67 



the ornament — eagles, bands, wreaths — of the stalest. It 

 is a splendid position. What an opportunity lost ! The 

 surmounting figure cannot move for her clothes. The 

 artist's Glover is better and alive, and has force, master3^ 

 So the horticultural hall decorative statues are good, being 

 adapted from antiquity. The other figures in the town 

 are feeble enough, or tame — Sumner, Quincy, Webster, 

 Everett. If Lincoln is better, the group lacks composi- 

 tion and design. The Washington monument is a tame^ 

 trotting, picture-book horse and man. There should bo 

 in all monuments a certain fire, force of character and in- 

 spiration. It is like writing an ode, you cannot fail, 3'ou 

 are lost. If you attempt the heroic 3^ou must be equal 

 to it. A monument is a lyric, a commemoration, a poem ; 

 there must be some touch of enthusiasm in it to make it 

 a success. It is an ambitious effort. It strikes a high 

 key, the art should respond. Simple representation and 

 historic portrait, imless done with cunningest hand, will 

 not do. The l)est things in this kind are the two statues, 

 one of Sophocles and one unknown, in the Naples and 

 Latcran museums, and the Demosthenes (casts are in the 

 athenaeum), and Frederick the Great at Berlin. These 

 have that intense seizins: of character with heroic feelinfi:, 

 like Titian's portraits. The same passion is lacking in 

 this monument of Washington, that we miss in poetry here. 

 Of ]\lilton's three words, two are wanting, sensuous, pas- 

 sionate. The pedestal is thin. It has that fatal quality 

 of commonplace. Yet it is vigorous in parts, far removed 

 from vulgarity, and a dignified work. As to portrait 

 statues, the worst I have seen, are the buckram men in 

 bronze put up outside of Westminster Abbey. We cannot 

 have genius every day, and sculpture is scarcely a living 

 art in any representative or vital sense. It only deals in 

 portraiture with any success. The command of the figure 



