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.



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.



"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 to procure sufficient and competent workmen; at home it is almost at ruinous cost and with nearly insuperable difficulty. I have two workmen—as good, certainly, as the best in America—to the finest of whom I pay only four dollars a day. He could make twice that cutting weeping-willows on American tomb-stones. What could he not justly demand in wages from a New York sculptor? I employ a dozen workmen in my studios; the poorest, at work on pedestals and rough work, earn about half a dollar a day; the moderately skilled, a little over a dollar. The whole cost me about fifteen dollars per day, which is wonderfully low. Then, my rent—which could not, for my extensive accommodations, be less than two thousand five hundred dollars a year in any eligible position which the public would visit—reaches only about four hundred and fifty dollars, annually.

But, 4. The general expenses of maintaining a family are so much less here than at home, that a man without capital, possessing a profession so slow in reaching its pecuniary returns as an artist's, finds an immense inducement to live abroad. It is true that, music and accomplishment in languages apart, the opportunities of a substantial education for one's children are not as good here as at home. There are, however, less temptations to vice, and less exposures to the American habit of hard drinking among young men; but, no doubt, the general influences here, in the way of developing a manly, energetic, and self-relying character, are less favorable than at home. There is a softness, a disposition to take life easy, and a want of moral earnestness in Italy, which are not favorable to youthful ambition and independence. On the other hand, the money-getting propensities and social rivalries of America tend to harden human character, and to bring out a severe selfishness which is offensive. On the whole, the balance is on our side, and, other things apart, American youth are better brought up in America. But the artist must make this sacrifice to his art.

Mr. Powers is sixty-five years old, but is in full possession of his mental and physical strength. He is a genuine American, notwithstanding his long residence abroad, and has always a warm welcome for his countrymen visiting his studio. He is a favorite with the younger artists, who find in him a kind and judicious friend. Scorning servile imitation, he still exhibits in his works the freshness of his youth and the genuine originality which was the basis of his fame.



CHAPTER XXX.

EMMANUEL LEUTZE.

Emmanuel Leutze, by adoption an American, was born in the village of Emingen, near the city of Reutlingen, in Wurtemberg, on the 24th of May, 1816. His father emigrated to America during the infancy of his son, and the future artist spent his youth in the city of Philadelphia and the town of Fredericksburg, Virginia. He received a good common school education, and passed his time in comparative seclusion from society, reading and studying, but showing no especial fondness for art. At length, during his father's last illness, in which he nursed him with great devotion, he took up drawing to beguile the weary hours of the sick-room, and succeeded so well in his attempts that after his father's death he continued his efforts under the instruction of a competent drawing master. He improved rapidly, and was so well satisfied with his success that he determined to adopt the profession of an artist as the one best suited to his talents and inclination.



Having acquired considerable skill in drawing, he attempted rude portraits of men and beasts, and at length undertook to copy from memory a colored print after Westall. He completed it, and resolved to show it to some of his friends. In his impatience for the colors to dry, he placed the painting before the fire and went to summon his friends, but found, to his dismay, upon returning with them, that the heat had blistered the canvas so that the picture was hardly recognizable. Yet, in spite of this, his critics saw such evidences of genius in the painting that they urged the young artist to continue his labors, and predicted a great success for him.

Leutze, however, was not willing to venture upon another composition, either partly or wholly original, but applied himself with zeal to learn the rudiments of his art, and with such success that when his portraits appeared at the Artist's Fund Exhibition, a year or two later, they received high praise, both from critics and the public. An enterprising publisher, attracted by these portraits, engaged him to go to Washington and paint the portraits of the leading statesmen of the country, to be engraved for a "national work." Leutze at once proceeded to the capital, full of hope and enthusiasm, but soon found that the schemes of the politicians whose faces he was to transmit to canvas engrossed them so much that they would not give him the sittings he desired. After waiting impatiently for a considerable time he threw up the engagement in disgust, and went into the woods of Virginia to console himself by communing with nature. For some time he wandered about, making desultory sketches, and abandoning himself to a melancholy which was closely akin to despair. When this feeling was at its height, a friend, before unknown, came to his aid.

"A gentleman, whose rich domain he chanced to approach in his wayward rovings, perceived his abilities, understood his unhappiness, and aroused him from inaction by a call upon his professional skill. The artist obeyed, but he could not subdue the mood which possessed him. No brilliant scene arose to his fancy, no humorous incident took form and color from his pencil, and the fair landscape around appeared to mock rather than cheer his destiny. He could not bring himself into relation with subjects thus breathing of hope and gayety, but found inspiration only in the records of human sorrow. As the royal mourner bade her companions sit upon the ground and 'tell sad stories of the death of kings,' the pensive artist found something analogous to his own fate in the story of Hagar and Ishmael. He painted them as having followed up a spent water-course, in hopes of finding wherewith to quench their thirst, and sinking under the disappointment. He neither saw nor painted the angel of God who showed the fountain in the wilderness, and yet the angel was there, for now the sufferer acknowledges that early vicissitudes nerved him for high endeavor, rendered his vision piercing, his patience strong, and his confidence firm, and that this incidental effort to triumph over difficulties was the first of a series which inspired his subsequent career."

In 1840 he produced a painting which he called "An Indian Contemplating the Setting Sun." It was exhibited in Philadelphia, and won general praise for the artist. Better than this, it secured him the friendship of the late Edward L. Carey, of that city, who, recognizing his genius, determined to help him on in his labors. Mr. Carey was successful in inducing his friends to give Leutze a number of commissions, and these enabled him to carry out his wish to visit Europe and complete his studies. Instead of going to Italy, as was then the almost universal practice, he determined to study in Germany, and accordingly sailed for that country. He went by way of Holland, and after a long and trying voyage reached Amsterdam in January, 1841. Pausing here for awhile to familiarize himself with the master-pieces of the Dutch school, he repaired to Dusseldorf, where he became a pupil of the celebrated painter Lessing, under whom he made marked progress. His reception by the artists of Dusseldorf was at once hearty and encouraging, and won for that school and its members his enthusiastic devotion. He became Lessing's pupil at the personal request of the master, and these two gifted men were soon bound to each other by the ties of an undying friendship.

Leutze devoted himself to historical subjects from the first, and soon after his arrival in Dusseldorf began his picture of "Columbus Before the Council of Salamanca." When it was finished, it was visited by Director V. Schadow, who praised it warmly, and requested the artist to offer it to the Art Union of Dusseldorf, which at once purchased it. This high compliment to a beginner and a stranger proved an additional stimulus to Leutze, and he soon after produced a companion picture to his first, "Columbus in Chains," which procured him the gold medal of the Brussels Art Exhibition, and was subsequently purchased by the Art Union of New York.

Remaining two years in Dusseldorf, Leutze went to Munich to study the works of Cornelius and Kaulbach, and while there painted another scene in the life of the Great Discoverer, "Columbus before the Queen." Upon completing this picture he went to Venice, Rome, and the other Italian cities, making careful studies of the masters of that school. He gave two years to his travels, visiting the Tyrol, and reveling in the magnificent scenery through which he journeyed. He went into Switzerland, sketching the glorious beauties of its Alps, and reached the Rhine at Strasbourg. Then, sailing down that beautiful river, he set foot once more in Dusseldorf, glad, as he declared, to end his wanderings in the midst of his friends. Here he determined to locate himself permanently, and soon after his return he married.

He lived in Dusseldorf for fourteen years, devoting himself assiduously to his art. His labors were incessant. Historic subjects make up the vast bulk of his productions during this period, and in his treatment of them he adhered closely to the style of the Dusseldorf school. The best known of his works during this portion of his career are "The Landing of the Norsemen in America;" "Cromwell and his Daughter;" "The Court of Queen Elizabeth;" "Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn;" "The Iconoclast," and his famous and brilliant series of pictures illustrative of the events of the American War of Independence. The most prominent of these were, "Washington Crossing the Delaware;" "Washington at Monmouth;" "Washington at the Battle of Monongahela;" "News from Lexington;" "Sergeant Jasper," and "Washington at Princeton." These are fine paintings, possessing striking characteristics, and are all more or less popular. "Washington Crossing the Delaware" is perhaps the best known, since it has been engraved, and sold in all parts of the country in that form.

During his absence in Germany, Leutze did not forget the country of his choice, as his devotion to American subjects amply testifies. When he had won a proud name in his art by his labors in Dusseldorf, and had laid by money enough to justify him in returning to a land where art was in its infancy, and not over-remunerative, he came back to the United States, after an absence of eighteen years, and opened a studio in New York. He found a vast improvement in the public taste and in the demand for works of art since his departure for the Old World, and, better still, found that his peculiar field, the historic, was the one most suited to the tastes of the American public.

It was his intention, in coming back to this country, to devote the time during which he supposed he would be compelled to wait for orders, to looking around him and familiarizing himself with the changes that had taken place in the Union during his absence; but he was never able to carry out this design, as he had no leisure time. His European reputation had preceded him hither, and he had scarcely opened his doors in New York before he was obliged to refuse orders, for lack of time to execute them. His hands were full from the first, and he at once took rank as the most thoroughly popular and accomplished artist in the country.

Early in 1860 he received from the Government of the United States a commission to decorate one of the marble stairways in the Capitol at Washington with a mural painting. The painting was to be executed in fresco, and he chose as his subject, "Westward the Star of Empire Takes its Way." He entered upon the undertaking with the keenest delight, and in order to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the true character of frontier scenery and life, performed what was then the long and difficult journey to the Rocky Mountains, where he made numerous sketches. Returning to the States, he sailed for Europe, and went to Munich to learn from Kaulbach the new stereochromatic process which has now superseded the fresco-painting of the middle ages. Returning to Washington, he applied himself to his task, and in a couple of years completed it.

The picture is the largest and finest mural painting in America, and adorns the magnificent stairway at the north end of the west corridor of the House of Representatives. It is lighted from a sky-light in the roof, and is seen to the best advantage from the upper corridor. The coloring is softer and more life-like than is often seen in such paintings. The surface of the wall is rough, but the work has been done by such a master hand that one seems to be gazing upon real life. It is a wonderful picture—one that will repay weeks of study.

The scene represents a train of emigrants crossing the Rocky Mountains. They have reached the summit of the range, from which a glorious view stretches out before them to the westward. The adventurers consist of the usual class of emigrants, men, women, and children. There are several wagons and a number of horses in the train. The faces of the emigrants express the various emotions which fill their hearts as they gaze upon the glorious scene before them. Some are full of life and vigor, and hope beams in every feature, while others are struggling with sickness and despair. The advance of the train has been momentarily checked by a huge tree which has fallen across the trail, and two stout men, under the direction of the leader of the party, who is sitting on his horse, are engaged in hewing it away with axes. Two others have climbed to the summit of the neighboring rocky crag, on which they have planted the banner of the Republic, which is seen flapping proudly from its lofty perch. In the foreground stands a manly youth, clasping his father's long rifle firmly, and gazing toward the promised land with a countenance glowing with hope and energy. His sister, as hopeful as himself, is seated by her mother's side, on a buffalo-robe which has been thrown over a rock. The mother's face is sad, but patient. She knows well the privations, toils, and hardships which await them in the new home-land, but she tries to share the enthusiasm and hope of her children. She clasps her nursing infant to her breast, and listens to her husband, who stands by and points her to the new country where they will have a home of their own. Her face is inexpressibly beautiful. The rich, warm light of the rising sun streams brightly over the whole scene, and gives to it a magical glow. The legend, "Westward the Star of Empire Takes its Way," is inscribed over the painting, in letters of gold.

An elaborate illuminated border, illustrative of the advance of civilization in the West, surrounds the painting, and is in itself one of the most perfect works of art in the Capitol.

Leutze received the sum of $20,000 for this painting. After completing it, some matters connected with his family required him to make a visit to Dusseldorf, and upon reaching that place he was warmly welcomed by the artists, on the 10th of June, 1863, at their club. "About one hundred and fifty lords of art," says a letter from Dusseldorf, "assembled at the 'Mahlkasten,' just outside of the Hof-Garten. This is the club-house of the painters, and, with its gardens, is their property. Leutze was received with music, and when he came within reach of the assembled company, there was a general rush to shake his hands, kiss his cheeks, and hug him. The old fellows were much affected at the scene, and were heartily glad to see their old companion once more. The guest made a short and feeling address, whereupon all went in to supper. Here two of the artists had arrayed themselves, one as a negro, the other as an Indian; and these brought in the first dishes and handed them to Leutze. Andreas Achenbach sat at Leutze's right, and his old friend Tryst at his left. After dinner, the calumet cf peace was passed around; there was speaking and drinking of healths, with songs afterward in the illuminated garden. The occasion appears to have been a very pleasant and right merry one, and is said to have been the happiest festival ever given by the Society of Artists."

Returning to the United States a few months later, Leutze repaired to Washington, where he had permanently settled. He was given several commissions by the Government, and at once began to design his subjects. They were only in the cartoon, however, at the time of his death. One of these, "Civilization," was to have been placed in the Senate Chamber, and was partly finished. It is said to have given promise of being his finest production. He also left a sketch of an immense picture, "The Emancipation." He was always a hard worker, and this doubtless contributed to bring about his death, which took place on the 18th of July, 1868. The immediate cause was apoplexy, superinduced by the intense heat.

"Mr. Leutze," says a writer in the Annual Cyclopedia, "was altogether the best educated artist in America, possessed of vast technical learning, of great genius, and fine powers of conception. His weakest point was in his coloring, but even here he was superior to most others."

"Leutze," says Mr. Tuckerman, "delights in representing adventure. He ardently sympathizes with chivalric action and spirit-stirring events: not the abstractly beautiful or the simply true, but the heroic, the progressive, the individual, and earnest phases of life, warm his fancy and attract his pencil. His forte is the dramatic.... If Leutze were not a painter, he would certainly join some expedition to the Rocky Mountains, thrust himself into a fiery political controversy, or seek to wrest a new truth from the arcana of science.... We remember hearing a brother artist describe him in his studio at Home, engaged for hours upon a picture, deftly shifting palette, cigar, and maul-stick from hand to hand, as occasion required; absorbed, rapid, intent, and then suddenly breaking from his quiet task to vent his constrained spirits in a jovial song, or a romp with his great dog, whose vociferous barking he thoroughly enjoyed; and often abandoning his quiet studies for some wild, elaborate frolic, as if a row was essential to his happiness. His very jokes partook of this bold heartiness of disposition. He scorned all ultra refinement, and found his impulse to art not so much in delicate perception as in vivid sensation. There was ever a reaction from the meditative. His temperament is Teutonic—hardy, cordial, and brave. Such men hold the conventional in little reverence, and their natures gush like mountain streams, with wild freedom and unchastened enthusiasm."



VIII.

DIVINES.



CHAPTER XXXI.

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

Henry Ward Beecher was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on the 24th of June, 1813, and was the eighth child of Dr. Lyman Beecher, the famous Presbyterian divine of New England. Dr. Beecher was regarded as one of the most powerful champions of orthodox Christianity in the land of the pilgrims, and had the good fortune to be the father of a family whose members have become celebrated for their intellectual gifts.

The most of these gave early promise of their future distinction, but the subject of this memoir was regarded as the dunce of the family. He grew up as the children of most New England clergymen of that day climbed the road to manhood. His father's family was large, and the salary paid by the congregation never exceeded eight hundred dollars, and was not always promptly paid at that. The good people of the land of steady habits well knew how to drive hard bargains with the Lord's messengers, and were adepts in the art of securing the "best talent" at the lowest price. The stern, hard struggle for a livelihood in which the father was engaged prevented him from giving much personal attention to his children, and the mother of young Henry dying when he was but three years old, the boy was left very much to himself. Like most ministers' children, he was obliged to "set an example to the village," and this boy was dosed with Catechism and his father's stern and gloomy theological tenets until he was sick of them.

"In those days," says Mrs. Stowe, "none of the attentions were paid to children that are now usual. The community did not recognize them.. There was no child's literature; there were no children's books. The Sunday-school was yet an experiment in a fluctuating, uncertain state of trial. There were no children's days of presents and fetes, no Christmas or New Year's festivals. The annual thanksgiving was only associated with one day's unlimited range of pies of every sort—too much for one day—and too soon things of the past. The childhood of Henry Ward was unmarked by the possession of a single child's toy as a gift from any older person, or a single fete. Very early, too, strict duties devolved upon him. A daily portion of the work of the establishment, the care of the domestic animals, the cutting and piling of wood, or tasks in the garden, strengthened his muscles and gave vigor and tone to his nerves. From his father and mother he inherited a perfectly solid, healthy organization of brain, muscle, and nerves, and the uncaressing, let-alone system under which he was brought up gave him early habits of vigor and self-reliance."

When but three or four years old he was sent to the Widow Kilbourn's school, where he said his letters twice a day, and passed the rest of his time in hemming a brown towel or a checked apron. It was not expected that he would learn very much from Marm Kilbourn, but the school kept him out of the way of the "home folks" for the greater part of the day.

He was a winning, sweet-faced child, with long golden curls, of which he was very proud. Some of his female playfellows at school, thinking it a shame that a boy should look so much like a girl, cut off one or two of his curls with a pair of shears made of scraps of tin, and when the little fellow complained of his loss at home it was decided that the best way to protect him from such attacks in future was to cut his hair close to his head, which was done at once. Little Henry was commonly thought a dull child. His memory was lamentably deficient, and his utterance was thick and indistinct, so much so that he could scarcely be understood in reading or speaking. This was caused partly by an enlargement of the tonsils of his throat, and partly by timidity. The policy of repression worked badly in his case, and had there not been so much real good at the basis of his character it might have led this gentle, yearning boy far from the useful channel along which his life has flown.

His stepmother was a lady of fine mental culture, of elegant breeding and high character, but she was an invalid, and withal thoroughly imbued with the gloomy sternness of her husband's faith. One day little Henry, who was barely able to manage the steady-going old family horse, was driving her in the chaise. They passed a church on their way, and the bell was tolling for a death. "Henry," said Mrs. Beecher, solemnly, "what do you think of when you hear a bell tolling like that?" The boy colored and hung his head in silence, and the good lady went on. "I think, was that soul prepared? It has gone into eternity." The little fellow shuddered, in spite of himself, and thought, no doubt, what a dreadful thing it was to be a Christian.

So it was with the religion that was crammed into him. There was no effort made to draw him to religion by its beauty and tenderness. He rarely heard of the Saviour as the loving one who took little children in His arms and blessed them, but was taught to regard Him as a stern and merciless judge, as one who, instead of being "touched with the feeling of our infirmities," makes those infirmities the means of wringing fresh sufferings from us. Sunday was a day of terror to him, for on that day the Catechism was administered to him until he was more than sick of it. "I think," said he to his congregation, not long since, referring to this part of his life, "that to force childhood to associate religion with such dry morsels is to violate the spirit, not only of the New Testament, but of common sense as well. I know one thing, that if I am 'lax and latitudinarian,' the Sunday Catechism is to blame for a part of it. The dinners that I have lost because I could not go through 'sanctification,' and 'justification,' and 'adoption,' and all such questions, lie heavily on my memory! I do not know that they have brought forth any blossoms. I have a kind of grudge against many of those truths that I was taught in my childhood, and I am not conscious that they have waked up a particle of faith in me. My good old aunt in heaven—I wonder what she is doing. I take it that she now sits beauteous, clothed in white, that round about her sit chanting cherub children, and that she is opening to them from her larger range sweet stories, every one fraught with thought, and taste, and feeling, and lifting them up to a higher plane. One Sunday afternoon with my aunt Esther did me more good than forty Sundays in church with my father. He thundered over my head, and she sweetly instructed me down in my heart. The promise that she would read Joseph's history to me on Sunday was enough to draw a silver thread of obedience through the entire week; and if I was tempted to break my promise, I said, 'No; Aunt Esther is going to read on Sunday;' and I would do, or I would not do, all through the week, for the sake of getting that sweet instruction on Sunday.

"And to parents I say, Truth is graded. Some parts of God's truth are for childhood, some parts are for the nascent intellectual period, and some parts are for later spiritual developments. Do not take the last things first. Do not take the latest processes of philosophy and bring them prematurely to the understanding. In teaching truth to your children, you are to avoid tiring them."

"The greatest trial of those days," says Mrs. Stowe, "was the Catechism. Sunday lessons were considered by the mother-in-law as inflexible duty, and the Catechism as the sine qua non. The other children memorized readily, and were brilliant reciters, but Henry, blushing, stammering, confused, and hopelessly miserable, stuck fast on some sand-bank of what is required or forbidden by this or that commandment, his mouth choking up with the long words which he hopelessly miscalled, was sure to be accused of idleness or inattention, and to be solemnly talked to, which made him look more stolid and miserable than ever, but appeared to have no effect in quickening his dormant faculties."

At the age of ten he was a well-grown, stout, stocky boy, strong and hearty, trained to hard work, and to patient obedience of his elders. He was tolerably well drilled in Calvinism, and had his head pretty well filled with snatches of doctrine which he caught from his father's constant discussions; but he was very backward in his education. He was placed at the school of the Rev. Mr. Langdon, at Bethlehem, Connecticut, and it was hoped that the labors of this excellent tutor would result in making something of him. He spent a winter at this school, and boarded at a neighboring farm-house, whose kind-hearted mistress soon became so much attached to him that she indulged him to an extent which he had never known at home. With his gun on his shoulder, he passed the greater part of his hours out of school in tramping over the pretty Connecticut hills, in search of game, or, lying down on the soft grass, would pass hours in gazing on the beautiful landscape, listening to the dull whirr of the partridges in the stubble-field or the dropping of the ripe apples in the orchard. The love of nature was strong in the boy, and his wonderful mistress taught him many of the profoundest lessons of his life. He made poor progress at the school, however, and his father was almost in despair. The whole family shook their heads in solemn forebodings over the failure of this child of ten to become a mental prodigy.

Miss Catharine Beecher, his eldest sister, was then teaching a young ladies' school in Hartford, and she proposed to take the boy and see what could be done with him. There were thirty or forty girls in the school, and but this one boy, and the reader may imagine the amount of studying he did. The girls were full of spirits, and in their society the fun-loving feature of his disposition burst out and grew with amazing rapidity. He was always in mischief of some kind, to the great delight of the girls, with whom he was extremely popular, and to the despair of his sister, who began to fear that he was hopelessly stupid.

The school was divided into two divisions in grammar recitations, each of which had its leader. The leaders chose their "sides" with great care, as these contests in grammar were esteemed the most important part of the daily exercises. Henry's name was generally called last, for no one chose him except as a matter of necessity. He was sure to be a dead weight to his leader.

"The fair leader of one of these divisions took the boy aside to a private apartment, to put into him with female tact and insinuation those definitions and distinctions on which the honor of the class depended.

"'Now, Henry, A is the indefinite article, you see, and must be used only with the singular noun. You can say a man, but you can't say a men, can you?' 'Yes, I can say Amen, too,' was the ready rejoinder. 'Father says it always at the end of his prayers.'

"'Come, Henry, now don't be joking. Now, decline He.' 'Nominative he, possessive his, objective him.' 'You see, his is possessive. Now, you can say his book, but you can't say him book.' 'Yes, I do say hymn book, too,' said the impracticable scholar, with a quizzical twinkle. Each one of these sallies made his young teacher laugh, which was the victory he wanted.

"'But now, Henry, seriously, just attend to the active and passive voice. Now, I strike, is active, you see, because if you strike you do something. But, I am struck, is passive, because if you are struck you don't do any thing, do you?'

"'Yes, I do; I strike back again.'

"Sometimes his views of philosophical subjects were offered gratuitously. Being held rather of a frisky nature, his sister appointed his seat at her elbow when she heard her classes. A class in natural philosophy, not very well prepared, was stumbling through the theory of the tides. 'I can explain that,' said Henry. 'Well, you see, the sun, he catches hold of the moon and pulls her, and she catches hold of the sea and pulls that, and this makes the spring tides.'

"'But what makes the neap tides?'

"'Oh, that's when the sun stops to spit on his hands.'"

It will hardly surprise the reader to be told that Master Henry remained with his sister only six months, and was returned at the end of that time to his father as an indifferent scholar and a most inveterate joker.

A change now occurred in his life. When he was twelve years old his father removed to Boston to assume the charge of the Hanover-Street Church. Here the boy had a chance to see something more than nature, and to employ his powers of observation in receiving impressions from the daily life and aspect of a large and crowded city. His father entered him at the Boston Latin School, and appealed to him not to disgrace his name any longer by his stupidity. The appeal roused the little fellow's pride, and he set to work to show to his family that he was not the dunce they had thought him. He went at his studies manfully, mastering the tedious puzzle of the Latin verbs and nouns, and acquiring a respectable acquaintance with the grammar of that language. It was a terrible task to him, for he had no liking for the language, and did his work merely to please his father and escape disgrace. His success cost him a share of his health, and his vigorous constitution began to show the effects of such intense application. His father noticed this, and as a diversion to his mind advised him to enter upon a course of biographical reading. He read the lives of Captain Cook, Nelson, and the great naval commanders of the world, and at once became possessed of the desire to go to sea. This feeling made him restless and discontented, and he resolved to leave home and ship on board some vessel sailing from the harbor. He hovered about the wharves, conversing with the sailors and captains, and sometimes carrying his little bundle with him. But the thoughts of home were too strong for him, and he could never quite summon up resolution enough to run away. In a fit of desperation he wrote a letter to his brother, telling him of his wish to go to sea, and informing him that he should first ask his father's permission, and if that were not granted he should go without it. This letter he dropped where his father would be sure to find it. The old gentleman soon discovered it, and, reading it, put it into his pocket without comment. The next day he asked the boy if he had ever thought of any definite avocation for his future life.

"Yes," said Henry, "I want to go to sea. I want to enter the navy, be a midshipman, and rise to be a commander."

"Oh, I see," said the Doctor, cheerfully; "but in order to prepare for that you must study mathematics and navigation."

"I am ready, sir."

"Very well. I'll send you up to Amherst next week, to Mount Pleasant, and then you'll begin your preparatory studies at once. As soon as you are well prepared, I presume I can make interest to get you an appointment."

The boy was delighted, and the next week started for Amherst. The Doctor felt sure that the sailor scheme would never come to any thing, and exclaimed, exultantly, as he bade his son good-by, "I shall have that boy in the ministry yet."

At the Mount Pleasant Institute he roomed with his teacher in mathematics, a young man named Fitzgerald, and a warm friendship sprung up between them. Fitzgerald saw that his pupil had no natural talent or taste for mathematics; but instead of despairing in consequence of this discovery, he redoubled his efforts. Appealing to his pupil's pride and ambition, he kept him well to his task, and succeeded in implanting in him a fair knowledge of the science. Young Beecher also took lessons in elocution from Professor John E. Lovell. Under the instructions of this able teacher, he learned to manage his voice, and to overcome the thickness and indistinctness of utterance which previous to this had troubled him so much. He continued at this school for three years, devoting himself to study with determination and success, and taking rank as one of the most promising pupils of the school.

During his first year at Mount Pleasant, he became deeply impressed with a sense of his religious responsibility at a famous revival which was held in the place, and from that time resolved to devote himself entirely to preparing for his entrance into the ministry when he should attain the proper age. Henceforth he applied himself with characteristic energy to his studies and to his religious duties, and rose steadily in the esteem of his teachers and friends. He entered Amherst College upon the completion of his preparatory course, and graduated from that institution in 1834.

In 1832, Dr. Beecher removed from Boston to Cincinnati, to enter upon the Presidency of Lane Seminary, to which he had been elected. Henry followed him to the West after his graduation at Amherst, and completed his theological studies at the seminary, under the tuition of his father and Professor Stowe, the latter of whom married Henry's sister Harriet, in 1836. Having finished his course, he was ordained.

"As the time drew near in which Mr. Beecher was to assume the work of the ministry," says Mrs. Stowe, "he was oppressed by a deep melancholy. He had the most exalted ideas of what ought to be done by a Christian minister. He had transferred to that profession all those ideals of courage, enterprise, zeal, and knightly daring which were the dreams of his boyhood, and which he first hoped to realize in the naval profession. He felt that the holy calling stood high above all others; that to enter it from any unholy motive, or to enter and not do a worthy work in it, was a treason to all honor.

"His view of the great object of the ministry was sincerely and heartily the same with that of his father, to secure the regeneration of the individual heart by the Divine Spirit, and thereby to effect the regeneration of human society. The problem that oppressed him was, how to do this. His father had used certain moral and intellectual weapons, and used them strongly and effectively, because employing them with undoubting faith. So many other considerations had come into his mind to qualify and limit that faith, so many new modes of thought and inquiry, that were partially inconsistent with the received statements of his party, that he felt he could never grasp and wield them with the force which could make them efficient. It was no comfort to him that he could wield the weapons of his theological party so as to dazzle and confound objectors, while all the time conscious in his own soul of objections more profound and perplexities more bewildering. Like the shepherd boy of old, he saw the giant of sin stalking through the world, defying the armies of the living God, and longed to attack him, but the armor in which he had been equipped for the battle was no help, but only an incumbrance!

"His brother, who studied with him, had already become an unbeliever and thrown up the design of preaching, and he could not bear to think of adding to his father's trials by deserting the standard. Yet his distress and perplexity were so great that at times he seriously contemplated going into some other profession....

"In his last theological term he took a Bible class in the city of Cincinnati, and began studying and teaching the Evangelists. With the course of this study and teaching came a period of spiritual clairvoyance. His mental perplexities were relieved, and the great question of 'what to preach' was solved. The shepherd boy laid aside his cumbrous armor, and found in a clear brook a simple stone that smote down the giant; and so, from the clear waters of the Gospel narrative Mr. Beecher drew forth that 'white stone with a new name,' which was to be the talisman of his ministry. To present Jesus Christ personally as the Friend and Helper of humanity, Christ as God impersonate, eternally and by a necessity of His nature helpful, and remedial, and restorative; the Friend of each individual soul, and thus the Friend of all society,—this was the one thing which his soul rested on as a worthy object in entering the ministry. He afterward said, in speaking of his feelings at this time,'I was like the man in the story to whom a fairy gave a purse with a single piece of money in it, which he found always came again as soon as he had spent it. I thought I knew at least one thing to preach. I found it included every thing.'"

Upon being ordained, Mr. Beecher married, and accepted a call to Lawrenceburg, Indiana, a little town on the Ohio River, about twenty miles below Cincinnati. His salary was small and the work was hard. He was not only pastor, but sexton as well, and in this capacity he swept out the church, made the fires, filled and trimmed the lamps, and rang the bell. Says he, "I did all but come to hear myself preach—that they had to do."

He did not remain here long, however, but soon accepted a call to Indianapolis, the capital of the State, where he lived for eight years. He occupied a tasteful cottage on the outskirts of the town, and gathered about him his household treasures, which consisted of his family, his library, his horse, cow, pigs, and chickens. He was an enthusiast in matters of agriculture and horticulture, and besides importing from the East the best varieties of fruit-trees, roses, etc., he edited a horticultural paper, which had a fair circulation.

The eight years of his ministry in Indianapolis make up a period of hard and useful work. He held two services on Sunday, and five meetings during the week in various parts of the city, and with the consent of his people gave three months of each year to missionary work in other parts of the State. While engaged in this latter duty he traveled about the State on horseback and preached daily.

His experience in the ministry, as well as his study of the lives of the apostles, convinced him that success in his profession—by which I mean the successful winning of souls to God—was not to be won by preaching controversial or dry doctrinal sermons. He must seize upon some vital truth, admitted by all parties, and bring that home to men's minds. He must preach to them of their daily, hourly trials and temptations, joys and comforts, and he resolved that this should be the character of his preaching. Then came the question, how shall one man know that which is uppermost in the thoughts of the many? He went into the places of public resort, where men were accustomed to lounge and to gather to hear the news, and made it his practice to listen to their conversations. In this way he began to know the people to whom he preached as few pastors know their flocks, and he was enabled by this knowledge to apply his teachings to their daily lives, and to send them forth to their duties warned by his reproofs or cheered by his intelligent counsel and sympathy. This practice, modified at times as circumstances have required, he has steadfastly continued, and in it lies the secret of his success as a preacher. Said a gentleman, not long since, himself a member of a different denomination, "Beecher's sermons do me more good than any I hear elsewhere. They never fail to touch upon some topic of importance that has engaged my thoughts during the week. Dropping all doctrinal technicalities, and steering clear of the vexed questions of theology, he talks to me in such a way that I am able to carry Christ into the most trifling of my daily affairs, and to carry Him there as my Sympathizer and Helper, as well as my Judge." He soon became the most popular preacher in the city, and, thanks to the genuineness of his gifts and the earnestness of his zeal, he was enabled to add many to the kingdom of Christ who had been drawn to hear him merely by their curiosity. Among these was his brother Charles, whose skepticism has been spoken of elsewhere in this chapter. Becoming deeply impressed at a revival in Indianapolis, Charles Beecher, by his brother's advice, took a Bible class, and began to teach the story of Christ. The plan worked most happily. Charles solved all the questions which had perplexed his mind, reentered upon his religious life with increased fervor, and soon afterward entered the ministry.

In August, 1847, Mr. Beecher received a call to Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, which had just been founded. He promptly accepted it. Breaking up his home in Indiana, he removed to Brooklyn, and was publicly installed pastor of Plymouth Church on the 11th of November, 1847. He at once "announced in Plymouth pulpit the same principles that he had in Indianapolis, namely, his determination to preach Christ among them not as an absolute system of doctrines, not as a bygone historical personage, but as the living Lord and God, and to bring all the ways and usages of society to the test of His standards. He announced to all whom it might concern, that he considered temperance and antislavery as a part of the Gospel of Christ, and should preach them to the people accordingly."

It is no part of my purpose to consider Mr. Beecher as a politician. I deal with him here not as the partisan of a political organization, but as a minister of the Gospel. In politics he has always been a Republican of the Radical type, but has generally inclined to a conservative construction of that creed. Many of his warmest friends take issue with him in his political views, and he has not always been able to lead his congregation with him in this respect.

Soon after assuming the charge of Plymouth Church Mr. Beecher became a regular contributor to "The Independent," a paper which he had helped to establish. His articles were marked with an asterisk, and were widely read. They dealt with every topic of interest, principally with slavery, and were vigorous and full of thought. A number of them were afterward collected and published in book form as the "Star Papers." Since then he has acted as editor of "The Independent," and is at present the editor of "The Christian Union." He has written a novel of New England life, called "Norwood," for "The New York Ledger," and still writes a weekly paper for that journal. He is at present engaged upon a "Life of Christ," which is to be the crowning labor of his life. Besides these labors, he has been until recently almost constantly in the lecture field, and has spoken frequently before popular assemblies on the political questions of the day.

These labors have filled up the leisure time left him after discharging his duties as pastor of his church, which have never been neglected upon any occasion. In this field his work has been faithful and constant. He has labored in it for nearly twenty-three years, and his work has not been without its reward. Such sermons as his could not fail of doing good even if spoken to half a dozen people. How great, then, must be their effect when addressed to the vast audiences to which he speaks! His congregation averages over twenty-five hundred at every service, being the largest regular congregation in existence. His sermons are reported by a stenographer, and are printed each week in pamphlet form, and in this manner find their way into thousands of hands. The "Plymouth Pulpit," in which they are published, has a regular weekly circulation of six thousand copies, and it is estimated that each copy is read by at least five persons, which gives the preacher, in addition to his own congregation, an audience of more than thirty thousand persons per week.

When Plymouth Church was organized, the wise heads predicted a failure for it; but it has grown and prospered, until it is now the most compact and the best organized congregation in America. It is dependent upon no synod or other religious body, but manages its affairs entirely as it pleases. The control is vested in a board of trustees, of which Mr. Beecher is ex-officio a member. He has no superiority in this board unless called by its members to preside over its meetings. His influence is of course all-powerful; but as the trustees are shrewd business men, they sometimes carry out their own views in preference to his. The church is supported by the sale of its pews. This yields it an annual income of between forty and fifty thousand dollars. The pastor receives a handsome salary—said to be the largest in the United States—and the rest goes into the treasury of the church. As the period of the annual sale of pews approaches, Mr. Beecher makes it his practice to preach a sermon in which he reviews the questions of the day, and as far as possible marks out his course with regard to them during the ensuing year. This he does in order that every one purchasing a seat in Plymouth Church may know just what is in store for him from the pulpit. The surplus revenue, after the pastor's salary and the current expenses are paid, has until recently been devoted to extinguishing the debt upon the church. That burden now being off the shoulders of the congregation, the money is applied to missionary work in Brooklyn. "Two missions have been largely supported by the funds derived from Plymouth Church, and the time and personal labor of its members. A mechanics' reading-room is connected with one of these. No church in the country furnishes a larger body of lay teachers, exhorters, and missionaries in every department of human and Christian labor."