NAUTICAL SOLECISMS.
[TO THE EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR.'
SIL—Lord Fisher in one of his recent books draws attention to the small numbers of statues of great seamen that embellish (?) London and complains of the position of those that do exist. May I give expression to a much more serious complaint concerning them ? The statues which I pass daily seem to me to cast wholly unwarranted aspersions on the sea- manship of two of our greatest explorers who were also naval officers, Franklin and Cook.
The former is represented as standing on a piece of rocky ground in front of a kedge anchor. I have no fault to find with this, for doubtless in the course of his expeditions kedge anchors were landed from time to time amongst other stores, but I do find fault with the fact that the hawser, in spite of being coiled down, is most abominably foul of the shank of the anchor. None but a landlubber, in putting the anchor there and coiling down the hawser, could possibly have left it in that condition, and no seaman could have tolerated such a piece of slackness for a moment, much less taken his stand beside it with a benevolent expression on his face. Had Franklin been represented looking angrily at the anchor, and beckoning for the culprit to come and clear the foul, it might have been legitimate to introduce such a thing into the com- position. As it is, it is a libel. The ease of Captain Cook is far worse. He is represented as standing with his back to a capstan gazing into the far distance. Doubtless the sculptor knew that a capstan is usually to be found on board ship, and thought that it would add a little local colour, but it does not seem to have occurred to him that a captain who wished to gaze into the far distance would have done so from the poop, instead of descending to the waist whence his view would have been much restricted. But this is not the worst. There is a hawser brought to the capstan with two riding turns! The remainder of the hawser is coiled down, and Captain Cook is standing in the bight! Words fail me.— I am, Sir, &c., A illT MT/LE SEAMAN. P.SS—Doubtless some critic will attempt to confound me 141 saying that the Admiralty badge is a foul anchor. So it is in heraldry, but Franklin's anchor is real, not heraldic. Besides, if a statue were being erected of, say, the late Mr. Selous, one would hardly expect him to be portrayed in the act of shooting an heraldic lion.
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