William Brodie, a self-taught artist of great simplicity and true genius, whose fine statue of Lord Cockburn holds its place in the old Parliament Hall of Edinburgh alongside of Roubiliac’s Forbes of Culloden, Chantrey’s Lord Melville, and Steel’s Lord Jeffrey, was engaged in 1881 on a marble bust of William Nelson. He had been commissioned to execute for Toronto a bronze statue of Mr. Nelson’s brother-in-law, the Hon. George Brown, leader of the Liberal party in Upper Canada in its protracted struggle for constitutional government. His death, after long suffering, by the pistol-shot of an assassin, created a wide-spread sympathy in Canada, and awakened in the mind of William Nelson the keenest sympathy on behalf of his widowed sister. This, accordingly, gave an exceptional interest to the proposed statue. He discussed the plans with the sculptor, and eagerly anticipated its execution. But the commission had not been long intrusted to him, and the plans for its realization settled, when death arrested the gifted sculptor in the midst of his work. More than one day had been spent in the studio, examining some of his latest productions, including the unfinished bust, and discussing the treatment of the proposed statue. In the following November, William Nelson thus writes:--“You will have heard, ere this reaches you, intelligence of the death of poor William Brodie, the sculptor. He had been suffering for several months past from fatty degeneration of the heart, and on Sunday morning last he was released from earthly care and trouble. I had a note from his wife about a week before his death, in which she stated that he was a little better, and that he had been able to make some drawings for the statue of George Brown, but that no further progress had been made in the matter. The loss is great to art, for he was at his very best, and improving as he progressed. His Sir James Simpson I do not like; but he blamed its low site, buried among the trees, and wanted it removed to the open area of Nicolson Square, where, I daresay, it would show much better. As for his Lord Cockburn, it is the finest thing in the Parliament House. It is not for me to suggest who should now be intrusted with the work; but there can be no doubt that Mrs. D. O. Hill will be looking out for the commission; and if it should come her way, and she were to produce a work equal to her statue of Livingstone, the committee would not have occasion to regret having intrusted her with it.”