Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/287

Charles Dickens] described. The pieces, when founded, are soldered together; but a statue or a group cast in this manner, has much less artistic merit than a work cast in one mould.

Statues are sometimes cast in other metals than bronze; in gold or silver, for instance. The ancients, who were richer and more prodigal than their modern descendants, were accustomed to the sight of statues cast in precious metals, for the adornment of their temples or villas. In these days we are fain to content ourselves with marble or bronze, and no government would think of ordering a statue like that of the Jupiter of Phidias which measured forty feet in height, and was of pure ivory and gold. The Minister of Finance of the period, when he discharged the sculptor's little bill, probably did not indulge in the grimace, which a nineteenth century political economist would assuredly make, under similar circumstances. At most, he perhaps gave an uneasy smile, but even if he did this—which is not certain—he had, at all events, the satisfaction of knowing that he paid for a priceless work: which is more than can be said of sundry ministers now-a-days, who, at much cost to the national purse, have adorned the British capital with very dismal effigies; as for instance the dreary monster riding a cock-horse to Banbury Cross, by way of Constitution Hill; and that other monster in a curly wig, also bound for Banbury Cross by way of Trafalgar-square.

took to drinking, and as for his matrimonial affairs, the late Sir Cresswell Cresswell was fain to take them in hand; and a pretty case was Danks versus Danks, I promise you. Having sold or mortgaged every "carcase" he possessed, and undermined his own with strong liquors, Danks went into the Bankruptcy Court, and soon afterwards died, of a severe attack of rum and water, and trade assignee, on the brain—a wholly ruined, and still uncertificated trader. It was a sad end for a man who had once served the office of churchwarden, and driven his own chaise-cart—who had banked with the London and County, and whose brother-in-law's uncle was reputed to be the proprietor of a New River share; but the mills of the gods grind small, and Danks,