The Shaftesbury Memorial was conceived under an unlucky star. Alfred Gilbert was about thirty years of age when the commission reached him. He accepted it as the chance of a lifetime. The design has always been admitted to be a masterpiece, but throughout its erection, the Memorial was dogged by misfortune, until, as it stands to-day it can hardly be said to represent the sculptor’s idea at all. This is due to causes largely outside his control. It is true that the aluminium figure of the archer which surmounts it has darkened and has lost its first silvery lightness. It may be alleged that Gilbert should have foreseen the eventuality. But in several material respects the Memorial differs entirely from what he proposed. At the very last moment a new base was added at the request of a party of humanitarians who were anxious that the thirsty Londoner might not be disappointed. Alfred Gilbert’s design did not contemplate this, but the London County Council held that, since the monument had taken the form of a fountain, it was only logical—logical, forsooth!—that water should be there for man and beast. Later the design was shorn of its ground-floor—which was to have been a bronze basin. This space is now occupied by the steps. The sculptor contemplated the water from the fountain playing into the basin. The change actually reduced the structure by six feet. Finally, the cry of a too large water bill was raised, and the jets of all shapes and forms, which were to have played among the fishes that form the principal part of the decorative scheme, were reduced to the present trickle. Our readers may remember how the artists of Florence turned out to debate what site the “David” of the youthful Michael Angelo was to occupy. A less tragic note would sound through the story of the Shaftesbury Memorial if the sculptor had had to deal with a similar body of men, instead of a committee chosen for its ability to collect subscriptions and a soulless corporation like the London County Council. [Illustration: ALFRED GILBERT SAINT GEORGE From the Clarence Memorial, Windsor] In the nature of things it is hard to illustrate the whole of a full and vigorous personality from one or two of his works. Perhaps Gilbert, in his double capacity of craftsman and imaginative designer, can best be judged from the Tomb of the late Duke of Clarence, in the Memorial Chapel, Windsor. It has a double interest, inasmuch as it reveals at once the strength and the weakness of his method. Directly after the sad death of the Prince in 1892, the sculptor was called to Sandringham. He arrived on the Saturday and learnt the wishes of the present King and Queen. During the Sunday night Gilbert conceived and designed the whole monument. Three days later he submitted the completed sketch.