Chapter M: Daguerre (1)

This far-famed Frenchman, who has given his name to the art which he first discovered, the Daguerreotype, died not long since, at his residence, near Paris. The likeness which we present herewith, is from an original, taken after his own style and invention, and is necessarily correct. It would be superfluous for us to enlarge upon the merits of an art so familiar to all. Daguerre was an artist, a painter, and also possessed considerable chemical talent and taste; and it was while experimenting for other purposes, that he discovered the art which now bears his name. It was destined, however, to be wonderfully improved by other hands, and it is said that the Americans have produced by far the most perfect and beautiful specimens of the art that have ever yet been exhibited. Daguerre was favorably known to the world before the announcement of his discovery of the Daguerreotype. His attempts to improve panoramic paintings, and the production of dioramic effects, were crowned with the most eminent success. His pictures attracted much attention at the time of their exhibition. In them the alternate effects of night and day――of storm and sunshine――were beautifully produced. To these effects of light were added others, arising from the decomposition of form, by means of which, for example, in the ‘Midnight Mass,’ figures appeared where the spectators had just beheld seats, altars, etc.; or, again, as in ‘The Valley of Goldau,’ in which rocks tumbling from the mountains replaced the prospect of a smiling valley. He was in the 62d year of his age at the time of his death, and is represented to have been an extremely modest and worthy man, and one devoted to his profession of the fine arts.

VICTOR HUGO.

Victor Hugo, a politician, one of the most prominent living French writers, was born February 26, 1802. The political contrariety which has marked his career may be said to have been inherited by Hugo, his father having been one of the first volunteers of the republic, and his mother, a Vendéan by birth and sentiment, a proscribed royalist, wandering while yet a girl in the Bocage of La Vendée. At the date of his birth, his father was a colonel in the army of Napoleon; and the child, born almost amid the roar of cannon, followed with its mother the steps of Bonaparte. From Besancon he was carried to Elba, from Elba to Paris, from Paris to Rome, from Rome to Naples, before he was five years of age, so that he exclaims, ‘I made the tour of Europe before I began to live.’ In Naples he resided about ten years, his father having been appointed governor of Avellino. In 1809 he returned to France with his two brothers and his mother, by whom he was educated within the walls of the convent of the Feuillantes, where the family had taken up its residence. He here received the benefit of classical instruction from an old general, whom his mother was then concealing from the imperial police. At the close of 1811, his father, then a general and majordomo of Joseph Bonaparte’s palace at Madrid, sent for his family to join him in that capital, and Victor accompanied his mother to Spain. He remained at Madrid about a year, and returned to the old convent until the restoration of 1814. This event, by exciting in his mother and father the opposite feelings of joy and indignant grief, led to their separation. Victor was placed by his father in a private academy, where he studied mathematics, it is said with great success, previous to his intended removal to the polytechnic school. In 1816 he published his parable of ‘The Rich and Poor,’ and an elegy called the ‘Canadian.’ In 1817 he was a competitor for a prize on the ‘Advantages of Study,’ offered by the academy. In 1819, having committed himself to a literary career with his father’s consent, he wrote two odes, entitled ‘The Virgins of Verdun,’ and ‘The Restoration of the Statue of Henri IV,’ and sent them to the Academy of Floral Fêtes, at Toulouse, by which they were both crowned. In 1820 he published his ‘Infant Moses in the Nile.’ In 1822 appeared the first volume of his ‘Odes and Ballads,’ a collection of occasional pieces, all breathing a royalist spirit. His ‘Hans of Iceland,’ and ‘Bug-Jargal,’ though not published until some years later, were written about this time. Before the close of the same year the young poet married Mdlle. Foucher, and rising into distinction as a royalist writer, he received a pension from Louis XVIII. In 1826 he published a second volume of ‘Odes and Ballads,’ which betrayed an inward revolution in his political and literary opinions. In the succeeding year he composed a drama, called ‘Cromwell,’ intended to assert the freedom of the Christian and romantic drama, against the theory of Aristotle’s unity, as understood and practiced by Racine. He prefaced it with a dramatic theory of his own, to which, however, he hardly gave a fair chance of success, since its accompanying illustration contained scarcely a feature of merit. In 1828 he published his ‘Orientals,’ a poem of finished versification, but destitute of force or spirit. In 1829, Victor Hugo published his ‘Last Days of a Condemned Prisoner,’ and so vividly depicted the anticipated tortures of a man left for execution, that the terrific interest of the work gave it an immense success. Hugo now prepared to make a second attack on the stiff and unnatural dramatic system prevalent in his country. On the 26th February, 1830, his ‘Ernani’ was played at the Théâtre Français. The indignation of the old and the enthusiasm of the new party knew no bounds. The academy went so far as to lay a complaint against the innovation at the foot of the throne, but Charles X, with a good sense which would have been very serviceable to him four months later, replied, that ‘in matters of art he was no more than a private person.’ Meanwhile the drama, which was far superior in construction to ‘Cromwell,’ succeeded. Shortly after the revolution of July, his ‘Marion de Lorme,’ embodying his new political tastes, and which had been suppressed by the censorship under the restoration, was brought out, and was considered theatrically successful. In January, 1832, his play, ‘Le Roi S’amuse,’ was performed at the Théâtre Français, and the next day interdicted by the government. This was scarcely necessary, the piece had not been warmly received; in fact, people, however willing to be amused, especially at the expense of monarchs, did not like to see the quondam royalist employed in burlesquing the historical heroes of their country. M. Hugo afterward published a number of dramatic pieces of various merit; among them are ‘Lucrèce Borgia,’ ‘Marie Tudor,’ ‘Angelo,’ and ‘Ruy Blas.’ His greatest novel is ‘Nôtre Dame de Paris.’ He has since produced ‘Chants du Creépuscle,’ and ‘Voix Intérieures.’ In the works of this poet may be found some of the sublimest creations of French poetry. It is to be regretted that, side by side with these, the author’s preverted taste led him to place images the most monstrous and disgusting. He was created a peer of France by Louis Philippe, and, on the downfall of that monarch, avowing the principles of the revolution, was returned to the constituent, and afterward to the national assembly, of which he was one of the few eloquent speakers. He is also a leading member of the Peace Congress, and was its president in 1849――a position remarkable enough for the author of the bellicose ‘Lettres du Rhin.’ He was an energetic opponent of Louis Napoleon in December, and on that account was compelled to fly to Brussels in an assumed name.

OMAR PASHA.

Omar Pasha who commands the Turkish army, is an Austrian subject, and a native of Coroalia. He was born in 1801, at Vaski, a village situated in the circle of Ogulina, thirteen leagues from Fiume. His family name is Lattas. His father was lieutenant-administrator of the circle; his uncle was a priest of the United Greek Church. Admitted, when very young, into the School of Mathematics of Thurm, near Carlstadt, in Transylvania, after having completed his studies with distinction, the young Lattas entered the corps of the Ponts et Chaussees, which, in Austria, is organized on a military footing. In 1830, in consequence of a misunderstanding with his superiors, he left for Turkey, and embraced Islamism. Khosrew Pasha, who was then Seraskier, took him under his protection, procured him admission into the regular army, and attached him to his personal staff. He then gave him his ward in marriage, who was one of the richest heiresses in Constantinople, and a daughter of one of the Janizaries, whose head he had caused to be cut off in 1827, when that corps revolted against Sultan Mahmoud. In 1833, Lattas, who had taken the name of Omar, was chief of battalion, and was appointed aid-de-camp, and interpreter to General Chrzanowski, who had charge of the instruction of the Ottoman troops encamped near Constantinople. Omar was thenceforward actively employed in the reörganization of the Turkish army, and, still protected by Khosrew Pasha, obtained successively important missions and command in the army. The troubles of Syria, and the Albanian insurrection of 1846, gave him occasion to distinguish himself, and attracted to him the attention of the Sultan. He was sent to the Kurdistan, and succeeded in obtaining the submission of that province, which was nearly independent of the Porte. Named in 1848 to the command of the army, sent to the Danubian provinces, he made the authority of the Sultan respected, while at the same time he respected the susceptibilities and the privileges of those provinces, placed, as they were, under the double protection of Russia and Turkey. The year 1851 was the most brilliant period of the military career of Omar Pasha. Named commander-in-chief of Bosnia, the principal chiefs of which had refused to recognize Tanzimat――that is, the new organization of his empire――he combatted successfully, though with an inferior force, the Beys of that country. At last he was sent to Montenegro, where he found himself for the first time commanding an army of 30,000 men. The intervention of Austria, as is known, put a term to that expedition before decisive operations could be commenced. At the present date, Omar Pasha is at the head of nearly 100,000 men in the Crimea.

EDWARD EVERETT.

Edward Everett, an American orator, scholar, and diplomatist, was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in April 1794. His father was a respectable clergyman in Boston; and his elder brother was minister at the court of Spain. He received his early education at Boston, and entered Harvard college when little more than thirteen years old, leaving it with first honors four years later, undecided as to a pursuit for life. He turned his attention for two years to the profession of divinity; but, in 1814, he was invited to accept the new professorship of Greek literature at Cambridge, Massachusetts, with permission to visit Europe. He accepted the office; and, before entering on its duties, embarked at Boston for Liverpool. He passed more than two years at the famous university of Göttingen, engaged in the study of the German language and the branches of learning connected with his department. He passed the winter of 1817-18 at Paris. The next spring he again visited London, and passed a few weeks at Cambridge and Oxford. While in England, he acquired the friendship of some of the most eminent men of the day; among others, of Scott, Byron, Jeffrey, Campbell, Mackintosh, Romilly, and Davy. In the autumn of 1818, he returned to the continent, and divided the winter between Florence, Rome, and Naples. In the spring of 1819, he made a short tour in Greece. Mr. Everett came home in 1819, and entered at once upon the duties of his professorship. Soon after his return, he became the editor of the ‘North American Review,’ a journal, which, though supported by writers of great ability, had acquired only a limited circulation. Under its new editor, the demand increased so rapidly that a second and sometimes a third edition of its numbers was required. One of his first cares as editor was, to vindicate American principles and institutions against a crowd of British travelers and critics, who were endeavoring to bring them into contempt. The spirit with which he performed his task checked this system of assault; and Campbell, who had inadvertently admitted into ‘The New Monthly Magazine’ a paper of the same description, made a handsome _amende_. In 1824, Mr. Everett delivered the annual oration before the Phi-Beta-Kappa Society, at Cambridge, Massachusetts. The entire discourse was favorably received; but the peroration, being an apostrophe to Lafayette, who was present, touched a chord of sympathy in an immense audience, already excited by the unusual circumstances of the occasion. This was the first of a series of orations and addresses delivered by Everett on public occasions of almost every kind during a quarter of a century, and lately collected in two volumes. Up to 1824, he had taken no active interest in politics; but his articles in the review had evinced his acquaintance with the wants and spirit of the nation, and his recent oration had brought him prominently before the public. The constituency of Middlesex, Massachusetts, without any solicitation on his part, returned him to congress by a great majority over the regular candidate. For ten years he sat in congress, and proved himself a working member, never taking advantage of his superior powers to detain the house with oratorical display, but taking part in every debate of importance. In 1835, he retired from congress, and was for four successive years chosen governor of Massachusetts. In 1839, he was again a candidate for the same honor, but was defeated on local questions by a majority of one out of more than 100,000 votes. In 1841, he was appointed to represent the United States at the court of St. James, a position for which he was peculiarly qualified by his knowledge of the European tongues, and his acquaintance with the then mooted boundary question. Although the secretaryship of state at Washington was held by four different statesmen, of various politics, during Everett’s mission, he enjoyed the confidence and approbation of all. His firmness, high intelligence, and assiduous habits, won him great respect in England; and his scholarship was recognized in the bestowal of the degree of D. C. L. by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He returned to America in 1845, and was chosen president of Harvard college, which office he resigned in 1849. He now lives at Boston, employed on his promised ‘Treatise on the Law of Nations.’

WASHINGTON IRVING.

Washington Irving was born in the city of New York, April 3, 1783, in which place his father, William Irving, had been settled as a merchant some twenty years. After receiving an ordinary school education, at the age of sixteen, he commenced the study of the law. Three years later he contributed, under the signature of Jonathan Oldstyle, a series of letters to the ‘Morning Chronicle,’ a newspaper of which his brother, Peter Irving, was editor. These juvenile essays attracted much notice at the time, were extensively copied by other journals, and in 1823 or 1824 were collected and published without the sanction of the author. In 1804, in consequence of ill health, he sailed for Bordeaux on a visit to Europe, and traveled through the south of France to Nice, where he took a felucca to Genoa, in which city he remained some two months. He then went by sea to Sicily, made the tour of the island, crossed from Palermo to Naples, passed through Italy, meeting Allston at Rome, who strongly recommended his devoting himself to art, thence over the St. Gothard, through Switzerland to Paris, where he remained several months. He then went to Holland, whence he embarked for England, where he spent part of the autumn, and returned to New York in March, 1806, completely restored to health. He again resumed the study of the law, and was admitted to the bar in November of that year, but never practiced. Shortly after he took the chief part in ‘Salmagundi,’ the first number of which appeared in January, 1807, and the last in January, 1808. In December the following year, he published his ‘Knickerbocker’s History of New York.’ In 1810, two of his brothers, who were engaged in commercial business, one being at the head of the establishment in New York, and the other in Liverpool, gave him an interest in the concern, with the understanding that he was not to enter into the duties and details of the business, but pursue his literary avocations. During the war with Great Britain, in 1813-14, he edited the ‘Analectic Magazine,’ and in the fall of the latter year, joined the military staff of the governor of the state of New York, as aid-de-camp, and military secretary, with the title of colonel. On the close of the war, May, 1815, he embarked for Liverpool, with the intention of making a second tour of Europe, but was prevented by the sudden and great reverses which followed the return of peace, overwhelming, after a struggle of two or three years, in which Mr. Irving took an active part to avert the catastrophe, the house in which his brothers had given him an interest, and involving him in its ruin. In 1818, he determined to try his pen as a means of support, and commenced the papers of the ‘Sketch-Book,’ which were transmitted piecemeal from London, where he resided, to New York for publication. Three or four numbers were thus published, when, finding that they attracted notice in England, he had them published in a volume, February, 1820, by Mr. John Miller; but he failing shortly after, the work was transferred to Mr. Murray, with a second volume, published in July of that year. Mr. Murray had bought the copyright for £200, but its success far surpassing his expectations, he sent Mr. Irving, of his own accord, first £100, and the sale still increasing, an additional £100. After a residence of five years in England, Mr. Irving removed to Paris in August, 1820, and remained there till July of the following year, when he returned to England and published his ‘Bracebridge Hall’ in London and New York in May, 1822. The following winter he passed in Dresden, returned to Paris in 1823, and crossed to London in May, 1824, to publish his ‘Tales of a Traveler,’ which appeared in August of that year in two volumes, and in four parts in New York. In August, he returned to Paris, and in the autumn of 1825, visited the south of France, spending part of the winter in Bordeaux. In February, 1826, he left that city for Madrid, where he remained two years. Here he wrote the life of ‘Columbus,’ which appeared in 1828. In the spring of 1828, he left Madrid on a tour to the south of Spain, visiting Granada and the main points mentioned in the ‘Chronicles of the Conquest of Granada, by Fray Agapida,’ of which he had made a rough sketch. This he prepared for the press at Seville, and transmitted to London and New York for publication; it appeared in 1829. In the spring of this year he again visited Granada, and resided some three months in the Alhambra, where he collected materials for the work published under that name in 1832. In July he went to England, being appointed secretary of legation to the American embassy in London, which office he held until the return of Mr. M’Lane in 1831, when, after remaining a few months as chargé, he resigned, on the arrival of Mr. Van Buren. While in England, in 1830, Mr. Irving received one of the fifty-guinea gold-medals, provided by George IV, for eminence in historical composition; the other was awarded to Mr. Hallam, the historian. In 1831, the university of Oxford conferred on Mr. Irving the degree of LL.D. In the spring of 1832, he returned to New York, after an absence of seventeen years. His return was greeted on all hands with the warmest enthusiasm; a public dinner was given to him, at which Chancellor Kent presided; and similar testimonials were offered in other cities, but which he declined. In the summer of this year he accompanied Mr. Ellsworth, one of the commissioners for removing the Indian tribes west of the Mississippi, and whom he had met on a tour to the west, on his expedition. The most interesting portion of this journey has appeared in the ‘Tour on the Prairies,’ published in 1835. This was followed in the same year by ‘Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey,’ and ‘Legends of the Conquest of Spain.’ In 1836 he published ‘Astoria,’ and in the following year he published ‘The Adventures of Captain Bonneville.’ In 1839 he entered into an engagement which lasted two years, with the proprietors of the ‘Knickerbocker Magazine,’ to furnish monthly articles for that periodical. In February, 1842, he received, unsolicited, the appointment of minister to Spain. He left for Madrid on the 10th of April of that year. His official duties terminating in the summer of 1846, he returned to this country, and, in 1848, commenced the publication of a revised edition of his works which had long been out of print. In 1849 he published ‘Oliver Goldsmith, a Biography,’ and ‘Mahomet and his Successors,’ 1849-50. He has recently published a life of Washington. Mr. Irving is essentially the man of his works, genial, warm-hearted, and benevolent; so much so, that all who see him would be apt to forget the author in the man. He has a countryseat, ‘Sunnyside,’ on the banks of the Hudson, twenty-five miles from the city of New York, which is now his home.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

William Cullen Bryant, an American journalist and poet, was born at Cummington, Hampshire county, Massachusetts, November 3d, 1794. His forefathers, for three generations, were medical men; but this family _penchant_ for physic did not exist, apparently, in the case of our poet, who changed the professional current by becoming a lawyer. For ten years he followed the tortuous course of legal practice, but at last gave it up for the more genial profession of literature. In 1808, Mr. Bryant published a little collection of poems, written before he had completed his fourteenth year, entitled, ‘The Embargo, and other Poems.’ In 1821, he published at Cambridge, Massachusetts, the volume entitled, ‘The Ages, and other Poems.’ In 1825, he came to New York, when he became one of the editors of the ‘New York Review’ (which, however, had but a short existence), and published several poems and tales, which quickly became popular. From this point he went on successfully, writing in the chief periodical publications, in conjunction with some of the leading American authors of his day, and becoming, moreover, the editor of a New York paper, the ‘Evening Post.’ In 1834-35, and also in 1845, he traveled in Europe, writing descriptions of what he saw for his journal in America. Mr. Bryant again visited Europe in 1849, and on his return published his ‘Letters of a Traveler,’ being a _resume_ of his tours in Europe and this country. He has gained a high reputation by his poems; and his political writings in favor of free trade and free discussion, against monopolies of all kinds, are marked with clearness and vigor. He has labored earnestly to diffuse a taste for the fine arts in this country, and was president of the Apollo Association, prior to its incorporation as the American Art Union.

GEORGE BANCROFT.

GEORGE BANCROFT, the distinguished American author and historian, was born at Worcester, Massachusetts, in the year of 1800. His father, who was himself an author and a doctor of divinity, gave to his son’s mind the bent and disposition which in after-years conducted him to celebrity, position, and power. Not yet seventeen, Mr. Bancroft graduated at Harvard college, with honors, and soon entered upon a course of literary pursuits, having as their ultimate end the profession of a historian. In 1818, he went to Europe, and there studied at Göttingen and Berlin, enjoying the high advantages of the most thorough system of instruction and the society of distinguished and cultivated men. After an absence of four years, during which he traveled in England, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, he returned to the United States. His first sphere of labor was naturally in accordance with his previous life, and he was appointed tutor of Greek in Harvard college. A love of intellectual independence and the desire to engraft upon the academic system in New England the German method of instruction, led him in company with a literary friend, to separate labors in the field of instruction, which were pursued for some time in the interior of New England, but afterward abandoned for duties of a more public and permanent character. During the interval of severer labors, Mr. Bancroft made many contributions to American literature, especially from the stores of German thought and intellect, then comparatively sealed, even to educated men in the United States. He early adopted decided political opinions, attaching himself to the democratic party, in whose behalf his first vote was cast. In 1826, in a public oration, afterward published, he announced as his creed ‘universal suffrage and uncompromising democracy;’ and in the ranks of the liberal party he rose to political preferment and distinction rarely attained by one whose career at the outset was so purely that of a scholar. In 1834, Mr. Bancroft published the first volume of his ‘History of the United States,’ a work to which he had long devoted his thoughts and researches and in which he laid the foundation of a reputation at once permanent and universal. The first and two succeeding volumes of the work, comprising the colonial history of the country, were hailed with the highest satisfaction, as exhibiting for the first time, in a profound and philosophical manner, not only the facts but the ideas and principles of American history. In January, 1838, Mr. Bancroft received from President Van Buren the appointment of collecter of the port of Boston, a post of more responsibility than profit, which he occupied until the year 1841, discharging its duties with a fidelity which proved that a man of letters may also be a man of business, in the strictest sense of the term. In 1844, he was the candidate of the democracy of Massachusetts for the office of governor of the state; and though the party was in the minority, his unusually large vote, greater than that which any other democratic candidate has since received, attested his popularity. In the spring of 1845, Mr. Bancroft was called by President Polk to a seat in the cabinet, and the administration of the navy department, over which he presided with an energy and efficiency which, notwithstanding the short period of his connection with it, perpetuated themselves in numerous reforms and improvements, of lasting utility to the naval service. In 1846, he was appointed minister-plenipotentiary to Great Britain, and there represented the United States, until succeeded by Mr. Abbott Lawrence, in 1849. In England, the _prestige_ of Mr. Bancroft’s literary reputation and his high social qualities contributed to enhance the popularity and respect which attached to him during his entire diplomatic career, which was one of complete satisfaction to the government which he represented and to that to which he was accredited. On his return, he fixed his residence in the city of New York, and resumed more actively the prosecution of his historical labors. The fourth volume of his history appeared early in 1852. It includes the opening scenes of the great drama of American independence, and amply sustains the interest and dignity of the work by which Mr. Bancroft has inseparably linked his name with the annals of his country.

WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT.

William Hickling Prescott, an eminent American historian, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1796, the son of an able lawyer, and grandson of that Prescott who commanded our troops at Bunker’s Hill. When he was twelve years of age his family removed to Boston, where Prescott has since resided, and where his classical training, begun in the place of his birth, was continued with success by Dr. Gardiner, a pupil of Dr. Parr. In 1811 he entered Harvard college, and was graduated there in 1814, with honors appropriate to his favorite studies, and with an intention to devote himself to the legal profession. But the great misfortune of his life had already befallen him. Before he had been graduated, an accidental blow had deprived him of the sight of one eye, and the natural consequences soon followed. The other became weakened by the increased labor thrown upon it; and, after a severe illness, during which he was entirely blind, he found the sight of his remaining eye so much impaired, that he was compelled to give up his professional studies and his hopes of success at the bar. The next two years he spent in Europe, traveling for his health in England, France, and Italy, and seeking the aid of the great oculists of London and Paris. He returned to America with renovated health, but for his misfortune found no relief. Still he was not disheartened, but turned with alacrity to those studies which remained yet within his reach. He resolved to become, in the best sense of the word, a historian, and freely gave himself ten years to prepare for the task, by a course of the classical reading he had always loved. He then selected his subject, and, having done this, gave ten years more to his ‘History of Ferdinand and Isabella,’ one of the few important periods in the affairs of modern Europe that seemed to invite the hand of a master. With this great work, in 1838, at the age of forty-two, he appeared before the world as an author, publishing simultaneously in London and Boston. It was received on both sides of the Atlantic, with unhesitating applause. It has since run through many editions, and been translated into German, Italian, French, and Spanish. During his labor on this work, Mr. Prescott’s vision had been somewhat improved by a diminution of the sensibility which had led to earlier inflammations, and which had compelled him to live in a darkened apartment, relying entirely on a reader when collecting his materials. His ‘Conquest of Mexico,’ therefore, first printed in 1843, though prepared largely from manuscript documents, was perhaps a work of less troublesome toil than his first had been. The prompt honors that it received were even more brilliant than those paid to the ‘Ferdinand and Isabella,’ and having before been admitted to several of the distinguished academies of Europe, he was now elected a member of the French institute. His ‘Conquest of Peru’ appeared in 1847. It is marked by the same striking events which distinguished its predecessors, and is, with the exception of a volume of collated miscellanies, his last work. It is understood that he is now engaged in writing a ‘History of Philip II.’ In 1850 he made a short visit to England, where he was received with marked kindness and respect by whatever is most distinguished in society and letters, and where the ancient university of Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree of doctor in the civil law.

HIRAM POWERS.

Hiram Powers, sculptor, was born in Woodstock, Vermont, July 29, 1805. He was the eighth child of a family of nine, and his parents were plain country people, who cultivated a little farm. He acquired such education as the district school afforded, and he also found leisure to get some knowledge of divers kinds of handicraft, among which was the art of drawing. His father finding it difficult to maintain his family upon his farm removed to Ohio, where he shortly after died, and the future artist was thrown upon his own resources. He set out for Cincinnati to seek his fortune, and found employment in a reading-room connected with one of the principal hotels of the city, and afterwards became clerk in a produce store, where he remained until his principal failed. He then found a situation with a clockmaker, by whom he was employed in collecting debts, and afterwards in the mechanical part of the business; but, although this employment was not disagreeable to him, he aspired to some higher branch of the arts. In Cincinnati, he made the acquaintance of a Prussian, who was engaged upon a bust of general Jackson, and with some little instruction in the art of modeling obtained from him, Mr. Powers was soon able to produce busts in plaster of considerable merit, in fact one of his earliest he has declared, himself, to have been unsurpassed in likeness and finish by any of his later works. He then felt that his vocation was the arts, and he formed a connection with the Western Museum at Cincinnati, where, for about seven years, he superintended the artistic department, such as wax-work shows etc. After leaving this place he visited Washington in 1835, hoping to gain some reputation as an artist, which would enable him to increase his business, and furnish him the means of visiting Italy. In this he was not disappointed. After spending some time in the capital engaged in taking the busts of the most eminent men of the day, he was enabled, by the liberality of Mr. N. Longworth, to accomplish his long-cherished scheme; and in 1837 he landed in Florence. For some time after his arrival he continued to devote himself principally to busts, but he soon determined to employ his spare time on the production of an ideal work; the subject determined upon was ‘Eve.’ Just before the model of this statue was completed, Mr. Powers received a visit from the celebrated Thorwalsden, who was then passing through Florence. He expressed himself in terms of high admiration of the artist’s busts; and, in reference to these, declared Powers to be the greatest sculptor since Michael Angelo. The statue of ‘Eve’ also excited his admiration: and to the artist’s apology that it was his first statue, he replied that any man might well be proud of it, as his last. When the model of ‘Eve’ was completed, he began the ‘Greek Slave,’ which was finished in eight months. This, the best known and most admired of all Mr. Powers’ works, has been exhibited throughout the United States, and at the Great Exhibition at London. There are two copies in existence besides the original, one of which recently formed one of the prizes distributed by the Western Art-Union. Among some of his finest works are portraits of Jackson, Webster, Adams, Calhoun, Chief-Justice Marshall and many persons of less eminence. He has also produced some ideal busts; the ‘Proserpine’ is one of the finest.

DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF NAVAL ARCHITECTURE.

From the semi-barbarous epoch of the middle ages to the present century, which has seen the birth of steam navigation, the form and rig of vessels have undergone many modifications. We are about to give a rapid historical sketch of these, quoting, as far as possible, those types of naval architecture celebrated in preceding centuries. Still, we are hardly permitted to go back farther than the ninth century, where we find some certain ideas respecting the Scandinavian vessels. Before this period all is confusion, and leaves us full of uncertainty. We know well that the ancient _Trireme_ gave birth to a sort of row-galleys known in the fifth century by the name of _Dromons_; but we have no positive details respecting the precise form of these vessels. In the sixth century, the Emperor Maurice, in a treatise on the military art, spoke of them as vessels particularly contrived for battle. Three hundred years later, the Emperor Leo, who wrote on the same subject, said that the dromon was long, and broad in proportion to its length, and that it carried on each side two banks of oars, one above the other, of twenty-five each; but nothing further to enlighten us. As for the Norman vessels from the ninth to the twelfth century, we know the _drakar_ (dragon), which was as much of a dragon as the ancient _Pristis_ was a whale――that is to say, that at the summit of her prow rose a figure carved into a dragon, and that her form had something that resembled a serpent. All of the dragons were not of the same size. The dragon of Alaf Tryggrasson is spoken of in cotemporary histories as the giant of Scandinavian vessels.

Never was one seen larger, finer, or more imposing in bulk and decoration. She had thirty-four oars on each side. If the tradition is accurate, she must have been as long as the galleys of the sixteenth century. It was, it will be seen, a vessel of considerable importance; for galleys with twenty-six oars only were about one hundred and thirty feet long. The dragons were built to resist a sea more stormy than the Mediterranean. Consequently they had broad sides and a vast stern, so as to have a firm seat on the water. They were flatbottomed, and drew very little water. Besides the draker, the Scandinavians had the _sekkar_, or serpent vessel, which had twenty benches of rowers. Its form differed little from that of the dragon. It was only shorter, shallower and narrower. All Norman vessels were alike in bow and stern. But some war vessels had a little building on the poop called the castle. This castle was a little embattled platform, where the archers and slingers were placed. It would be difficult to tell precisely what the internal arrangements of the Scandinavian vessels were. The smallest were not probably decked. As for the larger ones, they doubtless had a deck like the galleys; and beneath this deck a hold, apportioned according to their wants, to rooms, magazines and stables for their horses. The Scandinavian vessels had only one mast, with a vane and four or five shrouds. The sail was square, attached to a yard, furnished with sheets at its lower angles, and managed by two braces that belayed aft. The yard had a halyard passing through a block at the mast head. As for the rudder, it consisted of two blades, large, crutchhandled oars, near the stern, on the right, and also left of the vessel. The anchors of the Normans were like oars, but they did not have that cross-bar of wood we call the stock. In the twelfth century we see the galleys, according to Wenesalf, which were only little light dromons, built particularly for speed, and having only one tier of oars. The following is a textual passage from this writer relating to them:――‘What the ancients called _liburnus_, the moderns have named galley. It is a ship of no great depth, armed at the prow with a motionless piece of wood, vulgarly called calcar (spur), an instrument with which the galley pierces the enemy’s ships that she strikes.’ A diminutive of the galley was the galleon, which, being shorter and swifter, was better suited for discharging the Greek fire. For the rest, starting from this invention, the action of the shock of the calcar was by degrees replaced by the hand to hand struggle.

Among the galleys, which afterwards gave birth to the _galea grossa_, in assuming more capacity and more amplitude, some were manœuvred by two oars to the bench, others three. It is even certain that, at a later period, in the sixteenth century, the strongest ones had as many as five oars, which appears incredible. The galleys possessed only one mast, which was stepped rather forward――that is, in the first third of the vessel. In the thirteenth century, the fleet which St. Louis took with him towards the Holy Land, gives proof of the thorough modifications which naval structures have undergone. St. Louis could only collect the eighteen hundred vessels which composed his fleet, without recourse to the marine of neighboring states――Genoa and Venice among others. Now, the contracts for hire he exchanged with Venice for many vessels, give us information with respect to one called the St. Mary, represented in the engraving. This vessel had two decks and two masts. It possessed two poops, placed above each other, two platforms, an upper deck, and a fighting gallery of four or five feet overhanging the poop. This ship, manned by one hundred and ten sailors, was one hundred feet long. The same contracts give us also information concerning another vessel, called the Rochefort. Although not so long as the St. Mary, she was stronger and broader. She had two rudders; one to starboard, and the other to larboard. Her sparring consisted, also, of two masts; one at the prow, and the other amidships. The mainmast was smaller and lower than the foremast. It had only twenty-six braces, while the other had twenty-eight. The sails of almost all the fleet were of cotton. All the sails were rectangular triangles with the hypothenuse attached to the yard, and were called _antennal_. Still, it is proper to mention the assertion of some authors, that the sails of St. Louis’ vessels were square. Their assertions were only founded on the form and dimensions of the yards, which all the documents of the time represent as very long and slung by the middle. We ought to observe that, in speaking of the St. Mary and the Rochefort, Venetian ships, we have indirectly spoken of naval constructions coming from the ports of France and those of other European countries. At this period, all vessels, Genoese, Castilian, French, etc., resembled each other; and to be acquainted with one was to know all. The galleys of the thirteenth century were thus somewhat changed. Lighter, sharper than those of the preceding century, in the fourteenth, the kind called ‘subtle galleys,’ were observed to preponderate. These galleys, extremely light and swift, were furnished on each side with from twenty-four to twenty-six oars, and might have been from one hundred and ten to one hundred and twenty feet in length. Still, in the fourteenth century, and even in the fifteenth and sixteenth, the most celebrated ships were the _carracks_. Their tonnage may be estimated by their cargoes, which sometimes amounted to fourteen hundred casks.

In 1359, the Castilians took a Venetian carrack, which had three ‘covers’ (decks), and must consequently have been as high as the great storeships of the seventeenth century. In 1545, a French carrack, the Carraquon, which passed for the finest ship and fastest sailer of the western ocean, was of eight hundred tons burthen, and had one hundred pieces of artillery of all calibers for armament. The carracks of the fourteenth century had only two masts; in the fifteenth, they took three, and afterwards four. At first three-decked, they finally reached as high as seven decks. The poop and prow were the height of three or four men above the deck, and looked like castles raised at each of the extremities. The castles mounted each from thirty-five to forty guns. In the galleys, the employment of fire-arms did not effect material changes; the prow alone, somewhat shortened, was armed with a gun mounted on a mass of wood destined for its recoil, and extending amidships through the whole length of the vessel. This piece of wood was called the _coursie_, and the gun placed upon it the _courser_. At the sides, upright carriages supported a few falconets and other pieces of small ordnance. The _galeass_, originating in the _galea grossa_, as the latter did in the galley, carried, as well as the carrack and other ships, a castle at the bow and a castle at the stern. In the former, there were twelve guns in three tiers; in the latter, ten only in two tiers. She had thirty-two benches of rowers, and between each of her benches rose a swivel on a point. This, it will be perceived, was a formidable armament. The galeass had three masts and lateen sails. The Venetians made great use of this vessel. Their famous Bucentaur belonged to this class. At the end of the fifteenth century, when Christopher Columbus armed his vessels at Palos, he formed his little flotilla exclusively of _caravels_. Now, this name of caravel, which in the outset belonged only to a common barque, was at this time borne by a vessel of considerable, but not extraordinary size. The caravel had four masts; the forward one with a square sail surmounted by a topsail, the three others each carrying a lateen sail. These sails enabled the caravel to manœuvre well, and she was as prompt to handle as the French _tartane_, much renowned at that epoch. She came about as quickly as if she had been a row-boat. She had but one deck, and very little carrying capacity. Still, if the caravels of Christopher Columbus were smaller than those of a later period, at the close of the sixteenth century, they were large enough to contain ninety seamen and the provision necessary for a long voyage. The flag ship of Columbus was called the Santa Maria; the two other, La Pinta and La Nina. A passage in the journal of Columbus himself, gives a detail of the canvass of the Santa Maria. ‘The wind,’ says he, ‘became mild and manageable, and I set all the sails of the vessel――the mainsail with the two studding sails, the foresail, the spritsail, the mizzen and the topsail.’ The caravels then had, like all the great vessels of the period, a castle at the bow and a castle at the stern. They made, on an average, six knots an hour. Columbus was only thirty-five days in going from Palos to San Salvador――an ordinary passage even in these days of quick sailing. The sixteenth century was an epoch of progress for the marine; England particularly gave it the onward impulse. Meanwhile, an important invention, that of gun-ports, was due to a Frenchman, of Brest, named Descharges. The system then adopted for the arrangement of batteries has never since been changed, and exists to the present time. Historians and antiquaries have taken great pains to arrive at a knowledge of the forms of ships of war at this period. The documents written and drawn are, some so confused, others so deficient in proportion and perspective, that it is difficult to understand them.

Still, as some authentic details respecting the Great Harry are known, this ship may serve to give an idea of the navy of the sixteenth century; and we have accordingly presented our readers with an engraving of this formidable vessel. Up to the seventeenth century, one model seems to have prevailed in all naval constructions. The Spaniards and the Portuguese followed the example of the Venetians; the Dutch and the northern nations derived their nautical knowledge from the same sources; the English themselves, so jealous of their naval supremacy, received their lessons in improving and strengthening their embarkations from Italian masters. They were accustomed to place at the extremity of the prow a sculptured figure, which served to distinguish the vessels of one nation from another. The Venetians adopted a bust from preference; the Spaniards, a lion; the English, especially after the accession of the Stuarts, the figures of the reigning monarch, either on horseback, or riding on a lion. The stern, above the cabin windows, presented a plane surface or tablet, with apertures for light and air, starboard and larboard. On Venetian, Spanish and Portuguese stern some saint or hero was placed. Other nations had only the arms of their respective states. Before the end of the sixteenth century, some Portuguese and Spanish vessels carried as many as eighty guns mounted on carriages. At this period, the strongest vessel of the English navy carried but fifty guns or pieces deserving that name. The ‘Sovereign of the Seas,’ built in 1637, at Woolwich, Kent, ‘to the great glory of His Britannic Majesty,’ as a cotemporary description we have before us declares, was decorated in a style of regal magnificence. On her bow was king Edgar, on horseback, trampling on seven kings; on the stern, a cupid on a lion; and grouped together, at the bow, six statues, representing Counsel, Prudence, Perseverance, Strength, Courage and Victory. On the quarter-deck, four figures, with their attributes, Jupiter, with his eagle, Mars, with sword and shield, Neptune, with his sea-horse, and Eolus on a cameleon. On the stern, a Victory displayed her wings, and bore a scroll with this device: _Validis incumbite remis_. This vessel had two galleries on each side. These galleries, as well as the whole vessel, were covered with trophies, emblems and scutcheons, of all kinds. Her length from stem to stern was 232 feet. She carried five lanterns, one of which, the largest, could contain ten persons, standing, with ease. She had three decks running from stem to stern, a forecastle-deck, a half-deck, a quarter-deck, and a poop-deck. Her armament was as follows: thirty ports, with large and small guns, in the lower battery; thirty ports, with culverins, in the second battery; twelve ports in the forecastle, and fourteen on the half-deck; finally, thirteen or fourteen swivels, a multitude of port-holes for musketry, ten bow-chasers, and as many stern-chasers. There were twelve anchors. ‘The Sovereign of the Seas,’ says Charnock, ‘was the first large vessel constructed in England. Splendor and magnificence were particularly kept in view in building her. She was in some sort the occasion of the serious complaints made of the expenses of the navy in the reign of Charles I. Cut down one deck, she became one of the best ships of war in the whole world.’ It is certain that the suppression of this deck, and the lowering of her deck-cabin, gave her more stability than she had at first. Now, for speed, what she gained in strength by these changes was compensated by the length added to her masts. Topsails at this period were an important addition to ships. Old engravings show us the vessels of the sixteenth century sailing generally under their courses. After the building of the Sovereign of the Seas, this only occurred in particular cases and certain conditions of the elements. Captain Phineas Pett directed the work of building and afterwards improving the Sovereign of the Seas. A learned engineer, he deserves the credit of having done more than any one else to give an impulse to the English navy. The artillery was strengthened, and the crews larger, and better lodged. The entire navy felt this progress. The Sovereign of the Seas gauged 1637 tons, a thing which, according to a historian of the time, deserved the attention of the whole world, since it represented exactly the date of her launch. Notwithstanding the thrice-fortunate augury which the historian saw in this coïncidence, the Sovereign of the Seas met with the fate of the Great Harry. She was destroyed, like the latter, by fire, in a ship-yard, where she was being repaired, in 1696, after sixty years’ service. Observe here that Fuller, in his history of the ‘Wonders of England,’ acknowledges that at the commencement of the seventeenth century, the Dunkirkers furnished the models of the best vessels built at this period in the British ports.

When Louis XIV became king of France, there was no French navy, properly speaking. Voltaire asserts that in 1664 a few frigates and a line-of-battle ship, in poor condition, constituted the entire force. After the siege of La Rochelle, Richelieu, jealous of the growth of the English navy, had given a sort of impulse to naval ideas by arming immediately fifty ships and twenty galleys; but the effect of this impulse was merely momentary. Colbert was the true creator of the French navy. Under him, in less than five years, France possessed a triumphant maritime force. The most renowned of the French ships at this period was the Royal Sun. This vessel was constructed partly on French, and partly on Dutch principles. She was 1600 tons, 150 feet long, 48 broad, and 16 deep. She carried three lanterns on the poop. As the flag-ship, she carried at the main the white standard, embroidered with the fleurs-de-lys, and the French coat of arms surrounded the orders of St. Michael and the Holy Ghost. The decorations of the Royal Sun surpassed everything before or since. A model of this ship is contained in the naval museum of the Louvre, at Paris. The Royal Sun mounted 120 guns in three batteries complete, with stern and bow guns.

The seventeenth century was perhaps the most brilliant period in the history of galleys. Those of France were commanded by a general. There were two kinds of them, the ordinary and the extraordinary. The ordinary had only twenty-six oars, and twenty-six benches on each side; the extraordinary had often thirty-two. There was no difference of model between them, their dissimilarity only resulting from their relative sizes. All were extremely long, low and narrow. They carried only two masts and lateen sails. The armament consisted of five guns forward and two swivels. These swivels were attached to the sides of the galley to prevent the recoil. There were generally at least five rowers to each oar, the oars being very long and very heavy. Between the rowers’ benches and the sides of the ship there was a space where the soldiers were stationed. Soldiers to fight, sailors to manœuvre, and a gang composed of galley-slaves, or Turkish prisoners, made up the crews of the galleys.