Boston City (part 14 of 67)

naeum Gallery. It is now in the Museum of Fine Arts. There are things in it as fine as anything the master ever painted ; but, as a whole, it is in¬ congruous and incomplete. Those who can see what might and would have been from what partly is, may study it with pleasure and profit; but it is a disappointment to those who love pictures, but have made no study of art. The work was one to which his genius was adequate perhaps, but his habits of mind and thought were entirely unsuited to it. Such a task needed a hand of more vigor and resolution, - not his rare delicacy of touch, and nature too sensitive for contact with the rough side of life. It was carving granite with a razor; and the blade broke.

This excess of finer qualities in his nature stood in his way in many of his pictures, which bear marks of over-work. He was too fastidious at all times. " Let well enough alone " was a phrase often on his lips, but seldom remembered at the right moment. Secluded in his studio, lie kept a picture before him, touching and re-touching it, unwilling to let it go from his hand, until the life was sometimes worked out of it. After his death some of the sketches found in his studio were published in a vol¬ ume, through the liberality of Mr. Stephen H. Perkins. They give, in some respects, a higher idea of the painter's genius than his pictures themselves. The golden color, rival of the Venetians', is of course want¬ ing. But, united with the delicacy of everything he touched, there is here a freshness and vigor, a firmness and certainty which his finished works often lack.

In 1839 a collection of more than forty of his pictures had been exhib¬ ited in Harding's gallery in School Street; and in the summer of 1881 the Museum of Fine Arts afforded to the present generation their first oppor¬ tunity of seeing the wide and firm foundation on which Allston's reputation is built, by gathering together about fifty of his works, principally from the houses of Boston families, who possess most of the pictures painted after his return from England.

Although his retiring nature kept him far from the crowd, and only a chosen few came near him; though he founded no school, and there was no troop of admiring disciples to follow his footsteps in life, and spread his fame when he had gone, - his name is still a spell. When we speak of the great artists of the world, who are of no age or country, who lived for art alone, and will never die while art lives, Allston's name rises to our lips with those of the great of old. It is not only that we place him higher than other American artists; he stands apart from them, - the only Old Master of modern times.

Contemporary with Allston, though younger, was Stuart Newton; a painter with that rarest of gifts, - an exquisite eye for color. " Ah, sir, Newton's color is magical Allston often said. His drawing was sometimes faulty; but his pictures, generally small and of the kind known as genre, are full of refinement; and his command of delicate humor and simple pathos is remarkable. His works were not very numerous; and on the rare occa¬ sions when one is offered for sale here, it is eagerly secured as a treasure. He was a charming companion, and a great favorite in society. He was born in 1793, at Halifax, N. S., where his father was collector of customs; his mother was a sister of Gilbert Stuart. In 1803, after his father's death, he was brought to Boston by her, and the talent he already showed for painting led to his becoming a pupil of his uncle. As neither of them had a very patient temper, the connection was a brief one. About 1815 he went to study in Italy; and two years later, through the advice of the Countess of Albany, he settled in London, where he was intimate with Leslie and Morse. He began by painting portraits, but soon found out that his talent lay more in small pictures of familiar life. In October, 1831, he came to this country for rest and a change of air; and in the next year he married Miss Sullivan, of Boston, and returned with her to England, where he died at Chelsea, in 1835.

Turning to engraving, in order to keep something of a chronological order in our survey, it must be said at the outset that there has never been anything like a school of copperplate engravers in America. Unfortunately for the cultivation of this art, we have surpassed the world in bank-note work ; and many who might have reached eminence have been drawn aside to the more mechanical branch, where minute work is the great thing de¬ manded, and artistic qualities are of less moment. In Boston the brothers John and Seth Cheney are almost the only names of importance in the past. Born in South Manchester, Connecticut, in 1801 and 1810, they began to work without the benefit of instruction and with home-made tools. After some years' practice of their profession in Boston, they went to London, where they engraved some of the plates for Parker's Boston edition of the Waverley Novels. On returning to this country John soon moved to Phila¬ delphia, where he lived until he gave up engraving, in middle life. The younger brother Seth, after a second voyage to Europe, during which he studied in Paris with Delaroche, and in Italy, came back to Boston, and began to take portraits in crayon. This branch of art he followed with great success, beginning about 1840, and, with one brief absence in Europe, continuing its pursuit until his death in 1856. In 1850 the publication of the outlines by Washington Allston, already mentioned, was undertaken by Mr. Stephen H. Perkins; and the two brothers, who had abandoned their former profession, took up the graver again to do honor to the dead master. It was no speculation or business enterprise, and never paid for its cost. It was a labor of love with the liberal projector and the artists. These brought to the task an exquisite delicacy of touch, and such a rever¬ ent accuracy that, as one of them said, he would not presume to choose between the two sides of one of Allston's lines, but gave with three fine lines the middle and each edge of the outline. The result was a volume of perfect execution. The plates and stock were burned in the great fire of 1872, and the book is now rare.1

The art of wood-engraving has of late years reached a high degree of perfection in America. Many books and periodicals have been published with illustrations surpassing in excellence anything of the kind produced in Europe. Encouraged by the liberality of the publishers, engravers have come forward, ambitious to lift the art out of the condition into which it had sunk, - where fineness, or rather minuteness, of work was sought at the ex¬ pense of more artistic qualities. Fac-simile work is less valued, the engraver aspiring to a place by the side of the artist, using his graver as a drawinginstrument, and seeking 'by proper direction and character of his lines to give texture and quality as well as the values or " color " of the original. Boston is now the home of some of the best living engravers on wood ; but in the past we have had but one whose work was worthy to rank with the best, and who helped to advance the art to its present state.

1 The plates of "Jacob's Dream," "The "The Faries," and " Titania's Court," by the Ship," " The Prodigal Son," and "Prometheus" two brothers, jointly: all the others by Seth were engraved by John Cheney; "The Sibyl," * Cheney.

John Andrew, born in England in 1815, came to America in 1848, and to Boston two years after, where he lived until his death in 1870. He was one of the most widely known artists in the country, and his work may be found in the most important books and periodicals of his time on both sides of the Atlantic.1

Returning to painters, we must mention James Frothingham, born in Charlestown in 1786, who was for years the best portrait painter in Boston, and yet never had the success or reputation which he deserved.2 Some of his portraits were excellent in color; and Stuart, after having once advised him to stick to his father's business of chaise-painting, changed his opinion entirely, and said of one of his pictures, " No man in Boston but myself can paint so good a head." Chester Harding, too, born in Conway, Mass., in 1792, although never more than a respectable artist, was, by a strange freak of fashion and for a season, more employed than Stuart himself. Harding wondered at it as much as we must, confessing that he could ac¬ count for it only by the fact that he was a backwoodsman newly caught and trumpeted forth as a self-taught man. A belief in the superiority of such seems to be one of our national weaknesses. We may learn in time that a self-taught man is apt to turn out a second-rate article. The number of Harding's pictures (mostly portraits) is very large; they are hard as sign-boards, though often good likenesses. Joseph Ames, born in Roxbury, N.H., in 1817, was for some years a popular artist here, principally as a portrait painter. Some of his pictures are excellent in color. His many likenesses of Webster became, like Stuart's Washington, the popular type of the original. After several years' absence from Boston, he died in New York, in 1872.

This was a period in which our artists were, perhaps, as good as those of other cities, yet they have little claim to be mentioned as exercising any influence on art among us beyond keeping it alive. A backward glance over these years is not caught by any figure rising above the crowd and arresting the attention. Our interest in art continued to be of a respectable but rather languid kind, until stirred afresh by the arrival among us of one whose genius gave him authority to speak, while his enthusiasm compelled all to listen, - William Morris Hunt.

He came of an old New-England family, and his father was for many years a member of Congress. He was born in Brattleboro', Vermont, in 1824, and entered Harvard College in 1840, but did not complete the full term of instruction. He was not a hard student, and gave a good deal of his time to the art for which he was born, painting and modelling with a natural facility which left no doubt of the wisdom of his choice when he determined to make art the business of his life, and quitted college to go to Europe. For a year or two he was at Diisseldorf, and then went to Paris, where Cou¬ ture, at the height of his fame, was his master, and at once recognized his great powers. Hunt was tremendously in earnest in whatever he did; and from the days of his student life to the day of his death, his art was the one thing he thought worth living for. After painting for some years with Couture, he became a follower of Millet. But there was no imitation of either master in his work ; he judged both, taking what his ripening taste approved, and no more, and combining this with the fruits of a constant observation and intense love of Nature, and an absolute devotion to his art.

In 1855 he came to America, and fixed himself at Newport. Many who had seen his pictures in Paris had come home with high praises of them; and a reputation awaited him which he justified, taking a position as one of the leading artists of America by the side of men twice his age. In 1862 he moved to Boston, and here was his home for the rest of his life. More work than he could do was pressed upon him, especially in portraits, so that he had less time than he wished for other branches of his art ; and in summer he often ran away from the crowd to some out-of-the-way nook in the country, and made studies from Nature. The great fire of 1872 1 de¬ stroyed his studio, with almost all his drawings and sketches, - the work of more than twenty years. But his energy and industry were unchecked ; and in 1877 he gave a private exhibition in his new studio of a large collec¬ tion of pictures and studies produced in the five years since the fire, - a col¬ lection even more remarkable for the variety of subjects and of manners than for its size. It may be doubted if any painter ever lived who could show' power in such varied walks of art. It was hard to believe that one mind and one hand had conceived and executed the works which covered the walls.

In the spring of 1878 he spent some time at Niagara, and made several large views of the Falls. Though painted with great freedom, and so hastily as to be rather studies than finished pictures, they were wonderful exhibi-

1 [Mr. A. T. Perkins communicated to the statement regarding the loss of collections and N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg., October, 1873, a objects of art in this fire. - Ed.]

tions of power. The rush of the mass of water, the mist rising from below and half concealing the opposite shore, all the varieties of color and acci¬ dents of light and shade were shown with a truth and poetry unapproached in more elaborate pictures of the same subject. Viewed at a proper distance, they were as good representations of the scene as can be imagined ; while artists were loud in praise of their technical qualities.

Hunt's bodily strength had never been great, and he overtasked himself at this work. He was called from it to Albany, to undertake the filling of two large spaces above the windows of the Senate chamber in the new State capitol. After some hesitation whether he was strong enough for the work, he accepted the commission, and spent the summer in Boston making the cartoons. He began the work on the last day of October; and, once en¬ gaged on it, he found it so congenial to his taste that he was unconscious of fatigue, and his health and spirits improved ; but when the task was ac¬ complished, in the end of December, he found how much the labor had told on him, and went to Vermont for rest. Although not suffering from positive disease, he did not regain his strength. He had been offered the work of adorning the lower walls of the Senate chamber, and had planned a journey to Venice in company with the architect of the capitol to study the great mural works of Tintoretto, which he hoped to rival; but he began to fear that his strength had finally abandoned him when he most needed it to carry out the crowning effort of his life. In July he went to the Isles of Shoals ; but he did not improve as fast as he had hoped ; his spirits sank, and he was at times greatly depressed. On the morning of July 8 he was missing for a short time. A search revealed his lifeless body floating in a small reservoir among the low hills. At once the news was telegraphed to the press in all directions that he had committed suicide. There was no proof of this ; and common charity might have stayed the hand which spread with indecent haste a report which was only a conjecture. vol. iv. - 51.

In November, 1879, a large number of his pictures was placed in the gallery of the Art Museum. The collection embraced the whole period of his artist-life, from the time he was a student in Paris ; but while it bore the strongest testimony to the power and variety of his genius, it did not show anything like a steady advance in merit, or, indeed, regular progress of any sort. Studied chronologically, the collection showed that in all periods of his career he had from time to time made sudden changes in manner, as if conscious of a wealth of resources to be drawn on at will. He plainly had more ways than one of reaching his aim, and chose that which pleased him best at the moment. The sense of power thus conveyed was accompanied by a conviction that Hunt had not reached the height he would surely at¬ tain when he had determined in what path he could best walk. The car¬ toons of the Albany paintings - his latest works - were also his greatest achievements, fullest of thought, the mature work of his genius. They promised success on a higher plane than he had reached before, - and the hand that traced them was still forever!

After coming to live in Boston, Hunt had opened classes for instruction in painting with a success that made him a power in the community of art. Nothing was ever seen here like the hold he gained on his pupils, and the zeal with which he inspired them. His enthusiasm was magnetic, inducing a like zeal in his scholars, who worked under his inspiration as no classes in our practical, unimaginative community ever worked for a master. And yet it is hard to say how great or how lasting an influence his teaching will have on our future art. It will be less than his followers expect. With all his genius and power, Hunt had no fixed manner of his own. To the last his efforts were tentative. His works give the impression of great power in varied directions, rather than of any such digested knowledge and fixed principles as fit a man to be an instructor in art. He loved originality so much that he hesitated to attempt to teach pupils how to do anything, and only urged them to work with all their might. He roused their enthusiasm more than he instructed them. What has been published of his talks to his scholars,1 interesting and suggestive as it is, shows how little he chose to teach them hovo to paint. Naturally, too many of them caught up only the trick of imitating his superficial manner, which does not and cannot supply the want of a thorough education in drawing and model¬ ling, and in the principles of color. Hunt himself had acquired these by long years of hard labor; and his teachings presumed that his pupils possessed the knowledge which can only be thus acquired, and which should have preceded his instruction. The consequence is that most of them are imitators of their master's mannerisms, and little more; and imitation is not art.

1 [ William M. Hunt's Talks on Art , edited Arts in 1S79-S0; the catalogue was prefaced by by H. M. Knowlton, was published in 1877. A a sketch by John C. Dalton. He fitted up the memoir of Hunt, by F. P. Vinton, was printed in upper part of the building on the corner of Bovlsthe American Art Review, \. An exhibition of ton Street and Park Square for his studio. - Hunt's pictures was given in the Museum of Fine Ed.]

Sculpture was later than painting in getting a foothold in Boston, and was for a long time represented only by portrait busts. Frazee, a native of New Jersey, and Clevenger, of Ohio, lived here for a time; and they have perpetuated in marble the heads of many prominent citizens of the last generation. Ball Hughes, a Scotchman of great talent, also resided here, producing many familiar subjects, and modelling a life-like figure of Dr. Bowditch, which stands, cast in bronze, at Mount Auburn. Most of our sculptors have taken advantage of the greater facilities afforded by Italy for practising the art; and Rome and Florence have each long had a number of young Americans seeking inspiration from the antique, and profiting by the cheapness of continental life and the propensity of the average travel¬ ling American to bring a statue or two back with him. It is an easy thing now for one of our countrymen to go to Italy and be a sculptor; but it was a far more serious step, not likely to be taken unless by one who felt a real zeal in the cause of art, when Horatio Greenough left home, the pio¬ neer and first founder of the colony of American sculptors in Italy.1

He was born in Boston in 1805. He showed a propensity for art from early boyhood, using his knife to carve flowers on the handles of his toys, and making little bas-reliefs of his playmates, and coming tardy to school because he had loitered to admire a wooden eagle over a doorway, and dream how glorious it would be if he could carve such things. At Harvard he lived with Edmund Dana, to whose house Allston came every Saturday evening; and the young student always cut short his weekly holiday and hastened home to listen reverently to the great painter, who recognized in him a true artistic feeling, and encouraged him to choose art as his pro¬ fession. While in college Greenough offered a design for the Bunker Hill Monument, which was adopted and substantially followed in form and pro¬ portion.2 Without waiting to obtain his degree he set off for Europe, and there spent most of his life, residing principally in Florence, and laboring hard at his profession. His best known works are the "Washington," and the group of "The Rescue," - both executed for the Government, and placed at the Capitol. Much fault has been found with the first, - a semi-nude figure, more like an antique Roman than the hero of the Revolution ; but in justice to the artist it should be remembered that it wras intended for the rotunda, and that he was much displeased at its removal to the open air, declaring that for such a position he would have made a purely historical statue of Washington on horseback and in his usual dress, and feeling that his poetical treatment of the subject unfitted it for direct and flagrant

1 [H. T. Tuckerman published in 1853 A of a series of articles by S. G. W. Benjamin, pub- Memorial of Horatio Greenough; and it is portions lished separately as Art in America , N. Y., 1880. of this book which constitute the chapter on - Ed.]

ony of American sculptors in Italy, see a paper the Bunker Hill Monument Association. See in Harper's Monthly, vol. xli, and chapter xvi in also .Frothingham's Siege of Boston. Some of J. J. Jarves's Art Idea, whose views are much his papers connected with this study are in controverted. See the paper, " Sculpture in the manuscript collections of Mellen Chamber- America," in Harper's Monthly , April, 1879, one lain. - Ed.]

contrast with every-day life. Greenough had a versatile and highly culti¬ vated mind ; he thought and spoke much on all subjects connected with his profession, and especially of the philosophy of art in its relations to the institutions and development of this country. Returning to America in 1851, full of high hopes of our artistic future, he impressed all who met him by the generous zeal with which he advocated many projects of taste and utility. Had he lived, his influence in the community of art might have been great; but his hopes were cut short by death within a year.

One of the earliest and best ideal statues in Boston, the " Orpheus," now at the Art Museum, and the "Beethoven" in the Music Hall, are the work of Thomas Crawford. Though he was not a native of our city, and never had a studio here, these give him the right of citizenship, so far at least as to be inscribed on our art-roll. He was born in New York, in 1813, and worked in the same marble-yard where Frazee had been employed. As soon as he could pay for his passage he went to Rome, where he lived a life of hard work and privation for some years. One evening he found he had but one paul (dime) in the world ; he spent that for a ticket to the pit of the theatre, and woke the next morning not knowing where to get a breakfast. When he entered the Caffe Greco as usual, the landlord handed him a letter : it was from Charles Sumner, and contained a portion of a sum raised by subscription in Boston, - an order for the "Orpheus." It was the beginning of success. In 1851 Mr. Charles C. Perkins determined to present to the Music Hall Association a bronze statue of Beethoven, and commissioned Crawford to make it. The sculptor eagerly accepted the offer ; but, moved alike by personal friendship for the donor and gratitude to the city whence had come his first commission, he declined to accept any payment for his own work. Mr. Perkins assumed all the expense of casting, founding, and transporting the statue to the spot where it is now so appropriately placed, above the stage where the great composer's works are heard, - a monu¬ ment of the artist's genius and faithful memory, and of the liberality of a citizen to whom Boston owes much for his zeal in the promotion of all forms of art. It is a grand and impressive figure, draped in a cloak brought together in front in rich folds by the hands, which hold a pen and scroll. The head is bent forward on the breast. Simple in treatment and noble in sentiment, the "Beethoven" is one of the best statues we can show as the work of an American hand. Some years later Crawford received an order for the monument to Washington erected in Richmond. It involved im¬ mense labor, to which his strength proved inadequate. He lived to com¬ plete the central equestrian figure and the statues surrounding the base; but before his task was done he had felt the approach of disease, and after a painful illness he died in London in 1857.

The foundation of the Museum of Fine Arts was the most important step ever taken in Boston for the promotion of art. In 1869, when Colonel T. B. Lawrence bequeathed to the Athenaeum his valuable collection of arms and armor, it was plain that the time had come when a new building was neces¬ sary for the Art Gallery. Mrs. Lawrence at once offered to contribute $25,000 towards it; Harvard College agreed to place temporarily in it the Gray collection of engravings; and the trustees of the Public Library, the Insti¬ tute of Technology, and the Lowell Institute offered assistance. An act of incorporation was procured, and trustees appointed early in 1870. A lot of land had some years before been given by the Water Power Company to the city for a Fine Arts Institute or Public Square, which the city now presented to the trustees, with the condition that the building should be open to all on four days in each month. The public responded generously to the call for funds, so that before the summer of 1871 $250,000 were promised, - Mrs. Lawrence, T. G. Appleton,1 and Nathaniel Thayer being the largest contributors. Rich and poor joined in the work, the sums rang¬ ing from $25,000 to the modest offering of less than one dollar. A plan prepared by Sturgis & Brigham was selected by competition out of four¬ teen offered ; the centre and one wing, being a sixth part of the proposed design, were at once erected, and the Museum was formally opened to the public on July 3, 1876.

Although the Lawrence armor had meanwhile been destroyed in the great fire, the insurance money was used to buy a collection of embroideries and carvings ; Mrs. Lawrence had given a room of rare old English panel¬ ling ; valuable Egyptian antiquities had been received from Mr. Lowell and Mr. Way; and other generous individuals had contributed so many works of art, that, including those belonging to the Athenaeum, the whole formed a gallery such as never had been seen in Boston, and promised well for the future. In 1878 more space had become necessary. A new appeal to the public was liberally answered ; $125,000, in sums from $5,000 to $1, were promptly contributed. H. P. Kidder, J. M. Sears, 0. A. Shaw, and Martin Brimmer headed the list. The front of the building was now com¬ pleted. Built of brick, with ornaments of terra cotta, in Venetian Gothic style, it is a beautiful and most characteristic edifice, well described as one which no intelligent person, seeing it for the first time, could possibly take for anything but a museum.2

The undertaking has steadily prospered. The gallery of casts is one of the best in the world, embracing late discoveries at Olympia, and a large collection from the Technological Museum. A cast of the Pandroseum is the only full-sized reproduction of a Greek monument ever brought to the United States. It is justly claimed that the first floor of the Museum illus¬ trates all the phases of sculpture in Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and Rome. Donations of works of art have been numerous ; and many others have been temporarily placed in the rooms, where they are available for pur-

1 [Mr. Appleton had been a benefactor of printed by the library. It is particularly rich in the city, when he bought and gave (in 1869) to portraits. - Ed.]

the Public Library the large collection of en- 2 [A heliotype of the Museum is given in the gravings which had been formed in Rome by chapter on " Architecture in Boston," in the pres- Cardinal Tosti, - of which a catalogue has been ent volume. - Ed.J poses of study. Artists are by courtesy allowed free admittance to the gal¬ leries, and copying is permitted of any work, unless the owner objects. The Japanese objects belonging to Dr. W. Sturgis Bigelow form for this country an almost unrivalled collection. Special exhibitions are frequently placed on the walls. Hunt's works were brought together in large numbers soon after his death. Over a hundred portraits by Stuart, - the largest number ever collected, - drawings and paintings by the late Dr. Rimmer, works of living American artists, drawings by Blake, a series of designs by Ruskin, a collection of etchings, and an exhibition of Allston's pictures have been in turn opened to the public.

Saturday has been a free day at the Museum from the beginning; and since 1878 the doors have been open to all on Sunday afternoons, with the happiest results. Crowds of people who have no leisure to visit such places on week-days are present on Sundays, and the good order which prevails shows the wisdom of the plan. The total number of visitors in 1880 was one hundred and seventy thousand. The good influence exerted on the community through such a number of visitors cannot be over-esti¬ mated. The Museum becomes a constant educator, supplementing by silent and necessarily unknown processes the work of its classes of instruction.

The most important of these is the School of Drawing and Painting. In July, 1876, the trustees of tjie Museum voted to grant the use of certain rooms for a school of drawing. A scheme to found such a school was al¬ ready under way, and at once took a definite shape, funds being provided by public subscription, and a committee chosen to make all arrangements. Mr. Otto Gruntmann, of Antwerp, came over to take charge of the school, and Dr. William Rimmer was named instructor in anatomy, and continued until his death, in 1879, to fill the office for which his remarkable knowl¬ edge of anatomical art peculiarly qualified him.1 The school has been carried on with success, under the supervision of a committee who have brought much thought and experience to their task, and obtained excellent results. The complete scheme of training for the professional student and the amateur is thus described by Mr. Crowninshield, instructor in painting. There are three divisions of the school. In the elementary the pupil learns to handle his materials, in representing the cast, drapery, and, towards the end, life; to this class the pupil is admitted on application. In the middle class he devotes himself to the life, the portrait, drapery, still-life, the an¬ tique, etc., in any materials save oils; an examination is the test for admis¬ sion to this class ; a series of lectures on anatomy, shades and shadows, perspective, architecture, color, history of art and costume accompanies the

1 The Museum possesses the cast of a very suppose it was a deception, and cast from a livremarkable statue by Dr. Rimmer, representing ing figure. A striking head of St. Stephen, also a Gladiator falling backward from a blow on by Dr. Rimmer, was cut directly from the granhis head. The action is indicated with great ite block, without being first modelled in clay, vividness; and the wonderful exactness of the [See a paper on Dr. Rimmer, by T. H. Bartlett, modelling, while it excited the admiration of an- in the American Art Reviezv, i. His " Hamilatomists here, led the best judges in Paris to ton " is given in Vol. III. of this History. - Ed.]

With the co-operation afforded to it by the Institute of Technology, the Society of Decorative Art, and the Lowell Institute,1 this school offers greater advantages than any in the United States. To prove its success, it should not be held to producing any great number of professional artists who shall reach high excellence : not one such can be looked for in a generation; but it may be expected to raise the general level of art; and if it creates a body of intelligent and instructed amateurs, whose judgment, founded on principles and developed by study, is something besides an ex¬ pression of individual fancy, and who are capable of guiding and influenc¬ ing the public taste, the value of its work is very great. The erection of a higher and a more fixed standard of art is a thing much needed in our community, which is too self-confident and inclined to insist on being a law unto itself.

Connected with the Museum there is a school of carving and modelling ; its main purpose being to make its pupils sufficiently skilful to earn their own livelihood. It has been in successful operation for four years ; and though rather an industrial school in its design, it is so surrounded by artistic influences and advantages, that its teachings cannot fail to promote a knowledge and love of art among us.

The Society of Decorative Art has a double purpose. Its charitable, or rather its benevolent, object is to enable persons of culture and talent to turn their gifts to account by disposing of their work, which is examined by a committee, and, if found worthy, placed for sale in the Society's rooms. At the same time the criticisms made by the committee, when requested, and the opportunities of comparison, and the competition afforded by exhibition in the rooms, have during the three years of the Society's exist¬ ence greatly improved the quality of the work offered, and thus practically raised the standard of taste in decorative as distinguished from high art. Schools of painting on porcelain and of art-needlework, connected with the Society, are doing good work in the same direction.

Instruction in drawing in the Boston public schools has taken a new de¬ parture within ten years. Under the old system the attempts were feeble and directed to a wrong end. It would be no more absurd to try to make poets out of all the pupils than to try to turn them all into picture-makers, which is what the old system did ; but with so little success that the School Committee, in their report for 1870, described drawing as the feeblest of all the studies. By an act of the Legislature passed in May, 1870, drawing was included in the branches to be taught in the public schools ; and special courses of industrial and mechanical drawing were imposed upon all towns of ten thousand inhabitants, while smaller towns were authorized to establish

Mr. Charles C. Perkins had just returned from a long residence in Europe, during which he had given much attention to art in all its branches. The Committee on Drawing applied to him for advice. The history of England's experience was familiar to him. He had seen the mortifying testimony of her inferiority at the World's Fair, in 1852, which led to the formation of the South Kensington School ; and he had observed the steady improvement in industrial art which that school had effected. The great lesson of that experience was this : that the first thing was to get some one to teach the teachers. At Mr. Perkins's request, the authorities of the Kensington School selected Mr. Walter Smith as the best man for the place. He was however at the head of several art-schools in England, giving him a larger salary than Boston could offer him ; and we should have lost his valuable aid had not the State Board of Education, seeing the advantage of basing instruction throughout the State upon one plan, ap¬ pointed him agent to assist the schools in carrying out the act of 1870. He accepted the joint appointment, and entered on his duties in the autumn of 1871. He had been connected with the present English plan of instruc¬ tion in drawing from the beginning, and felt a strong interest in aiding a new country to profit by the experience gained by twenty years of success¬ ful work at home. The creation of an entire new system was necessarily committed to his zeal and discretion, no formal specification of his duties being possible. To him and to Mr. Perkins, who, as Chairman of the Drawing Committee, has used all his influence to sustain him in carrying out his plans, the degree of success is due which has been reached in ten years.1

In 1873 the State Board of Education appealed to the Legislature for aid, and the Normal Art School was established, whose primary object is to educate and train teachers of industrial drawing. The graduates in¬ struct the teachers in the public schools, and supervise the lessons they give. The interest felt in the subject is shown by one fact. In 1880, of the teachers who had not previously earned certificates of competency, all but five had attended the classes provided for their instruction, and were teaching satisfactorily.

The Primary, Grammar, and High schools are viewed as general schools, and in them drawing should be taught, like the other branches of a com¬ mon education, by the regular teachers. In the Normal Art and Evening Drawing schools it becomes a specialty, needing special instructors. Ex¬ perience had convinced Mr. Smith that every one who can be taught to write can be taught to draw ; and this maxim, the base of the system, has proved true here as it did in England. But to set the scheme in full opera-

1 For reasons which do not affect what is way's chapter on " Education " in the present here said, the School Committee of Boston did volume. - Ed.] not re-elect Mr. Smith in 1881. [See Mr. Dilla- tion required a certain time ; and when the system was extended to the High schools, in September, 1880, many of the committee doubted whether the time for the change had quite come.

Beginning in the Primary schools, with the simplest geometric forms drawn on a slate, the pupil goes through a course of skilfully-planned ex¬ ercises; and before he has left the Grammar School he has acquired a considerable power of designing. In the High School shading and drawing from simple objects are added ; designing becomes industrial art, in its ap¬ plication to decoration ; and machine drawing is taught. If the instruction stops here, and the pupil goes into active life, it would be hard to over¬ estimate the advantage of this art-knowledge.

Evening drawing schools are open thrice a week, from October to April, to all who will agree to attend regularly; this being the only condition of admission. The course is of two years: one of freehand and instrumental drawing; the second of either one or the other. An examination at the beginning of the second year determines the pupil's place. Professional instruction in studies like architecture or artistic subjects is not the busi¬ ness of these schools, which aim to teach practical branches, like buildingconstruction, machine and ship draughting, etc. There were last year about six hundred students, with an average attendance of fifty per cent; and each pupil, besides receiving class instruction with the blackboard, produced on the average seven elaborate drawings.

Nine tenths of the art exhibition of Massachusetts at the Centennial Ex¬ hibition came from Boston. The Normal Art School, therefore, although a State institution, forms a part of our city system of instruction. The teach¬ ers of drawing in the five normal schools of the State have all been students in the Art School ; teachers in the lower schools are either graduates of the normal schools, or have come more directly in contact with the Art School ; so the force and direction of any impulse from this are felt through the whole structure. The full course of study comprises four years; and a thorough mastery of each year's studies, proved by the marks obtained during the year, drawings accepted and approved, and a strict examina¬ tion, are required before the student receives a certificate in that class and can enter the next. Instrumental and freehand drawing and industrial designs form the first year's work. In the second, painting, theory of color, art-anatomy, ornament, and the various processes of engraving are added. The constructive arts come into the third year; and in the last sculpture, modelling, and casting. Broad as this programme seems, it is thoroughly carried out. The number of students who have completed a full course, - just half belonging to each sex, - is not large. The demand for such accomplished teachers is necessarily small ; and many have accepted situations demanding only more moderate acquirements. A certificate of any class in the school is proof of thorough training in the studies em¬ braced therein; and a holder of a graduate's diploma is perhaps as well qualified an art teacher as the world can show. vol. iv. - 52.

The approval here expressed of our system of drawing-instruction is confirmed by the opinion of the French Commissioners on Education at the Centennial Exhibition. After pronouncing the Massachusetts exhibit to

1 Mr. William W. Story, in the execution of felt. The required sum was raised by subthis statue, showed that his interest was heart- ^ scription, and the statue modelled in Rome in be the most complete of all that were offered, they declared that if France would defend her pre-eminence in art, all teachers must be able to give first instructions in drawing to the entire school population. These words were written in 1876, only five years after the foundations of our system were laid. Considered in connection with improvement since made, they are a strong approval of the past and encouragement for the future.1

A great improvement has of late years been made in all our manu¬ factures in which design plays an important part, showing the influence of trained eyes and hands. Mr. John Low, of Chelsea, is making tiles superior to any of foreign make. His dry or dust tiles, with exquisite designs in relief, are unique; and beautiful effects are produced by a pro¬ cess of nature-printing, impressing the clay with leaf and flower forms. The tender hues and gradation of tint in the glaze are triumphs of decorative art. The plaques in very low relief, modelled by Mr. Arthur Osborne, are wonderful in the effect of perspective and distance. The excellent designs produced at the Chelsea Pottery also deserve mention.

The difficult problem of the proper treatment of modern costume in sculpture can be studied with advantage in Boston, where there are an un¬ usually large number of statues of men of our time. Powers's Webster, in front of the State House, is striking from one point of view.2 Its com¬ panion, Horace Mann, by Miss Stebbins, is a mass of bad drapery. The Everett, by Story, and the Sumner, by Ball, both in the Public Garden, are bold examples of realism in costume. In Ball's statues of Governor Andrew and Quincy, - one at the State House and the other in front of the City Hall, - some advantage has been taken of the folds of a cloak to mask the unmanageable clothes. Where a military uniform or more picturesque costume is possible, the artist could be literal without fear of being prosaic. Chantrey's Washington, although lank and ungraceful, is dignified. Richard Greenough's Franklin3 (in front of the City Hall) and Winthrop4 (in Scollay Square) are weak figures, but the first is ornamental. A good manly figure of Sam Adams, by Miss Whitney, stands in Adams Square. Dr. Rimmer's statue of Hamilton, on Commonwealth Avenue, is of granite.5 The Army and Navy Monument, by Martin Milmore, is a tall shaft bearing a bronze figure of America, surrounded at the base by four statues of Peace, History, the Soldier, and the Sailor. Placed on the highest spot in the Common, it is a conspicuous object.6

1880. It was cast at a foundry lately estab¬ lished there, which promises to rival the work of Muller, of Munich. It arrived in the United States just in time to be dedicated on the anni¬ versary of the battle of Bunker Hill in the next year. The Hon. Robert C. Winthrop delivered an address.

1 [See a paper on "The Study of Art in Bos¬ ton," in Harper's Monthly Magazine , May, 1879, p. 8 r 8. Contrast "Art Schools in New York," in Scribner's Magazine , October, 1878. - Ed.]

2 [Its position is seen in the view of Park Street in the chapter on "The Mayors," in Vol. III.; and there is an account of it in the note to the portrait of Webster, in Mr. Morse's chapter in this volume. - En.|

The most important statue within the city proper is the equestrian figure of Washington, in the Public Garden. The pose and action of the rider are simple, but animated. Seated firmly in the saddle, the General checks his horse, lays his drawn sword across his bridle-hand, and turns his head and other monuments commemorating the ser- 1 [See the note to Mr. Lodge's chapter in vices of Boston troops in the Civil War. - Ed.] Vol. III. - Ed ] towards the left, with an air of calm and deliberate scrutiny highly charac¬ teristic of Washington. The spirited horse, unwillingly submitting to the firm hand on the rein, is in excellent contrast with the dignified and im¬ posing figure of the rider. The accessories are carefully studied; and the whole forms as good a representation as we can have of the hero on the battlefield. The height of the monument is thirty-eight feet. The pedestal is too high ; and the consequent foreshortening mars the effect of one of the finest works of art in our city. It was erected in 1869, - the work of Thomas Ball, long a resident of Florence, though born a Boston boy.

On June 17, 1881, the anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill, a bronze statue of Colonel William Prescott, the commander of the battle, was pre¬ sented to the Bunker Hill Monument Association, and placed in front of the monument. It is a bronze figure, nine feet high, representing the farmersoldier as he appeared on the day of the fight, clad in a loose banian or gown, assumed on account of the heat, in place of his coat. The moment chosen by the artist is that of the advance of the British troops, when Prescott ordered his men not to fire until he gave the word. The left arm is thrown back with a restraining gesture, as if to enforce the words, " Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes ! " The firmly poised figure stands in an attitude of intense expectation ; and the statue is one of great dramatic power. William W. Story is the sculptor of this noble work. He was obliged to follow the family features, as no portrait exists.

Although the Boston Art Club has existed for a quarter of a century, it is only within ten years that it has become a flourishing institution, es¬ tablished in quarters of its own, under the presidency of Mr. Charles C. Perkins. There are more than eight hundred members ; every year sev¬ eral exhibitions are opened to the public, and it does much to cultivate a love of art and a good feeling among the artists. Hitherto occupying part of a house in Boylston Street, to which an exhibition gallery was added, it is now erecting a club-house in Dartmouth Street. That a purely artistic club has so large a roll of members, and is in a flourishing condi¬ tion, is a good sign.

No city has more genuine love of art or more earnest followers of it than Boston. The zeal of our artists is encouraged by a large and constantly increasing class of the community. All who can look back twenty-five years must see the advance which art has made here in that period. We cannot yet pretend to anything like a national school of art. The eclec¬ ticism of the American character fosters imitation rather than individuality. In painting we are of late too much influenced by the modern French school, where dexterity is cultivated at the expense of simplicity and feel¬ ing. Yet, especially in landscape painting, our country affords material for success in distinctively American paths -which have been little trodden. We are a young nation ; the stir and strain of material progress which fills our daily life are not favorable to the development of art; but a love of the beautiful may bring softer influences into a prosaic age and country. If a more restful period of our career succeeds, it may see fuller fruit than has yet come of the fondness for art which is now a conspicuous and en¬ couraging feature of our people.

By John Sullivan Dwight

r I T) trace the more important agencies and steps of progress which have brought Boston where it stands to-day in musical taste and culture is all that will be attempted in this brief essay. The whole movement, so to speak, is really included in the present century. Before the year 1800, all that bore the name of music in New England may be summed up in the various modifications of the one monotonous and barren type, - the Puri¬ tan Psalmody. Its history, quaint as it may be, is more interesting as one phase of the old Puritan life and manners, than as having any significant relation to the growth of music or of musical taste and knowledge here as such. It would make a readable chapter by itself; but it would not show the germs out of which the musical character, such as it is, of Boston has developed. Music, for us, had to be imported from an older and a richer soil. Let us try to sketch its progress, which, for convenience, we will consider in four periods.

First Period, 1810-1841. - Music, as an independent art, claiming consideration on its own account, not merely as a convenient handmaid of religion, properly began in Boston with the present century, and first took organic form in the Handel and Haydn Society in 1815. That was a small beginning, modest in its aim and its ambition. It sprang, to be sure, mainly out of the New England psalm-singing choir and village singingschool ; but these elements, as we have said, did not contain the germs of musical progress ; or if they did, there was still wanting the musician, the man of knowledge and artistic power, to quicken and develop them. There was none such here; he had to come from the Old World. There came, we may say, two about that time.

The first was a German, probably the pioneer of all the German musi¬ cians who have since sought our shore and done so much to make our Boston musical. Gottlieb Graupner is still remembered and respected as the first important teacher here of the piano-forte and music generally, - a leader in all musical good works, though with a meagre following. He engraved music for his pupils, for which he kept a salesroom in his house in Franklin Street, in which he also had a little music hall. We remember in our boy¬ hood seeing him lead the little orchestra in the old Federal-Street Theatre, with his double-bass! He was a famous " timist." But his peculiar in¬ strument was the oboe (hautboy). This he had played in London, in Haydn's orchestra, when that great master brought out the twelve famous Symphonies in Salomon's concerts (1791-92). II is family preserve the parchment certificate of his honorable discharge from service as oboist in the band of a Hanoverian regiment, dated Hameln, April 8, 1788. In 1791 he went to London ; thence he came over to Prince Edward Island ; then spent some time in Charleston, S. C., where he landed in 1796 or 179 7; there he married, and came to Boston in 1798. Of course he did what he could to make Haydn, and perhaps Pleyel, Gyrowetz, and others, known here, too, in this musical wilderness. With a few associates he formed the nucleus of the first meagre combination which could be called in any sense an orchestra. Of professional musicians there was not half a score in the town; but Mr. Graupner and his little knot of musical friends, mostly amateurs, formed a " Philo-harmonic Society" in 1810 or 1811, which was still in existence when the Handel and Haydn Society was formed. It was simply a social meeting, held on Saturday evenings, in Mr. Graupner's hall for some time, afterward in Pythian Hall, in Pond (now Bedford) Street, where in their small way they practised Haydn's Symphonies, etc., for their own enjoyment. Graupner was president as long as it existed. Mr. Bryant P. Tilden was vice-president, and Mr. William Coffin secretary. When it finally died out we do not learn. Its last concert of which we find an¬ nouncement was on Nov. 24, 1824, at the Pantheon, Boylston Square. How many members there were, or what their instruments, we cannot learn precisely. There may have been sixteen of them. Mr. Graupner led with his double-bass. For violins they had Mr. Thomas Granger and Mr. Asa Warren; and, we believe, the English Consul, Mr. Dixon, and the well known Russian Consul, Alexis Eustaphieve (whose daughter, Mme. Peruzzi, still living in Florence, was a great pianist for that day), were interested in the club, and lent their aid with violins, if they were not actually members. Mr. Granger, Sr., played the clarinet; Mr. Simon Wood, the bassoon; Mr. Rowson, the trumpet. They also had French horn and tympani, and bass viol (violoncello). The flute was played by Mr. Pollock, afterward by Mr. George Cushing, for many years cashier in the old Columbian Bank, who spent most of his later years in Hingham, his old home, in full possession of his faculties until within a short time of his death, which occurred last summer (1880), at the age of ninety-four, in Watertown. To the end of his life Mr. Cushing was an enthusiastic admirer of Haydn and Mozart, and a stanch advocate of the classical as against the " new-school " music.

These slight particulars are deemed of interest as showing the beginning of anything like orchestral music in the old town. Before there could be oratorios, there had to be some sort of an orchestra.

The History Of Music In Boston

Another educated musician from the old world, who must have exer¬ cised considerable influence, was an English Doctor of Music, G. Iv. Jackson, for several years the learned organist at Trinity Church, who arrived here just before the War of 1812. fie was a man of Falstaffian proportions, who seems to have lorded it among the small fry with a full sense of his own professional importance. Doubtless he, with one or two other English organists of less note, who officiated in some of the half-dozen churches which had organs, introduced here some examples of a higher class of English cathedral music, as well as extracts from Handel, Haydn, etc., in place of the pre¬ vailing dry and uninspiring psalmody. We find no mention of his name among the founders of the Handel and Haydn ; nor was he the organist in their first oratorios. It seems that since he was not allowed to rule the movement, he preferred to take no part in it. He did, however, fellowship with Graupner, and lent the assistance of his " erudite talents " " at the piano-forte and carillons," in a complimentary concert given to the latter in November, 1821, when also Signor Ostinelli and his future wife, Miss Hewitt, played together a grand duo by Kalkbrenner. Thus to England and to Germany we owe the first musical awakening and most of the subsequent stimulus to progress here.

Of the musical condition of Boston at this time (1810-14), we may gather an idea from some reminiscences of that musical veteran, whose en¬ thusiasm is still fresh at eighty, General H. K. Oliver. He writes : -

" From 1810 to 1814 the writer, a Boston lad, having a high soprano voice, was a singing-boy, with two or three others, in the choir of the Park Street Church, - a choir consisting of some fifty singers, and deservedly renowned for its admirable rendering of church music, ignoring the prevalent fugue-tunes of the day, and giving the more appropriate and correct hymn-tunes and anthems of the best English com¬ posers. Out of this choir came many of the original members of the Handel and Haydn Society. There was then no organ at Park Street, the accompaniment of their singing being given by a flute, a bassoon, and a violoncello. At that remote date very few musical instruments of any sort were to be found in private houses. In the entire population of Boston, of some six thousand families, not fifty piano-fortes could be found."

Thus, from that famous Park Street choir, from the little Philo-harmonic orchestra, and somewhat also from the few English organists and choirdirectors then established in the town, our ancient Oratorio Society drew the first sources of its life. Nor was the outward impulse wanting which should crystallize these elements into a concrete form. It came in the shape of a Peace Jubilee, after the war with England.1 The "Gilmore" thereof was, we are told, the high and mighty Dr. Jackson; and it was certainly a graceful piece of condescension in the Englishman to take the initiative.

Concerts, such as they were, were not unknown in Boston during the sixty or seventy years before this (1815). The Hon. R. C. Winthrop, in his admirable address at the opening of the first Musical Festival of the

Handel and Haydn Society, in May, 1857, enumerates some of them, dwell¬ ing particularly on a miscellaneous " Oratorio given at King's Chapel on Oct. 27, 1789, in honor of President Washington's visit to Boston." After a glowing description of the Peace Jubilee (also in King's Chapel, F'eb. 22, 1815,) he adds : -

" Its echoes had hardly died away, - four weeks, indeed, had scarcely elapsed since it was held, - before a notice was issued by Gottlieb Graupner, Thomas Smith Webb, and Asa Peabody, for a meeting of those interested in the subject ' of cultivat¬ ing and improving a correct taste in the performance of sacred music.' In that meet¬ ing, held on the 30th of March, 1815, the Handel and Haydn Society originated. On the 20th of April their constitution was adopted. The following May-day witnessed their first private practising from the old Locke Hospital collection ; and on the suc¬ ceeding Christmas evening, at the same consecrated chapel where Washington at¬ tended that memorable public concert a quarter of a century before, and where that solemn Jubilee of Peace had been so recently celebrated, their first Grand Oratorio was given to a delighted audience of nine hundred and forty-five persons, with the Russian Consul, the well remembered Mr. Eustaphieve, assisting as one of the per¬ formers in the orchestra."

" The chorus numbered about one hundred, of which perhaps ten were ladies ; an orchestra, of less than a dozen, and an organ furnished the accompaniments. The programme was long and varied, and included selections from the Creation and the Messiah and other works by Handel."

It was not until the seventeenth concert, Christmas, 1818, that a complete oratorio was performed. This was the Messiah ; liberal selections from it had been given in the previous concerts. The Creatio7t came next (Feb. 16, 1819). Musical Boston of that day knew only these two oratorios: the Messiah (composed in 1741) and the Creation (1798); and to this limited acquaintance with the great composers the old society undoubtedly owes the name adopted in its " green and salad days." The fittest names to figure jointly in one title would obviously now be those of Bach and Handel, the two greatest masters and contemporaries; but probably Amer¬ ica had not yet heard of John Sebastian Bach; nor did the founders of the Handel and Haydn Society dream of the devotion with which their successors of the past decade would be studying and performing his St. Matthew Passion Music.

Now, for the sake of landmarks, or tidemarks, to guide us in this brief sketch of our musical history, we shall regard the foundation of the Handel and Haydn Society, and the beginning of acquaintance with Handel's Mes¬ siah , as the first station on our pilgrimage, - the first musical event really pregnant with an important future. F'rom this point we will barely cata¬ logue the work of the society until we reach our second station, about the year 1841.

From 1818 to 1880 the Messiah has been given over seventy times by the society; the Creation , over sixty times. Handel's Dettingen Te Deum was taken up in 1819, and has since been given twice ; in the same year the Sixth Mass (B-flat) of Haydn, which was sung eleven times to March 19, 1837 > M 1829 a Mass in C by Mozart was sung; in 1830 Haydn's Storm, seven times to 1837; and in 1831 his Te Deum in C; in 1833 Beethoven's Mount of Olives, eight times to 1837. From 1836 to 1840 was the period in which the questionable taste for Neukomm's compositions reigned. His sensational oratorio of David was given fifty-seven times between 1836 and 1859.

Thus the repertoire of the society was as meagre, measured by its pres¬ ent standard, as was the average quality of its performances inferior. Yet it had more than kept pace with the best musical culture of our people ; and our " Athens" could at least congratulate herself upon a certain fond familiarity with two of the greatest master-works of the art long before they were much in vogue in any of her sister cities.

With such materials, and with smaller selections from composers of less consequence, the society gave, either in the shape of oratorios or miscel¬ laneous concerts, commonly on Sunday evenings, down to the year 1841, about two hundred and twenty performances, - from one to nineteen in a single year. The first seven were given in the Stone Chapel ; 1 the eighth in the First Church; then one hundred and ninety-one (to November, 1839) in Boylston Hall; and numbers two hundred to three hundred and ninetysix in the Melodeon (now the Gaiety Theatre). These were small halls compared with our present spacious Music Hall, the Melodeon seating about twelve hundred people.

The membership has always been confined to the male sex. The ladies sing by invitation. The original members numbered forty-six. Before the first performance of the Messiah (1818) there were added one hundred and sixty-two by election ; and two hundred and eighteen more down to 1841. Yet during our first period the chorus, male and female, was but small; in 1839 the average attendance at public performances was only about fifty, and the parts were poorly balanced, while some occupants of chorus seats were reckoned " dummies." The time for real chorus dis¬ cipline had not arrived. The average tone of membership, for many years, was hardly one of cultured refinement; "first families" were not much represented in the ranks ; mechanics, tradesmen, market-men, etc., were those who sacrificed themselves in the good cause, and greatly to their credit. No aristocratic English " Mus. Doc." could go in on equal terms in what he probably regarded as rather a plebeian movement; nor would the democratic instinct accept him for president or musical director. How good the singing was, it is hardly possible at this time to conjecture. For orchestra there could have been only an inadequate assemblage of a dozen or more available instruments. During 'all this period, and indeed until

1847, the president of the society officiated as conductor. The first presi¬ dent was Thomas Smith Webb, two years; then followed Benjamin Holt, two years; Amasa Winchester, seven years ; Robert Rogerson ; Lowell Mason (1827), five years; Samuel Richardson, two years; Chas. W. Lovett, two years; Bartholomew Brown; George J. Webb, three years (to 1841) ; Charles Zeuner ; I. S. Withington. The organists were : for the first three concerts, Samuel Stockwell ; for the four following, S. P. Taylor of New York; S. A. Cooper and S. P. Taylor, elected in 1818; Miss S. Hewitt (afterward Mrs. Ostinelli), elected 1820, and annually for nine years; Charles Zeuner, 1830-37; A. U. Hayter, 1838-49.

The leading vocalists who sang the solos in the oratorios and other concerts during this period are easily enumerated. It was home talent mainly. Mr. Oliver Shaw of Providence, R. I., who had become blind, gave here four concerts in 1816, moving audiences to tears, it is said, by the sweetness of his voice and by the beauty of his own songs, which were long popular, - such as " There's nothing true but Heaven," and ''Sinful Mary's Tears." He was one of the earliest honorary members of the society. Its first president, Colonel Webb, and Mr. John Dodd were also vocal heroes in those days. The leading soprano for some years was a Miss Bennett. James Sharp, from England, joined in 1816, whose fine tenor voice and pure, artistic style of singing were marked features of the orato¬ rios for more than fifty years. P'rom 1825 figured Mr. Chas. W. Lovett, tenor; and the doughty "David" and the "Goliath" in Neukomm's David , - Mr. Marcus Coburn, robust tenor, and Mr. Samuel Richardson, a basso of large frame. Mr. George Hews, alto, or counter-tenor, sang in 1830, and for many years thereafter. Mr. B. F. Baker and Mr. Thomas Ball, the sculptor, began to appear as bass soloists in 1837-38. Of soprano and alto soloists before 1 830 we find no names ; but from that time to 1835 and later there were Mrs. Knight, Miss Gillingham, Mrs. Adams, and particularly Mrs. Franklin (one of the three Woodward sisters, all prominent in the music of that day), who was for many years the leading oratorio soprano. Of visiting artists from abroad, the first who truly helped the cause of good music here was Thomas Phillips, a tenor singer, who, after appearing in some slight English operas in New York and Boston, sang here in ora¬ torio in 1818, and also gave a course of lectures on the art of singing, with illustrations from the best masters in the various styles of vocal com¬ position. In the preceding year Incledon, near the close of his career, had made a passing visit, singing his famous Dibdin sailor-songs. But probably the most distinguished artist during all that period, a revelation to our untutored ears, was Mme. Caradori Allan, the soprano, who astonished and delighted all by her singing in the Messiah at Boylston Hall in 1837. Of course the list is very incomplete, nor have we room to be complete in such particulars.

Among the instrumentalities which helped to raise the musical standard in the Boston of that period were the publications of the Handel and Haydn

Society. For choral practice it soon felt the want of works of real genius, music more nourishing than the simple anthems in the Locke Hospital col¬ lection ; and very soon it issued several books of anthems, masses, choruses, etc., from the best masters, English, German, and Italian. In 1821 (dated 1822) appeared the first Boston Handel and Haydn Society collection of church music, mostly psalm-tunes, selected and harmonized by Lowell Mason, afterward made Doctor of Music by the University of New York. 1 his gentleman, who from this time becomes one of the most prominent figures in our musical activity, and whose influence was long, wide-spread, and various, on the whole for good, was born at Medfield, Mass., in 1792, and died at Orange, N. J., in 1872. At the age of twenty he became a banking clerk in Savannah, Ga. But the passion of his youth, and of all his life, was music, with which were coupled a life-long religious zeal and great business enterprise and shrewdness. He was a manager of men, an organ¬ izer of movements educational and popular, - some of them of lasting influ¬ ence. In Savannah, with the aid of his first thoroughly instructed teacher, F. L. Abel, he made a manuscript collection for his own use, based on the Sacred Melodics of William Gardiner, the English enthusiast who wrote that fanciful book The Music of Nature. Gardiner had cut and arranged into psalm-tunes many exquisite melodies out of the instrumental works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and the like. These, with the best tunes then in vogue in England, - and a few American, some of them his own, - formed the basis of the collection which Dr. Mason prepared for the Han¬ del and Haydn Society, and which ran through numerous editions, with improvements and enlargement, year by year. It was a wholly new, bold venture on the part of the society ; nor was it undertaken until the learned Dr. Jackson had set his seal of approval on the contents of the book, adding a few compositions of his own. It soon passed into the New England " sing¬ ing-schools," and thence into the choirs ; and psalm-book making has been a prosperous branch of trade from that day to this.

In 1837 some discontented elements in the old society, unfortunately for both, withdrew and formed a new oratorio society, - the Musical Insti¬ tute of Boston, - with Bartholomew Brown and the Hon. Nahum Mitchell for its first two presidents, and Ostinelli and Thomas Comer, of the Tremont Theatre, for musical directors. For several years it gave concerts in the Masonic Temple (now the United States Court House), its most important production being that of Mehul's Joseph and his Brethren , which is prop¬ erly an opera. It also brought out a sensational and short-lived oratorio, the Sceptic , under the direction of the composer, Russell, a popular balladsinger of the day.

Outside of these oratorio societies there was not much else in Boston, either in the way of schools or musical performance, which can be supposed to have exerted any very material influence on the progress of musical taste or knowledge during this whole period. Concerts were few, and far from classical ; programmes very miscellaneous and of slight material. Great artists, either vocal or instrumental, had hardly begun to find their way to this haunt of the east wind. There were no orchestral concerts; sympho¬ nies, since the days of those Philo-harmonic amateurs, were unheard; the same of chamber-music, violin quartets, etc. The Siren of Italian opera had not begun to practise here her spells. There had only been a few slender efforts in the shape of English opera at the old Tremont Theatre (now Temple). The music of polite society consisted mostly of Moore's Irish melodies and the old Scotch and English ballads, with possibly some pieces from Italian and from Mozart's operas, and the duets of that fashion¬ able European teacher and composer Blangini, whose list of pupils has been said to " read like Leporello's catalogue, as it includes three queens, twelve princesses, twenty-five countesses," etc. Boston had, however, a few glee-clubs, thanks to the enthusiasm mainly of Mr. Wm. H. Eliot. The harp was perhaps better known in parlors then than it is now; that twilight senti¬ mental instrument vanishing before the sunrise of high art. The piano-fortes, then comparatively few, tinkled with popular melodies, marches, variations, by Kalkbrenner and others, and show-pieces like the Battle of Prague ; although some of the sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven had found a home in certain houses. The concert programmes corresponded. Very popular in those last years were the English ballad-singers, - Wilson with his Scotch songs; Russell with his Maniac and Life on the Ocean Wave ; Dempster with his sentimental Tennyson's May Queen; and Mr. J. P. Knight, whose programmes were more classical and made appeal to better taste.

Much might be learned of the musical tastes of that period from a list of the publications which were in demand ; but no chronological lists are possible so long as music publishers refuse to date their issues, - probably acting on the same principle on which women are maliciously accused of trying to conceal their age.

Among other incitements and sweet opportunities, the music-loving school-boy of the period (about 1825) must not refuse the debt of grati¬ tude to the military band which, under the name of the Brigade Band, would tempt his feet to follow through the streets beyond the city's bounds, though he might find the homeward journey tiresome without the music. Many a Boston boy caught the tuneful fever from those dulcet and inspiring strains. And that was a real band ; it had clarinets and flutes and oboes, bugles and French horns (some famous players too !), and was not the mere band of brass now used to penetrate the Babel of street noises. Moreover it played good music, - notably a large number of good Ger¬ man marches composed by oneWalsch, which were arranged and adopted into the repertoire of the little Pierian Sodality of Harvard College.1

1 It will surprise some to learn that musical ably seconding the efforts of those who wrere try- Boston in those days of its infancy was not with- ing to elevate the standard of musical art, free out its musical journals. As early as 1820-21 from all the meretricious and commercial fea- Mr. John Rowe Parker owned and edited the tures of so many modern periodicals devoted Euterpeiad, a fortnightly Musical Intelligencer , nominally to music. In the second year he of really high tone, in every way respectable, and added to each number an appendix or Gazette for

SECOND Period, 1841-52. - As Handel's Messiah stands for the cen¬ tral figure thus far, marking the first stage in our musical development, so now we place another figure at the beginning of a second period, - say from 1841 to 1852. Beethoven, bringing the Fifth Symphony , stands there at the entrance of a yet richer garden of enchantment, beckoning us on the way that we should go. Beethoven's symphonies were first heard in Boston in the year 1841, and onward; and, strange to say, these were our first initiation into the glories and the mysteries of the symphonic form of art. We were introduced to its profoundest, greatest master, with no prepar¬ atory schooling in the simpler creations of his predecessors, Haydn and Mozart. As Handel came to us through the Handel and Haydn Society, Beethoven came ushered in by the long-since defunct Boston Academy of Music, which thus set the crown upon its many useful labors. And now, this second station gained, we have to look back a few years.

The Academy existed earlier, although its centre of gravity falls here. It was founded Jan. 8, 1833. Its aim was educational. It sprang from the suggestion of Mr. William C. Woodbridge. This gentleman, on a tour through Europe, had been struck by the attention paid to music as a part of early education in several of the countries which he visited, and became convinced of its good effects and of its practicability as a branch of common education here. He found ready listeners and coworkers in those practical educators Lowell Mason and George J. Webb, and in the Hon. Samuel A. Eliot; and the Academy of Music was established, with Mr. Eliot as president, and under the immediate direction of the two former gentlemen as principal professors. Other teachers were enlisted ; among them, in the instrumental department, Henry Schmidt, the able violinist, and Joseph A. Keller, for years at the head of the musical instruction at the Perkins Insti¬ tution for the Blind. " The experiment succeeded beautifully," said Mr. Eliot.1 In the course of the second year juvenile and adult classes had been established, and gratuitous vocal instruction given to nearly one thou¬ sand children and to from four hundred to five hundred adults. It introduced music into the public schools, - Messrs. Mason and Webb first trying the experiment in several schools, to the entire satisfaction of the masters and the school committee. It formed classes for teachers in music. The choir of the Academy already counted one hundred members of both sexes, trained to nice performance of good music. This choir had given six oratorio concerts, in which selections from the best masters were sung with organ accompaniment, and had furnished music on several civic occasions. Lectures, with illustrations, were given in various churches, and in other the ladies, which was called the Minerviad. In German of intelligence and culture, in the few the last years of this period appeared two more years which he spent here figured as the principal journalistic ventures. In 1838 flourished, for violoncellist in the concerts of the Academy, and one year at least, the Boston Musical Gazette, edi- his return to Europe was felt to be a real loss ted by Bartholomew Brown; and in 1839-41 the to Boston.

Musical Magazine of Theodore Hach, a work 1 Address at the Opening of the Odeon, Aug. of real value, an earnest, able advocate of mu- 5, 1835, by Mr. S. A. Eliot, the president of sical progress in the best sense. Mr. Hach, a the Academy.

towns and cities. The method of the professors was embodied by Mr. Mason in the Manual of the Boston Academy of Music, based on the Pestalozzian system, for the use of teachers. The Academy also published its own Collection of Church Music. Letters of inquiry from all parts of the Union showed that the new influence was felt beyond Boston and the State.

By this time the need of a suitable building for the now crowded school¬ rooms, exhibitions, oratorios, and concerts of the Academy was felt; and, fortunately, a lease was obtained for a term of years of the old Boston (Federal Street) Theatre, haunted with memories of the elder Kean, Cooper, Conway, and so many famous actors.1- This was remodelled so as to afford school and lecture rooms, a spacious stage, and a comfortable auditorium, seating fifteen hundred persons in its parquet and four galleries, with stand¬ ing-room for about one thousand more. It took the Greek name of the Odeon, and was dedicated, with an address by the Hon. Samuel A. Eliot, Aug. 5, 1835. Here until 1843 the work of the Academy went on, concerts coming more and more into the foreground.

In 1839 Mr. Hach, in his Musical Magazine, exhorts the Academy to make itself in fact, if not in name, a real Musical Conservatory, like those in Europe. In that year Mr. Schmidt formed the nucleus of an Academy orchestra with an amateur club. These amateurs played with him a Mozartish symphony by Romberg, and several good overtures of the light and pleasing order ; and among things sung that season were a madrigal by Wilbye, a chorus from Graun's Tod J-esu, a duet from Rossini's Mose, and Romberg's Harmony of the Spheres. In 1840 Hach gathers courage, and says : -

" The establishment of the Academy of Music in Boston will do more to advance the art among us in ten years than the New York Opera could have effected in ten centuries. . . . And what are the pieces that week after week draw two thousand of our fellow-citizens at a time to the Odeon ? Certainly not of a low order of music, but selected from the highest productions of the art, - the compositions of Haydn, of Mozart, of Neukomm, of Romberg, and other great masters."

Yes, O Hach ! and a yet greater master stands even now at the door, presently to enter with footstep as resounding and with presence as im¬ pressive as the " 1' uom di sasso " in Don Juan. Mr. Hach ventures to say that the Creatio7i at that time was as well known and as popular in Boston as in its birthplace, Vienna. That year the Academy sang Haydn's ."Spring" ( Seasons ) and first part of the Creation, a psalm by Fesca, a chorus by Righini, a cantata by Zumsteeg, etc. The Freyschiitz overture began to be played. There were organ performances by Mr. F. F. Muller, violin solo by Mr. Schmidt, etc.

concert (January 16) was wholly instrumental, - Romberg symphony, over¬ tures to Anacreon (Cherubini), Masaniello, Weber's Jubilee , and solos. We see where all this is tending. The first phase of the Academy has passed the full, and is now on the wane. The didactic, pedagogic, choir, " convention," psalm-book making mission is exhausted, the master spirits thereof tempted into larger business in richer fields and pastures new; it must turn over a new leaf now, or find its occupation wholly gone. The ninth annual Report speaks of the first and chief end of the Academy as now accomplished ; it has secured access to elementary musical instruction for every child within its reach; and the Report proceeds to state that dif¬ ferences between its professors had arisen, resulting in their separation ; and that " instead of continuing its vocal concerts, in which it cannot do more or better than its neighbors, the Academy has concluded to engage the best orchestra it can afford, and give classical instrumental concerts." The day of the Symphony in Boston has come ! Beethoven enters ; we have reached our second station. A new era has begun for us in music. Doubt¬ less we owe this wise resolve, this new departure, to the sagacity, the taste, the public spirit of his Honor the Mayor of Boston at that period, Samuel A. Eliot, president of the Academy throughout its whole career.

In the eight concerts of the season ending in February, 1841, the Academy brought out two of Beethoven's symphonies (first time to Boston ears), namely, the First and Fifth , besides one by Romberg. The precise date of the first performance of the immortal number Five (C-minor) we do not find.

For seven winters these symphonic feasts were continued regularly at the rate of six or eight each season, for the most part in the Odeon (though finally they were compelled to take refuge in the Melodeon), until the public pat¬ ronage fell off, and they came to an end, ever regretted by " the appreci¬ ative few," in the spring of 1847. The programmes, from an educational point of view, were most judicious : always a noble symphony, commonly by Beethoven, occasionally by Mozart, Haydn, Mendelssohn; while for relief and recreation after the close attention these required, there were always two or three light, captivating overtures by genial composers like Rossini, Auber, Reissiger, Findpaintner, and Carafa. Nor was there want¬ ing "milk for babes" in the shape of instrumental solos, songs, duets, and choruses, - the last especially in the later seasons, when the Musical Edu¬ cation Society, a well balanced choir of one hundred voices, organized within the Academy and trained by Mr. Webb, took part. This society outlived its parent, and grew up to greater work, as we shall see. Six of the nine Beethoven symphonies became more or less familiar in these con¬ certs ; the Fifth was the great favorite, and was given more than a dozen times; number Seven , at least nine times; the Pastoral and number Four, some four times each. Mendelssohn's Scotch symphony figured twice; a prize symphony by V. Fachner, twice; and one by Romberg. In one of the earlier concerts there were two symphonies, - the Militaire of Haydn, and the "Jupiter" of Mozart. In one programme only -we find no sym¬ phony, but instead thereof six (!) overtures. These overtures, especially Auber's, were played over and over, year after year, - more wholesome food than much of the light, or of the heavy, " effect" music more recently and even now in vogue. But overtures of higher character were not neglected ; for instance, Beethoven's to Egmont , Fidelio , and Prometheus ; Weber's Freyschiitz ; Mozart's Titus ; Mendelssohn's ITebiides and Mid¬ summer Night's Dream. The instrumental solos were for violin or 'cello, reeds or flute, and were commonly of a respectable order. The age of brass had not arrived. The virtuoso of the cornet (always going out of its own sphere to ape flute variations, or to parody some love-lorn tenor's swan-song) had not begun to haunt the concert room. For solo singers the Academy could not afford famous prima donnas, but it was thoughtful in the employment of acceptable domestic talent.

Here then was a foundation laid for musical culture in a good direction. Here was development. These opportunities, for those who improved them, had been for seven years implanting seeds and principles of higher, purer taste, and had raised the standard in what was demanded of concert givers, singers, teachers, and musicians. What though a " popular " reaction against entertainments of so intellectual and " classical " a standard might spring up occasionally? The best must always meet resistance, now as well as then ; the victory never rests entirely undisputed ; the struggle has to be renewed. Nevertheless the seeds are sown; they will spring up anew, however often trampled down. Such a reaction did, before these concerts were abandoned, raise its head under the misnomer of a " Philharmonic " Society (about 1844), which devoted itself for several seasons to a more showy, " popular," and miscellaneous class of concerts.

The orchestra of the Academy must have been a small one, - from twenty-five, perhaps, to forty instruments, - and made up in part of but indifferent materials. For two or three years it was conducted by tall Henry Schmidt, violin in hand. The annual Report of 1843 congratulates the society on having for the first time a conductor with baton , not playing in the orchestra himself. This was Professor Webb, supported by Mr. William Keyzer, from Holland, an old conservative, intelligent musician, at the head of the violins, and sometimes officiating as conductor. Under their reign things went on in a respectable and quiet way, with few concessions to bad taste ; though there can be little doubt that the decline and dying out of this most admirable movement was hastened by the want of vigorous young life in the conductorship. But it will readily be seen that that early experience of seven years' exposure to Beethoven programmes must, in spite of all shortcomings in performance, have set Boston well upon the way to an appreciation of the best in music. Many can remember how eagerly these concerts were sought, how frequently the audience was large, and what a theme of enthusiastic comment and congratulation these first fresh hearings of the great masters was. And what willing ears were those that listened? What souls were most susceptible to the new, quickening influ¬ ence? To what ideas, what sympathetic phase of thought and aspiration did those harmonies appeal? Partly, of course, to those most musically taught already ; partly to those trusting in authority ; but largely also to a peculiar element then stirring in the intellectual and social life of this com¬ munity, to minds in sympathy with what was idly called the " transcenden¬ tal" movement, - that class of young enthusiasts for culture, in the freest, highest sense, with whom Emerson (although not musical) and Beethoven came in, it may be said, together.1

Regarding those orchestral concerts as the Academy's most fruitful con¬ tribution to the musical development of Boston, we must, before taking leave of it, sum up in a few words the various activities of its earlier and purely educational period (1833-40), during which those noted teachers, Lowell Mason and George J. Webb, were its master spirits. It taught the elements of vocal music to the people, - children and adults. It carried music into the public schools. It taught how to teach, both in its classes and through that peculiarly New England institution the " musical conven¬ tions," which drew together choristers and teachers from the country for whole weeks at a time, giving a new stimulus, and diffusing through them many practical ideas, as well as every year the new Collection of psalmody, for which the convention was the annual fair and market, until the multipli¬ cation of that sort of ware threatened to bury real music out of sight. It formed choral clubs and classes. It published glee and chorus books, as well as psalms and chants and anthems, a Common School Songster, a

1 For fuller explanation of this hint the writer would refer to certain reminiscences of his own in the Atlantic Monthly of September, 1870, of which an extract follows : -