THE MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE. AGE 67. FROM THE ORIGINAL BUST FROM A LIFE MASK TAKEN AT PHILADELPHIA, JULY 19, 1825, BY J. H. I. BROWERE. FIRST PHOTOGRAPHED AND ENGRAVED FOR MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE. widely circulated that the artist's career was seriously affected by it; and so chagrined was he at this unmerited treatment, that on his death-bed he directed the heads to be sawed off the most important busts and boxed up for forty years, at the end of which period he hoped their exhibition would elicit recognition for their merit and value as historical portraits from life. The positive statement of Randall, frequently repeated by others, that Browere's cast from Jefferson's face was destroyed, and the indisputable fact that the bust exists and is here reproduced, give the incidents connected with the taking of the original life cast an importance that justifies stating them at length, so that there may remain no possibility for further question or doubt on the subject. My authorities are Jefferson, Madison, and Browere, as preserved in their individual autographs in the State Department at Washington. Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743 and died in 1826, on the semi-centennial of the adoption of the immortal instrument of which he was the recognized father. Through the intercession of President Madison, Jefferson consented, in Browere's words, "to submit to the ordeal of my CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON, AGE 88. FROM THE ORIGINAL BUST FROM A LIFE MASK TAKEN AT BALTIMORE, JULY 10, 1826, BY J. H. I. BROWERE. FIRST PHOTOGRAPHED AND ENGRAVED FOR MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE, new and perfect mode of taking the human features and form." In order to take the cast Browere visited Monticello on the 15th of October, 1825. At this time Jefferson was in his eighty-third year, and was suffering the infirmities incident to his advanced age. He was attended during the operation by his faithful man-servant Burwell, who prepared him for "the ordeal by removing all of his clothing to the waist, excepting his undershirt, from which the sleeves were cut. He was then placed on his back, and the material applied down to the waist, including both arms, which were folded across the body. The entire procedure lasted ninety minutes, with rests every ten or fifteen minutes, when Jefferson got up and walked about. The material was on his face for eighteen minutes, and the whole of the mold of his features was removed therefrom before the alarmed entrance of the Misses Randolph into the room, brought there by their brother, who had been constantly peeping in at the window and begging for admission, which was denied him. It was his exaggerated report of what he thought he saw that induced the sudden entrance of his sisters, and this report found its way subsequently into the local JOHN ADAMS. AGE 90. FROM THE ORIGINAL BUST FROM A LIFE MASK TAKEN AT QUINCY, NOVEMBER 22, 1825, BY J. H. I. BROWERE. FIRST PHOTOGRAPHED AND ENGRAVED FOR MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE, newspapers of Virginia, with the remarkable results indicated. The intrusion of the Randolphs into the room caused delay in removing other parts of the mold, and this did cause the venerable subject to feel a little faint and to experience some other discomforts. But Browere remained at Monticello over night, dining with Jefferson and the Randolphs, and chatting with his host through the evening until bedtime, which would scarcely have been the case had he nearly suffocated and otherwise maltreated his subject, so that the cast had to be shattered to pieces. But we do not have to speculate and surmise. We have direct and unimpeachable proof to the contrary. The very day on which, according to Randall and his followers, the "suffocation" and "shattering" took place, Jeferson wrote: At the request of the Honorable James Madison and Mr. Browere of the city of New York, I hereby certify that Mr. Browere has this day made a mould in plaster composition from my person for the purpose of making a portrait bust and statue for his contemplated National Gallery. Given under my hand at Monticello, in Virginia, this 15th day of October, 1825. Th: Jefferson. From Monticello Browere journeyed to Quincy, to preserve, in like manner as he had the features of Jefferson, those of the only other signer of the Declaration of Independence who became President and also died on its semi-centennial anniversary old John Adams. But the Virginia story had gotten there before him, and it was with difficulty he could persuade Mr. Adams to submit. But the old Spartan finally did submit, and on November 23, 1825, he wrote, "This certifies that John H. I. Browere Esq. of the City of New York has yesterday and to-day made two portrait bust moulds on my person and made a cast of the first which has been approved of by my family. John Adams." To this his son Judge Thomas B. Adams adds, "P. S. I am authorized by the Ex President to say that the moulds were made on his person without injury, pain or inconvenience." The newspapers, however, were getting too rabid for Browere, and he published in the Boston "Daily Advertiser" of November 30, 1825, a two-column letter in which he says, concerning the libel in the Richmond Enquirer," the most virulent of his assailants, "a libel false in almost all its parts and which I am now determined to prove so by laying before the public every circumstance relating to that operation on our revered ex-President Thomas Jefferson." A copy of this letter Browere sent to Jefferson under cover of May 20, 1826, apprising him of his intention to make a full length statue of the author of the Declaration of American Independence which, if the ex-president be not in New York on the 4th of July next, I intend presenting on that day to the corporation of New York." These communications Jefferson acknowledged within a month of his decease in a letter of such great importance in this connection, as settling the question forever, that I copy it in full. 66 MONTICELLO, June 6, 26. Sir:-The subject of your letter of May 20, has attracted more notice certainly than it merited. That the opere to which it refers was painful to a certain degree I admit. But it was short lived and there would have ended as to myself. My age and the state of my health at that time gave an alarm to my family which I neither felt nor expressed. What may have been said in newspapers I know not, reading only a single one and that giving little room to things of that kind. I thought no more of it until your letter brot. it again to mind, but can assure you it has left not a trace of dissatisfaction as to yourself and that with me it is placed among the things which have never happened. Accept this assurance with my friendly salutes. TH. JEFFERSON. every channel of inquiry and every means of search and research to ascertain the truth? The material that I have drawn from was as accessible to him as to me. In fact, he claims to have used the Jefferson papers in his compilation. With what effect! It is indeed some gratification to have set wrong right even at this late day and done this bit of justice to Browere's reputation; but it is a far greater satisfaction to have rescued from oblivion and presented to the world his magnificent facsimile of the face and form of the immortal Jefferson. In addition to the busts of Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Carroll, and Lafayette, here reproduced, there are, in the possession of the Browere family, busts of Henry Clay, Dolly Madison, John Quincy Adams, his son Charles Francis Adams (at the age of eighteen), Martin Van Buren, De Witt Clinton, Commodore David Porter, General Macomb, General Brown, Edwin Forrest; Paulding, Williams and Van Wart, the captors of André; and many others of more or less celebrity. The New York Historical Society owns Browere's busts of Dr. Hosack and Philip Hone, while the Redwood Library at Newport, R. I., has his bust of Gilbert Stuart. Call Browere's work what one will— process, art, or mechanical-the result gives the most faithful portrait possible, down to the minutest detail, the very living features of the breathing man, a likeness of the greatest historical significance and importance. A single glance will show the marked difference between Browere's work and the ordinary life cast by the sculptor or modeler, no matter how skilful he may be. Browere's work is real, human, lifelike, inspiring in its truthfulness, while other life masks, even the celebrated ones by Clark Mills, who made so many, are dead and heavy, almost repulsive in their lifelessness. It seems next to marvelous how he was able to preserve, in such a marked degree, the naturalness of expression. His busts are imbued with animation; the individual character is there, so simple and direct that, next to the living man, he has preserved for us the best that we can have a perfect facsimile. One experiences a satisfaction in contemplating these busts similar to that afforded by the reflected image of the daguerreotype. Both may be "inartistic" in the sense that the artist's conception is wanting; but for historical human documents they outweigh all the portraits ever limned or mod How dare any man presume to write history and set down on his pages such statements as did Randall about Browere's cast of Jefferson, without first exhausting eled. Esto perpetua! ST. IVES. THE ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH PRISONER IN ENGLAND. BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, Author of "Treasure Island,” “ Kidnapped," etc. BEGUN IN THE MARCH NUMBER-SUMMARY OF EARLIER CHAPTERS. Viscount Anne de St. Ives, under the name of Champdivers, while held a prisoner of war in Edinburgh Castle, attracts the sympathy of Flora Gilchrist, who, out of curiosity, visits the prisoners, attended by her brother Ronald. On her account St. Ives kills a comrade, Goguelat, in a duel, fought secretly in the night, with the divided blades of a pair of scissors. An officer of the prison, Major Chevenix, discovers the secret of the duel and of St. Ives's interest in the young lady. Making a bold escape from the prison, St. Ives steals out to the home of Flora Gilchrist, at the edge of the town. Discovered there by the aunt with whom Flora lives, he is regarded with suspicion ; but still is helped to escape across the border, under the guidance of two drovers, Todd and Candlish. On the way a fray arises between the drovers and some standing foes of theirs; St. Ives rushes in to aid them, and kills, or nearly kills, a man. Later, in consequence, the drovers are arrested and thrown into jail. St. Ives makes his way to Amersham Place, the seat of Count de Kéroual, his uncle. Another nephew of the count's, Alain de St. Ives, who was to have been his heir, has proved unworthy; and the count, now on the point of dying, adopts St. Ives in Alain's stead, and makes him an immediate gift of a despatch-box containing ten thousand pounds in bank notes. Alain, on learning of these transactions, sets out to procure the rearrest of St. Ives; and the latter takes again to flight, accompanied by a servant named Rowley. The fugitives journey toward Scotland, traveling in a claret-colored chaise purchased by the way. CHAPTER XXIII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE RUNAWAY THE moment and subsequently to my own brief but passionate regret. At rather an ugly corner of an uphill reach, I came on the wreck of a chaise lying on one side in the ditch, a man and a woman in animated discourse in the middle of the road, and the two postilions, each with his pair of horses, looking on and laughing from the saddle. "Morning breezes! here's a smash!" cried Rowley, pocketing his flageolet in the middle of the "Tight Little Island." HE country had for some time back been changing in character. By a thousand indications I could judge that I was again drawing near to Scotland. I saw it written in the face of the hills, in the growth of the trees, and in the glint of the waterbrooks that kept the highroad company. It might have occurred to me, I was perhaps more conscious of the also, that I was, at the same time, ap- moral smash than the physical-more alive proaching a place of some fame in Brit- to broken hearts than to broken chaises; ain-Gretna Green. Over these same for, as plain as the sun at morning, there leagues of road-which Rowley and I now was a screw loose in this runaway match. traversed in the claret-colored chaise, to It is always a bad sign when the lower the note of the flageolet and the French classes laugh; their taste in humor is both lesson-how many pairs of lovers had poor and sinister; and for a man running gone bowling northward to the music the posts with four horses, presumably of sixteen scampering horseshoes; and how many irate persons-parents, uncles, guardians, evicted rivals-had come tearing after, clapping the frequent red face to the chaise window, lavishly shedding their gold about the post-houses, sedulously loading and reloading, as they went, their avenging pistols! But I doubt if I had thought of it at all before a wayside hazard swept me into the thick of an adventure of this nature and I found myself playing providence with other people's lives, to my own admiration at the with open pockets, and in the company of the most entrancing little creature conceivable, to have come down so far as to be laughed at by his own postilions, was only to be explained on the double hypothesis that he was a fool and no gentleman. I have said they were man and woman. I should have said man and child. She was certainly not more than seventeen, pretty as an angel, just plump enough to damn a saint, and dressed in various shades of blue, from her stockings to her saucy cap, in a kind of taking gamut, the Copyright, 1897, by the S. S. McClure Co., New York. |