Monument of the
Father of English Poetry.
Notes.