Street, whom I used with all moderation, about two years after I settled his judgment, having him then at advantage enough to put extinguishment upon him, but forbore it, hath now resigned his vicarage, declared his judgment against conformity with the church of England, and is now gone, as I learn, to Amsterdam." From Holland, he came to America, and with Theophilus Eaton, a former wealthy parishioner, became in 1638, a founder and one of the pillars of the colony of New Haven, and then after thirty years labor there, was called to the First church in Boston, where he tarried two years, and at the age of 70 went to heaven. On October 23, 1622, the Deputy of the Company stated, that it was known unto them, that amongst the many worthy gifts bestowed on the plantation, there was the last year given by a person, refusing to be named, forty shillings per annum for an annual sermon to be preached before them. "It was then voted that the Dean of Paul's, a brother of the Company, should preach the sermon," and a committee, of which the chairman, was Sir John Danvers, the stepfather of the poet George Herbert, and later in life one of the signers of the death-warrant of Charles the First, was appointed to convey the request, and St. Michael's church in Cornhill was designated as the most convenient place. "It was also agreed that the custom began last year of having a supper, should be continued, and stewards were appointed to arrange the time and place, and issue printed tickets, for each of which, three shillings should be charged to defray the expenses. And for that," saith the manuscript," at such great feasts venison is esteemed to be a most necessary compliment, the Court hath thought fit that a letter be addressed in the name of the Company unto such noblemen and gentlemen as are of this Society to request this favor at their hands, and withal their presence, at the said supper." The letter-writers of the day speak of the supper as a grand affair, and passing off with great eclat. John Donne, the Dean of St. Paul's, was in some respects the counterpart of the preacher that had the year before been invited to deliver the sermon. As the common people gladly listened to Davenport, so poets and statesmen delighted to hear the caustic sentences of Donne. A decided Conformist, he urged his hearers not to go beyond sea to seek Christ "ina foreign church either where the church is but an antiquary's cabinet, full of rags and fragments of antiquity, but nothing fit for that use for which it was first made; or where it is so new a built house, with bare walls, that it is yet unfurnished of such ceremonies as should make it comely and reverend." At the same time, he detested the persecuting spirit, and considered the duellism of the church "almost self-homicide between the non-conformed ministers and bishops." To a friend he said: "You know I never fettered nor imprisoned the word religion; not straightening it friarly, not immuring it in a Rome, or a Wittemberg, or a Geneva; they are all virtual beams of one Sun." His sermon before the "Honorable Company of the Virginian Plantation," was preached November 30, 1622, Acts 1: 8, being the text. It is one of the best specimens of his style, abounding in quaint conceits, startling figures, pedantic quotations, faithful exhortations, and pungent appeals to the conscience. The introduction is in these words: "There are reckoned in this book, twentytwo sermons of the Apostles; and yet the book is not called the preaching but the Acts of the Apostles; and the acts of the apostles were to convey the name of Christ Jesus, and to propagate his Gospel over all the world. Beloved, you are actors upon the same stage too; the uttermost parts of the earth are your scene, act over the acts of the Apos tles. Be you a light to the Gentiles that sit in darkness; be you content to carry Him for his first people, and hath poured out over these seas, who dried up one Red Sea, another Red Sea, His own blood, for them and us. "When man was fallen, God clothed him, made him a leather garment; then God descended to one occupation. When the time of man's redemption was come, then God, as it were to house him, became a carpenter's son; there God descended to another occupation. Naturally, without doubt, man would have been his own tailor, and his own carpenter; something of these two kinds man would have done of himself though he had had no pattern from God. But in preserving man who was fallen, to this redemption, by which he was to be raised, in preserving man from perishing in the flood, God descended to a third occupation, to be his shipwright, to give him the model of a ship, an ark, and so to be the author of that, which man himself in likelihood would never have thought of, a means to pass from nation to nation. "Now as God taught us to make clothes, not only to clothe ourselves, but to clothe him in his poor and naked members here; as God taught us to build houses, not to house ourselves, but to house him, in erecting churches, to his glory; so God taught us to make ships, not to transport ourselves, but to transport him." In concluding the sermon he refers to the importance of preaching the Gospel in Samaria or Virginia. "Those of our profession that go, you that send them who go, do all an apostolical function. What action soever, hath in the first intention thereof to propagate the Gospel of Christ Jesus, that is an apostolical action. Preach to them doctrinally, preach to them practically; enamor them with your justice, and with your civility; but inflame them with your godliness and religion. Bring them to love aud reverence the name of that King that sends men to teach them the ways of civility in this world, but to fear and adore the name of that King of kings that sends men to teach them the ways of religion for the next world. Those amongst you that are old now should pass out of this world with this great comfort, that you contributed to the beginning of that commonwealth and of that church, and you that are young now may live to see the enemy as much impeached by that place, and your friends, your children as well accommodated in that place, as any other. "You shall have made this island, which is but the suburbs of the Old World, a bridge, a gallery to the new; to join all to that world that shall never grow old, the kingdom of heaven." was a friend and correspondent of Donne, and this last figure in the sermon, of England being but a bridge, for the passage of the civilization and religion of the Old World to the New, was subsequently modified and wrought out in poetry by directed a book of poems to be given to the former. In his last sickness, Herbert his "Dear brother," Nicholas Ferrar, late Deputy Treasurer of the Virginia Company, to be published, if thought worthy. In the "Church Militant," one of those poems that have since comforted the faithful, are these lines: "Religion stands on tip-toe in our land, Readie to passe to the American strand. Then shall Religion, to America flee: Isaak Walton tells us "when Mr. Ferrar sent this work to Cambridge, to be licensed for the press, the Vice Chancellor would by no means allow the two so much noted verses, 'Religion stands on tiptoe,' etc., to be printed; and Mr. Ferrar would by no means allow the book to be printed and want them." At last the Vice Chancellor yielded and the poems were published in full. Donne's sermon was the last of the annual discourses. On November 12, 1623, a letter was presented from the originator of the annual sermons, inclosing two pieces of gold, of forty shillings value, for the sermon to be preached that year, but owing to the factious spirit of a few of the Company who had the ear of the King, and the expectation that their charter might be called for at any hour, they deemed it expedient in this time of trouble to dispense with the sermon and supper. Before the next anniversary the charter had been declared null and void, and the Virginia Company was among the things that were. The Plymouth Company, basking in royal favor, was suffered to transport all Herbert, although twenty years younger, the Puritans they desired, and Virginia, 1 one of the fairest lands under the sun, became a penal colony for dissolute persons, and a mart for Dutch ships with their cargoes of negroes. Puritans that had gone there with wealth and character, like Gookin and Bennett, were ignored by Governors Harvey and Berkeley, and many of them returned to Old England or moved to New England, as active friends of the Parliament. THE SUNKEN LEDGE. While 'neath its surface motionless THE sea is calm; the flowing tide Across the level, glittering floor, And where sometimes the breakers roar But come again when yonder moon And ocean follows silently And stranded lie the boats which now Then ebbing waters will disclose O'er which, at times, with sob and moan, Ah, friend! my heart is like the sea, But let me walk with thee to-night When from its gleaming, blue expanse When swallows skim the wave no more, When, running on the lonely shore, And sadly on the sea descends Then all the chill of cold reserve Shall melt away, and unto thee, The Sunken Ledge shal! show itself, For at its ebb, for sympathy A MORNING WITH HIRAM POWERS. Ir was my good fortune to be in Florence at the season of the year when everything in that beautiful city was at its height in attractiveness. The hills around were still white and chill with snow lingering upon their lofty summits; but the flowers in the Cascine were at their best in their spring bloom. The evenings had come to be so warm, down on the plains, that the inhabitants had already begun their usual promenades under the long lines of sparkling lamps, which overhang the banks of the Arno, filling the streets with life and gayety and song. At the fixed hours, the great galleries of art were open daily to the throngs of visitors then crowding the Italian capital. Volunteers were hurrying around the standard of Garibaldi, or joining themselves with sober reserve to the regular ranks of the royal army. The ways were bright with uniforms of many colors, and musical with the military bands. The air was full of cheer and exhilaration. But of all the memories of my sojourn there, that is the most pleasant and pre The models were placed in the midst of the upright stones, in view of all the workmen. At first, it was a most energetic mallet which struck away huge chips of marble from the shapeless mass, with a rollicking sense of haste to deliver some beautiful being imagined to be imprisoned within it. But before long, the task was committed to more skillful care; and the fresh journeyman treated it with gentler measures of violence, and more temperate enthusiasm. Then came the third in the line; and he dealt with dainty compasses, and delicate files, making mysterious black spots at exact depths, and precise widths, and measured distances. These men, Mr. Powers assured us, were his life-long companions. He had chosen them, and trained them, and trusted them, for many years, until he could not do without them. They were no ordinary hands, but belonged to his artistic and professionally related family. cious, which I cherish of one forenoon out from the clay in a score of uncouth spent in the company of our American forms. Sculptor, Hiram Powers. His house, studio, and workshop are all within one inclosure. He seems to live in a comfortable but unpretending style. It may have been his friendly acquaintance with the American Chaplain there, in whose company I went, or, perhaps, his cordial recognition of a fellow Vermonter in myself, that led him to be more than artistically gracious, but certainly he was exceedingly kind, and his courtesy made the hours fly pleasantly on winged feet. When he was summoned, in answer to our inquiry at the door, he was engaged in modeling. He appeared in his everyday working-dress. On his head was the slight pasteboard cap which workmen on stone are wont to wear, and over his chest and down his front hung the linen apron to keep off the soiling of the clay. I set him down as about sixty years old. I have since learned that he was born in 1805. His figure is compact, of medium size, full of rough, muscular energy. His features are regular, crowded with character and life. His hair has already turned to a fine iron-gray; his eyes are wonderfully expressive, flashing or half suffusing often with his variant moods of feeling; his demeanor was to the last degree gentle, calm, and modest, although in his manner he frequently rose to a spirited enthusiasm as the conversation excited him. We found ourselves standing in the immediate presence of his finished works, busts, models, and statues; and at once our conference took form from them. He conducted us with him through the several rooms, in which a large number of helpers were busily engaged in forwarding the processes through which the details of sculpture are carried on. The rude laboriousness, by which in their earliest reductions the blocks from the quarry are shaped into forms for the galleries, all falls into the hands of artisans trained merely to stone-cutting. My impulse was amusingly mythologic to keep rehearsing particulars of Prometheus; for "the first man" seemed starting VOL. VI.-3 With them, he remarked, rested his main difficulty in returning to America; which, indeed, he declared almost plaintively, he very much desired to do. But he could not take them with him; they had families, they spoke no English, and they were peculiarly attached to their own land. And he could not leave them, for they were essential to his execution of orders for such pieces as his own hand, unaided, could never by any possibility meet; and moreover, he was greatly interested in them; he spoke feelingly, with an affectionate glance around upon the faithful company, as he added, he could not bear to have them scattered, they had followed his fortunes so long. Still, he believed most resolutely that he should some time behold his old home again. The charm of this disclosure of the details of sculpture lay not only in its novelty, but in the ready explanation which this really great artist was willing to give of the various forms of procedure. He answered my curious, inquisitive words and looks with singular minuteness and patience, relating the history of more than one of his famous works, from its very earliest inception as a mere ideal, to the first form it had taken in the clay model, and then forward to its completion in the statue. The genius, any one could discover, all really lay in the beginning of the thing; the rest was a mere attainment of skill, industry, and patience. The brain, the eye, the hand; that is the order. As Mr. Powers removed the linen covering from his statue of "Eve," I could see by the sparkle of his eye his own unaffected satisfaction and delight in this first approved work of his hand. This, it will be remembered, was the fine creation, which he showed with such characteristic diffidence to the great Thorwaldsen, only remarking as he unvailed it: "This was my earliest attempt at the ideal." The generous master, caught by its eminent beauty, its accurate proportions, and its positively faultless expression, exclaimed: "You may say it was your first, but any other man would be proud to call it his last!" No person of any intelligence and feeling would hesitate to accept that as a final judgment, pronounced by a competent authority, when he is standing in the presence of this exquisite figure. But no words of mine can reproduce the singular emotions of interest one feels, when he listens, as I did, to the analysis made by the artist himself of his own mental creation in the stone. He alone of all men could tell what he had thought of, and relate how he had managed to give his ideal expression. He is multiplying copies of that beautiful face now in busts; and he called my attention somewhat suddenly in illustration of a remark he was making, to one of these, impulsively twitching the covering off from its immaculately white form. His own conversation had already educated my imagination, as well as arrested it, and on the first glance at this marvelous countenance in marble, I fairly exclaimed: "Why, how do you get such expression? That woman feels wretchedly; and yet I am not able to detect where are the lines or curves that show it. Tell me just the locality; I see it all, and yet what is it I see? She seems the unhappiest woman in the world!" He answered slyly, in quiet appreciation of my professional blunder: "It is not likely there were many women in the world then, who felt much worse than Eve did.” I was humiliated at the hapless result of my early essay in art-criticism; but he pitied me and forbore, I saw by the twinkle in his eye, so I ventured to press the question, for I wanted to know precisely where grief or sorrow is located in a human face. "She has just lost Paradise," he answered; "the regret she is feeling is all over the face. See now,"-here he covered the upper part of the marble with his hand-"I shut off the eyes, and the distress is in her mouth; I cover up the mouth,"-his hand slid down-" and the distress is in her eyes." Anybody can recognize the plain things a great artist is pointing out. But he immediately added: "Of course the mouth has most of any expression always; you know they say the mouth is the door of the soul, and the eyes are the windows. If you wanted to see a person at home, you would go to the door." And then he turned to another piece of work he was going to show us; and quietly, with a love of order, first drew the linen sack over this; but just as he left it, he remarked meditatively: "but if you wanted only a word with a person, and must get an answer right to the point, and very quick, I suppose you would call to her, most likely, just to open the window and speak." Then he directed my attention to "Ginevra," another bust taken from a statue. This he interpreted in much the same way as before. He rehearsed some of the details of the familiar picture, as drawn by Rogers in the poem, his voice sounding very pleasantly as he repeated the lines: "And on her brow, fairer than alabaster, A coronet of pearls. But then her face, So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth, |