THE BRITISH LION

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 250, 16 July 1919, Page 3

THE BRITISH LION

IDEAS OX WAR MEMORIALS. (By Captain Edward W. Gregory, in tho ''Daily Mail.") British victories will be commemorated in public places all over tho Empiro by the British lion in soulpture. Metropolitan, provincial, and colonial committees will consider and then commission. Sculptors will bo faced once more with tho task of uniting the attributes of particular deeds with the national animal. Trafalgar Squaro shows how it was dono to commemorate tho victories of NelBon. There lie the lions of Landseer, recumbent in solf-satisfaction and bonevolencc. Many people say tlioy do not sufficiently express the might and energy of the British Empire. Now Alfred Stovens's lion, which sits up on the railings outside the .buildings of tho Law Society in Chancery Lane, is more decorative and has few critics. It is not the'lion-of heraldry nor yet of the Zoological Gardens. It is tho lion of tho. artist. It is seen also at tho food of a staircase in tho British Museum, where it holds its own very well with tho lions of antiquity. In the front of Buckingham Falaco sculptured lions may be seen couchant on tho Doric screens on either side of the main facade; they rear with crowns on their heads on the gato piers, and four striding lions occupy commanding positions on tho Victoria Memorial. Apart from tho laws of heraldry, there is no generally recognised type which designers of national monuments can take as the British lion. Tho sculptor usually goes to nature—meaning the Zoo— and translates the characteristics of the animals he sees there according to his own personal feeling and the limitation of his art and material. Ho does not' copy in every detail ail African lion and call it a British one. It is raro for a sculptor to model an angry lion. He usually shows him lying or sitting quietly with closed jaws. Tho four stone ones on piers outside tho Imperial Institute and the lions of Sir George Erampton at the entrance to tho King Edward VII galleries at the British Museum aro cases in point. _ They aro not necessarily jingoes who think that n lion typifying' tho British Empire might at least show his teeth, and dignity thus give place to ferocity. Tho rampant lion of heraldry looks fierce enough. \ou may sen him statant gunrd;;»t 011 tho shilling in your pocket, and he stands in the same position on tho crest of tlio Royal Arms. Public museums contain many sculptured lions to inspire war memorial committees and sculptors. They aro of all ages and nationalities, for tho lion hns been used for monuments to commemorate wars by Assyrians,, Greeks, Ilitlitcs, Romans, and nearly every modern nation of Europe. The column at Westminster, in the spaco just outside Broad Sanctuary, has four lions at the foot and shows how Victorian sculptors used tho animal in a monument perpetuating the memory of old Westminster boys who fell in tho Indian and Russian wars of 1851-59. No moro grinding of toeth wH.li WADE'S WORM PIGS. Prico Is. 6d.Advt.