the manual labor which is
supposed to devolve entirely upon the artist is, and has always been,
really performed by other hands than his own. I do not state this fact
in a whisper, as if it were a great disclosure which involved the honor
of the artist; it is no secret, and there is no reason why it should be
so. The disclosure, it is true, will be received by all who regard
sculpture as simply a mechanical art with a feeling of disappointment.
They will brand the artist who cannot lay claim to the entire
manipulation of his statue, whether in clay or marble, as an
impostor,--nor will they resign the idea that the truly conscientious
sculptor will carve every ornament upon his sandals and polish every
button upon his drapery. But those who look upon sculpture as an
intellectual art, requiring the exercise of taste, imagination, and
delicate feeling, will never identify the artist who conceives,
composes, and completes the design with the workman who simply relieves
him from great physical labor, however delicate some portion of that
labor may be. It should be a recognized fact, that the sculptor is as
fairly entitled to avail himself of mechanical aid in the execution of
his work as the architect to call into requisition the services of the
stone-mason in the erection of his edifice, or the poet to employ the
printer to give his thoughts to the world. Probably the sturdy mason
never thinks much about proportion, nor the type-setter much about
harmony; but the master-minds which inspire the strong arm and cunning
finger with motion think about and study both. It is high time that some
distinction should be made between the labor of the hand and the labor
of the brain. It is high time, in short, that the public should
understand in what the sculptor's work properly consists, and thus
render less pernicious the representations of those who, either from
thoughtlessness or malice, dwelling upon the fact that assistance has
been employed in certain cases, without defining the limits of that
assistance, imply the guilt of imposture in the artists, and deprive
them, and more particularly women-artists, of the credit to which, by
talent or conscientious labor, they are justly entitled.

HARRIET HOSMER.

BRYANT'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY.

O even-handed Nature! we confess
This life that men so honor, love, and bless
Has filled thine olden measure. Not the less

We count the precious seasons that remai