We have already remarked that these genii have a meager effect, and have endeavoured to account for it by supposing it to be principally owing to the ill-judged mixture of materials and colours, of which this part of the pile consists. Yet beside this defect, in every view but that from the westward, these figures appear to want grouping and connexion. Seasons, which are blended in their real existence, should probably not be disconnected, nor thrown out of their natural order, in their allegorical representation. No man desires to see the backside of Spring unless Summer follow; and had Summer and Autumn been visible from the principal approach, an association of ideas would have been excited, more genial and more appropriate to the agricultural character of the monument, if not to the known bounty of the late Duke of Bedford, than by the presence of Winter and Spring. By placing the two former behind his Grace, and turning one of them away from the eye of the spectator, the sculptor has even left it so doubtful whether he has or has not taken the liberty of changing the natural course of the seasons in order to effect this, or some other purpose, that we have known some persons mistake—unless we are ourselves mistaken—Summer for Autumn and Autumn for Summer; and others puzzled between Summer and Spring. It is true, the seasons in our climate, are sometimes so strangely disordered and confused, that if Mr. Westmacott should plead that in this part of the design, he has chosen rather to imitate nature than the antique, and English nature rather than the nature of any other climate, we should probably be silenced.
It may also be pleaded with great truth in favour of the artist, that in consequence of the arrangement which he has adopted, there is in every view of the monument, something of merit and importance to gratify public attention. In front, there is the statue itself contrasted by the plainness and simplicity of the unadorned side of the pedestal. On the east side there is the most beautiful of the bas-reliefs: on the west, the most interesting view of the seasons, and what there is behind, God knows. The public are not yet permitted to walk round it.
We will now endeavour to explain the symbols and metaphors which Mr. Westmacott has invented or adopted, as well as we are able, in the order in which they present themselves on the monument. Spring is very properly represented as rising a wreath of blossoms and other early flowers, among which the lily is distinguishable; the genius of Autumn is pouring forth her abundance of English fruits and vegetables (for there is nothing exotic) from a cornucopia; Summer, as far as can be seen from without the enclosed area of Russel-square, has a butterfly perched on his hand, intimating that this is the season when this beautiful insect bursts from its chrysales into new life; and Winter sits shrunk and sheltered by drapery from inclemencies of which, to be strictly correct, it should appear to have been the cause.
The character and style of Mr. Westmacott's boys or genii, are something between that of Fiamingo, and real life. Those of Summer and Autumn especially, possess much of infantile grace; but the genius of Winter appears disproportionably small, and the space left for his chest so small, when compared with his limbs, that the Hibernian punsters will be in some danger of thinking it is meant for a personification of—nobody. What those may be tempted to think of it who are conversant with Dr. Hunter's principal anatomical work, we shall not presume to say.
The bulls heads on the angles have a new and not unpleasing effect, and are executed in a grand style; their horns are short and bound for sacrifice as in the antique. And the frieze which runs round the top of the pedestal is enriched, the East side with two sheep, a lamb, and an ox; the West side with two swine and a cow; and the South side, or front of the monument with a horse, all sculptured in low relief, and in a style partaking partly of the antique, and partly of English nature. Immediately above this frieze on the south side, and in the interval between Winter and Spring, the artist has placed a lamb, which is perfectly in season.
Of the bas-reliefs which adorn the sides of the pedestal, and which are in conception and composition, if not of execution, the finest part of the whole pile, one represents the season of ploughing, the other that of harvest; and both are so classical in their appearance, and in design so abstracted from localities, that could they have been discovered in Sicily, the cognoscenti would, perhaps, have sworn that Theocritus had seen and studied them when he wrote his Idyllia.
As associated with, and calculated to call up, ideas of humble, innocent and laudable occupation, these sculptured pastorals are of high moral value in such a metropolis as this, where guilty dissimulation and insidiousness so much abound—independent of their merit, and consequent value as works of fine art. Why do we contemplate the innocent occupations of children, and rural life, with sentiments of the purest complacency? Why, but because the soul is revived as it recognises its own nature through the disguise of society, and springs back with ardour toward a state of things on which our ideas of Paradise itself have been rested.
Perhaps no works of art, and no poetry extant, will more forcibly recall what we have read and fancied of the golden age, than these bas-reliefs. They are delightful both in design and execution. To imagine the art as co-existing with these in such an age of happy innocence as is here suggested, raises cold criticism itself almost to rhapsody.
In the first, which occupies the western side of the pedestal, peasants are resting from the labour of the plough; a yoked ox shows the nature of their employment; a ploughman takes a refreshing draught, from his wooden bottle, while a youth blows a horn to call his fellow labourers to an humble repast, which a female is busily engaged in preparing.
——Corydon and Thyrsis met,
Are at their savoury dinner set,
Of herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat handed Phyllis dresses.