16 JUNE 1838, Page 20

FINE ARTS.

THE WYATT-WELLINGTON STATUE.

MR. MATTHEW COTES WYATT, the animal sculptor, who made the caricature statue of George the Third—a figure for passersby to shy at as well as the horse—is to try his hand at a bronze burlesque of the Duke of Wellington, to be set up on the triumphal arch of.posite Apsley House. Mr. WYATT has good friends; and, notwithstanding his black and white marble dog with jewelled eyes is too costly a toy to find a purchaser, he may be considered a lucky fellow, in having two colossal equestrian statues to make, without possessing talent enough to produce one. To him, however, the Metropolis will be indebted for both statues of Wellington, since but for him one would have suf- ficed. The Duke of RUTLAND and Sir FREDERICK TRENCH, finding that the merits of their pet pony-maker were not appreciated, and that the City statue to Wellington the Street Reformer was given to CHANTREY, got up another to Wellington the .Hero of Waterloo, as a job for Mr. WYATT; and had this failed, doubtless they would have tried a third to Wellington the Catholic Emancipator, Tories though they be. One to Wellington the Anti. Reform .Statesman would have cost them too dear; they could not have got the Whig officials to help them with subscriptions. The Medici of 13elvoir has very cleverly managed to patronize this MICHAEL ANGELO of rocking-horse-makers at the public expense. It is rather hard, however, to inflict WYATT upon us in bronze, and in two places too ! They should have some mercy. We can enjoy a laugh at the effigy of George the Fourth's wig stuck on the top of a sack at King's Cross, because it is only plaster---" Oh for a stone. bow to hit him in the eye ! "—but WYATT'S equestrian bolsters in bronze are beyond a joke : they'll last. What would Mr. Wyarr take to give up the job ? A thousand or two extra would be well laid out to buy him off. The immense cus- tom he must have got for bronze cocked-hats and feathers to stick over hatters' shops ought to be taken into account, however. and the art itself receives an impulse. lie it a CHANTREY or a WYATT who is employed, the principle holds good. But it is the dread of such ridiculous abortions as the wig-block and hop. sack at King's Cross, and the coat and cocked-hat in Pall Mall, that makes people fly to artists of established reputation. The Nelson Monument, it is to be hoped, will be managed properly.