A Statue to Captain Cook

Abstract

THE Australians have found a hero worthy of their worship, and Capt. Cook has at length found an English-speaking people eager to take occasion to honour the memory and the work of one of the greatest of Englishmen. The mystery of the reticence of our wealthy but unwieldy Geographical Society on the occurrence of the centenary of Cook's death, still remains unsolved; they did not even send a representative to Paris, to the amazement of the enthusiastic French geographers; was the weather too rough for the gallant admiral who we believe volunteered to the indifferent Council to go to the Paris meeting? We are glad for the credit of the nation that it has not been left entirely to the foreigner to recognise the greatness of one of England's greatest navigators and discoverers. Our readers may remember that some time since a statue of Cook adorned Waterloo Place, near the Athenæum Club. The statue was admitted to have been exceedingly happy in conception, and successful in execution; it is supposed to represent the great navigator coming within the loom of the east Australian coast, which he first saw near Cape Howe, to the south of Sydney. It was for this city that the statue was designed, and it was to inaugurate the work of Mr. Woolner, that on February 25 last one of the greatest demonstrations took place that has been witnessed in Australia since the first shipload of convicts was landed at Botany Bay. When we said that Australia had found a hero, perhaps we spoke too widely, for only New South Wales as represented by Sydney, seems to have joined in the demonstration to commemorate the centenary of Cook's tragic end and the unveiling of nis statue. It seems to us a great thing for a people to have a worthy national hero, and since the days when Abraham begat Isaac, and probably long before, every nation of any note has had its hero or demigod in whom all the national virtues have been embodied, The Australians have the making of a great people among them, and while they have a right to count our gods as theirs, still no doubt they would like to have a Hengist of their own to mark a new starting-point in their history. Happily, as we have said, they have found a worthy one—one whose character is in every respect worthy of their admiration, and the principles of whose conduct, if adopted and acted upon, will help to make of them a really great people. However desirable we may think the federation of our Australian colonies to be, any advocacy of it in these pages would be out of place. Still we cannot but think that it would have been a good thing in many ways—a good thing for the colonies themselves, and conducive to cordiality among them-had they all united to do honour to one so worthy of honour in all respects, and to whom, in a sense, they are indebted for their very existence.