21 JUNE 1890, Page 15

THE GORDON STATUE.

[To THE EDITOR Ol TaI " EPECTATOR."1 SIB,—Your criticism of the Gordon statue as it stands in the Academy is just. As it stands in the Barrack Square at Chatham, facing the arch erected by the Royal Engineers to the memory of their comrades who fell in the Crimea, with the bright sky of Kent above it, and the broad border of blue forget-me-nots round the lofty base, the details sink into proper subordination, and the figure becomes no longer that of a rider " preoccupied with his mount," but that of a hero borne onward to meet his fate. One can almost hear the

words of his favourite hymn :- "Here in the body pent,

Absent from Him I roam,

Yet nightly pitch my moving tent, A day's march nearer home."