"The angel form the gifted artist saw

That held me in his spell. 'T was his to draw
The veil of sense, and see the immortal race,
The forms spiritual, that know not place;·
He saw it in the quarry, deep in earth,
And stay'd it by his will, and gave it birth
E'en to the world of sense; bidding its cell,
The cold, hard marble, thus in plastic girth
The shape ethereal fix, and body forth
A being of the skies, with man to dwell."

From a volume of poetry by Henry T. Tuckerman, the following lines on Washington's statue are here inserted :

"O, it was well in marble firm and white

To carve our hero's form,

Whose angel guidance was our strength in fight,
Our star amid the storm!

Whose matchless truth has made his name divine,
And human freedom sure;

His country great, his tomb earth's dearest shrine

While man and time endure!

And it is well to place his image there,
Upon the soil he blest;

Let meaner spirits, who its councils share,
Revere that silent guest!

Let us go up with high and sacred love

To look on his pure brow,

And as, with solemn grace, he points above,

Renew the patriot's vow."

It is now well known that Horatio Greenough furnished the design for the Bunker Hill Monument; though at that time only an undergraduate of Harvard College. It was

forwarded to the Board of Directors with an essay, and finally adopted.

Among Greenough's works, interesting to individuals, may be included a marble basrelief executed for Miss Sarah Gibbs, of Newport, R. I. Few ladies in our country are so situated, as to accomplish plans of taste and benevolence; among the happy few is this lady. She has erected on her own premises a small Gothic church, embowered in trees, and in this is placed the monumental design to the memory of George and Mary Gibbs.

No one can enter these walls, consecrated by filial piety, and not feel that they are breathing a pure and holy atmosphere. Greenough spent much time on the work in Florence. It was one which deeply interested his sensibility, and when he returned to this country, one of his first excursions was to this tranquil spot.

Allston's great picture of Jeremiah, thought by many to be the most finished of his productions, was painted for Miss Gibbs, and is now in her possession.

CHAPTER XXVII.

HIRAM POWERS. BALL HUGHES.

THE following is copied from an article that was written, and published in the National Gazette, before HIRAM POWERS became generally known:

"One of the most deserving artists of our country is Mr. Powers, who is now engaged at the city of Washington in making busts in plaster of Paris. He was a native of New England, and taken to Cincinnati while yet an uneducated boy, and thrown at an early age entirely upon the resources of his own industry and ingenuity. Unlike many of the sons of genius, he has always been temperate, patient, and assiduous, and must long since have risen to fame, if not to opulence, had it not been for a modesty which has induced him to avoid rather than to court public observation. While a boy, he displayed a mechanical genius of the most remarkable character. With a common knife, or a file, he

would shape a piece of wood or metal into any form that pleased his fancy, and imitate the finished fabrications of experienced workmen. Without any previous instruction, he assisted in constructing an organ; and he invented a lathe for turning metals, of superior construction. Brass, iron, and stone were equally manageable in his hands. He repaired clocks, made automatons for museums, and set them in motion.

"He is most popularly known in Cincinnati, by the construction of an exhibition called The Lower Regions,' a hideous scene representing hell, filled with terrific figures, moved by machinery, and acting the supposed agonies of the damned. M. Chevalier, an accomplished Frenchman who travelled through our country, estimated it highly as a work of art, and has published some notices of it."

We recollect seeing this exhibition at Cincinnati many years ago, and can only say that it brought Dante's descriptions of the Inferno to our mind very forcibly. That the representation was much more classical in poetry than in mechanics will not be doubted, yet there seems to be kindred genius in the idea, and yet another master mind has conceived and executed on canvas the same

representation; we hardly need mention the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and the great Michel Angelo.

To return to the article quoted:

:

"Mr. Powers has lately devoted himself to the making of busts. The person whose likeness is to be modelled sits before him, and the artist, taking a lump of clay, and governed only by his unerring eye, shapes the material into an exact copy of the living head. The only objection made to Powers is, that his heads are fac-similes of the originals, whereas it is contended that he should mould them into a Grecian or a Roman cast of countenance. Powers copies the model before him. Not only the exact features, but every wrinkle, every trace that thought has impressed in the countenanee, is faithfully transferred, with transcendent skill.

“M. Hervieu, a French artist of some celebrity, who visited this country a few years since, speaks of Powers in the following manner: 'I have never met with a young man more deserving of patronage than this artist, who possesses all the qualities that merit it,genius, industry, and perseverance. I will venture to say, that a few years of close study, in Italy, would place him near the great masters we now admire, and that he