The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-02 00:00:00

THE CLYDE MEMORIAL FUND,

A year has not elapsed since there was in the midst
of us, in the full possession of a great and well-de- I
served reputation, an old soldier whose career was
an illustration of military merit and success as well
a proof of the liberality of the most exclusive of our
institutions. A Field-Marshal and a Peer of the
realm at the end of his life, the poor Scotch lad who
had for many years stood in the cold shade which
was afterwards lightened up by such unusual sun-
shine at last received every honour his country could
bestow on him while living. A nation mourned him
when dead. The nobles of the land crowded round
his grave, and beneath the roof of Westminster
Abbey, when he was borne to his rest, they stood
shoulder to shoulder with the soldiers who had fol-
lowed their chief to victory. It is needless to reca-
pitulate the incidents of a life in which the events
were only recorded under the name of famous vic-
tories or the unregistered procession of yearly ser-
vices till the magnum opus was accomplished, and
India was subjugated to the direct rule of her new
Empress. But in all his long term of soldierhood
Colin Campbell, who never made an enemy, except
of those whose friendship natures like his should
shun, and who never sought a friend whose enmity
honest men should not avoid, was, we venture to say,
the most complete exponent of a British soldier's
interests, feelings, passions, emotions, as he surely
was the most remarkable exemplification of the cer-
tainty of recognition which opportunity gives to
professional excellence. If he was especially proud
of the bonneted battalions whom be led in the Crimea
and in India, there was no General so prodigal of
praise to all when it was deserved, and so ready to
censure his favoured legions when he thought die-
praiee was deserved. Englishmen, Welshmen,
Scotchmen, and Irishmen he includes in the words
" British soldier," and no one ever better knew the
character of that composite being than the ci-devant
subaltern of the 9th Foot and the Colonel-in-
Chief of the Coldstream Guards. It would be
exaggeration to describe his military attributes
as genius; it would be injustice to designate his
military acquirements as short of consummate sol-
diership. No man ever rose above the level of his
fellows to whom a national monument on a become
ing scale was more fully due. The sight of such a
work would be an animating incentive to the sol-
dier, and a gratifying acknowledgment of the value
of services in the field. The imputation which rests
on us to a certain extent of neglecting the more
sentimental agencies by which men are wrought up
to great deeds would lose its smallest basis if such
"-meetings-as that which assembled to set the Clyde
Memorial on foot were more common. It is only of
late years, however, that the idea of doing honour
to the dead by the erection of statues in public
places has been expanded beyond the claims of
royalty itself, many concessions to which had been
better left unmade. Mural monuments and tables
in cathedrals and churches, urns and columns in
birthplaces and the like, were our most general
forms of expressing gratitude to men who fell in the
service of their country, or secured signal national

triumphs.
We all know how crowded our cathedral walls
are with graceless monuments, brasses, and slabs
which are a transient wonder to the tramping
crowds of country visitors, and leave no elevating
or ennobling impression on any one's mind. A few
statues to great statesmen entended to solitary
confinement in secluded squares do not redeem the
character of our metropolitan art from the status
to which the effigies for the most part of Royal
personages reduced it. The Duke of Wellington's
signal and cardinal services, so much above any
performed by a subject, occurred at a time when
more liberal views began to prevail respecting the
honours to be rendered to eminent men. An ques-
trian statue was rarely, if ever, accorded to even
the most illustrious, but there could be no exception
taken to the right of the deliverer of Spain and of
the victor at Waterloo to such an honour. A man
who saves an empire is fairly entitled to the highest
salvage the empire can bestow. Subsequently,
military and naval statues became more common
in public places, and " the finest site in Europe"
was rapidly occupied by the monuments which
even he who runs away cannot help seeing. At
the public meeting, where it was resolved that a
subscription should be opened for the Clyde Memo.
rial, there was a universal feeling that a statue
should be erected to the soldier who had closed an
extraordinary series of services by giving peace
and security to India, and snatching the Eastern
Empire from the grasp of rebellion. It so hap-
pened that the meeting, though attended by many
most eminent and illustrious persons, necessarily
took place at a time of year when the town was
nearly deserted. The subscription then opened
was large, but the operations of the committee were
circumscribed by the unavoidable absence from
London of many who admired the character of the
deceased Fieldeellarshal. Above all, the season of
furloughs which was at hand prevented the appeal
to the army, from which the largest results were
expected, as Colin Campbell was, above
naturally
most captains, the soldiers' friend, and was one of
whose labours every man in the service might feel
proud. In pursuance of the resolutions agreed to at
the meeting that a statue should be erected to Lord
Clyde's honour in the metropolis, the committee
placed themselves in communication with Baron
Marochetti, who furnished them with a design for
a monumental statue, which has obtained unquali-
fied praise from the best judges. The next step was
to obtain a site which should be appropriate in all
respects for a statue which promised to be a public
ornament, and a fitting record of one who, in the
language of the Duke of Cambridge, "exhibited
the talents and acquirements of a great commander,
who had done eo much honour to himself, and
conferred such lasting benefits on his country."
It was with much satisfaction the commit-
tee obtained a promise that a site would be granted
outside the' limits of the Parade Ground of
the Horse Guards, close to the entranco to the Perk;
in en open and conspicuous place, where the statue
could be seen by the public. The subscription list
was, as we said, large on the part of the meeting,
but there are still names which one looks for in vain
on the list, Granting that Glasgow is about to erect
a monument of her own, there is a lack of Scotch
subscripticn3 which cannot be accounted fur by the
Glasgow collection. It is true India has not remitted
its quota, which is sure to be considerable, and the
officers coming back from leave and the cessation of
furlough at this season will, we trust, swell the
amount very largely. Nevertheless there is necessity
for exertion, in order to raise the amount to the
8,000 guineas which will be needed fax the due am-