every art or book-store window, and they are constantly finding new
admirers, and rendering the name of the talented sculptor more and more
a household word.

JOHN ROGERS, to whom the world is indebted for this new branch of art,
was born at Salem, Massachusetts, on the 30th of October, 1829. His
ancestors were among the original settlers of the colony, and have
resided in Salem for generations. His father, a merchant of moderate
means and good reputation, was anxious to train his son to some regular
and profitable business. As the basis of this, he gave the boy a good
education in the common schools of the town, and in 1845, when he was
sixteen years old, placed him in a dry-goods store in Boston to learn
the business. He remained there for two years.

He gave early evidence of his artistic genius, and when a mere child had
shown a taste and talent for drawing which increased with his years, and
made him eager to become an artist. His parents, however, were desirous
of seeing him rich rather than famous, and did all in their power to
discourage him from making choice of a vocation which they considered
but little better than vagabondage. They magnified the difficulties and
trials of an artist's career, and so far succeeded in their efforts that
he entirely abandoned his wish to make art a means of livelihood. He was
not willing to forsake it altogether, however--he was too true an artist
at heart for that--but contented himself for the time with continuing
his efforts, merely as a means of personal enjoyment.

In 1847, feeling satisfied that he was not suited to a mercantile life,
Mr. Rogers gave up his clerkship in Boston, and obtained a place in the
corps of engineers engaged in the construction of the Cochituate Water
Works. Here he had a fine opportunity for cultivating his talent for
drawing, but the constant labor which he underwent so injured his eyes
that he was compelled to give up his position. His physician advised him
to make an ocean voyage for the purpose of re-establishing his health.
Acting upon this advice, he made a short visit to Spain, and returned
home very much improved by the voyage and the rest his eyes had enjoyed.

In 1848, soon after his return to this country, he entered a machine
shop in Manchester, New Hampshire, to learn the trade of a machinist. He
worked at this trade for a period of seven years, applying himself to it
with great diligence and determination, and acquiring much mechanical
skill and a thorough knowledge of the trade. He rose steadily through
the various grades of his new calling--from the bench of the apprentice
to the post of draughtsman in the designing department.

During this period he devoted himself enthusiastically to his art. Soon
after his return from Spain, he had observed a young man modeling a
figure in clay, and by closely observing him had learned the process,
which until then was unknown to him. The labor of the youth pleased him
very much, and the more because he saw in it a new means of artistic
expression. He at once procured some clay, and, taking it to his room,
commenced to practice upon the lesson which he had just received. From
this time forward he continued his art labors, giving to them all the
leisure time he could spare from his duties in the shop, where he was
compelled to work from five A.M. until seven P.M. He would go to his
room after supper, and by the light of a tallow candle work late into
the night, modeling figures in clay, and bringing new fancies into
shape. He says that frequently, although exhausted by his severe labor
at the shop, he would be unable to sleep until he had molded into clay
the idea which possessed his mind. These night studies, superadded to
his daily duties, proved very trying to him. Yet he persevered,
encouraged by his success with his figures. He endeavored to persuade
some of his relatives to aid him in securing a better education as an
artist, such as would have enabled him to abandon the machine shop; but
they turned a deaf ear to him, and he was thus compelled to continue his
daily task, which, under these circumstances, naturally grew more and
more irksome.

In 1856, he was enabled to better his condition for a short time. He was
offered the place of manager of a railroad machine-shop at Hannibal,
Missouri, and promptly accepted it. In six months, however, he was out
of employment, the panic of 1857 having caused the machine-shop to
suspend operations. Having a little money in hand, which he had saved
from his wages, he resolved to visit Europe, and study the works of the
great masters in his art, and, if he could, to take lessons in sculpture
from some competent teacher in the Old World. He went to Paris and Rome,
remaining in those cities for a period of eight months, and endeavoring
to share the enthusiasm for the great works around him which the artist
world manifested. At the end of that time he came home convinced that
classic art had no attractions for him, and was almost ready to declare
that he had none of the true inspiration of an artist.

He did not stop long in the East upon his return. Going West at once, he
obtained a situation in the office of the Surveyor of the city of
Chicago. In this position he worked hard and faithfully, and his
employers soon found that in him they had obtained a prize.

Meantime, although so much disheartened by his failure to accomplish any
thing in Europe, he did not abandon his art studies, but continued to
model figures in clay, and shortly after his arrival in Chicago, gave
one of his groups to some ladies of that city, to be sold at a fair in
behalf of some benevolent purpose. This was the "Checker Players," and
was the first of his efforts ever submitted to the public. Its success
was immediate. It proved one of the most attractive features of the
fair, and the newspapers pronounced it one of the most satisfactory
evidences of native genius ever seen in Chicago. Mr. Rogers was much
pleased with its success, and soon followed it with "The Town Pump," one
of his most popular compositions.

The popularity which these efforts attained, opened John Rogers's eyes
to a correct perception of his true mission in life. He was not capable
of accomplishing any thing in classic art, but here was a field in which
a renown, unique and brilliant, might be won, and in which he might
endear himself to thousands of hearts in the great world in which he
lived. Both fame and wealth seemed opening up before him. He did not
hesitate long, but resolved to follow the leadings of his genius. Having
heard that a new process of flexible molds had been invented, by which
the most intricate designs could be cast with ease, he came to New York
in 1859, bringing with him his "Checker Players" and "Town Pump," and
the model of a new group on which he was then engaged. Seeking an
Italian familiar with the new process, he engaged him to cast his
figures in plaster by means of it, and from him he learned how to
practice the new method himself.

He now put forth his "Slave Auction," which he had modeled in Chicago
and brought to New York with him. The antislavery excitement was then at
its height, and this effort aroused the sympathy and won Mr. Rogers the
support of the greater part of the people of the Northern States. There
was a large demand for the group, and Mr. Rogers soon found himself
obliged to employ assistance to fill the orders which kept crowding in
upon him. By selecting a subject which was of the deepest interest to
the people of the country, he had thus attracted attention to his
merits, and he felt sure that by keeping the people supplied with works
illustrative of the topics of the day, he would win the success to which
he aspired.

He now ventured to establish himself permanently in New York, and,
renting the garret of a Broadway building, set up his studio in it, and
issued this modest card: "John Rogers, Artist, Designs and Executes
Groups of Figures in Composition at his Studio, 599 Broadway." The
success of his works had been so marked as to induce him to believe that
he would have no difficulty in establishing a permanent business, and he
set to work with enthusiasm. In quick succession he produced his
"Fairy's Whisper" and "Air Castles," the latter of which is the only
commission he has ever executed. The war began soon after, and supplied
him with an abundance of popular subjects. These war subjects attracted
universal attention, and sold as rapidly as he could supply them. A New
York journal thus describes the "sensation" which they created in that
city:

"All day, and every day, week in and week out, there is an
ever-changing crowd of men, women, and children standing stationary amid
the ever-surging tides of Broadway, before the windows of Williams &
Stevens, gazing with eager interest upon the statuettes and groups of
John Rogers, the sculptor. These works appeal to a deep popular
sentiment. They are not pretentious displays of gods, goddesses, ideal
characters, or stupendous, world-compelling heroes. They are
illustrations of American domestic and especially of American military
life--not of our great generals or our bold admirals, or the men whose
praises fill all the newspapers, but of the common soldier of the Union;
not of the common soldier, either, in what might be called his high
heroic moods and moments, when, with waving sword and flaming eye, he
dashes upon the enemy's works, but of the soldier in the ordinary
moments and usual occupations of every-day camp life. For the last year
or more Mr. Rogers has been at work mainly on groups of this latter
class and character. Thus he has given us 'The Returned Volunteer, or
How the Fort was Taken,' being a group of three gathered in a
blacksmith's shop, the characters consisting of the blacksmith himself,
standing with his right foot on the anvil block, and his big hammer in
his hands, listening eagerly, with his little girl, to a soldier who
sits close by on his haunches, narrating 'how the fort was taken,' We
have also another group of three, 'The Picket Guard,' spiritedly
sketched, as in eager, close, and nervous search for the enemy; the
'Sharpshooters,' another group of three, or rather of two men and a
scarecrow, illustrating a curious practice in our army of deceiving the
enemy; the 'Town Pump,' a scene in which a soldier, uniformed and
accoutered, is slaking his thirst and holding blessed converse beside
the pump with a pretty girl who has come for a pail of water; the 'Union
Refugees,' a pathetic and noble group, consisting of a stalwart and
sad-faced East Tennesseean or Virginian, who accompanied by his wife,
who leans her head upon his bosom, and by his little boy, who looks up
eagerly into his face, has started off from home with only his gun upon
his shoulder and his powder-horn by his side, to escape the tyranny of
the rebels; 'The Camp Fire, or Making Friends with the Cook,' in which a
hungry soldier, seated upon an inverted basket, is reading a newspaper
to an 'intelligent contraband,' who is stirring the contents of a huge
and ebullient pot hung over the fire; 'Wounded to the Rear, or One More
Shot,' in which a soldier is represented as dressing his wounded leg,
while his companion, with his left arm in a sling, is trying to load his
gun to take another shot at the enemy, at whom he looks defiantly; 'Mail
Day,' which tells its own story of a speculative soldier, seated on a
stone and racking his poor brains to find some ideas to transcribe upon
the paper which he holds upon his knee, to be sent perchance to her he
loves; 'The Country Postmaster, or News from the Army,' which, though a
scene from civil life, tells of the anxiety of the soldier's wife or
sweetheart to get tidings from the brave volunteer who is periling his
life on the battle-field; 'The Wounded Scout, or a Friend in the Swamp,'
representing a soldier, torn, and bleeding, and far gone, rescued and
raised up by a faithful and kind-hearted negro--which we think is one of
the best, if not the very best, of Mr. Rogers's works; and lastly, a
group called 'The Home Guard, or Midnight on the Border,' in which a
heroic woman, accompanied by a little girl, is represented as stepping
out, pistol in hand, to confront the assailants of her humble home."

In 1862 Mr. Rogers removed his studio to the corner of Fifth Avenue and
Twenty-sixth Street, where he still remains. He has followed up the
earlier productions named above with "The Bushwhacker," a scene
representing a Tennessee loyalist dogging the footsteps of the Southern
army; "Taking the Oath and Drawing Rations," the best and certainly the
most popular of his works,--a group of four, representing a Southern
lady with her little boy, compelled to take the oath of allegiance in
order to obtain rations for her family. A negro boy, bearing a basket
for his mistress, leans on the barrel watching the proceeding with the
most intense interest. The woman's face is wonderful, and it expresses
eloquently the struggle in her breast between her devotion to the South
and her love for the boy before her, and the officer tendering the oath
almost speaks the sympathy which her suffering has awakened in him. The
other works of our artist are "Uncle Ned's School," "The Charity
Patient," "The School Examination," "The Council of War," "The Courtship
in Sleepy Hollow," "The Fugitive's Story," "Challenging the Union Vote,"
and "Rip Van Winkle."

The process by which these exquisite groups are produced is exceedingly
simple, but is one requiring considerable skill and delicacy of
manipulation, and although the casting could readily be done by
competent assistants, Mr. Rogers conscientiously gives his personal
attention to every detail of the process. The artist takes a mass of wet
clay of the desired consistency and size, and fashions it roughly with
his hands to something like the proper shape. "It is sometimes necessary
to make a little frame of wire upon which to lay the clay, to hold it in
its proper place, the wire being easily made to take any form. The rough
figure is then finished with the molding stick, which is simply a stick
of pine with a little spoon of box-wood attached to each end, one spoon
being more delicate than the other. With this instrument the artist
works upon the clay with surprising ease. The way in which the works are
reproduced is as follows: When the clay model is complete, a single
plaster cast is taken for a pattern, and is finished with the most
scrupulous care by Mr. Rogers himself. This cast is used as a pattern
for making whatever number of molds may be needed to supply the demand
for any particular group or statue. The molds are made of glue softened
with water, so as to be about as limber as India-rubber. This is poured
over the pattern while in a warm and liquid condition; it is, therefore,
necessary to surround the pattern with a stiff case to hold the glue in
place. This case is made of plaster, and is built up by hand around the
pattern. When the glue has become sufficiently hard, it is cut by a thin
sharp knife and pulled off the pattern. The parts are put together and
bound by cord, making a perfect glue mold. The plaster of Paris is then
poured into the mold inverted. A number of crooked pieces of wire are
also placed in the mold to strengthen the figure. In about twenty
minutes the plaster sets so as to allow the case to be opened, and the
glue mold to be pulled off. To his proficiency in the mechanical part of
his art Mr. Rogers attributes a considerable measure of his success, as
it enables him to execute with facility every suggestion of his
imagination, and to secure the perfect reproduction of his works by
those to whom he intrusts that labor."

By placing his works at popular prices, ranging from $10 to $25 each,
Mr. Rogers has insured the largest sale and greatest popularity for
them, and has thus become a national benefactor. It is now within the
power of every person of moderate means to possess one or more of his
exquisite groups, and in this way the artist has not only secured to
himself a sure means of wealth, but has done much to encourage and
foster a popular love for, and appreciation of, the art of which he is
so bright an ornament.

It was a bold venture to depart so entirely from all the precedents of
art, but the result has vindicated both the artist's genius and his
quick appreciation of the intelligence of his countrymen. "We can not
enter into the feelings of ancient Greece," says a popular journal, in
summing up his efforts, "and our artists who spend their time in
attempting to reproduce that ancient art are only imitators. Their works
interest only a small class of connoisseurs, and that interest is an
antiquarian interest. It is not a vital, living interest, such as a
Greek felt in his own work. It is not the natural, healthful, artistic
feeling, the feeling for the beauty of realities, except in so far as it
represents the feeling for the eternal attributes of beautiful form. It
is an effort on the part of our artists to impose the forms and features
of another age upon this one,--a task as impossible in art as in
society, religion, and national politics."

Mr. Rogers is now in his forty-first year, and of all our American
artists is, perhaps, the one best known to the masses, and the most
popular. He is of medium height, carries himself erectly, and is quick
and energetic in his movements. His face is frank, manly, and open, and
the expression, though firm and resolute,--as that of a man who has
fought so hard for success must be,--is winning and genial. He is a
gentleman of great cultivation of mind, and is said by his friends to be
one of the most entertaining of companions. In 1865 he married a
daughter of Mr. C.S. Francis, of New York, and his fondness for domestic
life leads him to pass his leisure hours chiefly by his own fireside.


[Illustration: HIRAM POWERS.]




CHAPTER XXIX.

HIRAM POWERS.


Hiram Powers was born in Woodstock, Vermont, on the 29th of July, 1805.
He was the eighth in a family of nine children, and was the son of a
farmer who found it hard to provide his little household with the
necessaries of life. He grew up as most New England boys do, sound and
vigorous in health, passing the winters in attendance upon the district
schools, and the summers in working on the farm. "The only distinctive
trait exhibited by the child was mechanical ingenuity; he excelled in
caricature, was an adept in constructiveness, having made countless
wagons, windmills, and weapons for his comrades, attaining the height of
juvenile reputation as the inventor of what he called a 'patent fuse.'"

The Powers family lived just over the river, opposite the village, and
all joined heartily in the effort to keep the wolf from the doors. Mr.
Powers, Sen., was induced to become security for one of his friends,
and, as frequently happens, lost all he had in consequence. Following
close upon this disaster came a dreadful famine in the State, caused by
an almost total failure of the crops. "I recollect," says Mr. Powers,
"we cut down the trees, and fed our few cows on the browse. We lived so
long wholly on milk and potatoes, that we got almost to loathe them.
There were seven of us children, five at home, and it was hard work to
feed us."

One of the sons had managed to secure an education at Dartmouth College,
and had removed to Cincinnati, where he was at this time editing a
newspaper. Thither his father, discouraged by the famine, determined to
follow him. Accordingly, placing his household goods and his family in
three wagons, and being joined by another family, he set out on the long
journey to the West. This was in 1819, when young Hiram was fourteen
years old. It cost him a sharp struggle to leave his old home, and as
they climbed the hills beyond Woodstock he lingered behind with his
mother to take a last view of the place. They crossed the State, and
passing through western New York came to the vicinity of Niagara Falls.
They were near enough to the great cataract to hear its solemn roar
sounding high above the silent woods. The boy was eager to visit it, but
the distance was too great to the falls, and he was forced to relinquish
this pleasure. Continuing their journey westward, they reached the Ohio
River, down which stream they floated on a flatboat until they came to
Cincinnati, then a city of fourteen thousand inhabitants.

Through the assistance of his eldest son, the editor, Mr. Powers was
enabled to secure a farm not far from Cincinnati, and removing his
family to it, began the task of clearing and cultivating it.
Unfortunately for the new-comers, the farm was located on the edge of a
pestilential marsh, the poisonous exhalations of which soon brought the
whole family down with the ague. Mr. Powers the elder died from this
disease, and Hiram was ill and disabled from it for a whole year. The
family was broken up and scattered, and our hero, incapable of
performing hard work so soon after his sickness, obtained a place in a
produce store in Cincinnati, his duty being to watch the principal road
by which the farmers' wagons, laden with grain and corn whisky, came
into the city, and to inform the men in charge of them that they could
obtain better prices for their produce from his employers than from any
other merchants in the city. It was also a part of his duty to help to
roll the barrels from the wagons to the store. He made a very good
"drummer," and gave satisfaction to his employers, but as the concern
soon broke up, he was again without employment.

His brother, the editor, now came to his assistance, and made a bargain
with the landlord of a hotel in the city to establish a reading-room at
his hotel. The landlord was to provide the room and obtain a few paying
subscribers; the editor was to stock it with his exchange newspapers,
and Hiram was to be put in charge of it and receive what could be made
by it. The reading-room was established, but as the landlord failed to
comply with his agreement, Powers was forced to abandon the undertaking.

[Illustration: POWERS' DISTRUST OF THE HUNTERS.]

"About that time," said he, in relating his early life to the Rev. Dr.
Bellows, some years ago, "looking around anxiously for the means of
living, I fell in with a worthy man, a clock-maker and organ-builder,
who was willing to employ me to collect bad debts in the country. He put
me on an old horse which had one very bad fault. He was afflicted with
what the Western people called the 'swaleys,' and could not go downhill.
I frequently had to dismount and back him down, as the only way of
getting along. The road often lay through forests and clearings, in
mire, and among the roots of the beeches, with which my poor beast was
constantly struggling. I would sometimes emerge from a dark wood, five
miles through, perhaps, and find myself near a clearing where the
farmer's house I was seeking lay, half a mile off the road. Picking up
a stout club to defend myself against the inevitable dog, which, in the
absence of men-folks, guarded every log-house, I plodded across the
plowed field, soon to be met by the ferocious beast, who, not seeing a
stranger more than once a month, was always furious and dangerous. Out
would come, at length, the poor woman, too curious to see who it was
that broke up her monotonous solitude, to call off the dog, who
generally grew fiercer as he felt his backer near him, and it was
commonly with a feeling as of a bare escape of my life that I finally
got into the house. It was sad enough, too, often to find sickness and
death in those fever-stricken abodes--a wan mother nursing one dying
child, with perhaps another dead in the house. My business, too, was not
the most welcome. I came to dun a delinquent debtor, who had perhaps
been inveigled by some peddler of our goods into an imprudent purchase,
for a payment which it was inconvenient or impossible to make. There, in
the corner, hung the wooden clock, the payment for which I was after,
ticking off the last minutes of the sick child--the only ornament of the
poor cabin. It was very painful to urge my business under such
circumstances. However, I succeeded, by kindness, in getting more money
than I expected from our debtors, who would always pay when they could.
I recollect, one night, almost bewailing my success. I had reached the
entrance of a forest, at least nine miles through, and finding a little
tavern there, concluded it was prudent to put up and wait till morning.
There were two rough-looking fellows around, hunters, with rifles in
their hands, whose appearance did not please me, and I fancied they
looked at each other significantly when the landlord took off my
saddle-bags and weighted them, feeling the hundred dollars of silver I
had collected. I was put into the attic, reached by a ladder, and,
barricading the trap-door as well as I could, went to sleep with one
eye open. Nothing, however, occurred, and in the morning I found my
wild-looking men up as early as I, and was not a little disturbed when
they proposed to keep me company across the forest. Afraid to show any
suspicion, I consented, and then went and looked at the little
flint-pistol I carried, formidable only to sparrows, but which was my
only defense.

"About two miles into the wood, my fierce-looking friends, after some
exchange of understanding as to their respective ways and meeting-point,
started off on different sides of the road in search of game, as they
said, but, as I feared, with the purpose of robbing and perhaps
murdering me at some darker spot in the forest. I had gone perhaps two
miles farther, when I heard the breaking of a twig, and, looking on one
side, saw a hand signaling me to stop. Presently an eye came out behind
the tree, and then an arm, and I verily thought my hour had come. But,
keeping straight on, I perceived, almost instantly, to my great relief,
two fine deer, who appeared not at all disturbed by a man on horseback,
though ready enough to fly from a gun, and began to suspect that the
robber I was dreading was, after all, only a hunter in the honest
pursuit of his living. The crack of the rifle soon proved that the deer,
and not my saddle-bags, were the game aimed at, and I found my
imagination had for twelve hours been converting very harmless huntsmen
into highwaymen of a most malicious aspect."

His employer was so well pleased with the success of his young collector
that he offered to give him a place in the factory, saying there would
always be plenty of rough work at which an inexperienced hand could
employ himself. "I could refuse no proposition that promised me bread
and clothes," said he, "for I was often walking the streets hungry, with
my arms pressed close to my sides to conceal the holes in my coat
sleeves." His first task was to thin down with a file some brass plates
which were to be used as parts of the stops of an organ. Powers was
expected to do merely the rough work, after which the plates were to
pass into the hands of the regular finisher. His employer, knowing that
the task was one which would require time, told him he would look in in
a few days, and see how he had succeeded. The young man's mechanical
talent, on which he had prided himself when a boy in Vermont, now did
him good service, and he applied himself to his task with skill and
determination. When his employer asked for the plates, he was astonished
to find that Powers had not only done the rough work, but had finished
them much better than the regular finisher had ever done, and this
merely by his greater nicety of eye and his undaunted energy. He had
blistered his hands terribly, but had done his work well. His employer
was delighted, and, finding him so valuable an assistant, soon gave him
the superintendence of all his machinery, and took him to live in his
own family.

As has been stated, his employer's business was the manufacture of
organs and clocks. Powers displayed great skill in the management of the
mechanical department of the business, and this, added to the favor
shown him by the "boss," drew upon him the jealousy of the other
workmen. There hung in the shop at this time an old silver bull's-eye
watch, a good time-piece, but very clumsy and ungainly in appearance.
Powers was anxious to become its owner. Being too poor to buy it, he hit
upon the following expedient for obtaining it. He had carefully studied
the machine used in the shop for cutting out wooden clock wheels, and
had suggested to his employer several improvements in it. The workmen,
however, had ridiculed his suggestions, and had denounced as the most
barefaced presumption his belief that he could improve a machine which
had come all the way from Connecticut, where, they said, people were
supposed to know something about clocks. Nevertheless, he maintained his
opinions, and told his employer that if he would give him the silver
watch, he would invent a much better machine. His offer was accepted,
and in ten days he produced a machine, not only much simpler than the
old one, but capable of performing twice as much and better work. The
workmen promptly acknowledged his success, and his employer gave him the
watch. "The old watch," said he, a few years ago, "has ticked all my
children into existence, and three of them out of this world. It still
hangs at the head of my bed."

About this time, in a chance visit to the Museum in Cincinnati, he saw a
plaster cast of Houdon's "Washington." It was the first bust he had ever
seen, and he says it moved him strangely. He had an intense desire to
know how it was done, and a vague consciousness that he could do work of
the same kind if he could find an instructor. The instructor he soon
found in a German living in the city, who made plaster casts and busts,
and from him he learned the secret of the art. He proved an apt pupil,
and surprised his teacher by his proficiency. His first effort at
modeling from life was the bust of a little daughter of Mr. John P.
Foote. She sat to him during the hours he could spare from his regular
work. His model was made of beeswax, as he was afraid that clay would
freeze or stiffen. His success encouraged him very greatly. "I found I
had a correct eye," said he, "and a hand which steadily improved in its
obedience to my eye. I saw the likeness, and knew it depended on the
features, and that, if I could copy the features exactly, the likeness
would follow just as surely as the blood follows the knife. I found
early that all the talk about catching the expression was mere twaddle;
the expression would take care of itself if I copied the features
exactly."

The true principles of his art seemed to come to him naturally, and
having the genius to comprehend them so readily, he had the courage to
hold on to them often in the face of adverse criticism. While conscious
of having a perfectly correct eye, however, he did not scorn the humbler
method of obtaining exactness by mathematical measurement. The following
incident, which he related to Dr. Bellows, illustrates this:

"One of the first busts I ever made was of an artist, a Frenchman, who
came over with Mrs. Trollope. He proposed to paint my picture, while I
was to make his bust. He was older, and considered himself much my
superior, and, indeed, undertook to be my instructor. I was to begin.
His first _canon_ was that I was to use no measurements, and he quoted
Michael Angelo's saying--'A sculptor should carry his compasses in his
eyes, not in his fingers,' I humbly submitted to his authority, and
finished the bust without a single measurement. He was very triumphant
at what he called the success of his method. I begged permission of him,
now that the bust was completed, to verify my work by the dividers. He
graciously consented, and I was pleased to find how nearly I had hit the
mark. A few imperfections, however, appeared, and these, in spite of his
objections, I corrected without his knowledge, for I was determined to
have the bust as near right as I could make it. It had taken me,
however, at least five times as long to measure the distances with my
eyes as it would have done to measure them with the calipers, and I saw
no advantage in the longer and more painful effort. The measurements are
mere preparations for the artist's true work, and are, like the
surveyor's lines, preparatory to the architect's labor. When my subject,
in his turn, undertook my portrait, he was true to his own principles,
and finished it without measurements. I then, though with some horror at
my temerity, asked permission to verify his work with the dividers, and
found at the first stroke a difference of at least half an inch in the
distance between the eyes. He looked very much mortified, but said that
it was done to 'give the effect.' I have had no misgivings since about
the economy and wisdom of using the calipers freely. To be useful, they
must be applied with the greatest precision--so small are the
differences upon which all the infinite variety in human countenances
depends. With the aid of my careful measurements, I do in one day what
it would cost me a week or two's work to accomplish without, and I am
then able to give my exclusive attention to the modeling."

He did not regularly devote himself to his art, however, but remained in
the employment of the organ and clock maker for some time longer, giving
his leisure hours to constant practice. When he was about twenty-three
years old, a Frenchman named Herview opened in Cincinnati a museum of
natural history and wax figures. The latter had been very much broken
and disfigured in transportation, and their owner, in despair, begged
Powers to undertake the task of restoring them. The figures were
representations of distinguished men and women, and as Powers readily
saw that it would be impossible to repair them without having proper
likenesses as his guides, he proposed to the Frenchman to make an
entirely new composition of the old materials, and one which should
attract attention by its oddity. This was agreed to, and the result was
a hideous and ungainly figure, which Powers proposed should be called
the "King of the Cannibal Islands," but to his amazement the Frenchman
advertised it as the embalmed body of a South Sea man-eater, "secured at
immense expense." Powers declared to his employer that the audience
would discover the cheat and tear down the museum; but the "man-eater"
drew immense crowds, and was regarded as the most wonderful natural
curiosity ever seen in the West. The Frenchman was so well pleased with
it that he employed the artist permanently as inventor, wax-figure
maker, and general mechanical contriver in the museum.

Powers remained in the Frenchman's employ for seven years, hoping all
the while to earn money enough to devote himself entirely to art, which
had now become his great ambition. His experience was not a pleasant
one. Some of it was so singular, not to say ludicrous, that he shall
relate one portion of it in his own language:

"One of the first things I undertook, in company with Herview, was a
representation of the infernal regions after Dante's description. Behind
a grating I made certain dark grottoes, full of stalactites and
stalagmites, with shadowy ghosts and pitchforked figures, all calculated
to work on the easily-excited imaginations of a Western audience, as the
West then was. I found it very popular and attractive, but occasionally
some countryman would suggest to his fellow spectator that a little
motion in the figures would add much to the reality of the show. After
much reflection I concluded to go in among the figures dressed like the
Evil One, in a dark robe, with a death's-head and cross-bones wrought
upon it, and with a lobster's claw for a nose. I had bought and fixed up
an old electrical machine, and connected it with a wire, so that, from a
wand in my hand, I could discharge quite a serious shock upon any body
venturing too near the grating. The plan worked admirably, and excited
great interest; but I found acting the part of wax-figure two hours
every evening in the cold no sinecure, and was put to my wits to devise
a figure that could be moved by strings, and which would fill my place.
I succeeded so well that it ended in my inventing a whole series of
automata, for which the old wax-figures furnished the materials, in
part, and which became so popular and so rewarding, that I was kept
seven years at the business, my employer promising me, from time to
time, an interest in the business, which he quite forgot to fulfill.
When, at last, I found out the vanity of my expectations, I left him. He
knew I kept no accounts, but he did not know that I reported all the
money he gave me to my wife, who did keep our accounts. He tried to
cheat me, but I was able to baffle him through her prudence and method.
For I had married in this interval, and had a wife and children to
support."

Powers was now thirty years old, and had acquired considerable
reputation in Cincinnati as an artist. His abilities coming to the
notice of Mr. Nicholas Longworth, of that city, that good genius of
young men of talent called on him and offered to buy out the museum and
establish him in the business. The offer was declined with thanks. Mr.
Longworth then proposed to send him to Italy to study his profession,
but this, too, being declined, Mr. Longworth urged him to go to
Washington and try his fortune with the public men of the country. To
this Powers consented, and, aided by his generous friend, he repaired to
the national capital in 1835, and spent two years there. During this
period he modeled busts of Andrew Jackson, J.Q. Adams, Calhoun, Chief
Justice Marshall, Woodbury, Van Buren, and others. Being unable to
secure a model of Webster in Washington, the statesman invited him to go
with him to Marshfield for that purpose. Powers accepted the invitation,
and declares that he looks back upon his sojourn there as one of the
most delightful portions of his life.

General Jackson was very kind to him, and won his lasting esteem and
gratitude. Upon being asked if he would sit for his bust, the old hero
hesitated, and, looking at the artist nervously, asked: "Do you daub any
thing over the face? Because," he added, "I recollect poor Mr. Jefferson
got nearly smothered when they tried to take his bust. The plaster
hardened before they got ready to release him, and they pounded it with
mallets till they nearly stunned him, and then almost tore off a piece
of his ear in their haste to pull off a sticking fragment of the mold. I
should not like that." Powers assured him that such a terrible process
would not be necessary, but that he only wished to look at him for an
hour a day, sitting in his chair. The General brightened up at once, and
cordially told him it would give him pleasure to sit for him. He at once
installed the artist in a room in the White House, and gave him a
sitting of an hour every morning until the model was done.

Mr. Powers regards the bust of Jackson as one of his best efforts, and
the President himself was very much pleased with it. After he had
completed his model, Mr. Edward Everett brought Baron Krudener, the
Prussian Minister to Washington, to see it. The Baron was a famous art
critic, and poor Powers was terribly nervous as he showed him the bust.
The Baron examined it closely, and then said to the artist, "You have
got the General completely: his head, his face, his courage, his
firmness, his identical self; and yet it will not do! You have also got
all his wrinkles, all his age and decay. You forget that he is President
of the United States and the idol of the people. You should have given
him a dignity and elegance he does not possess. You should have employed
your _art_, sir, and not merely your _nature_." The artist listened in
silence, and Mr. Everett stood by without saying a word, "conscious," as
he afterward confessed, "of a very poor right to speak on such a
subject," after listening to so famous a critic. "_I_ did not dare,"
says Powers, "in my humility and reverence for these two great men, to
say what I wanted to in reply; to tell the Baron that my 'art' consisted
in concealing art, and that my 'nature' was the highest art I knew or
could conceive of. I was content that the 'truth' of my work had been so
fully acknowledged, and the Baron only confirmed my resolution to make
truth my only model and guide in all my future undertakings."

One of his sitters in Washington was Senator Preston, of South Carolina,
who conceived such an interest in him that he wrote to his brother,
General Preston, of Columbia, South Carolina, a gentleman of great
wealth, urging him to come to the artist's assistance, and send him to
Italy. General Preston at once responded to this appeal, of which Powers
was ignorant, and wrote to the artist to draw on him for a thousand
dollars, and go to Italy at once, and to draw on him annually for a
similar sum for several years. Powers was profoundly touched by this
noble offer, and accepted it as frankly as it had been made. He sent his
models to Italy, and took his departure for the Old World in 1837.
Speaking of Mr. Preston's generosity, he said, two years ago: "I have
endeavored to requite his kindness by sending him works of mine, equal
in money value to his gifts; but I can never extinguish my great
obligations. I fear he don't like me since the war,--for I could not
suppress my strong national feelings for any man's friendship,--but I
like and honor him; I would do any thing in my power to show him my
inextinguishable gratitude."

He reached Florence in advance of his models, and while waiting for them
made two busts, one of a professor in Harvard College, and the other of
an American lady. A severe domestic affliction, however, which came upon
him soon after his arrival in Italy, affected him so greatly that he was
not able to return to his work for a long time. Then he applied himself
to his busts, which were warmly praised by the artists in Florence and
by his countrymen traveling abroad. Thorwaldsen visited him in his
studio, and pronounced his bust of Webster the best work of its kind in
modern times, and praises from other distinguished artists were equally
as warm. Orders came in rapidly from English and Italians, and from
Americans in Europe, and the sculptor soon had as much business as he
could attend to. He gave his leisure time to work on an ideal figure,
which, when completed, was purchased by an English gentleman of wealth.
This was "The Greek Slave," the most popular of all his works.
Duplicates of it were exhibited in America and at the Crystal Palace in
England, and won him praise from all quarters. This single work
established his fame as an artist, and brought him orders from all parts
of the civilized world. His statue of "Eve," which had preceded "The
Greek Slave" by a year, had been pronounced by Thorwaldsen fit to be any
man's master-piece, but it had not created such a furore as "The Greek
Slave." Subsequently he made an exquisite bust of the Grand Duchess of
Tuscany, with which the Grand Duke was so pleased that he called on
Powers, and asked him as a favor to himself to apply to him whenever he
could do him a service. Powers asked permission to take a cast of the
Venus, and this much-coveted boon, which had been denied to other
artists for years, was at once granted to him.

Since then his works have been numerous. Among these are "The Fisher
Boy," of which three duplicates in marble have been made;
"Il Penseroso;" "Proserpine," a bust; "California;" "America," modeled
for the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, England; "Washington" and "Calhoun,"
portrait statues, the former for the State of Louisiana, and the latter
for the State of South Carolina; and "Benjamin Franklin" and "Thomas
Jefferson," in the Capitol at Washington. His works are all marked by
beauty and vigor of conception as well as by exquisite finish. Beautiful
as his ideal figures are, he yet excels in his busts and statues of the
great men of his native land. His "Jefferson" and "Franklin" are
wonderful works, and his "Calhoun" is said to be almost life-like. This
last was wrecked on the coast of Long Island on its voyage to America,
and remained in the sea for some time, but being well packed was found,
when raised, to be only slightly damaged by the water.

Mr. Powers has now resided in Italy for thirty-three years. Motives of
economy have controlled his action, for he would gladly return to his
own land did he feel justified in doing so. He has thus stated the
reasons which have influenced his long residence abroad:


Sculpture is universal. The human form is of no country, and may be
studied with equal advantage at home and abroad. The opportunities
of studying it abroad are so immeasurably greater than at home,
that I do not see how it is possible, without great loss, to
neglect them.

1. It is impossible to model successfully without living models;
and in America, in my time, it was almost at the peril of
reputation, both for model and sculptor, that an artist employed
the living model, even if he could procure it. Now, I understand, a
few models may be obtained in New York; but they are so rare and so
expensive, that it is almost ruinous to employ them. It costs two
or three dollars there to secure a model which here may be had for
half a day for forty cents. There is no want of models here; but
their history is a sad one, and makes one often seriously lament
the necessity for employing them. Young women, especially, are
driven to this employment by the want of bread. I have numerous
offers of their services made by parents who are in great distress.
I make it a point to discourage all who come to me from entering
the business, and am only conquered when I feel sure that, if I
decline, they will be driven to other studios. I prefer only
professional models, already thoroughly committed to the calling,
as I shrink from the responsibility of leading any into so perilous
a vocation. They are usually accompanied by their mothers, and I
strive to treat them in a way to save their self-respect and
delicacy--a very hard task, which too often breaks down in less
scrupulous hands.

2. The opportunities of anatomical studies are here nearly perfect,
and free from all expense. The medical schools not only illustrate
anatomy by surgery on the cadaver, but standing by the side of the
dead body is a living one, in which the action of the muscles
dissected before the student may be studied in life. These colleges
are open to all artists, and furnish the best possible schooling in
anatomy, a thorough acquaintance with which is indispensable to the
sculptor, and can only be obtained in America at great cost.

3. Marble is no cheaper here than in New York, the long
sea-carriage costing no more to America than the short
land-carriage does from the quarries to Florence or Rome. But good
workmen, who can not be dispensed with, are so abundant and so
cheap here, so rare and so dear at home, that that alone is a
decisive reason for coming abroad. Even here it is a heavy expense