THE ARTIST, MERCHANT AND STATESMAN.* SUCH is the title of a work, the sub- sad work with the memories of illusjects of which are attractive from their trious men. It is more reverent and genuine American character. We do delicate-not to say honorable-to not propose to discuss the literary me- treat with silent respect the privacy of rits of the volume, but suggest a few genius. The critic should deal only thoughts on their contents. These are with its fruits. In this point of view, made up of a memoir of Hiram Pow- we heard an autobiography of Powers ers, the sculptor, whose statue of a announced, with regret-fearing it Greek slave, has recently attracted would compromise him somewhat with such eulogistic notice in London; and persons of refinement and judicious a letter to Hon. W.W. Campbell, on the taste. We are now, however, inclined Consular System of the United States. to view the subject in a different light. Mr. Lester writes for the people. It was only the other morning that we His language is for the most part col- encountered in the streets of New loquial and direct, and he deals chiefly York, one of our most gifted artists. in facts, of which he is evidently an He invited us to inspect a picture he assiduous collector. Those embodied had just completed, and remarked, that in the present volume are both inter- the great obstacle in the way of his esting and important, having reference profession in this country was the dif to an Artist who has reflected much ficulty artists experienced in keeping honor on his country, and to a question themselves and their works before the national rather than political, bearing, public. In other employments a sysas it does, upon the comfort and inter- tem of advertising, or puffery, served ests of all citizens. On such grounds the purpose; but with the exception of we can safely commend the "Artist, an annual exhibition, where the most Merchant and Statesman" to our limited facilities were afforded, the readers. painter and sculptor had no means Before perusing these desultory re- to keep himself remembered, except cords of the life and conversation of a through the influence of personal man of genius, we had some doubts as friends. In a busy, commercial and to the expediency of their publication. political community like our own, neiAs a general rule, the works of the ther leisure, general taste or fashion artist and writer should speak for them- beguile visitors to studios, as is the selves, and their biographies had better case in Europe. Hence, our artists not be written until death has canon- are often unemployed, simply because ized their memories. We have no sym- their claims are not more significantly pathy with the impertinent curiosity of presented to the world. This state of penny-a-liners, who, like the insects things makes it not only excusable but that feed upon the brain of the dead necessary, to promote the cause of elk, make a commodity of the private Art as far as possible through the press. lives of men whose achievements have In the case of Powers another considergiven celebrity to their names. A ation of no little force obtains. Some poet of our own country in deprecating writer has compared the situation of the recent attacks upon Campbell's Europe relatively to ourselves, to a fame, which have appeared in the living posterity. Distance as well as English magazines, recalled to our me- time, "lends enchantment to the mory the anecdote related of Burns, view." Powers is nobly prosecuting who, when visited on his death-bed by his art in Italy-a far-off and classic a fellow-soldier, said with much feel- land. It is natural and right that his ing: "Don't let the awkward squad countrymen should desire some authenfire over me." There is an awkward tic information regarding him. The squad in literature, who often make fame of his works come to us *The Artist, Merchant and Statesman, by C. Edwards Lester. New York: Paine and Burgess. 1845. We, therefore, cordially approve Mr. Lester's assiduity in gleaning the materials of this autobiography, and giving it to the public. No candid mind, after being made acquainted with the manner in which the consent of Powers was obtained to the publication, can possibly impugn either his modesty or good sense; while the success which has at length crowned his efforts, independent of his country, renders interested motives quite out of the question. . As to the record itself, the first part is an artless and spirited narrative of circumstances, similar in character, though differing in kind, to those which frequently serve as the rough but effective school of early genius. Here we follow a child of poverty through the sports of boyhood, the sad privations and golden dreams of youth, through vicissitudes that weary and lacerate the heart, and exigencies that try the faculties to the utmost, through eras of glowing hope and philosophic endurance, and brave perseverance, until an arena is obtained, an occasion granted-until the vocation and the man are brought in contact. It is a common story, only varying in its particulars from that of many a child of fame. It is only another illustration of the great truth that there's a divinity that shapes our ends," and that bravery, fortitude and earnest faith will, sooner or later, enable every human being to work out the problem of destiny. Many of the scenes in the early life of Powers are interesting. We quote an incident that occurred on one of his collecting tours in the West, which is graphically told: "But I must tell yon a robber story. Many a wild scene you know passes in those old woods. During this tour of collecting, I had arrived one afternoon at a log tavern too early to stop for the night; but it was nine miles to another house, and the road lay through a dense forest unlikely encounter some danger, and I I should arrive long after nightfall, and not thought I would stop. I had a large sum of money in my saddle-bags, principally in silver; and as I dismounted, the host took off the bags, and seeming somewhat surprised at their weight, asked me if I would have them placed in some secure place. I replied that I would carry them to my room, as I wished to take out something for immediate use. "Two suspicious-looking men were witnesses of all this, as they stood by the corner of the house, leaning on their rifles, and it was evident I was the subject of their conversation, which was carthan one wink and shrug of the shoulder, ried on in a suppressed voice, with more which would not have come with an illgrace from an Italian bandit. There was no lock on my door, and that looked a little suspicious, for I could have sworn, as I examined the door carefully on the inside when I retired, that a lock had been recently removed. But never being much given up to the control of my fancy at any period of my life, I half persuaded myself it was a groundless suspicion, and pulled off my clothes to go to bed. But I had not reasoned away my fears so completely as not to bethink myself of the means of defence in case of need. So I barricaded the door as well as I could with the few chairs and stools the room contained. But, contrary to all expectation, not a noise was made around the premises all night; and my testimony on this point ought to be pretty conclusive, for if there had been, I think it more than probable I should have heard it. But I was not a little annoyed, as I was prepra ing to start in the morning, to see those same two men at the door, leaning on their rifles. One of them stepped up, and with what seemed to me an affected manner, Stranger,' says he, we seem to be going the same way: suppose we keep company, as the gals say-for I kinder reckon my legs won't fall much behind your beast's. I and this neighbor I've fell in with are going down about half way to the next settlement, and then we go off the road for a hunt.` "I didn't know exactly what to do, as you may well imagine. But I didn't he sitate long. Neck or nothing, thought I; and so I replied, 'Oh, yes; company shortens the road: we'll go on together.' The truth of the latter sentiment I felt the force of; for whether we went in company or not that time depended upon the walkers and not upon the rider. But there was no backing out; so off we started, one of the said gentlemen with a shouldered rifle walking on either side. "Now,' thinks I to myself, is my principal chance. Go it, Rosinante! But neither jerk, whip, nor spur could urge her into an inconvenient gait for my companions. It was a new road, through what was called the Beech-flats, where the soil being thin, and resting upon a hard clay pan, the roots formed a kind of web-work just beneath the surface, which the travelling had laid bare, and rendered dangerous for rapid movement. Finally they left me-one to the right and the other to the left, assuring each other as they did so that they would rendezvous at Hog Hollow,' which was not put down in the geography I had studied. Bandit Hollow,' says I to myself, you'd better call it.' I now applied the implements of war upon my steed with increased activity, hoping I might gain upon the fellows, and defeat their infernal plot, which this ruse de guerre, or, as we say in Yankeedom, sham, only rendered still more evident. But I found the roots thicker and the mud deeper of course, just in proportion as my exigencies increased; and on the whole, all my twitching and spurring and beating only acted upon my beast like so much friction in machinery, to diminish the motion. The only living objects I saw for the next mile or two were a large flock of wild turkeys standing on a log, with the gobbler strutting before them; a moment after, a slight noise in the woods to my right, gave me an involuntary start. The bushes moved and the sticks cracked; Rosinante stopped short, and began to prick up her ears, and for the first time in many years, perhaps, assumed a somewhat spirited attitude. I looked steadily, and saw a cap moving slowly from be hind a tree, at less than a rifle-shot. It was followed by just enough of a man's face to give me a glimpse of his eye. I felt my hair lift my hat from my head. Suddenly the cap dodged behind the large tree. I knew escape was impossible, and it being more honorable to receive a bullet before than behind, I determined to await the result where I was. In a moment or two the cap and face appeared again with the end of the rifle pointed pretty nearly in my direction. Fire away, my boy!' thought I; you must be a great shot if you miss.' The cold sweat ran down my breast, and even Rosinante trembled. I looked as steadily, however, towards the man as though my life depended on dodging his bullet. He beckoned to me with his hand to go on; but I shook my head with a sort of an expression which I intended should say, Blaze away where I am; for a few paces to the north or south make very little difference to me in the place I fall.' The man repeated the gesture with a dreadful, I might say an infernal expression on his face, and then pointed with his finger to some object on the other side of the road. I looked slowly round, expecting to receive a ball from him or one from his murderous companion opposite to him; but you may judge of my surprise when I saw instead, six fine deer nearly in a line with me, and the man skulking behind the tree. I saw through the plot of the hunters in a flash. Well,' said I, as an involuntary blush burned on my cheek, 'aint it strange I should make such an extraordinary ass of myself?' I put spurs to Rosinante, and had hardly got clear of the shot of the honest hunter before I heard a rifle ball whistle by me, which struck a fine buck just about the instant I heard the report. The deer made a single leap, and fell dead. much,' says I, for the difference between an honest hoosier hunter and a highwayman!' It shows what suspicion will do when once excited; but I must confess suspicion was pretty natural under the circumstances."-Pp. 50—54. So A prominent subject which these pages suggest is that of the respective agency of education and talent. The theme is trite; but in the case of Powthat much that is not esteemed legitiers one inference appears very clearmate training is made such by the instinct of genius. The years of our sculptor's life preceding his first bust, were fitting him, unconsciously to himself, for his career. At the first thought, it strikes us as quite marvellous that he should be able to model an excellent portrait in wax without previous instruction; but we are to consider that he was by nature a great observer. Human faces and forms were seen by him not carelessly, but artistically. He needed only mechanical practice; the imitative power was already his, and he had received the best of educations-that of an attentive eye and truth-loving mind. Accordingly, he came not to his art a novice, but armed with the might of keen perception and intelligent confidence. These have ever been the weapons with which the world has been conquered. They carried Napoleon over the Simplon; they made Alfieri a great tragic poet; they cast over Washington the mantle of authority, and they won the soul of Raphael into the rarest intimacy with the spirit of Beauty. What Academies can do is very evident. They can inform the devotee of art or literature with the past trophies of their profession; they can refine the taste and indicate details of execution; but they cannot give energy to the will, invention to the fancy, or original conceptions to the mind. These spring from native endowments. Everyone has felt the distinction between learning and wisdom, the power of thought and the power of memory. A similar difference is evident between the artist who is born to his inheritance and the votary who thinks, by dint of external appliances, to realize a position to which he has no birthright. There are several impressive indications that Powers, at a very early age, recognized Nature as his guide, and that he was soon aware that, under her inspiration, his best powers were developed. He says: "I have ten thousand times thanked God in my very soul that my early days were passed in the country, where my tastes and feelings were developed under the teachings of nature, whom I have found in after life to be the great master: and I have often thought since, that if I have done anything worthy of being remembered in the history of my art, I have done it under the impulse of those tastes and feelings that were all developed in my boyhood, under the guidings of nature."-P. 44. And again "It would be difficult for me to describe the intensity of desire I felt for a long time to know all about this mysterious art; for there was something in it that woke up a kind of feeling I had never known before. If at that time there had been set before me wealth and honor, on one side, and a place on the other where I could live among such works, and do what I pleased, with some one to guide me, I'm certain I should have chosen the latter. And could I have been told then that in a few years I should have had a studio of my own, and made busts with my own hands, I should have been the happiest boy in the world." P. 47. We were forcibly reminded by these and similar passages of Carlyle's observation: "As if it were by universities and libraries and lecture-rooms that man's education-what we call education-were accomplished; solely or mainly by instilling the dead letter or record of other men's Force that the living Force of a new man were to be awakened, enkindled and purified into victorious clearness." By many, Art is regarded as an isolated and peculiar thing, having no relation to common life or universal sympathies. The Greeks might teach us the reverse, for with them it mingled with the habitudes and influences of daily existence, and moulded, refined and improved the national genius. We met with a striking illustration of the manner in which the moralist and the artist suggest the same essential truth, while engaged with these pages. In one of our principal churches, an eloquent divine, on the last Sabbath, enforced the law of retribution by the argument that character betrayed itself, if not in words or acts, at all events in expression; that the nerves of the face involuntarily obeyed the soul, and traced on the features the spirit each man was of; thereby winning him the love or exciting against him the distrust of his fellow-beings, and thus making him constantly atone for error or reap the harvest of virtue. Powers confirms the doctrine thus: We "It is an error to suppose that features are accidental, and nature makes them up at hap-hazard; for the face is the true index of the soul, where everything is wrilten, had we the wisdom to read it. can and we do read its mysteries by instinct, and we form an estimate of a of his features, though we may not know man's character from the first impression how this is done;-the heart and not the understanding reads it. The truth is, the mind forms the features after its own fashioning, and they vary as a man's character varies. This any one may know who has attentively watched the progres of innocence to vice, or of vice to reformation; the features keep pace with the progress of the character."-P. 65. Thus truth may be reached through art as well as literature. Another essential fact in which the true welfare of society is involved breathes in the words and works of the true artist. He is the eloquent advocate of progress. He perceives the warfare between the soul and circumstances, and aims to elevate humanity through the Beautiful as the philosopher does through the True and the moralist through the Right. Could it once be felt that these aims are identical, we should have no bigotry in religion or indifference to art, and infinite ly less blind utilitarianism in life. The observations of Powers on the True Ideal are eminently worthy of attention. He says: "The blight which has fallen on the human face has defaced the human form more than the surface of nature or the forms of the brute creation. The incessant violations of the design of God in man's creation, have brought into action a great variety of disturbing causes; and in almost every human form, however perfect we may esteem it, there is some palpable defect, which would appear to any one by comparing it with a perfect model. The beasts, the fish, and the birds, have, in a great degree, escaped this deforming blight. Milton has given a striking picture of this withering blast that has fallen on creation. "All this proves that what is not beautiful is not natural; it may have life and soul, but adulterated by infirmity and defects. Anything that deviates widely from the model that mankind, by long observation, have wrought into the ideal of beauty, shocks the beholder as a palpable deformity or defect. A broken limb can never be perfectly natural again; it may be healed, to be sure, and return nearly to its original form, but the work of nature has been disturbed, and it can never again be harmoniously adjusted. * * "Nature is always struggling to gain her supremacy, and to beautify all her works; and, in defiance of the inconceivable opposition she meets with from the human race, still contrives to show herself-but like a beautiful landscape dimmed by the cold mist. She looks out from the eyes of one-she plays around the lips of another-she arches the brows of a third-she waves in the luxuriant hair of a fourth-she heaves on the bosom of a fifth-and she slides down the graceful slopes of the shoulders of a sixth-and she would enthrone herself in every breathing form, were not her mysterious sceptre broken by the waywardness of man and the blight that has breathed mildew over creation."-Pp. 98-99. We have read these and other specimens of the table, or rather studio and fireside talk of Powers, with much gratification. It is delightful to observe the genuine independence of mind with which he speaks of names and processes hallowed by fame. Those not conversant with the sway which certain names and institutions exercise over popular opinion in Europe, can His remarks scarcely appreciate the manliness and It was a saying of antiquity, that Republics are ungrateful; another characteristic has not become proverbialtheir indifference to any but immediate and familiar interests. Perhaps the policy of despotism requires that public attention should be diverted from home, and, on this account, great significance is given to foreign manifestations of power. Whatever the cause, it is a remarkable fact, that it is a work of almost insurmountable difficulty to fix the attention of either of our people or their representatives upon any subject not directly and palpably affecting their welfare. Since the commence No ment of our national existence, the superior position we have occupied has never been adequately sustained beyond our borders, except on that great highway of nations-the ocean. sufficient pecuniary supplies, no conscientious discrimination, no serious and fostering attention has been bestowed upon that important branch of our government-its foreign representation. Now and then, an intelligent traveller, impressed with this neglect, or personally suffering from its consequences, has protested against it; at long intervals the voice of some patriot of comprehensive mind has been raised in the legislative halls in behalf of a thorough reform; but, generally speaking. the subject is one of those annually |