Major-general Mackenzie, and Brigadier-general Langworth, two officers who fell at Talavera, are distinguished by a tabular monument, which was erected through a parliamentary grant, and fills the panel above the bust of Major-general Dundas, in the north transept of St. Paul's Cathedral. It is composed of a tomb wrought with two wreaths, near which is a mournful personification of Victory, and two boys, the one crowned with oaken boughs, and the other wearing a helmet, and exhibiting in his hand a broken French Eagle. The object of the work is thus indicated : NATIONAL MONUMENT to Major General R. LANGWORTH, : The victory of Albuera is also commemorated in St. Paul's Cathedral, by a monument to two officers, who were killed in the slaughter it occasioned. The one is tabular, executed by Chantrey, and placed in the western ambulatory of the north transept. Like the other works of the same tasteful artist, the design is judiciously founded upon the actual circumstances which led to the performance. Major-generai Hoghton was mortally wounded during a spirited attack, and is here represented, rising from the ground after he had received the ball which killed him, but still animated with the order of battle, directing his men, who are introduced in a charge of bayonets. In the back-ground is a figure of Victory, which, by the bye, mars the beauty of a neatly wrought scene: she holds the British colours in one hand, and with the other extends a wreath to crown the fallen soldier The epitaph is short : Erected at the Public Expense to the memory of who fell gloriously, 16th May, 1811, at Albuera. The opposite panel is devoted to Sir William Myers, who has a monument by Kendrick, which affords a capital specimen of the ridiculous extremes to which allegory may be carried. Hercules and Minerva, or, as they are explained in the guide-books, Wisdom and Valour, meet before a tomb, which is surmounted by a bust, and shake hands at their ease. The inscription is somewhat curiously particular, stating rather what the subject was not, than what he was. This is the order in which it runs :— Erected at the Public Expense to the Memory of Who fell gloriously in the Battle of Albuera, May 16th, 1811, His illustrious Commander the Duke of Wellington bore this Your son fell in the action, in which, if possible, The British troops surpassed all their former deeds, and at The head of the Fusileer Brigade, to which a great part of the Final success of the day was to be attributed. As an officer, he had already been highly distinguished, And, if Providence had prolonged his life, he promised To become one of the brightest ornaments to his profession, And an honour to his country. There are yet two monuments more in St. Paul's Cathedral, which were occasioned by the capture of Salamanca. The one is in the panel above the Parliamentary tribute to Sir Thomas Picton; it commemorates Major-general Marchant, and was designed by James Smith, and executed after his decease by Rossi. A personification of Spain places trophies on a tomb, near which Britannia, seated, points out the act to a boy, who is described to represent a military cadet. The first idea is as old as the art itself, and as common as possible; but the second, though scarcely valuable enough to constitute a larceny, is stolen from Flaxman's naval students at the tomb of Nelson. Its object is thus specified : Erected At the Public Expense To the Memory of GASPARD LE MARCHANT, In the Battle of Salamanca. The last tribute to which attention is here to be directed, is decidedly one of the best pieces of sculpture, both as to composition and execution in the whole Cathedral—a tabular monument by Chantrey, to the Memory of Major-general Bowes, which is rather unfavourably fixed high up in one of the panels of the ambulatory, which leads into the choir. It is a scene admirably chiselled from life. Bowes was slain in the breach at the storming of Salamanca, and the actual circumstances of his death are here excellently pourtrayed. The shattered wall, the beaten enemy tumbling headlong with his colours, the charging British, and the victorious general falling on the fore-ground into the arms of a comrade, are all faithfully preserved, and vividly exhibited without any violence of fiction, or obtrusion of allegory to distigure the animation of truth, or confuse the moral of an historical episode. One only circumstance is likely to excite a regret the monument has no inscription. MATHEW PRIOR NEARLY facing the visitor as he enters the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey, stands the monument of Mathew Prior, who, to repeat the quotation of Dr. Johnson, "as the last piece of human vanity," left 5007. for the erection of this tribute to his own name. It is an emblematical performance, well executed by Gibbs, the architect, presenting a good bust of the deceased, supported on an altar-piece of fine marble, by Thalia, on the one hand, and History on the other. These figures are finely wrought, and may be distinguished, the former by a flute, and the latter by a closed book. The design is crowned by a pediment, on which are introduced two boys, he to the left holding an hour-glass empty, and he to the right an inverted torch: the apex is topped with an urn. The air of this monument is stately and correct; but the sense of the design dull and insipid as every mythological subject must by its very nature be. The inscription, a long and laboured composition in Latin, flatteringly recapitulates the political events of his life, and fully characterises his writings; but is too profuse for a translation: Sui temporis historiam meditanti, Operi simul et vitæ filum abrupit, Vir eximius Serenissimis Regi Gulielmo Reginæque Mariæ Qui anno 1697 Pacem Ryswicki confecerunt, Tum iis, Qui apud Gallos annis proximis legationem obierunt; Nec non in utroque honorabili consessu Eorum, Qui anno 1700 ordinandis Commertii negotiis, Felicissimæ Memoriæ Regina Ad Ludovicum XIV Galliæ Regem De Pace stabilienda, (Pace etiamnum durante Diuque ut boni jam omnes sperant duratura) Qui Hos omnes, quibus cumulatus est, titulos Cui enim nascenti faciles arriserant Musæ, A vatum choro avelli nunquam potuit, Tum in fabellis concinne lepideque texendis Neminem habuit parem. Hæc liberalis animi oblectamenta, Sed omnia ultro effluere, Et quasi jugi e fonte affatim exuberare, That the biography of one so particularly eulogised, should, in any respect, be subjected to uncertainty or ignorance, is a lamentable matter; yet such is the case respecting the birth and parentage of Matthew Prior, who has been said to have been born in Dorsetshire, in the county of Middlesex, and also at Charing Cross, in London; and who has been represented to have had a farmer, or a joiner, or a victualler, for his father. Be these |