POSTERITY'S OPINION OF THE ALBERT-CHALLLS STATUE.
IT has been said that the opinions expressed respecting us in foreign parts are as the judgment of a contemporaneous posterity: according to this rule, the opinion which we receive from a distant part of the Continent upon the Challis statue project shows that it will not altogether meet posterity's approval. It is one of the most surprising instances of quiet submission to compulsion that we remember. People at home who suffer the compulsion cannot cry out; etiquette forbids : they must go a great distance, or cry out through remote channels, to relieve their feelings. In society, and especially, we believe, about the Court, there is a strong sense of this coercion ; subscriptions cannot be refused, whatever the opinion of the donor may be. Some few, who have refused, did so perhaps simply because they were told that they Could not: but there are few who have the firmness to vindicate their independ- ence even when their dependence was roundly asserted. They submitted although it was generally supposed that the project was made without the assent of the Court, and even against its wishes.
One of the boasts of our constitution is that there shall be no taxation without representation : but here is a tax extorted by the most powerful of all coercions in England, and certainly without adequate representation at the irregular Parliament which regis- tered the edict for the impost. The Sovereign is expressly ex- cluded from taxation, and one lost his head in the ineffectual at- tempt to recover the privilege. Yet we have a Lord Mayor enjoy- ing a power which is denied to the Crown—enjoying it, too, not only within the City, but exacting his benevolence from West- minster and from the country at large.
The extent to which this compulsion goes is truly marvellous. Some surprise has been expressed, that the Prince, who is made the pretext of exacting this tax, has not refused to be implicated in the affair—has not declined to serve as a stalking-horse in pur- suing for a subscription to immortalize ex-Lord Mayor Challis—to immortalize him in connexion with an event which owed nothing to the said ex-Lord Mayor, and to filch a baronetcy for that worthy citizen. The good sense which has hitherto distinguished the Prince naturally led to the expectation of his refusalf • and as he has not indulged his own feeling, the fact proves to What a high point the coercion must have reached. If the l'rince Consort will not venture to put his veto upon the projeot,..vie must remember that it requires some nerve for a member:of the Royal Family to offend a Lord Mayor. Contrasts are drawn between the subscription to the Challis statue and the subscription to a statue of Newton. But the dif- ference can easily be accounted for. It has taken eight months to collect seven hundred pounds for the Newton statue; it took eight
Jays to collect about as many thousands for the Challis statue. But then, besides the compulsion under which men have paid an addi- tional income-tax for Alderman Challis's hobby, it would not occur to many, that while it would take a very great amount of monument to commemorate a Challis, Isaac Newton needs no stone. The Exposition of All Nations, which is by a curious eircumbendibus to commemorate a Challis, has passed away ; but a philosopher who likened himself to a child picking up pebbles on the beach finds his monument ready-made in the firmament. Newton's will live as long as mankind shall last to contemplate the stars. New- ton was not'anxions about his own immortality,—as, indeed, we are seldom anxious respecting that of which we are certain : it is quite natural, however, that the Challis should lay stratagems in order that he [tiny walk down to posterity arm in arm with Prince A1bert..1 it is a proof of his Highness's condescension that he con- sents to.pet fats usher in the presence of Posterity for the ambitious Alderman. The Prince is the Sinbad of that prospective voyage, the Challis is Ills Old Man of the Sea : an analogy which suggests a striking idea for the sculptor appointed to execute Alderman Challis's hobby.
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