Between 1795 and 1815, the British Government spent an amazing £110,575 on thirty-three marble monuments to the heroes of the wars against Napoleonic France. These now people the aisles, crypt and walls of St Paul¹s Cathedral, and visitors pass them by, pausing only to stare with incomprehension, or to giggle. These tributes in stone, many of them fully life-sized, are worth more than that; they form a history book, provide a gallery of early nineteenth-century English sculpture, and repay time spent in examination and contemplation.

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