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-
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. It he was especially proud
of the bonneted battalions whom he 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 dis-
praise 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 becone.
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 eecnred 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 entendcd 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 eques-
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 Field-Marshal. Above all, the season of
furloughs which was at hand prevented the appeal
to the army, from which the largest results were
naturally expected, as Colin Campbell was, above
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 stop was
to obtain a site which should be appropriate in all
respects for a statue which promised to be a public
ornament, end 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 so 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 entrance to the Park;
in an 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
subscriptions which cannot be recounted for 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 seeded for tho due Qom.

PRICE .4d.
STAMPED:....Sd.

pletion of the monument and the expenses of the
memorial. The committee are now actively engaged
in the work. It is only necessary to inform the
public and the country which valued the services of
L)rd Clyde so highly, and the soldiers whose cause
he ever advocated, that money is still needed for
his monument—and that it alone is required—to
ratify the promises made at the meeting, and to
enable the committee to bring their labours to an
honourable and triumphant conclusion.—Times.

THE LATE LORD ASHBURTON,

40.

Two days sgo, in a country churchyard in Hamp-
shire, the last duties were psid to the remains of
Lord Ashburton. Although he sat for many years
in Parliament, and once, held a post in the Govern
meat, his prominence in political or official life
would not have justified a notice of his public career.
As he was deficient neither in ability nor in the
ordinary ambition of Englishmen of -rank and for-
tune, he would probably have contended for the
prizes of Parliamentary life, but for a weakness of
voice which disqualified him from succeeding as a
speaker. His judgment was' unusually exempt
from the influence of prejudice, and his language,

though it was wanting in rhetorical ornament, was
remarkable for precision. There is always, how-
ever, a succession of Ministers and candidates for
office, and Lord Ashburton had no reason to regret
the circumstances which led him to stand in the
outer circle of the political arena. He would have
administered a State department with efficiency and
credit, but his gifts were perhaps better employed
in discharging and illustrating the duties of a
wealthy and accomplished nobleman. None of his
contemporaries of similar position more habitually
recognised the obligations which are annexed to the
possession of a great estate. His house was a centre
of the best society of his time, and his pecuniary aid
and personal services were always available for the
promotion of schemes which promised social or '
economical advantages: He had learnt at Geneva,
where he received the part of his education which
he remembered with most gratitude, to take a strong
interest in the progress of physical inquiry, and al-
though his own scientific acquirements were .not
considerable, he took pleasure in the society of
chemists and geologists,and in watching the progress
of their discoveries. His opinions on economical
questions, and on subjects connected with popular
education, were more independent and original.
Some of the addresses which he delivered at public
meetings, or as president of different associations,
were distinguished by suggestive thought and con-
densed proprietyof style. In a speech at Winchester,
on the method of teaching the first rudiments of
knowledge so as to give the most effective cultiva-
tion to the intellect, he first used the phrase of
" common things," which for some years afterwards
became almost proverbial in popular discussions on
similar topics. When he acted as President of the
Royal Agricultural Society, he showed with much
force and feeling that the art of farming had ad-
vanced more rapidly than any other industrial pro-
cess. In a short speech in the House of Lords on the
India Bill he summed up with remarkable effect the
arguments against the proposed abolition of the East
India Company. His defects as an orator taught
him to abstain with instinctive care from any waste
of words and from idle commonplacee. His few
public speeches singularly resembled the well known
addresses of the Prince Consort. It was repugnant

to his tastes and habits of thought to appear l;f!fare
an audience unless he had something of his own to
say. The Prince himself fully appreciated the
modest sagacity of Lord Ashburton's intellect, and
the singular refinement of his character.

Another friend of Lord Ashburton's was Sir R.
Peel, who appointed him Secretary of the Board of
Control. There was probably no house in which
the Minister felt himself more thoroughly at his
ease, or where he felt a pleasanter recollection of the
gaiety which was seldom suspected by strangers.
After his death, Lord Ashburton passed through
Liberal Conservatism into alliance with the Whigs,
whose doctrines he had to a certain extent held in
his youth. He wus a Free-trader before the true
theory was universally adopted, but ho loved to
dwell on the limited and insufficient range which
he ascribed to political economy. His dispodion
inclined him to utilitarian views, but whenever lie
had occasion to adopt a rule of conduct he was uni-
formly practical and moderate. He had counted
among his friends some of those who were formerly
called philosophic Radicals, and he always re-
tained in some degree the trace of their opinions.
His divergencies from received theories were, how-
ever, merely the amusements of a critical intellect,
and this would never have interfered with his poli-
tical course if he had taken an active part in public
business. It was the habit of his mind to find some-
thing to sympathise with in all his numerous ac-
quaintances, and at the same time he habitually
suspected the strict accuracy of the general propo-
sitions to which they clung. He had the faculty and
habit of appreciating the most dissimilar characters
and he delighted almost equally in the society of
veteran politicians, of brilliant authors, and of re•
cluse men of genius. His connections had brought
him much into the company of Americans, and he re-
ceived in his house the most eminent foreigners who
visited England. If he had a prejudice, it was dis-
played in a kind of good-natured irritation against
the narrow patriotism which assumes the uniform su-
periority of native persons and institutions. He was
always ready to defend France, Russia, or America
against unfriendly criticism. Yet it would have been
easy to show that his own qualities could never have
been so advantageously cultivated or employed as
in England.

It will be by his character rather than by his not
inconsiderable powers of intellect that Lord Ash-
burton will be best remembered. There was a
purity, a gentleness and delicacy, in his bearing
and in his inmost nature, which can scarcely be re-
presented by description. In the common inter-
course of society, and in the more intimate relations
of life, he seemed instinctively averse to thinking of
himself. He never assumed an offensive superiority,
or took a selfish advantage. An entire absence of
vanity, combined with uniform self-respect, enabled
him without effort to consult the feelings of all
whom he addressed. His splendid hospitality de-
rived its chief attraction from the charm of a
manner which was visibly the outward expression
of a simple and gracious disposition. It is fortunate
that in England there is room for many kinds of
eminence, and the perfect representation of the best
form of private life, especially when it,is combined
with the performance of many public duties, is no
unworthy object of ambition. A century and a
half ago Lord Ashburton's name would have been
inscribed in dedications and in complimentary
poems, which might have expressed a genuine and
disinterested admiration. Though fashions have
changed, and though a morn perfect
civilization
has produced habits of comparative reticence, it is
not fitting that rare virtues should disappear with-
out a passing record. Some of the worthiest of
Lord Ashburton's survivors will cherish his memory
as that of one of the most faultless human beings
whom they have known.— Times,

Persons in debt may obtain instant protection against
imprisonment or seizure of their goods, and an entire release
from all debts and liatilities without publicity, by application
to Messrs. Marshall, soliclors of the Court of Bankruptcy.
Charges under payable by easy instalments. Offices—
(established 1830), 12,IIatton-garden. City branch-0, Moor-
gate-street, Bank.—ADVT.

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