Through the screen we can see among the trees the great bronze statue erected “by the ladies of England “ in honour of the conqueror of Waterloo. Since the days of its being cast there has always been irreverent jesting at the expense of the particular “ladies of England” who had chosen to offer this nude figure as a token of their admiration. Mr. Croker, however, once, reviewing a Frenchman’s account of a visit to London, thus vindicated the fair dames:--“Let it be known,” he says, “that the ladies of England had nothing to do with the selection of this brazen image. Both are the work, as we believe, of a self-elected committee, in which we doubt whether there was a single lady; and the whole affair was got up, we have heard, by the artist and half a dozen _dilettanti_, who cared little about the ladies or Wellington, or a triumphal monument, but were enraptured at the idea of erecting in London the copy of a statue which they had admired at Rome.” Close beside is the house of the “Iron Duke.” A few “oldest inhabitants” will recall how remorselessly, after all his windows had been broken by the mob, he kept his iron shutters down until the day of his death, a span of five-and-twenty years, once pointing to them significantly when the crowd attended him home with flattering shouts. It was a fine rebuke. Here we come to the Byron statue, a sort of schoolboy, in jacket and trousers, sitting on a triangular lump of metal, with a poorish dog. This is surely not the ideal of the noble poet. Instead of stopping with a reverential gaze and thinking of Childe Harold, we only wonder what this queer bit of pantomime signifies. The pedestal has been likened to “a cake of Pears’ soap.” It is the work of the once famous Belt, who obtained the commission from a committee of noblemen and gentlemen of taste. At the trial it was contended that one Verheyden had furnished the design, or the drawing of the design, and there was much fury of contention, cross-examination, etc., on this point. Those who wish to see what this Verheyden could do, may study the two graceful female figures over the door of the handsome New Water-colour Exhibition building in Piccadilly, and which were actually carved “_in situ_,” as it is called--a difficult feat.