distinguished by its delicate and chaste beauty of
expression. The sculptor's finely restrained feeling
for line is specially noteworthy, although it may
have been the cause of his bestowing too much,
almost timid, care on mere smoothness of surface.
It may be a minor matter, but the title of this
otherwise well-studied work seems inapt. Surely
there should be something of joy in the face and
bearing of a ' songster.' This youth conveys better
the idea of a Greek chorus singer on some solemn
occasion. The Last Call, by C. B. Birch, shows con-
siderable executive ability, but as a work of art it is
defective in conception and rather a concession to
popular and ephemeral ideals. The subject necessi-
tates too many trivial accessories to be suitable for
the medium. The reproduction of horse harness
and soldier accoutrements is scarcely worthy of the
sculptor's art ; living form and movement are the
proj)er subjects. Onslow Ford's portrait statue of
Irving as Hamlet is an elaborate and skilfully
executed piece of work, but an unsympathetic and
superficially understood rendering of the motive ;
with greater breadth of treatment we would have
liked some expression of the weird and tragic-loving
character of the greater actor. This is rather the
portrait of a smooth and business-like gentleman
than of Irving as the irresolute Dane, under ' the
pale cast of thought,' muttering ' To be or not to be.'
Rosco Muli.ik's larger works, such as, ' Bless me,
even me also, O my father^ show a vigorous natu-
ralistic style of handling the clay, and a strong
grasp of character which help to redeem the lack of
refinement and finish. His little marble statuette,
entitled Memories, has evidently been a work of
loving and careful study, it is naturally and beauti-
fully modelled, and tenderly expressive of simple,
maiden pensiveness. Tragedy and Comedy by Nel-
son M'Lean, are unsatisfectory works in several
ways. One expects highly allegorical matters, such
as the representation in figure of Tragedy and
Comedy to be treated with greater force of imagina-
tion than is here exhibited. There is a want of
dignity in the appearance of these statues, caused
by their awkward proportion to life-size, conveying
an impression of diminutiveness. The technique is
intended to be that of the chisel, but shows none
of the decision and felicity of handling which
should result. Nothing can be finer than the effect
of the free and fiery touch of the chisel in marble,
when it comes from the sure hand of a Michel-
angelo, but ordinary mortals are better to treat
the stone according to its kind, and give it the high
finish naturally demanded by a hard substance. If
not ' native, and to the manner born,' J. Edgar
BoEHJi, R.A., has surely been sufficiently long in
active practice as a sculptor in London to be
reckoned a naturalised member of the English
school ; although his work is not free from the
Continental character of cleverness, seen at its best
in the sculptor's fine little bronze group of Wilhelm
and Lconore. Mr. Boehm's best work has been done
in porti-aiture, where, notwithstanding mannerism
in handling, and a touch of grimace in expression,
he is a force. We have here, in his statue of Thoma,s
Carlyle, the finest of his large works, and, as it
stands in bronze on the Thames embankment at
Chelsea, one of the best public statues in this
country. It is quiet, simple, and natural, and full
of character, — not an epic, but a page from real life.
DoRYPHORUS.
CIVIC CONNECTION WITH ART— II.
EDINBURGH : THE S.S.C. LIBRARY COMPETITION.
LAST month we pointed out the ungenial spirit
in which as a nation we deal with memorial
sculpture, to the loss of what is highest in art, and
to the triumph of bourgeois ideals. The S.S.C.
Library Competition, recently adjudged in Edin-
burgh, affords, unhappily, a too-typical example in
architecture of our incapacity for dealing with art
matters in a broad public spirit.
The Society of Solicitors to the Supreme Courts
of Scotland required library buildings on a site in
the Cowgate, on a level with, and joined by a
bridge to, Parliament House, to comprise, besides
the library, a reading-room, a hall to accommodate
two hundred, consulting rooms, book stores, etc.,
all massed, with the aid of a fireproof floor, upon
a four-storied substratum of shops, tenements,
model lodging-houses, or otherwise.
The Solicitors' Society is a wealthy corporation,
learned in the law, not lightly to be charged with
want of public spirit. They would doubtless scorn
the idea that the new library should not rank as one
of the public buildings of the ' Modern Athens ' ; it
will form part of the cluster of buildings surroimd-
ing the historic Parliament House ; to all who look
from George iv. Bridge it will be the most con-
spicuous building in the Cowgate, scarcely distant
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CIVIC CONNECTION WITH ART
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