Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/551

Rh of every branch of culture, from the Prince of Wales and the Archbishop of Canterbury to the opposite extremes of radicalism and free thought. Indeed, it is not too much to say that there can scarcely ever have been an occasion on which so many illustrious men of opposite ways of thinking have met to express a common agreement upon a man to whom they have felt that honor is due. The international memorial could not in any nation have found a more worthy site than the one in which it has been placed; but, if anything could have added to the "solemn gladness" with which the personal friends of Mr. Darwin witnessed the presentation of this memorial, it must have been the evidence which the assembly yielded that, among the innumerable differences of opinion which it represented, his memory must henceforth be always and universally regarded as a changeless monument of all that is greatest in human nature, as well as of all that is greatest in human achievement.

Concerning the statue itself, we have only to speak in terms of almost unqualified praise. It is, in the truest sense of the phrase, a noble work of art. The attitude is not only easy and dignified, but also natural and characteristic; the modeling of the head and face is unexceptionable, and the portrait is admirable. The only criticism we have to advance has reference to the hands, which not only do not bear the smallest resemblance to those of Mr. Darwin, but are of a kind which, had they been possessed by him, would have rendered impossible the accomplishment of much of his work. Although this misrepresentation is a matter to be deplored, it is not one for which the artist can be justly held responsible. Never having had the advantage of seeing Mr. Darwin, Mr. Boehm has only to be congratulated upon the wonderful success which has attended his portraiture of the face and figure; the hands were no doubt supplied by guess-work, and therefore we have only to regret that the guess did not happen to be more fortunate.

The following is the address made by Professor Huxley, in the name of the Darwin Memorial Committee, on handing over the statue to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, as representative of the Trustees of the British Museum:


 * It is now three years since the announcement of the death of our famous countryman,, gave rise to a manifestation of public feeling, not only in these realms, but throughout the civilized world, which, if I mistake not, is without precedent in the modest annals of scientific biography.

The causes of this deep and wide outburst of emotion are not far to seek. We had lost one of those rare ministers and interpreters of Nature whose names mark epochs in the advance of natural knowledge. For, whatever be the ultimate verdict of posterity upon this or that opinion which Mr. Darwin had propounded; whatever