where they did not slay; Jacques de Bourbon, bringing up the second battalion in support, did but make confusion worse confounded instead of giving succour.

When the turmoil was at its densest, and the assailants were thoroughly in disorder, the main body of the Free Companies, perfectly horsed and armed, and in admirable order, advanced by a secret road round the hill, and fell upon the flank of the French with shortened lances. The issue of the day was not long doubtful after that. Though Cervole, Beaujeu, Châlons, Forêtz, and Vienne, bore themselves right worthily, they could make no head against the freebooters; who, as Froissart hath it, "fought so hardily that it was marvel." One hundred knights and barons rendered themselves prisoners there; and scarcely did a remnant of the goodly armament that had marched through Lyons a few days since make their way thither, with Jacques de Bourbon and his son; each of whom carried back his death-wound.

Brakespeare's scruples and discontent troubled him not a whit while blows were exchanged-indeed, his prowess that day was acknowledged and admired by many usually grudging of praise-but he had little heart to join in the mad revels and uncouth rejoicings with which the victory was celebrated; neither did the doings of the next few weeks reconcile him more to his fellows in command.

There was wild work all through the country of Forêtz whilst the marauding band roamed hither and thither unchecked, sparing only the fortresses; and these rather because they cared not to waste time in siege than because they feared to attack. At the last the country became so absolutely desolate that it could find provender for man and horses no longer; so the Free Companions were fain to separate. The larger division marched southward still, till Guy de Pin, with the advanced guard, stormed Pont du St. Esprit. There the freebooters from all parts drew together; so that Pope Innocent, in his palace at Avignor, but seven leagues off, trembled exceedingly, and caused to be proclaimed a solemn croisade against these enemies of God and man; promising remission a pœnâ et culpâ to all such as should stand betwixt Holy Church and danger. Not many, in truth, were tempted to follow where promises were rife, but pay was lacking; yet enough to enable the Cardinal of Ostea to make some front during the early summer, and to hold the marauders in check, till an abler soldier and a better diplomatist came across the Alps, and the Marquis of Montferrat took the matter in his own hand. He so wrought with the Free Companies that, stipulating

for present largesse of sixty thousand florins, and-strangest condition of all-plenary absolution from the Pope, they consented to follow this renowned captain to the wars in Lombardy; and so the realm of France found some breathing-space from torment.

When Guy de Pin and the others marched southward, some three thousand men-at-arms tarried with Seguin de Bastefol, who lost no time in occupying the strong town of Anse, on the Sâone, which he held long after, in despite of King or Pope; sucking in, like some monstrous cuttle fish, the very life blood of the fertile country round. Here too, Hawkwood and Brakespeare had their head-quarters; acknowledging Seguin de Bastefol as their nominal leader, yet going forth and returning at their own pleasure, and acting in most respects as independent captains.

!

Public Statues in London.

BY FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE,

Late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.

PART I.

MONUMENTAL statues, common in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Italy, were hardly known during the Gothic or Medieval period of Western Europe; and they first appear in England in connection with the Lord Arundel who collected antique marbles. He caused the bronze equestrian group of Charles I. at Charing Cross to be modelled in 1633 by Hubert le Sueur, who is called a pupil of the Italian sculptor, John of Bologna. Before it was put up, the monarchy had been abolished; and it is a well-known story, how a brazier, who read the signs of the times better than the politicians of the Commonwealth, concealed the group when its destruction was ordered. But it is probably little remembered by those who now pass it, that the vacant spot was selected for the scaffold of Major-General Harrison and four other patriots who suffered under the Restoration. There is something vindictive and barbarous in the choice of this site for the statue; something that recalls old frightful tales of human sacrifice and superstition. But people gossiped in those days as in ours, and much discussion seems to have accompanied the elevation of the statue to the pedestal, which was then elaborately carved for it, perhaps from the design, if not by the hands, of Grinling Gibbons.

What can be the mystery, why Charing Cros8

This five months continues still muffled with board?

Thus, about 1672, sang Andrew Marvell-a writer from whose ode on Cromwell, one of the noblest and most stately poems in our language, a more serious strain might have been expected.

Anecdotes about artists have ordinarily little more to do with their art and the merit of it than these; but, in case of the Charles I., it is such historical associations that lend the group its main value. Placed well for effect, but (like other statues to be hereafter noticed) too high for convenient study as a work of art, it appears to be in a tame, at least a timid style, which hardly rises above the common monumental sculpture of that day; and in the age of Vandyck, one would have expected a

more picturesque and effective likeness, especially since, when scen in front, one traces a distinct reference to that great painter's equestrian portraits. The horse is fairly natural, though not free from indications that the artist was thinking of the ill-modelled breed of the ancient Roman sculptors; and the best thing we can say of the group, is that it avoids the bad extravagant style, which had by 1633 corrupted Italian sculpture, and of which, John of Bologna was one of the most brilliant representatives.*

Strange, as it may seem, London contains at least one public statue, the subject of which is hardly less uncertain, than if it had been dug up in Greece or Italy. Probably during the reign of Charles II. when Soho Square was begun, a stone figure was placed there, which has been assigned to the unhappy Duke of Monmouth, to James II., and to Charles himself. The last appears the most probable. It is a standing figure, clothed in English armour, but with a robe twisted behind; a wig surrounds the mutilated features.

Cromwell still waits for his statue; and he, in truth, should be a very powerful and accomplished sculptor, whose hands could safely attempt the difficult task of doing justice to the great man who stands up like some huge rock among the petty figures of the Stuarts. But unless we commemorate a prince or a general (and Cromwell was something more than most princes and generals), English funds are rarely forthcoming. Men even greater than the Protector are equally unrepresented. Yet there are few methods by which a wealthy man might more certainly or more honourably hand his name down to future generations, than by a first-rate public monument to departed genius.

James II., by Gibbons the wood-carver, apparently completed in 1687, stands behind Whitehall, and considering its age and exposed position, is well-preserved. He is in full Roman armour, laurelcrowned, and a robe falling behind him; the attitude, that of a man giving some command, is rather too showy, yet is rendered with ease and a certain dignity, and there is a considerable air of likeness in the harsh but narrow-looking features. The modelling is fair in its conventional way, which reminds one rather of the Roman-antique style than of nature; and it deserves special praise that Gibbons has known how to take advantage of his material, and has given his figure the comparatively disengaged or "open" attitude of which bronze, from

For some of the facts stated in this paper, the writer is indebted to Mr. C. Knight's "London" (1843), and Mr. P. Cunningham's "Handbook" (1849).

its superior tenacity, admits. The drapery, from the same reason, has been kept light and flat in the folds. These may seem obvious merits; but it will be found that sculptors of much greater pretension and experience than Gibbons, have not felt the difference between working in stone, and working in metal, and have made their bronze figures dark and heavy, by a massive treatment, which only looks well in its own appropriate and light-coloured material. The artist received £500 for this work-a very large sum, the time and the size of the figure considered, and a proof that he must have obtained fashionable recognition as a sculptor.

The great William, fated to learn in England, by a bitter and pathetic experience,

The unwilling gratitude of base mankind,

has but one statue-that in the centre of St. James's Square. So far as its distance from the eye admits of a judgment, this group (it is equestrian) though rather clever and lively, appears to be in a poor style, imitating the French statues of Louis XIV., and has all the look of a contemporary production. Yet it seems certain that the younger Bacon not only placed this figure here in 1808, but modelled it. He speaks of it as "my equestrian statue," in a letter which has been kindly pointed out to the writer by Mr. G. Scharf; and a print of the Square, dated 1754, shows a basin and fountain where the group now stands. Except upon such evidence (especially when one considers how unlikely it was that anyone should go to the great expense involved at the above date), it might have been conjectured that a contemporary statue had been presented to the Square by one of the great families who have houses about it, and might have been provided with its pedestal and "put in order" by Bacon. Though wanting in dignity and grace, this group has some truth to character in its expression of will and energy. The curious way in which the hair of the tail is detached in little masses in the direction of the horse's progress, was probably intended to increase this effect. But there is always a want of due stability and repose when a figure appears to be rapidly moving off its pedestal. The pause of arrested motion, the moment of suspended action, by the laws of the material, is almost always the right instant for sculpture to express.

Anne figures thrice: before St. Paul's, and in the two Queen's Squares named after her. Of these statues it will be cough to describe one. That in Queen's Square West (apparently Portland