13 DECEMBER 1919, Page 15

GAUTIER ON MEDALS.

[To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—Tie lines you quote from Pope's " Dialogue on Medals," and your own remarks on the medallist's art, recall the superb poem of Gautier, where, in verse which seems itself to be wrought in the very medium it immortalizes, he pleads for the chiselled, the delicate, the incisive, as the only durable thing in art. It is on too minute a scale to challenge comparison with Pope, but the following stanzas will serve to show the gemlike character of the workmanship :— Emprunte a Syracuse Son bronze oil fermement S'aocuse Le trait fier et tharmantl D'une main ddlicate Poursula dans an film D'agats Le profit d'Apollon. .

Tout passe.—L'art robust* Saul a Ilternit4 Le busts Sursit h la dbl.

Et in =Weill* austere Que trouve un leboureur Sous tern, Revile un empereur . . ."

—(" L'Art," Emaux et Comies.) Would that our own war medals might show anything com parable in the sister-art !—I am, Sir, &c., C. M. Hunsox.