on the top of the hideous column in Pall Mall, far removed from his creditors, as the wits of the day said; the Duke of Cumberland, an equestrian statue of the worst style, in Cavendish Square, by Cheere; the Duke of Kent, by Gagahan, in Portland Place; an equestrian statue of the late Prince Consort, by Bacon in 1873, on the Holborn Viaduct, and the gilded statue of the same Prince under the gorgeous canopy opposite to the Albert Hall. It is the fashion in some quarters to depreciate this memorial, but there is unquestionably much work of the greatest merit about it. The frieze round the base with figures in high relief, and the groups of statuary representing the four continents, and especially that of Asia by Foley, are very good. The Prince's figure, also by Foley, is not one of that sculptor's most successful works, and unfortunately an avenue has been laid out leading to the back of the statue, which is its least favourable aspect. There is certainly no monument of modern times which excites more interest, or which gives so much pleasure to the public.

Of statesmen, the first to receive the honour of a statue in the open air in London was William Pitt. His likeness by Chantrey is a striking one and not wanting in dignity, but too ponderous. Since his time four other Prime Ministers have been honoured in the same manner, and Parliament Square has been devoted specially to this purpose. Statues of Canning by Westmacott, of Peel by Behnes, of Palmerston and Lord Derby, and, lastly and very lately, of Lord Beaconsfield by Raggi, have been erected there. There remain places for two more on this sacred spot; one of these must necessarily be reserved for the only living man who was the contemporary and equal of those already there. It is to be regretted that a statue of Lord Russell has not been also erected here in place of the marble statue in the Central Hall of Westminster. It would complete the group of statesmen of the era. Of the statues, those of Derby and Palmerston are inferior and vulgar; by far the best is the most recent, that of Lord Beaconsfield; it is a statue of the greatest merit, a striking likeness, and with that expression inscrutable and slightly cynical, so well known to those who sat opposite to him in the House of Commons. It is with satisfaction that I look back to having selected this site for it, after consultation with Sir Stafford Northcote, and that it fell to my duty to take over the statue on the part of the Commissioners of Works at the ceremony of its unveiling. Looking down on the vast assembly on that occasion, with its expression of lofty unconcern, the statue seemed to invite as an inscription the well-known lines:

There is also another statue of Peel by Behnes in Cheapside, and within the last month a statue has been erected to Mr. Gladstone by Joy, in Walbrook. It should also be mentioned that there are statues by Westmacott of Charles Fox (1814) in Bloomsbury Square a figure most inappropriately represented in Roman costume, with bare arms and seated, and in other respects without a redeeming quality—of a Duke of Bedford in Russell Square, and of Lord William Bentinck, by Campbell, in Cavendish Square.

Of military heroes whom London has delighted to honour, there are two statues of the Duke of Wellington, the one in front of the Royal Exchange by Chantrey, fully up to the usual level of dignity of this sculptor, and the other by Wyatt, a monstrous colossus, lately on the top of Decimus Burton's arch at Hyde Park Corner. On the recent removal of this arch, the members of the Royal Academy unanimously petitioned that this statue should not be replaced over the archway, where its position, they said, was utterly opposed to every canon of art, and in accordance with this the Government decided that the statue was not to be re-erected on the arch. Its descent, however, has rather aggravated than reduced the difficulties connected with the statue; bad as it was when far removed from the eye, it is still worse when brought within nearer range of vision; its details are even worse than its composition as a whole; its colossal size makes it most difficult to find an appropriate place for it. On a pedestal in its present position at Hyde Park Corner it would overtop and dwarf everything else, and make it impossible to decorate further this place. A committee composed of the most eminent advisers on such a subject that could be named, and including the present Duke of Wellington, have recommended that the statue should be recast, and that another statue should be made of the great Duke, of the ordinary heroic size, better adapted to the place where, above all others, it is fitting that it should be erected.

Lord Nelson at the summit of the well-known column in Charing Cross, around which Landseer's very sketchy lions watch; the very commonplace statues of Havelock by Behnes, and of Napier by Adams; those of Lord Clyde by Marochetti, and Sir John Burgoyne by Boehm, in the garden of Carlton Terrace, and Sir James Outram on the Thames Embankment; the military trophy, in commemoration of the Crimean war, of three guardsmen surmounted by a gigantic Victory holding out wreaths in both hands, well satirised by Punch at the time as the 'quoit-thrower,' a most gloomy erection by John Bell, and the graceful column by Gilbert Scott in front of Dean's Yard and the Abbey in honour of the Westminster School contribution to the roll of honour in the same war; the so-called Achilles in Hyde Park, a copy of a statue at Rome, palmed off upon the ladies of England, and erected by them as a tribute to the Duke of Wellington, complete the list of military

monuments.

The Thames Embankment appears to have given a great incentive to the statuary art. John Stuart Mill, an interesting likeness by Woolner, almost too realistic, and which reminds one especially of his customary attitude in the House of Commons, has been placed there. Statues of Raikes the founder of Sunday schools, and of Brunel the engineer, and perhaps the worst example of modern statues, have also been erected in these gardens; while in the gardens at the back of Carlton Terrace leading to Pall Mall are Sir John Franklin, a statue than which few are regarded with greater interest by the public, and Lord Lawrence, a by no means satisfactory figure, in an attitude singularly at variance with his dignified and modest demeanour.

Elsewhere in London are Dr. Jenner in Kensington Gardens; Stephenson, the engineer, in Euston Square; George Peabody in the City; Cobden in Camden Town; Lord Byron, a statue quite unworthy of its site in Hamilton Gardens; Lord Herbert of Lea, one of the few productions we have in London of Foley, a most poetic conception, refined, graceful, and full of thought; and the more recent statue of Thomas Carlyle, by Boehm, erected in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, near to the house in which he lived so long, and one of the most interesting statues of the day, a model in design, likeness, and place, of what a memorial to such a man should be. There is also a statue in marble of Shakespeare, a copy of that in Westminster Abbey, erected at the cost of Mr. Albert Grant in Leicester Square, surrounded by busts of Newton, Reynolds, Hogarth, and Hunter, who lived in the Square. There is again the imaginative and chivalrous work of Richard the First in Old Palace Yard by Marochetti, but not well placed there.

It will be seen, then, that the total number of statues is about fifty, of which eighteen are of royal personages, and of the remainder all have been erected within the present century, and by far the larger proportion in the last twenty years. There are no statues of the greatest of English warriors, of Edward the Third, or Henry the Fifth, or Blake, or Marlborough. There is none of Cromwell. Chatham is equally without tribute of this kind. Milton, in spite of his association with London, has no recognition except that of a bust in the Abbey. To Dr. Johnson a statue has been erected at Lichfield, the place of his birth, but none in London, where nearly the whole of his life was passed and where he died. The statues by Foley of two celebrated Irishmen, Burke and Goldsmith, erected in front of Trinity College, Dublin, are among the very best works of art of modern times, but in London, where their lives were spent, there are no statues of them in the open air. It was at least to be expected that the Benchers of the Temple Inns would have done something in honour of one who was so long connected with the Temple, and who was buried in their church. A statue of Charles Dickens in some one of the many parts of London identified with his works would be appropriate. Com

pared with these it may well be doubted whether many of those to whom statues have been erected in the last twenty years are worthy of the honour. It is a question whether any statue should be erected until ten years or more have elapsed since the death of the subject. This would avoid many which are decided upon in the excitement of grief and regret immediately after death. What is still more to be deprecated is the erection of a statue during the life of its subject, except perhaps in the case of the most eminent.

In any case it is not desirable that statues should be multiplied unduly. In the view of many people, London, by reason of its climate, is unsuitable for statues in the open air, at least without canopies. It may be replied to this that the suitableness of a statue depends wholly upon the work itself. Really good works of art like the best of those which have been named are certainly not out of place even in London; they rise superior to the conditions of the atmosphere and to their environment. A bad statue, however, is intolerable; there is no escape from it; it adds to the gloom of its neighbourhood, it intensifies all other bad conditions, and is a public misfortune. A statue once erected in a public place can be removed only under most exceptional circumstances. Too great care, then, cannot be taken by the authorities in consenting to the erection of a statue. There is nothing of which it is more difficult to judge the. effect in advance. The small model of a statue may please, the fullsized cast in the studio may look well, but when the final result in bronze or marble is put on its pedestal in the place of destination, the result may be eminently unsatisfactory, and perhaps to none more so than to the artist himself. It may be a question whether, before giving final permission for the erection of a statue, it ought not to be required that a model in plaster, coloured to represent bronze, should be placed on the intended site, and whether a committee of taste should not be the final arbiters in a matter so. delicate and difficult.

Passing from the statues in the open air to monuments in churches or public buildings, we enter upon a much wider range.. Great, however, as is the number of men whom London has honoured, the places where their memorials are to be found are few. Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's, and the Houses of Parliament almost exhaust the list. There are a few monuments erected by the Corporation of London in the Guildhall. Some of the older churches which have suivived the Great Fire of London contain monuments of interest; of these, St. Helen's, Bishopsgate Street; St. Olave's, Hart Street, where Pepys was buried; the Rolls Chapel in Lincoln's Inn, the Temple Church, Chelsea Old Church, and St. Margaret's, Westminster, nearly exhaust the list, although here and there a church may contain an individual monument worthy of a visit, such as Battersea Church, where there is a monument to Bolingbroke by Roubiliac; St. Saviour's, VOL. XV.-No. 83.

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Southwark, where we find the interesting tomb of Gower, the poet; and St. Catherine's Cree, where Holbein was buried, and which contains a beautiful recumbent effigy in armour of Sir N. Throgmorton (1570). All these together, including St. Paul's, pale into nothing as compared with Westminster Abbey. It may seem to be a work almost of presumption on my part to refer to its monuments, after the singularly interesting and full treatment which they have received from one who loved the Abbey so well, and whose name will ever be associated with it, Dean Stanley. His work, however, is mainly historical, and on this side leaves nothing to be desired. On the technical side, and from the point of view of the progress of monumental sculpture, there is much still to be said, far more than I can do in the few pages of an article. If I venture to say anything on this subject, it is that for many years of my life I lived under the shade of the Abbey or in its immediate vicinity, and few people, except those connected with its services, have been more familiar with it. During the last three years I have had to deal officially with many questions in connection with the Abbey. The last time I saw Dean Stanley, I spent some time with him in inspecting the statues of the North Transept, with the object of determining a site for the monument voted by Parliament to Lord Beaconsfield. Speaking then with a long experience, I can express my conviction that there is nothing comparable with Westminster Abbey, having regard to its combination of architectural, historic, and artistic interest.

There is nowhere else in the world so long a range of monuments, from the shrine of the Confessor, the tombs of the Plantagenets, to the monuments of poets and the more recent statues of statesmen, without any break, and all set in a framework so beautiful and so full of grandeur that, much as one may take exception to many of these works of monumental sculpture, they sink into insignificance in the building, and do little or nothing to diminish the beauty of the whole, while they add to its interest. If any one doubts this, let him enter the Abbey by the door of the North Transept, and, stepping across the graves of Chatham, Pitt, and Fox, pass between the avenue of statues of Chatham, of the two Cannings, of Palmerston, of Peel; or let him enter by the Poets' Corner, and treading the tombstones of Samuel Johnson, Garrick, Macaulay, and Dickens, find himself among the monuments and records of Chaucer, Milton, Dryden, and a host of others, the boast of English literature; or let him stand in the choir, behind the altar, with the noble range of tombs of our early kings on either side; or let him be present on an occasion when one of the great men of England is laid in his last resting-place, amid a crowd of all that is most eminent, and with a 'pomp so solemn, so touching, that no other ceremony compares to it. It may be asked with confidence whether any other building can