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Updated: June 16, 2025
As is well known in recent years, government in Great Britain is virtually that of the House of Commons, in large measure through a cabinet practically of its own appointment. The King is little more than a ceremonial figure-head, and the House of Lords is almost in a death struggle for existence.
Even when he followed the vigorous Dean Richmond as chairman of the Democratic State Committee, he did not suggest the creative political power which he afterwards revealed. He was regarded rather as a respectable figure-head. It was on this assumption that he escaped completely in the notorious election frauds of New York in 1868.
It is a sorrowful thing to trace the decay of civilization through this series of busts, and to observe how the artistic skill, so requisite at first, went on declining through the dreary dynasty of the Caesars, till at length the master of the world could not get his head carved in better style than the figure-head of a ship.
Potter, a great ship-builder at Liverpool, who had just completed a fine vessel intended for the China and India trade, wrote to my friend, Sir Francis Beaufort, hydrographer of the Royal Navy, asking him if I would give him permission to call her the "Mary Somerville," and to have a copy of my bust for her figure-head. I was much gratified with this, as might be expected.
It was a rather long, richly-gilded vessel, and bore a silver sparrow- hawk as figure-head. In its midst rose a golden canopy with a purple covering, beneath which cushions were conveniently arranged. On each deck in the forepart of the ship sat twelve rowers, their aprons attached by costly fastenings.
No Frenchman's bowsprit stands like that! Almighty God be praised! 'Tis the Cæsar there is the old Roman's figure-head just shoving out of the smoke!" This was said with a yell, rather than a cry, of delight, and in a voice so loud that the words were heard below, and flew through the ship like the hissing of an ascending rocket.
There are many occasions of local importance when an honourable figure-head is needed. The British fall back on the local hereditary peer or invite a prince, too often some poor creature great only by convention and what the Americans do I do not know, unless they use a Boss.
The letting down of the rattling steps completely overthrew the small remains of fortitude which my dearest mother had reserved for our separation, and she threw her arms around my neck in a frenzy of grief. I beheld her emotions with a countenance as unmoved as the figure-head of a ship; while she covered my stoic face with kisses, and washed it with her tears.
Gigantic in the basin just beyond the church, looms my Emigrant Ship: her name, the Amazon. Her figure-head is not disfigured as those beauteous founders of the race of strong-minded women are fabled to have been, for the convenience of drawing the bow; but I sympathise with the carver: A flattering carver who made it his care To carve busts as they ought to be not as they were.
The captain said that he knew the work, it was English carving. Soon after, a vessel came in, having lost her figure-head. The men on board said that a strange ship ran into her in the night, and immediately disappeared. They supposed she was much injured, as they afterwards saw a deck-load of lumber floating, which they thought had come from her.
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