ults from a point of sympathy,
a likeness of liking in one or more fields of thought, a common
sensitiveness, a common interest; and the rarer sympathy between artist
and subject, of that intimacy and complete understanding of personal
character, which, even where no great talent exists in the artist, gives
a unique value to his work, but which, where the intimacy is that of
great minds, gives us works on which no dilettanteism, even, makes a
criticism,--as in that portrait of Dante by Giotto, to our mind the
portrait _par excellence_ of past time.

In the three admirable portraits whose titles stand at the head of our
notice, we have in one way and another all of the conditions we have
spoken of fulfilled. Rowse's portrait of Emerson is one of the most
masterly and subtile records of the character of a signal man, nay,
the most masterly, we have ever seen. Those who know Emerson best
will recognize him most fully in it. It represents him in his most
characteristic mood, the subtile intelligence mingling with the kindly
humor in his face, thoughtful, cordial, philosophic. The portrait is not
more happy in the comprehension of character than in the rendering of
it, and is as masterly technically as it is grandly characteristic. An
eminent English poet, who knows Emerson well, says of it, justly,--"It
is the best portrait I have ever seen of any man"; and we say of it,
without any hesitation, that no living man, except, _perhaps_, William
Page, is capable, at his best moment, of such a success.

In Barry's portrait of Whittier it is easy to see the points of contact
between the characters of the artist and the poet-subject, in the
sensitiveness shown in the lines of the mouth in the drawing, in the
delicacy of organization which has wasted the cheek and left the eye
burning with undimmed brilliancy in the sunken socket, the fervent,
earnest face, defying age to affect its expressiveness, as the heart it
manifests defies the chill of time. It is an exceedingly interesting
drawing, and one by which those who love the poet are willing to have
him seen by the future. It must remain as the only and sufficient record
of Whittier's _personnel_.

In the portrait of Bryant we have the results of an intimacy of the most
cordial kind, of years' duration,--an almost absolute unity of sentiment
and similarity of habits of regarding the things most interesting to
each. Of nearly the same age, Bryant and Durand have grown old together