CHARLES CALLAHAN PERKINS. 535 



in organizing musical associations and an Academy of Design at 

 home. 



In 1849 he returned to Boston, and interested himself chiefly in 

 music. He took part in concerts, at some of which his own com- 

 positions were received with pleasure and approval, and he became 

 President of the Handel and Hajdu Society, occasionally conducting 

 their performances. Dissatisfied, however, with his own attainments, 

 and impelled to grasp at the golden opportunities which he saw across 

 the ocean, he again went abroad in 1851, remaining nearly three 

 years, chiefly in Leipzig, applying himself with unremitting devotion 

 to music. This was still his main occupation after he came home, 

 when he renewed his close connection with the Handel and Haydn 

 Society. He always continued to take the warmest interest in this 

 society, and to bear an active part in directing its administration and 

 its performances, serving as its President during the last ten years of 

 his life. In this, as in all the societies in which he was active, he 

 endeared himself to his associates by the strong personal interest he 

 took in them, and by the gentleness and consideration for others which 

 so often smoothed away a difficulty or allayed an irritation. 



In June, 1855, Mr. Perkins was married to Miss Frances Davenport 

 Bruen, daughter of the Eev. Matthias Bruen, and two years later he 

 went to Europe with his wife and child, accompanied by Mrs. Per- 

 kins's mother and sister, first settling himself in Florence. This was 

 the decisive period of his life. He found himself at the age of thirty- 

 five full of enthusiasm for his pursuits, yet doubtful, perhaps a little 

 discouraged, as to his future career. Excellence in either music or 

 painting demands the devotion of the artist's life, and he had divided 

 his allegiance between the two. In each he had been hampered by 

 the lack of early training, and the industry of later years had failed to 

 supply its place. He had not yet found his vocation. It was now to 

 be made clear to him. 



Soon after his arrival at Florence he formed an acquaintance, which 

 speedily ripened into a friendship, with M. Rio, the writer on Christian 

 Art. This eminent scholar saw how remarkably Mr. Perkins's gifts 

 and acquirements, his love of art, his wide acquaintance with its best 

 examples, his zeal, his taste, his patience, combined to fit him for 

 an historian of art. The suggestion was fruitful. The subject was 

 not far to choose. In Florence, under his very eyes, was a field of 

 the highest interest, which had never been thoroughly surveyed. 

 Although the Tuscan school of sculpture was the most remarkable 

 which the world had known since the decline of Greek art, its history 



