§ Order for Committee read.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
§ ADMIRAL WALCOTTIt has long been subject of reproach, not wholly undeserved, that this country, with all its generosity and undoubted reverence for the memory of those who have reflected honour on the name of Englishmen, is generally slow in rearing monuments to preserve her sense of their high merits. On the Continent the battle has scarcely been won, the laurel earned by the living, or the grave closed above the last resting-place of the heroic dead, than the statue is erected, or the scene of victory pourtrayed. Half a century has elapsed, however, since the great conquest, of Trafalgar, and the entombment of the man who won it in the crypt of St. Paul's, and still in the greatest thoroughfare of this Metropolis, his Monument, to our shame, remains unfinished. This House has done its duty in furnishing the funds sufficient to render it complete; but for some inexplicable cause, hitherto, the eyesore remains, although the design was entrusted to the charge of an accom- 1776 plished artist, who, I should have thought, with his fertile genius and great capacity for the work, would have found no difficulty in furnishing it without a delay so protracted. I must, therefore, ask, with whom, or with what department the blame rests? "I bear it for immortality," said an old Roman, when he held one handle of the plough, whilst Death held the other. Such was the spirit which animated Nelson, the greatest of English Admirals, whose memorable signal is still the watchword for every successor of the profession he so largely adorned, and whose name needs neither statue of bronze, or tomb of granite; for it is written not only in the living hearts of his countrymen, but also in the memory and history of every civilized nation in the world. When I turn my eyes to the stupendous works and materials of our naval ports and harbours; when I bring before my eyes the number of our ships built and maintained at so great a charge to present an armed front and impenetrable barrier to our enemies, I still cannot but recollect that to secure that end we must man those wooden walls with hearts such as beat in the breast of Nelson, and that the highest incentive to duty which a country can offer to the living, lies in the gratitude which she has displayed to her worthy and heroic dead. In such a spirit, and for this reason, I ask, why is the Monument of Nelson suffered to remain incomplete?
MR. COWPERassured the hon. and gallant Admiral that the delay in the completion of the Nelson column was not to be attributed to any want of veneration for the character or exploits of Lord Nelson. The delay had arisen from a contrary feeling, from a desire that the lions which were to adorn the base of the column should be worthy of the position in which they were to be placed, and worthy also to represent the British Lion. Sir Edward Landseer, whose acquaintance with animals in general was well known, had now been selected for the purpose; and the House might rest assured that in producing representatives of the British Lion, his patriotic feeling would not suffer him to exert himself less than he had done in making likenesses of all other animals.