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    May 5, I860.] , The Leader and Saturday ...

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    LONDON STATUES. OUR London Statues, few ...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    Odium Medicum. An Old Dramatist—Webstee,...

    only known to be poetical , but prophetic , ' alluding to my prediction of Nicholas ' s death . " Dr . Southwood Smith is , perhaps , indifferent to this blow , both because it is shared with the dead , and because Dr . Bright , strangely enough , in act seems to have sanctioned the practice ' ¦ which * in . . words , he was condemning , ac cording to Dr . Gea * nville * s account . - We have seldom met with a writer who has a better notion of killing two birds , or half a dozen , with one stone ; or as his original countrymen the Italians say , pig liar due cojombi ad ana fava , of catchtii" * two pigeons with one bean . The odium tJieologicum is often joined with the odium politicum , the odium medicum much more rarely ; though political parties may have their pet physicians , a Radclyffean Arbuthnot , or an Akexside , there is , however , a nipst

    , superfluous onset oil Mr . Milner Gibson at the close of the letter , opportunity bring taken of the fact of Mr . Gibsox having become a candidate for Mr . Hindley ' s seat before the death of the latter < rentleman . Incoming from Mr . Hin'DLEy ' s residence , the Doctor Sieets with a Sir Charles —— , and says , " Here is a chance for you , Sir Charles , if you are anxious to return to parliament : the member for Ash ton is dying . " Sir Charles instantly communicates "this to Mr . Gibson , the repudiated member for Manchester , who , I doubt not , " pursues the letter , " lost not a moment ingoing down to Ash ton to curry favor among the people , who would soon have to exercise the privilege of voting for a new representative . " Mr . Gibson seems to have done no more than the Doctor advised Sir Charles to do , and the term " currying favour " looks

    more like private enmity than political disapproval ; it is an ill-natured term which , whether true or not , political opponents , however bitter , would not generally apply to each other ' s canvas . The pamphlet concludes with a kind of exposition of political preferences and antipathies , which we do not care to quote , -in which the names of Messrs . Mason and ASTlEY . Serjeant Shea , Messrs . Comdex , Bright , and Lord Palmerston are lightly introduced ; Messrs . Masox and Astley and the gentlemanlike and worthy Serjeant being declared to be men not -likely to " upset Lord Pahiekstqn . " .. We . might have been oonsiderablv more severe in our expressions , but we hesitate ,

    • considering Dr . Grakville's age and literary pretensions , though the former ought to have taught him more wisdom and more mo deration , ' and the latter better taste . We warn him in future that he will dS better if he confines himself to the question -at issue , without what he himself calls " episodical digression , " when it is likely to be of a censorious character . Personal reflections ought to enter as little as possible into a pamphlet on a question of science , and the " art of self-defeuce " should not imply in a professional letter what it does in the prize-ring . This matter has- now been exciting interest for some time , and may continue to do so for spine time longer ; had it been merely a nine days' wonder , we should have let it sleep , having no more taste for the exhuming of controversies than of professional characters . Mr . Lavies , the general practitioner in the case , has lately , we understand , been writing on the subject . He is the only witness to whom Dr . Graxville can be said to have referred in his pamphlet , except , as Wilberforce said in one of his speeches on the slave-trade , " the last great witness , Death . "

    One thing , at any rate , Dr . Graxville cannot be charged with ¦;» . ) , ; ,- ^ . ^ p ftj ^ f ^ igriihiaLiJin-Jcfunct . —that is . a desire to frcfcjtheir practice . He mentions in his commencement that Dr . To dp s success w . is an instance of good luck ;—this is scarcely handsome . One thing is sure , that good luck is a goddess whose name is very rarely uttered , except in a whisper , by those who are-at the top of the tree .

    May 5, I860.] , The Leader And Saturday ...

    May 5 , I 860 . ] , The Leader and Saturday Analyst . 421

    London Statues. Our London Statues, Few ...

    LONDON STATUES . OUR London Statues , few will deny , are a disgrace to our city , our nation , our civilization , and our age : they are few , they are feebly executed , and they record the fame of either the obscure or the unworthy . Let us review those that we have . There is the mean Nelson on its Stylites column in Trafalgar Square , with itshuge tape worm of rope and its emblematic anchor , the only proof the world below has that the figure in those very high latitudes * is our great naval hero , of' even an admiral at all . Of its . unfinished base , which reflects so much credit on English patriotism—on its cannons , yet lincast , and its lions , which a veteran painter is trying slowly to model , we will say nothing ; it id quite enough that Jon is at work , and Jon is another nnino for patience and slowness . Jon never hurries himself , and Nelson ' s memory will not suffer from a selfish Government's delay , which the living hero guttered from , imd vet won his victories .

    Then there is his brother Stylites on the telegraph column a little further on , with a sentinel below to see he docs not plan any more " Wulcheren cxpeditionsor leave his » o « t of duty . Why the Duke of York—unsavoury name , associated only in our national history with failures » nd intrigues , extravagance and gluttony—should be posted up on an all but eternal pillar , when MAKLHOjiouaH and Howe have none , wo leave ' political Dillyti and Piillys to answer : nil wo can * uy ia , we pity the elderly gentleman with the bill-file spike corning through the top of his head in the i > 1 hco where the hair ought to grow , us if his head had been removed from some traitor ' s spike over Tomplo Bur , and only lament that a great city should bo turned into a great Madame TushaI'd ' s Exhibition Room for royal nonentities . Ah for the mechanical merit of the Duke ' s aud Admiral ' * statues we can aay nothing , as we have never seen them , no known telescope carrying quite so far . The claims of Nelson to a Htatue , and the absurdity of the Duke of York having one , 10 one will dispute . It will take some dusty

    rummaging by deputy in the State Paper Office before the world will decide whether Charles I . was an amiable , handsome , good man , or a shameless , faithless , and dangerous tyrant . Mr . Foster has lately shown us how worthless a witness is Clarendon , and how ideal is his portrait ; perhaps , but for Vandyke we . might not have associated the martyr . with , a shipid ,. obstinate face , the index of a mind narrow as James ' s , and without his' village schoolmaster's learning ; or at all events , as a bit of antiquity , like Gogmagog at Guildhall , it might remain as a remembrance of a nation ' s vengeance , and of the terrible vengeance that wrongs unredressed will take for themselves . He , however , had merits , and there is ease about the figure , though the stirrups are gone ; and the pert rider is therefore as insecure in his saddle as he was formerly on his throne . It is worthy of an inconsistent nation that the statue of our worst English king should have the chief place of honour in London .

    The insignificant George IV . of Trafalgar Square we will not criticise—that Vitellius whose vices seem to have been unredeemed by a single virtue , was a bad son and worse husband j who forsook the women he had wived ; who left his friends to starve , has of course a statue because his manners were easy as his morals , and because the nation that despised him had no power to pull down his effigy when once erected . Nor need we waste time in ridiculing the taste that clubbed with , this royal voluptuary Dr . ' Jexxeh , the inoculating doctor , and Napier , the conqueror of Seinde—classifying a standing and seating figure with an equestrian one and a columnar one in the same square—a sublime confusion of a commercial nation trying to be tasteful , and dictated to by ignorant and pretentious dilettantes . That Jenner ' s figure is as grave and sober as Napier ' s is vulgar and flatulent we will not stop to deny .

    Passing by an experimental tame Lord Cliye by Marociietti , and returning up Pall Mall , we come to the huge block of stone that is to record not the prowess of the British army—' which' no monument is sufficiently grand to perpetuate—but the doings of the Guards , who have shared so little in our great wars , and to record whose courage is , to insult that of every other regiment , that has seen ten times as much service . A club-room , we think , had been the place for this strictly parodisal monument , and not one of the finest sites in London .

    " Nor eaii- we dismiss this subject without flinging our noticejround at that impudent-statue of the Duke , that threatens to break in the Marble . Arch—that staridingbuttforall ridicule , fi-om P « mc & upwards ; tfiat childish experiment , imitated from some . Roman example illauthenticated , and proving nothing if it were . The childish stiffs ness of the'figure , its ridiculous profile _ against the -jky , its horse with the turn-up nose , are only too-permanent examples of nineteentli-century sculpture , and the sooner it is pulled down " and remelted into door-knockers the better for London and art . In mer it it is about equal to the figures on a wedding-cake ; and an Italian image-boy had been a fool indeed could he not have modelled something better . . ¦ _ . - . , _ . ' . ' ¦ ...

    The pig-tailed George III ., of Cockspur Street , is a curiosity it were difficult to replace , otherwise one might wonder what that not very brilliant though respectable king had done to merit such . in honour—being a king in itself , is not an honour—a being a good king is the honour , let our commissioners , whoever they are , remember . ~~~ ' ¦ . . ¦ ~—¦ " ' - ¦ ¦—¦—¦ ¦ —;—Of the City , William IV ., bluff gentleman , and that quiet mediocrity in stone , Sir Robert Peel in Cheapside , not much can be said in praise . There is no reason that Peel should have , a statue in the city more than Pitt or Fox , who were , with all their faults and prejudices , much greater men . In merit , these statues go a little beyond the Coliseum Prince Albert , and not quite as far as the -Coliseum Queen Victoria , whose stucco steed prances astride that mouldy place of amusement , or did a few days ago .

    It is no credit to English sculpture that our two best London statues should both be of past centuries . There is Gibbons ' James II . behind Whitehall , a statue put decently , and with some respect to public opinion out of the way , yet not without some Roman dignity ; and the less known bronze one of Edward II . in the court-yard of St . Thomas ' Hospital , the work of the Fleming SciiEUMACKKits . Next to this , . perhaps ,, comes the Charles I . of Charing Cross , and the two brainless brothers that Cipher the Dane wrought so dexterously , and which are now iii the portico of Bedlam , where our Commissioners of taste have doubtless had opportunities of studying them . to London and to find

    An enthusiastic foreigner comes ex'pecls our squares and the vestibules of our great -buildings as full as those of the Greeks were with the statues of our great philosophers , heroes , poets , and . statesmen . Ho asks for a great general , and is shown the Duke of York ; for a great poet , and ia shown a Gloucestershire cow-pox doctor ; for a great statesman , and is shown the Farmer Kin " . Gkorcik IV . has ousted SnAKsi'EAnis , and Piiel Bacon . Cromwell is nowhere ; but there ia William IV ., a weak man , who reigned too short a time to do much mischief . He goes to the Academy , looking for Hogarth or Reynolds , and finds Wilkie ; to Bedlam , and finds it the nearest wiiy to the Adolphi . Chaucer ho sees not ; nor Bex van , nor Milton , nor Scott , nor Pox'M , nor Locttv , nor Guidon , nor Bvrox ; but ho will find Queen Anne , whom nobodyblames or praises , getting black as Candace under the great dome , and the two worst kings of . England triumphant in our public places . Fox , black as a . coal-heaver in Blooinabury , and Canning , sooty and unpresentable , looking with wonder at the groat China-plate clock on the Victoria Tower . , And what remedies for all this P asks mildly your encoring Fory dragehnin . Simply this : Let an annual vote of money ho passed

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 5, 1860, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_05051860/page/9/