A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
EVER before in history has the image of a Sovereign been so widely diffused among, or so firmly imprinted upon the minds of, her subjects as the Queen's now Is upon ours, whoever we may be or wherever (almost) within her Empire we live. If Her Majesty ever took it into her head to emulate Haroun at Raschid, or even her ancestor before Agincourt, she would need the heaviest of disguises. For us, and one hopes also for her, this is a satisfactory state of affairs; but the fact ought not to be overlooked that all these images are in greater or less degree ephemeral. Methodical house- hfolders may preserve, in a frame or an album or a drawer, a coloured photograph or two from this or that illustrated periodical; and the various. Coronation films are records to Which posterity can have access when it feels inclined. But it Is no good imagining that by merely closing our eyes we shall for the rest of our lives be able, as we are today, to conjure up a vivid and reasonably accurate. picture of the Queen in the Year of her Coronation. Some children may retain, sharply in focus and for a long time, the visual impressions which for their elders are today so fresh and firm. But for most of us these 'impressions will continually be overlaid by others in the same media; our memories will blur; the Queen herself, !alpereeptibly altering under our constant gaze as the years go back will involuntarily distort our perspective as we look back with our mind's eyes on the history which we saw her make, with so singular a grace, in 1953. The British have developed a distrust of statuary which, though seemingly pathological, can hardly in the light of recent evidence be called misplaced; but we used to produce good statues once, and if without undue controversy a likeness of Her Majesty mounted upon the chestnut gelding Winston could be made I am sure that it would add elegance to our capital, depth to our memories and an acceptable bequest to whatever legacy we leave to our descendants. Londoners are better entitled than I am to sug- gest where it might be sited; but it would not look amiss in the unnaturally empty centre of the Horseguards Parade.
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