St. Paul's
Cathedral.

Westmin

commemorate deeds of war, and to incite to their emulation, placed in a Christian church. This, too, in a country remarkable for its many conventional hypocrisies. One who should, for the first time, visit Saint Paul's Cathedral in London, and after viewing the numerous statues and medalions it contains, with the figures of Mars and Victory, of Neptune and of Fame, and with all their attendant lions, and tigers, and cannons, and flags, should then observe the blood-stained standards taken in battle which hang from its dome, might well be excused if he imagined himself in a pantheon of military honour, or a temple of Mars, rather than in a cathedral erected for the worship of God.

Nor are the ideas naturally excited by viewing the ster Abbey. various monuments to men of letters and of genius, which fill what is called "the Poet's Corner" in Westminster Abbey, in much better unison with the sacred purpose of the edifice in which they are placed. Both alike tend to arouse emotions, excellent and important indeed, in themselves, but still misplaced.

And this practice of placing purely secular monuments in religious edifices is also open to three additional and grave objections. The first, that it places in the dean and chapter of a cathedral for the time being a Objections most irresponsible and dangerous power of deciding summarily, and without appeal, on the pretensions in general, and on the religious and moral principles in particular, of any individual of celebrity, to whom it may be proposed to erect a public monument, in the only place provided or sanctioned by custom for that purpose.

to this system.

This objection has been so recently and importantly illustrated in respect of a proposed statue to the memory of Lord Byron, that it may be useful to quote the petition of Col. Leicester Stanhope, as inserted in the

Journals of the House of Commons.

and needs no comment:

"The humble Petition of Leicester Stanhope,

Sheweth,

It is as follows,

That your petitioner, in deep admiration of the genius of the late Lord Byron, was one of a body of subscribers to a monumental statue to be erected to his memory in some national edifice.

That, in consequence of a vote of a committee appointed to carry the above intention into effect, a letter was written to Thorwalsden, requesting him to execute the statue, to which letter the following answer, highly honorable to the writer, was returned:

"JE viens de recevoir votre lettre, avec laquelle vous m'honorez du commandement d'une statue pour le monument de votre illustre concitoyen Lord Byron. Avec un plaisir inexprimable je me mettrai à un ouvrage qui remettra à la postérité la mémoire du grand génie déjà assez rénommé par ses œuvres et par son talent. De mon coté, je vous assure de toutes mes soins, afin que ce travail soit digne du comité qui l'ordonne, et du grand poëte que j'ai connu, et dont je regretterai la perte à jamais. Dans ce travail je n'ai point d'egards à mon intêrêt, de manière que je voudrois bien, si vous voulez, faire pour ce prix (£1,000 sterling) sur le pedestal un bas relief, qui fasse allusion au mérite du défunt. Aussitôt que j'aurai la réponse je commencerai à travailler au monument pour tâcher de l'achever le plus vite possible. Avec toute l'estimation possible je me dis,

"A Monsieur Hobhouse.

"Votre très humble serviteur, ALBERT THORWALSDEN."

That Thorwalsden having executed the statue, it arrived in England in 1834; and that, immediately on its arrival, the committee having decided that Westminster Abbey would be the fitting place for its erection, an application was made by Sir J. C. Hobhouse to the Dean of Westminster, who returned the following answer, addressed to Mr. Murray:

"I have not had the opportunity, till this morning, of consulting with the chapter on the subject of your note.

When you formerly

applied to me for leave to inter the remains of Lord Byron within this abbey, I stated to you the principle on which, as churchmen, we were compelled to decline the proposal. The erection of a monument in honour of his memory, which you now desire, is, in its proposition, subject to the same objection. I do, indeed, greatly wish for a figure by Thorwalsden here, but no taste ought to be indulged to the prejudice of a duty.

"To John Murray, Esq.

Yours truly,

JOHN IRELAND."

That, ever since the refusal of the dean to admit the statue of the deceased poet into Westminster Abbey, the statue, which is said to be the finest work of the immortal sculptor, has remained inclosed in its box at the Custom House, thus depriving the living of the contemplation of a great work of art, with all its heart-stirring associations; and the dead of the honours due to him, and which are reflected back on his country.

That, under these circumstances, your petitioner, humbly prays your honorable House to take such steps as shall seem best, in your wisdom, to induce the temporary keeper of a national edifice to open its doors to the statue of a man who has added lustre to the English name, and whose orthodoxy cannot be fairly judged of in works of fiction, and whose religious opinions, not being known to his most intimate friends, could not be known to the dean and chapter of Westminster, or justly subject to condemnation by the censors of the reformed church.

And your petitioner will ever pray.

The second objection is, that under this system, monuments erected merely by the personal predilection of friends to persons of no distinction at all, are, for the sake of the fees, permitted to be placed in juxta-position with those which commemorate public gratitude for great national services and extraordinary mental endowments. And of this, it is the natural and inevitable

Supplement to the Votes and Proceedings. -Lunæ, 13° die Augusti, p. 191, 1838.

effect to lessen the value of the honour in the cases wherein it is really deserved.

The third, and most serious objection, is the tendency of this system to impede and postpone all measures for the provision of a Pantheon, or GALLERY OF NATIONAL HONOUR, worthy of the British people. No nation on the earth can boast a larger number of truly great and illustrious men, but none has made such small provision for their public honour, or for inciting others to emulate and excel them.

These questions, which were asked thirty years ago, yet wait to be answered :-"What civilized nation of the ancient or modern world has less endeavoured to stimulate its genius or perpetuate its fame? Where are our temples and public halls dedicated to honour and national glory-decorated with the trophies of our conquests, and the animated representation of those scenes in which they were achieved-dignified by the statues of our captains, our statesmen, our poets, and our philosophers, producing exultation in the native, admiration in the stranger, and enthusiasm in the rising race? A melancholy memorial is set up occasionally in the gloom of St. Paul's,* or amongst the tombs of Westminster Abbey, in which the genius of the Sculptor is cramped, in a common-place repetition of hackneyed attributes, and exhausted emblems; and is never called upon but to succeed the sepulchral pageantries of the

*I am glad to perceive that the sentiments I have expressed on this point agree with those of the dean and chapter of St. Paul's, who, in a memorial addressed to Lord John Russell, in 1837, observe, “that a church ought not to be regarded in the light of a gallery of art, or of a place of public exhibition, and that no use ought to be made of it, which tends to lower the reverential feeling of those who resort to it, or to impair its sacred character."

Free admis

sion of the

undertaker, in paying the last honours to departed heroism. Why are the testimonials of national gratitude delayed till their object is insensible to the glory they confer?"*

Whether therefore we regard either the sacred character of a christian church, or that judicious control which must be exercised over the erection of public monuments, in order to make them really testimonials of national honour, or that appropriate magnificence, which ought to mark a people's estimation of its greatest benefactors, we equally arrive at the conclusion, that the practice hitherto pursued is injurious to our holy religion, obstructive of our progress in the Arts, and unworthy the memory of the many illustrious men who have adorned our country.

In connexion with this subject, an important point public to yet remains to be noticed, that of the restrictions which at present obstruct the admission of the public to edifices in which national monuments have been erected.

National

Monu

ments.

However much it is to be regretted that monuments not purely sepulchral have ever been admitted into our sacred buildings, there appears to be a gross inconsistency in erecting such monuments at the public expense, and then excluding the public from viewing them except on the payment of fees. No person can be an improper applicant for admission to our churches, unless his purpose be such as will not be impeded by the demand of a paltry admission fee, while it is certain that such a demand, be the sum ever so trivial, will inevitably operate to the exclusion of some, whom it is on all accounts desirable to admit. And whatever mis

Elements of Art, p. 366, note.

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