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    ' LONDON . STATUES,

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    only known to be poetical , but prophetic , ' alluding' to my prediction of Nicholas ' s death . " Dr . SoUthwood Smith is , perhaps , indifferent io thjs Wow , both because it is shared with the dead , and because Dr . * Bright , strangely enough , in act seems to have sanct ioned the practice which ,, in words , he ., was condemning 1 , according to Dr . Geanville's account ' . " " We have seldom met with a writer who has a better notion of killin g two birds , or half a dozen , with one stone ; or as his original countrymen the Italians say , pig liar due colombi ad una fava , of c atching two pigeons with one bean . The odium theologicum is often the odium medicum h

    ioined with the odium politicum , mucmore rarely ; though political parties may have their pet physicians , a Badclyffe , an Arbuthnot , or an Akenside , there is , however , a most superfluous onset ou Mr . Milner Gibson at the close of the letter , opportunity baing taken of the fact of Mr . Gibson having become a candidate for Mr . Hindley ' s seat before the death of the latter o-entletaan . In corning from Mr . Hindley ' s residence , the Doctor meets with a Sir Charles , and says , " Here is a chance for you , Sir Charges , if you are anxious to return to parliament : the member for Ashton 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 in going down to Ashton 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 tfie 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 AsTLEYSerjeant Shea , Messrs . Cobdex , Bright , and Lord

    , Palmerston are lightly introduced ; Messrs . Mason and Astley and the gentlemanlike and Ayorthy Serjeant being declared to be men not likely to " upset Lord Palmerston . " We might have been -considerably more severe in our expressions , but we hesitate , considering Dr . Granville ' s age and literary preteusions , though the former ought to have taught him more wisdom and _ more moderation , and the latter better taste . We warn hinj in future flfat he wilftlo better if he confines himself ^ to the ¦ '¦ ques tion at issue , without-what he himself calls " episodical digression , " when it is likely to be of a censorious character . Personal reflections ought to of science

    enter as little a& possible into a pamphlet on a question , and the " art of self-defence " 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 inay continue to do _ so for some 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 . Granville can be said to have referred in his pamphlet , except , as Wilberforce said in one of j his speeches on the slave-trade , " the last great witness , Death . "

    One thing , at any rate , Dr . Granville cannot , be charged wjth nrHsHpaBp TneTa ^ practice . He mentions in his commencement that Dr . Todd ' s suc-. cess was 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 .

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    rummaging 1 by deputy in the State Paper- Office before the world will decide whether Chaei . es I . was an amiable , handsome , good . man , or a shameless , faithless , and dangerous tyrant . . Mr . Foster lias 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 stupid , 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 mins 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 hot criticise—that Vitellius whose vices seem to have been unredeemed by a single virtue , was a bad son and worse husband ; 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 . Jennee , the inoculating : doctor , and Napier , the conqueror of Scinde—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 Clite by Marochetti , 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 , bad been the place for this strictly parodisal monument , and not one of the finest sites in London . ¦ „

    Nor can we dismiss this subject without flinging our notice round at that impudent statue ef the Duke , that threatens to b reak in the Marble Arch—that standing butt for all-ridicule , from Punch upwards ; that childish experiment , imitated from some Roman example illauthenticated , and proving nothing if it were . The childish stiffness of the-figure ' , its ridiculous profile ~ against the sky , its horse wi £ h the ^ turn-up nose , are only too permanen , fc examples of nineteenth-century sculpture , and the sooner- it is pulled down and remelted into door-knockers the better For London and art . In merit 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 :: , _ . __ ¦ _ . . of Streetis

    The pig-tailed George III ., Cockspur , a curiosity it were difficult to replace , otherwise one might wonder what that not very brilliant though respectable king had done to merit such an honour—being a king in itself , is not an honour—a being a good i « ng-U-f . liP _ linnQur . Jet _ oiir 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 . la merit , these statues go a little beyond the Coliseum Prince Albert , and not quite as far as the Co ' liseum Queen Victoria , \ vhose 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 Itotnnn dignity ; and the less known bronze one of Edward II . m the court-vard of St . Thomas ' s Hospital , the work of the Fleming Schekmackers . Next to this , j ) erhups , comes the Charles Lot Charing Cross , and the two brainless brothers that Cibber the Dane wrought so dexterously , nnd which ore now in the portico of Bedlam , where our Commissioners of taste have doubtless had opportunities of studying them . ,...., , _ < . „ « .., to London and to find

    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 fatne of either the obscure or the unworthy . Let us review those that wehavo . There is the mean Nklson on its Stylites column in TrafalgarSquare , with itshnge 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 , or even an admiral nt nil ' . Of its unfinished base , which a't'flccts so much credit on English patriotism— -on its cannons , yet Aincast , uud its lions , which a veteran painter is trying slowly to model , 'Wo will say nothing ; it is quite enough that Job is tit work , and Jon inanother nmnc for patience and slowness . Job never hurries himself , and Nelson ' s memory will not suffer from a sellish Government ' s dclav , which the living hero suffered from ,

    and yet won his victories . Then there is his brother Stylites on the telegraph column a little . further on , with a sentinel below to see he does not plan any moro Walcheren expetlitionsor leave his post of duty . Why the Duke ¦ of York—unsavoury nnmc , associated only in our national history wilh failures nnd intrigue * , extravagance nnd gluttony—should be posted up ou mi all but otornul pillar , when JUaulhoroihju and Hpwi ? Wo liono , we leave political Dillysv and l );» llys to answer : nil wo cun say is , we pity the elderly gentleman with Hie bill-filo spike coming' through the top of hishend in the phice wlicro the hair ought to grow , m if his bend hud boon removed from some traitor ' s spike oveu . Tomplo Bar , and " only lament tlnrt a great city should be turned into a great Jtfndnma ' Titss . vud ' s Exhibition Room for royal nonentities . As for the mechanical merit of the Duke ' s aud Admiral ' s statues wo can say nothing , n * wo have never seen them , no known telescope curry ing quite so far . Thoeluiins of Nklsox to a stntuo , and the absurdity of tho Duko of York having one , ud one will dispute . It will take some dusty

    , An enthusiastic foreigner comes expects 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 , nnd is shown a Gloucestershire cow-pox doctor ; for a great statesman , and is shown the tanner King Gkokou IV . has ousted Shakrvkaue , and Peel Bacon . Cromwell is nowhere ; but there is AVilliam IV ., a weak man , who reigned too short a time to do much mischief . Ho goes to the Academy , looking for Hogarth or Reynolds , and finds Wilkiu ; to Bedlam , nnd finds it the nearest way to the Adelplu . CirAUCKR he sees not ; nor Bunyan , nor Milton , nor Scott , nor PorK , nor Lockv , nor Gihhon , nor Bvron ; but ho will find Queen Annk , wham nobody blames or praises , got ting black as Cxndack under tho creat dome , and the two worst kings of England triumphant in our public places . Fox , black ns a coal-heaver in BlooniHbury , and Canning , sooty and unpresentable , looking with wonder at tlio m-eat China-plate clock on tho Victoria Tower . . And what remedies for all this P asks mildly your sneering Tory drngchain . Simply this : Let an annual vote of moliey be passed

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

    ' London . Statues,

    ' LOxXDON STATUES ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 5, 1860, page 421, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2346/page/9/