ch of
Art.

Less than what? The historical? What finer history than Titian's Paul
III., Raphael's Leo X., Albert Duerer's head of himself? What finer than
the Pericles, the Marcus Aurelius of the Capitol, the Demosthenes of the
Vatican, Chantrey's Scott, Houdon's Voltaire, Powers's Jackson?--Heroic?
what more heroic than the Lateran Sophocles, the Venetian Colleoni, or
Rauch's statue of Frederick the Great?--Poetical? What picture more
sweetly poetical than Raphael's head of himself in the Uffizi, or
Giotto's Dante in the Bargello? What _ideal_ statue surpasses in
poetical power Michel Angelo's De' Medici in the San Lorenzo Chapel?
What ideal head is more beautiful than the Townley Clytie of the British
Museum, or the Young Augustus of the Vatican? What grander than Da
Vinci's portrait of himself?

No,--when the sculptor has wrought the adequate representation of the
individual in its best estate, he may rest assured that he has achieved
"high Art."

Let us not be unjust to Mr. Powers's ideal works. In the qualities of
chasteness of conception, delicacy of treatment, temperate grace, and
that rarer, finer quality of dignified repose, they have not been
surpassed since the time of Greek Art. When the subject chosen has not
been foreign to the artist's nature, as in the "Eve," nor foreign to the
Art's province, as in the "California," his success has been very like a
triumph.

But the success has not been that which he was entitled to grasp; the
seeming triumph has precluded a real victory. We must believe that
the highest lessons of ancient Art have, in a great measure, been
unrecognized by Mr. Powers. The external has been studied. No man can
talk more justly of that exquisite line of the Venus de' Medici's temple
and cheek, or point out more discriminatingly the beauties of the Milo
statue, or detect more quickly the truths of the antique busts. He has
discovered, also, somewhat of the great secret of repose,--has perceived
that it is essential, in some wise, to all greatness in Art, more
particularly in his own department of sculpture. But beyond that simple
recognition of the fact, what? That repose is dependent on power to act,
and must be great in proportion to mightiness of power? No, he could not
have seen this; else had his Webster come to us less questionable in
intent, less remote in its merits from the massive self-possession of
the man.

For what Mr. Powers became before he left America he cannot be p