s made exactly opposite the grand south
entrance. Four large tasteless cenotaphs, more fit for the Pantheon of
London, St. Paul's, than for anywhere else, are erected in Guildhall--to
the north, those of Beckford, the Earl of Clarendon, and Nelson; on the
south, that of William Pitt.

The monument to Beckford, the bold opposer of the arbitrary measures of
a mistaken court and a misguided Parliament, is by Moore, a sculptor who
lived in Berners Street. It represents the alderman in the act of
delivering the celebrated speech which is engraved on the pedestal, and
which, as Horace Walpole (who delighted in the mischief) says, made the
king uncertain whether to sit still and silent, or to pick up his robes
and hurry into his private room. At the angles of the pedestal are two
female figures, Liberty and Commerce, mourning for the alderman.

The monument of the Earl of Chatham, by Bacon (executed in 1782 for
3,000 guineas), is of a higher style than Beckford's, and, like its
companion, it is a period of political excitement turned into stone. If
it were the custom to delay the erection of statues to eminent men
twenty years after their death, how many would ever be erected? The
usual cold allegory, in this instance, is atoned for by some dignity of
mind. The great earl (a Roman senator, of course), his left hand on a
helm, is placing his right hand affectionately on the plump shoulders of
Commerce, who, as a blushing young _debutante_, is being presented to
him by the City of London, who wears a mural crown, probably because
London has no walls. In the foreground is the sculptor's everlasting
Britannia, seated on her small but serviceable steed, the lion, and
receiving into her capacious lap the contents of a cornucopia of Plenty,
poured into it by four children, who represent the four quarters of the
world. The inscription was written by Burke.

Nelson's fame is very imperfectly honoured by a pile of allegory,
erected in 1811 by the entirely forgotten Mr. James Smith, for L4,442
7s. 4d. This deplorable mass of stone consists of a huge figure of
Neptune looking at Britannia, who is mournfully contemplating a very
small profile relief of the departed hero, on a small dusty medallion
about the size of a maid-servant's locket. To crown all this tame stuff
there are some flags and trophies, and a pyramid, on which the City of
London (female figure) is writing the words "Nile, Copenhagen,
Trafalgar." With admirable taste the s