Mliili: 



HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The promoters of the Memorial then asked His Koyal High- 

 ness's permission to substitute a statue of Her Majesty, — or 

 some emblematic figure, such as Britannia, — for his own, on 

 the Memorial. This received His Eoyal Highness's approval 

 and support ; and as soon as that was known, subscriptions 

 flowed in, and a sum of 52121., since increased by interest 

 to upwards of 6000/., was received. It was only when it 

 came to be applied that difficulties arose : What was the 

 Memorial to be 1 — Who was to execute it 1 — How should he 

 be selected ?— were aU questions on which great variety of 

 opinion prevailed. Some recommended that Marochetti's statue 

 of Eichard Coeur de Lion, which had formed one of the striljing 

 objects in the Exhibition of 1851, should be erected as the 

 permanent Memorial of it. Others objected to this, that the 

 circumstance of a work having been exhibited in the Building 

 was an insufficient reason for selecting it as a monument, and 

 that Eichard Coeur de Lion had nothing else to do with it ; 

 others maintained that there was no living British artist com- 

 petent to produce a first-class work — as one intended for a 

 Memorial of the Exhibition ought to be — an imputation which, 

 of course, was deeply resented by another class. In the strife 

 which ensued, the object itself was lost sight of ; the frailties of 

 human nature interfered to obstruct it ; men who had taken 

 a zealous part in forwarding the scheme, hesitated to expose 

 themselves to misintei-pretation ; — no satisfactory solution of the 

 difficulty presented itself, and in the midst of the tumult the 

 project itself went quietly to sleep. So it rested for three years, 

 when some of the promoters began again to move. The money 

 had been collected, 6000/. reposed in the coffers of the Bank, 



