SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 16o

Report by Joyce Johnson Prizes were offered for a soliloquy by any well-known statue in a public place.

A good entry, both in quality and quantity. Numerically, Nelson beat Eros by a short head; then came Sir Walter Scott, with Nurse Cavell and Peter Pan tying for fourth place. Many entries might just as well have come from the character alone, on surveying the contemporary scene, but I hope competitors will agree that I played fair by giving preference to those that showed signs of having come from the statue as well. This very nearly placed David Jones' schizoid soliloquy—Nurse Jekyll and Lion Hyde—among the prize- winning ones, although not so welt written as the other Cavell entries, which, incidentally, reached the highest average level.

Among a positive Tate Gallery of runners-up, which made my job very difficult—and even now I am not sure that justice has been done —I would like to mention M. E. Fossey, D. R. Peddy, M. Stonier, Oswald Clark, P. M., A. B. Gowan, A. Davis and J. B. B. Aris. I would also like to commend Frederica James, age fifteen, although her soliloquy was on and not by Nelson; and Carole Field, age thirteen, whose Boadicea was quick to grasp the strategic possibilities offered by London's present-day traffic for outwitting the Roman Legion.

One pound each to the five printed, and profound regrets to about thirty others.

PRIZES

(EDWARD BLISHEN)

Cobden Some person, I think, might have said Before I was helplessly dead, "Dick Cobden, political fame

Is a most undesirable aim!

Has it never occurred to you that you Might becoine a quite horrible statue?" It didn't: so this is my fate—

To be ever about to orate To the people of Mornington Crescent (Whose indifference is really unpleasant). What is more, I must wonder forever If they were being offensively clever When they chose, of all parts of a road, The middle to be my abode.

(R. KENNARD DAVIS)

Boadicea. Westminster Bridge In battle once, a whirlwind I would ride.

Men fell in swathes before my chariot blade.

For none I paused, for none 1 turned aside, No cry to halt obeyed.

1 saw the Roman ranks.on either hand Break at my onset, and the cohorts reel. Now, stilled to stone, the prototype I stand Of Woman at the wheel.

(K. S. K1TCHIN)

"Lazarus" by Jacob Epstein. This statue is erected by the West Door of the Chapel of New College, Oxford. No statue was ever more strategically placed.

I, Lazarus, Turned away From the Altar of God, Have been dead.

In pride and sin, In slothful ignorance And in misdirected knowledge My giant limbs were bound.

Now the Word of Jesus Raises me to life, Gives me a second chance.

To you whb are still dead He likewise calls "Come forth!"

(R. A. K. WRIGHT)

Queen Victoria (who stands over the Public Lavatories at Kingston-upon-Hull) When, as butt of a low populace's Vulgar quips, we are daily abused As "The Queen of watering places," We, emphatically, are not amused.

(ALLAN M. LAING)

Nelson's Statue Soliloquises England, 0 England, tell me why You here marooned.me high and dry, When all the life and soul of me Was wedded to the deep blue sea!

Were there too many cautious "ifs" To set me up on Dover Cliffs?

What simpletons believed it best That I should be the Pigeons' Rest, And damned me evermore to stare At that small fountain in the Square?

With London's grime beneath me, I For blindness's completion sigh.

Alas! that my renown's too solemn, In England's eyes, to dodge the column!