THE WELLINGTON MONUMENT.
The announcement made recently by Lord John Manners as to the intentions of Government regarding the national Wellington Monument in St. Paul's puts a period to long and anxious dubitations in the circle of the sculptural profession, and even beyond it. We know at last that some amount of good faith is to be kept, and some respect paid to the principle of competition laid down by the Government itself; and that the sculptors of all the world were invited to send in designs not solely in order that the forthcoming job might be of grander dimensions when Baron Marochetti, who declined to compete, should receive the com- mission. So, at least, it stands settled for the present : another turn in the political wheel may, for aught we know, oust, along with the Ministry, all their arrangements for the monument. Giving Lord John Manners credit for honourable intentions, we cannot augur well from his decision. He adheres to the conditions, express or implied, so far as to commission the sculptor who received the first prize, but not so far as to commission that gentleman's actual design. For de- sign he goes to another of the competitors, Mr. Stevens, and tells the chief prizeman that he is welcome to carry out that, if he likes. But this is only one stage in the general plan : the whole work of the mono. ment is to be under the superintendence of Mr. Penrose, the surveyor of St. Paul's, and the mortuary chapel is to receive pictorial, as well as sculptural, decoration. There is an old proverb about too many cooks which may prove too applicable to the work before it is finished. To some extent, however, it may be said that each man is in his place—the architect proper to control, the sculptor-architect to furnish the general design, the sculptor proper to put it in shape, and the painter to add a grace to the whole : but we do not see how it is well possible to get a satisfactory result out of one man set to carve the design of another— especially when the former may not unnaturally consider it a grievance that his own design is not being executed.
As regards the individual merits of the artists, the grounds of hope continue unassured. Mr. Stevens's design was that of a Venetian sepul- chral monument, with the effigy of the Duke at rest on his canopied tomb, and his equestrian living figure above. Such a design makes no pretence to originality, but follows a fine type, Christian and human, with vile allegory, elegated at least to the accessory features, if present at all. Mr. Stevens was one of the few competitors deserving a fair share of approval ; and he commands a vigour of pose and grouping which might have brought the design to an honourable issue. How it will fare in the hands of Mr. Calder Marshall, to whom the execution stands con- fided, we forecast ruefully enough. The artist is but vapid in his own works, and will too probably be doubly so over another man's design. We would much rather have seen the commission bestowed upon Mr. Thornycroft for the design which we pointed out from the first as the most worthy of execution.
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