DANTE OR DANTON?
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sm,—Yesterday I passed through the room containing the Rodin gift of sculpture at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and my eyes fell on a plaster or composition mask which appeared to be a portrait study of Danton. On going up to it I noticed with surprise that it was labelled Dante. Are we to suppose that Rodin possessed an original theory as to what Dante's appearance must have been, and created an ideal head ?—or may we be -allowed to believe that the name has been ingenuously misread, and so catalogued in our national collection ? Even if the latter of these conjectures is correct it seems a pity to remove the label, so chastening should it be to the specialist. I confess that the likeness between the names, which never occurred to me before, is more striking than that of the features.—! am, Sir, &c., GWEN Jon.w., 2nd Floor South, 9 Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, W.C. 2.
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