minds of our great public characters. It is a
fact not generally known that the anticipation
of what will happen after their deaths in the
monumental way is continually preying on the
minds of our more distinguished soldiers and
politicians, and that when LORD JOHN RUSSELL
is observed to wear a clouded and thoughtful
brow as he sits in his place in parliament, it is
not that he is occupied with Reform, but with
the miserable figure that he will cut in after
ages when occupying one of the vacant pedestals
in Trafalgar-square.

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.
The risk of such ultimate honours is enough to
deter any man from a public career. How dearly
were the glories of the late Duke of Wellington
purchased at the expense of such suffering as he
must have endured every time he looked out of
window, or passed the Royal Exchange on his
way to London-bridge. We cannot expect
people to run these risks, and many a rising
man turns his attention to trade or
stockbroking, 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 Highlanders which
guard the doors of our more ancient
snuff-shops.

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 Hanover-
square, 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 aerial 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
itself on every observer, of their certain, gradual
deterioration. Who that traces them down from
the equestrian figure of Charles the First at
Charing-cross, to that of Queen Anne in front
of St. Paul's, and (still descending) by the gallant
old Hanoverian in Cockspur-street, to the
unspeakable horrors of Trafalgar-square and
Constitution-hill, can fail to own this? There is a
sure but terrible progress in crime ending in
abysses almost too low to contemplate. Nemo
repente turpissimus; and no nation could
suddenly 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.

With the exception of those figures which,
being let into niches, form rather a part of our
street architecture than assert themselves as
independent features of metropolitan decoration,
—with the exception of these, the Equestrian
Charles the First, at the top of Parliament-street,
is the earliest of the London out-door statues.
The earliest, and the best. It is what it
professes to be: a portrait of the king on horse-
back. In subsequent times a Roman madness
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