Memoir of Francis Hodgson
Augusta Leigh to Francis Hodgson, [1845]
Dear Mr.
Hodgson,—I have reproached myself for not telling you, what
perhaps by this time you have otherwise heard, that the statue, Thorwaldsen’s, is now to be seen at 14,
South Audley Street, at Sir R.
Westmacott’s, who is making a pedestal preparatory to its
being placed in Trinity College,
1 This picture is now at Hardwicke. |
![]()
![]()
| STATUE OF BYRON. BYRON ON SCULPTURE. | 277 |
![]()
Cambridge. As it
is not to go into the Abbey, perhaps this is as good a place as could have been
substituted, and will interest you, who were present at his reception in that
college. I think perchance you and Mrs.
H., or somebody you know, might like to see the statue, en attendant, as your railroad facilitates such
flights I hope you are all well, and with kindest regards to Mrs.
H. and best wishes
I am yours ever affectionately and truly,
P.S. I forgot to say, I have seen the statue and have
seen nothing so satisfactory as to resemblance since I saw the original.
The fact is, one sees the head and face in every point of view. . . . . I
do become very superannuating, and always think of poor B.’s horror of ‘withering at top
first,’ not from the same superabundance of brains, but wear and tear
of the few that I possess. . . . . But you do and always will sympathise in
my troubles for the sake of him, who is gone.
Augusta Leigh.
Francis Hodgson (1781-1852)
Provost of Eton College, translator of Juvenal (1807) and close friend of Byron. He wrote
for the
Monthly and
Critical Reviews, and was
author of (among other volumes of poetry)
Childe Harold's Monitor; or
Lines occasioned by the last Canto of Childe Harold (1818).
Hon. Augusta Mary Leigh [née Byron] (1783-1851)
Byron's half-sister; the daughter of Amelia Darcy, Baroness Conyers, she married
Lieutenant-Colonel George Leigh on 17 August 1807.
Bertel Thorwaldsen (1770-1844)
Danish sculptor who with Canova led the neoclassical school at Rome.
Sir Richard Westmacott (1775-1856)
English sculptor trained under Canova; he was professor of sculpture at the Royal Academy
(1827-57).
