minds of our great public characters. It is a self on every observer, of their certain, gradual fact not generally known that the anticipation deterioration. Who that traces them down from of what will happen after their deaths in the the equestrian figure of Charles the First at monumental way is continually preying on the Charing-cross, to that of Queen Anne in front minds of our more distinguished soldiers and of St. Paul's, and (still descending) by the gallant politicians, and that when LORD JOHN RUSSELL old Hanoverian in Cockspur-street, to the unis observed to wear a clouded and thoughtful speakable horrors of Trafalgar-square and Conbrow as he sits in his place in parliament, it is stitution-hill, can fail to own this? There is a not that he is occupied with Reform, but with sure but terrible progress in crime ending in the miserable figure that he will cut in after abysses almost too low to contemplate. Nemo ages when occupying one of the vacant pedestals repente turpissimus; and no nation could sudin Trafalgar-square. denly be guilty of the statue of Napier in our metropolitan Forum. That last stage has been approached slowly through many steps in villany, and the final degradation has been attained by a gradual process, which your servant has it in his thoughts to trace.

Who knows how many illustrious persons are kept back by this dread of posthumous perpetuation, or what valuable services we are losing by reason of the dread which exists in men's minds of figuring one day at the top of a pillar, or alongside of the pump in the square. With the exception of those figures which, The risk of such ultimate honours is enough to being let into niches, form rather a part of our deter any man from a public career. How dearly street architecture than assert themselves as inwere the glories of the late Duke of Wellington dependent features of metropolitan decoration, purchased at the expense of such suffering as he-with the exception of these, the Equestrian must have endured every time he looked out of Charles the First, at the top of Parliament-street, window, or passed the Royal Exchange on his is the earliest of the London out-door statues. way to London-bridge. We cannot expect The earliest, and the best. It is what it propeople to run these risks, and many a rising fesses to be: a portrait of the king on horseman turns his attention to trade or stock-back. In subsequent times a Roman madness broking, or, which is safer still, to the Fine Arts, rather than to war or politics, with the dread of a statue before his eyes.

It is proposed by your Eye-witness to take a rapid glance at the statues with which our town is ornamented, with a view of ascertaining what is the exact amount of their claim on our admiration, and of their superiority to those wooden structures which we are in such a hurry to get rid of. Before, however, making these researches, it is only right to premise that no critical mention will be made of the fox-hunter on horseback in Mr. Nicoll's shop-window, nor of any of those statues of Higlilanders which guard the doors of our more ancient snuffshops.

Does any one get any satisfaction out of the London statues? Does any one ever look at them without a shudder? Surely not. The fact is, that till lately it has been the practice to erect these monuments on such exalted pedestals that it was impossible to see them, by reason of the brightness of the sky behind their faces. The likenesses of George Canning in front of Westminster Hall, and of Mr. Pitt in Hanoversquare, are both invisible; and as to Nelson and the Duke of York, they may see each other, it is true, being about on a level, but to the world at large their countenances are as those of veiled prophets, inscrutable in an aërial perspective of smoke and mist. These two pillar-saints (as St. Simeon Stylites, and others of similar habits with the Duke of York and Nelson were called) have decidedly the best of it up in the clouds, and the others, given over to the blacks and the dust, enjoy, it must be confessed, but a sorry time of it.

Perhaps the most lamentable and disheartening thing of all in connexion with the London statues, is the conviction which must force it

came upon us, and took such hold of us too, that no man was represented as he was, but was tortured into the most Roman aspect that his features would (or wouldn't) admit of. Charles the First at Charing-cross is dressed as he was dressed, is seated on such a saddle as he was in the habit of using, and is accommodated with stirrups ; a luxury which we shall feel the want of presently when we glance for a moment at our more modern Equestrians. That is surely a good likeness of Charles. It has that unimposing appearance which we associate with him, and which even the noblest costume that man ever wore could not wholly counterpoise. He has an unlucky look. In a word, it is the aspect of a man who, as a king, would get into just such a false position as we have seen him in, in a recent admirable work referred to in these present pages, intruding where his inferiors were his masters, where his subjects were at home and on their own ground, and he, their king, nothing better than a rash and unwelcome intruder. This is the portrait of such a man; one who would have failed even in smaller transactions than those in which his fate involved him, but would have borne his failure sweetly and even heroically to the last. It is not an impressive presence: the lion supporting the arms on the pedestal is grinning at the spectator, as if he thought royalty a joke, and the horse on which the king is riding takes the liberty of cocking his head on one side as he trots along in the most unconcerned manner. Surely the sculptor who would impress you with the rider should make the horse sensible of the importance of his burden, and gravely attentive to his business. This horse of Charles's is a humorous animal who doesn't care twopence for his master or anybody else, and has a disparaging twist about the corners of his mouth which would do very well for an equestrian statue

of Rabelais or Cervantes, but not for the charger of a king. There is a lineal descendant of this animal in Cavendish-square, and a near relative in the enclosure of St. James's. The race in the present day has still some representative, and it was only yesterday that your servant saw two highly comic leaders in a hearse, which were exactly of this statuesque type, and which were in unseemly spirits, and uninfluenced by any sense of propriety.

but very dreadful and dirty Roman who resides among the bushes in the centre of the St. James's-square enclosure. Is it, or is it not, the case that this Roman, like him of Whitehall, is pointing with his forefinger at the ground? The natural answer to this inquiry would be that the writer who asks this question had better go and look. He would do so willingly, but he is afraid. There is an inconceivable horror about that figure which surely strikes all who behold it. Whether it is because this Roman, being a Roman, is secreted among the privet in the middle of that enclosure; whether it is because he is such an inconceivably and appallingly black Roman; or from what other cause the feeling may arise, certain it is, that that figure and its horse are supernaturally horrible objects. Surely no child ever ventures near that statue. Surely even the St. James's cats give it a wide berth. The little dapper clean Roman in Golden-square

he is pointing too-is quite another affair, and has nothing alarming about him except, considering his situation, his supernatural cleanliness.

While considering these recluses of our squares, it would be wrong to forget the dismallest statue in the dismallest enclosure, in the dismallest square, in the dismallest neighbourhood of our dismal capital. This is a figure of Queen Anne, She is repre

sceptre, which lie beside her on the top of a small but bulbous column, and is saying to her audience, "I'll put that up there, too, presently."

To such a personage as should judge only by the external indications of our capital it would infallibly appear that, after the time of Charles the First, some strange freaks had been indulged in, in the way of costume. Indeed, in taking leave of the statue of the royal martyr, we bid good-by for a while to realities in dress, and the next kind of costume that found favour was either partially or completely of a Roman order. There is a very good specimen of this Roman rage in the statue of James the Second, at the back of Whitehall. There is something inconceivably dismal about that figure and the place in which it stands. Turned away from the great building, and apparently pointing at a special place on the pavement, it strikes one at first that it must have been arranged with some peculiar object, and that some deed of horror must have taken place on the spot which the finger indicates. There was, indeed, a ru-in Queen-square, Bloomsbury. mour ouce in circulation that the figure was sented (with that stiffness of action about the pointing at the spot on which Charles the First neck which such feats necessitate) balancing a was beheaded. An interesting theory this, and small crown which does not enclose any part of one which would have completely elucidated the her head but lies lightly on the top of it. She difficulty of the finger, but for one or two obsti-is at the same time pointing to a cushion and nate circumstances which oppose, as facts sometimes will, perfect and otherwise unanswerable theories. Charles was executed on the other side of the building, and on a scaffold level with the first-floor windows. The real explanation of the difficulty is this: the statue of James once held in its hand that inevitable truncheon without which no well-conducted Roman could exist. The truncheon, held with the forefinger along it, has slipped out of the hand, and hence the action. This is surely a valuable lesson to our modern sculptors-some of whom, to this day, affect the truncheon for many of their military characters-to make this convenient weapon, if possible, of the same piece as the hand which holds it, or if this may not be, to weld and secure it in its place with such cunninglydevised solderings and cements as shall defy the action of even such winters as that of 1859-60. The importance of this caution must not be overlooked, as there is no telling what effect might be produced by other such truncheon removals as this which has taken place at the back of Whitehall. Were the bâton, for instance, which is at present held in the hand of the first gentleman in Europe, as he sits on horseback in Trafalgar-square, —were this instrument to slip its moorings, this august monarch would look as if he was just going to slap his thigh, and cry out, "Why, bless my life and heart, I've come out without my hat!"

There is a certain comparatively modern,

The recluse of Soho-square is so mutilated, so strangely clad in a mixture of armour and periwig, is withal so hemmed in and surrounded with props and woodworks, that it is not very easy to make out anything about him; while the slaughterous Duke of Cumberland who is imprisoned in the Cavendish enclosure, would not, to judge by the pace at which he is going, be a recluse at all if he could help it. The Duke of Bedford and Charles James Fox, in their respective squares of Russell and Bloomsbury, have got so near the railings that they can hardly be called recluses at all, and are almost as well off, and as completely public characters, as Mr. Pitt and my Lord Bentinck, who have got outside the railings altogether, and are free of the town and its pleasures.

But what does our uneducated friend, who judges of the history of British costume by our monumental records, what does he make of the changes in our habits all this time? Immediately after the reign of Charles the First he finds that a Roman conquest takes place, and that very soon the ordinary walking costume of a gentleman consisted of a toga, or hair cutting wrapper; a short skirt, composed apparently of strips of stamped leather, with a crown piece at the bottom of each length; of sandals with

leggings, which could never by any possibility innocuous instrument to look at. What the -short of a piece of "elastic," which was not truncheon was to the Roman, however, that trethen invented-be kept up, and of a crown of mendous scroll was to the Grecian of the days laurels and a loose pigtail tied at the back with of the Regency. Catch a public character at ribbon. He would observe, further, that the that time without it. "I hold in my hand" is English gentleman of this period never stirred still a legend of the House of Commons, which out without that truncheon, of which mention probably originated in the scroll period. The has already been made. Charles the Second at illustrious men of that time were nearly all proChelsea Hospital has such a weapon, and is vided with a blanket, but there is no exception indeed, in all respects, a model Roman. This whatever to the scroll, or the uncomfortable statue, as well as that at the back of Whitehall, things which they do with it. Mr. Pitt, in Hawas put up by a gentleman of the remarkable nover-square, is using it as a prop. Canning's name of Tobias Rustick, who, having some disgust is shown by an endeavour to crumple up small place about the court, thought he could and put out of sight this tiresome accompaninot do better than spend some of its proceeds ment of his official position. Perhaps the only in bronze Romans. member of this Grecian assembly who is thoroughly resigned to his scroll, and who has made up his mind to accept it and all that it involves, with a good grace, is Mr. Fox, who is sleepily and sullenly indifferent on this as on all other points.

woman

gredients already mentioned being the principal articles required. With these, a pair of rather mysterious tights, and nothing else-no, not so much as a crown of laurels-the reader may, if he likes, set up in business as a Grecian to-morrow. The only difficulty is with regard to the tights, which are so vague about the region where they join the shoe, that one is sometimes tempted to believe that the wearer of these sinister garments has no shoe, but is dressedwere such a thing possible-in stockings with a sole (double) fastened on to them.

Almost coeval with these noble Romans, the student of British costume finds in front of St. Paul's a figure of a lady in a dress of another description. The short and gentle sway of Anne is commemorated not only by the dismal figure already spoken of in Queen-square, The wardrobe of a noble Grecian seems to be Blooms bury, and by another, in another Queen-perfectly simple and inexpensive, the two insquare, Westminster, but by a statue of the queen in her "habit as she lived," standing in the enclosed space before St. Paul's Cathedral. There is a great beauty and piquancy in the way in which this figure stands this little, weak backed by the huge structure of "Paul's," and by its thundering dome. The attitude of Anne is quiet and feminine, and the contrast between her small stature and the almost ostentatious grandeur of the magnificent cathedral is greatly to the advantage of both. With the figure of Anne and that mentioned before of Charles the First, the list of those The Grecians bring us down to comparatively London statues that one cares twopence about modern times; to the Achilles in Hyde Park, in comes to an abrupt end; that of George the yet more simple costume than the above-named Third in Cockspur-street, though superior to philosophers his outfit consisting of a long some of more recent date, being hardly of much jack-towel and a shield; to the Duke of Welinterest to any of us. It is, by-the-by, ques-lington as he appears on Constitution-hill, and tionable whether an out-door equestrian should before the Royal Exchange; to the Duke of be represented with his hat in his hand. The York, Nelson, and the other glories of Trafalsensation-and the writer has experienced it-gar-square: to wit, "the first gentleman," Sir of seeing such a figure rained upon violently Charles Napier, Jenner, and the Northumberbeing a dreadfully uncomfortable one, and quite land House Lion. different from what one experiences in seeing a torrent fall upon those statues which have left their head-coverings hanging on the hat-pegs at

home.

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What a thing it would be if we could make a clean sweep of these, all except the last! What thing if we could get up one morning and find Trafalgar-square a tabula rasa! What inconAnd now comes a time when, in losing sight sistent people we are! We rave and roar about of George the Third's pigtail, and of the coat- an Indicator lamp in Piccadilly, and while strainskirts of good Captain Coram as he stands be-ing at this poor gnat we swallow a camel-would fore the Foundling Hospital, we part company again with realities in dress and plunge back again into the classic regions-not this time of Rome, but-of Greece. If a Roman conquest took place in the reign of Charles the Second, it is equally certain that a Grecian descent was made upon this capital in that of the fourth George, and that a horde of fierce philosophers, armed with blankets and scrolls, took undisputed possession at that period of our unhappy country. It is a triumph to those gentry to have conquered us with such weapons, of which the blanket appears to be the more formidable, the scroll itself being, to say the truth, a flabby and

that it were a camel-in the shape of the Wellington statue. Is there no getting rid of that statue? Will the censuring gentleman from the Isle of Wight who placards the walls on the subject of his indignantly meeting the men of London at St. Martin's Hall meet them on this subject? Can no Indignation meeting" be got up about it? Is there no ingenious chemist who can invent some subtle and devouring acid with which we might play upon that monster through a fire-engine, and which would slowly undermine its hated Constitution? Surely this might be done, and what joy it would be to see such a force beginning to tell-to imagine the

first hints of dissolution, the first falling away no statues on the river-though would to in that noble nose, the first symptoms of corrosion in the cocked-hat. Can no one start a panic in connexion with this figure and persuade us that it is dangerous during high winds to leave it exposed at so great an altitude? The writer of this paper is poor, but will cheerfully put down his subscription towards any scheme that shall have for its object the destruction of this monster, and also the annihilation of Sir Charles Napier and Dr. Jenner.

Heaven there were several in it. So we come to the base of the monument raised to the fourth William's august brother in Trafalgar-square. But what has this worthy gentleman got on? A curtain, with cords and tassels complete, hangs upon his shoulders; sculptors' tights with soles as before, are on his legs; on his head is a beautiful wig, and in his hand a truncheon. There are bounds to all things, even to royal meekness: "I come out without my hat, without my trousers, I ride without a saddle or stirrups, but stir from home without my truncheon, I will NOT." This is the speech of the Royal George.

In the annals of failure and hideousness, is there an instance of such abject and desperate badness as is manifested in our recent experiments in sculpture? Let the reader judge for himself: let him take the Demon of Constitu- This instrument being of a winning and irretion-hill to start with, and after examining him sistible order, one is surprised to find a great from various points of view-by no means omit-general like Sir Charles Napier putting up with ting that which is to be obtained in the centre the civilian's scroll. What right has Sir Charles of the park-after thoroughly mastering this Napier to take the wind out of the sails of his terrific phenomenon, and reaching a condition in neighbour, the imbecile Jenner, by having a rival which he doubts the evidence of his senses as scroll in his hand? Sir Charles has a sword too, to the existence of anything so preposterous with which he might have made play; a beaulet him proceed to Cavendish-square, and take tiful hooked sword, like the outline of his own an observation of the memorial raised to my eagle nose. In every way the unhappy Jenner Lord George Bentinck. Consider that monu- is vilely used, and is taken so little account of ment well. Can feebleness go beyond that? by the Trafalgar-square authorities as a statue, Can a cloak-which is in itself a bleak and de- that a thumping lamp on the pedestal corresolate garment-can a cloak be held more feebly sponding to that which the doctor occupies, is than by that eminent statesman's left hand? considered a proper pendant to him. Can human legs be conceived by the richest imagination more hopeless than those? They are clad in strapped and damp unmentionables, and have obviously suggested that well-known but aggravating cartoon, with which we are all but too familiar-the Sydenham trousers. If that statue has not the Sydenham trousers to answer for, what has?

But how to get a look at Nelson? that is the question. One can see him, it is true, on the base in certain phases of his existence, in all of which he appears to be seventy years old and seven feet high. There is too much cordage about this monument; a rope has doubtless a captivating twist in it which it must be pleasant to tackle in clay, but we should be moderate in the Perhaps the beautiful portrait of the late Sir use of such pleasures. One can get a sight of Robert Peel has. This statue, at the west end Nelson, then, on the base; but how to inspect of Cheapside, another of our comparatively the figure, to honour which that base exists at recent efforts, seems also to have had a share in all, is the difficulty. It is vain to ascend the the Sydenham trousers. The responsibility of steps of the National Gallery; for from thence calling that design into existence seems to rest one can only see the hero's back, with a cable about equally upon-not the shoulders, but-tail-more rope-peeping from between his the legs of these two politicians. In both the figures we observe, to our joy, the reappearance of the scroll-with paper three-quarters of an inch thick, and with a tight curl in it, awkward to write on it would seem, and aggravatingly ready to roll up again of its own accord when referred to in debates.

Having now got within that extraordinary and elastic phenomenon called "a stone's throw" of the Royal Exchange and King William-street, it may be well to visit the two statues which adorn those sites. Beyond a wild yearning for stumps in the case of the equestrian, and a savage joy at the reappearance of new phases of the blanket, with its spiral fold, and of the truncheon, in the case of the pedestrian figure, we shall be disposed to waste no thought on these two works of art, which are incapable of suggesting anything-no, not the Sydenham We shall fly before them, and, taking a river steamer, return to Charingcross, congratulating ourselves that there are

trousers even.

coat-flaps. It is useless to descend Parliamentstreet. It is madness to go near, as you can then only see the capital of the pillar. It is frenzy to go far off, for then you can see nothing. There are only two places this statue can be seen from: the back of the Lion on Northumberland House, and the top of the Duke of York Column.

His Grace the Duke of Northumberland being that peer whom your Eye-witness does not know, the back of his Grace's lion was an inaccessible spot, and so the only thing to do was to adopt the other, or Duke of York alternative. And this was the more desirable, because your servant, in seeking to estimate truly the nature of the statue at the top of that pillar, had arrived at certain conclusions respecting it as seen from below with which it was impossible to remain for a moment satisfied. Seen from below, it had appeared to your Eye-witness that this royal personage was dressed in a mantle, a breastplate, a pair of drawers, and a lightning