the spring of 1860, by Mr. Leonard W. Volk, and here reproduced; one in
Washington, by Clark Mills, three or four years later. Mr. Volk, in the
_Century Magazine_ for December, 1881, gave a pleasant account of the
taking of the former. Lincoln sat naturally in the chair during the
operation, watching in a mirror every move made by the sculptor, as the
plaster was put on without interference with the eyesight or with the
breathing of the subject. When, at the end of an hour, the mould was
ready for removal—it was in one piece, and contained both ears—Lincoln
himself bent his head forward and worked it off gradually and gently,
without injury of any kind, notwithstanding the fact that it clung to
the high cheek-bones, and that a few hairs on his eyebrows and temples
were pulled out by the roots with the plaster.
This is, without question, the most perfect representation of Lincoln’s
face in existence. I have watched many an eye fill while looking at it
for the first time; to many minds it has been a revelation; and I turn
to it myself more quickly and more often than to any of the others, when
I want comfort and help. What Whittier wrote to James T. Fields of the
Marshall engraving of Lincoln may be said of this life-cast. “It
contains the informing spirit of the man within.... The old harsh lines
and unmistakable mouth are there without flattery or compromise; but
over all, and through all, the pathetic sadness, the wise simplicity,
and tender humanity of the man are visible. It is the face of the
speaker at Gettysburg, and the writer of the second Inaugural.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Clark Mills mask, said Mr. John Hay, in a later number of the
_Century Magazine_, is “so sad and peaceful in its infinite repose that
the famous sculptor, Mr. St. Gaudens, insisted when he first saw it that
it was a death-mask. The lines are set, as if the living face, like the
copy, had been in bronze; the nose is thin, and lengthened by the
emaciation of the cheeks; the mouth is fixed like that of an archaic
statue; a look as of one on whom sorrow and care had done their worst,
without hope of victory, is on all the features; the whole expression is
of unspeakable sadness and all-sufficing strength. Yet the peace is not
the dreadful peace of death; it is the peace that passeth
understanding.”
Speaking of Webster, Mr. O. F. Fowler, in his _Practical Phrenology_,
said: “A larger mass of brain, perhaps, never was found, and never will
be found, in the upper and lateral portions of any man’s forehead. Both
in height and in breadth his forehead is prodigiously great.” The head
of Clay, according to the same authority, was also “unusually large. It
measured seven and three-eighths inches in diameter, and it was very
high in proportion to its breadth; the reasoning organs were large, and
the perceptive and semi-perceptive organs still larger.” Mr. G. P. A.
Healy, the painter, said that Mr. Clay’s mouth was very peculiar; that
it was thin-lipped, and extended from ear to ear. This last is not
particularly noticeable in the familiar portraits of Clay, not even in
that painted by Mr. Healy himself. Both Mr. St. Gaudens and Mr. Hartley
incline to the opinion that the mask of Clay in my collection is a cast
from the actual face, and, notwithstanding the fact that the eyelids are
open, that it is from life. Lewis Gaylord Clark, writing in 1852 in
HARPER’S MAGAZINE of Clay’s funeral, said: “His countenance immediately
after death looked like an antique cast. His features seemed to be
perfectly classical, and the repose of all his muscles gave the lifeless
body a quiet majesty seldom reached by living human beings.”
Comparing Calhoun with Webster, Mr. Fowler attributed to Calhoun the
greater power of analysis and illustration; to Webster, the greater
depth and profundity. In Calhoun he found, united to a very large head,
an active temperament and sharp organs, the greatest peculiarity of his
phrenology consisting in the fact that _all_ the intellectual faculties
were very large. The casts of Webster and Calhoun were made in
Washington by Clark Mills from the living faces—Calhoun’s in 1844,
Webster’s in 1849; and they are, consequently, of no little interest and
value.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: DANIEL WEBSTER]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: HENRY CLAY]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: JOHN C. CALHOUN]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sydney Smith, who once called Daniel Webster “a steam-engine in
trousers,” thus disposed of a contemporary British statesman: “Lord
Brougham’s great passions,” he said, “are vanity and ambition. He
considers himself as one of the most wonderful works of Providence, is
incessantly striving to display that superiority to his
fellow-creatures, and to grasp a supreme dominion over all men and all
things. His vanity is so preposterous that it has exposed him to
ludicrous failures, and little that he has written will survive him. His
ambition, and the falsehood and intrigue with which it works, have
estranged all parties from him, and left him, in the midst of bodily and
intellectual strength, an isolated individual, whom nobody will trust,
and with whom nobody will act.”
The head of Brougham was of full size, but not unusual. A student of
physiognomy, but not a student of the back numbers of the London
_Punch_, who did not recognize the man in this cast, said of it that it
was the head of a man more remarkable for vivacity and quickness of mind
than for original and powerful thinking. George Combe, in the winter of
1838-39, exhibited in the United States a mask of Brougham, of course
from life, for Brougham did not die until thirty years after that—and he
was born in 1778—which is perhaps the mask here reproduced, as it is the
face of a man in his prime, and his was a marvellous prime—not that of a
nonogenarian. Brougham’s powers of activity and endurance were
phenomenal. It is recorded of him that he went from the Law Courts to
the House of Commons, from the House to his own chambers, where he wrote
an article for the _Edinburgh Review_, then, without rest, to the Courts
and the House again, sitting until the morning of the third day before
he thought of his bed or his sleep; and that during all this time he
showed no signs of mental or physical fatigue. Such continuous activity
certainly did not shorten his days, even if it lengthened his nights.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: LORD BROUGHAM]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Probably no single facial organ in the world has been the subject of so
much attention from the caricaturists as the nose of Lord Brougham. It
is doubtful if any two consecutive numbers of any so-called comic or
satirical journal appeared in England during Brougham’s time without
some representation of Brougham’s nose. The author of _Notes on Noses_
thus spoke of it: “It is a most eccentric nose; it comes within no
possible category; it is like no other man’s; it has good points and bad
points and no point at all. When you think it is going right on for a
Roman, it suddenly becomes a Greek; when you have written it down
cogitative, it becomes as sharp as a knife.... It is a regular Proteus;
when you have caught it in one shape it instantly becomes another. Turn
it and twist it and view it how, when, and where you will, it is never
to be seen twice in the same shape; and all you can say of it is that
it’s a queer one. And such exactly,” he added, “is my Lord Brougham....
Verily my Lord Brougham and my Lord Brougham’s nose have not their
likeness in heaven or earth.... And the button at the end is the cause
of it all.”
An interesting tribute to this remarkable organ is to be found in the
printed _Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley_. Concerning
Commemoration Day at Oxford he wrote, in 1860, “Nothing could be more
absurd than Lord Brougham’s figure, long and gaunt, with snow-white hair
under the great black porringer, and his wonderful nose wagging lithely
from side to side as he hitched up his red petticoats [Commemoration
robes] and stalked through the mud.”
There is no button on the end of the nose of the specimen of humanity
whose mask forms a tail-piece to this volume. Cowper, Combe, and others
believed that the brain of the native African is inferior in its
intellectual powers to the brain of the man of European birth and
descent, while a certain body of naturalists contend that the negro owes
his present inferiority entirely to bad treatment and to unfavorable
circumstances. The black boy, the cast of whose face was made for this
collection at St. Augustine, Florida, by Mr. Thomas Hastings, the
architect, a year or two ago, has undoubtedly been for generations the
victim of unfavorable circumstances, and perhaps of bad treatment as
well. He is, at all events, one of the lowest examples of his race, and
his life-mask is only interesting here as an object of comparison.
Whatever the head of a Bonaparte, a Washington, a Webster, or a Brougham
is, his head is not. But whether his Creator or the Caucasian is
responsible for this, the naturalists and experts must decide.
[Illustration: FLORIDA NEGRO BOY]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INDEX
AGASSIZ, LOUIS, 149.
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, quoted, 37.
Atterbury, Bishop Francis, quoted, 81.
BARRETT, LAWRENCE, 28, 33, 34-37.
Barrett, Lawrence, quoted, 41.
“Barry Cornwall,” quoted, 27.
BEACONSFIELD, EARL OF, 177-182.
BEETHOVEN, LUDWIG VON, 61-68.
BENTHAM, JEREMY, 117-122.
Blacklock, Archibald, quoted, 191.
BONAPARTE, NAPOLEON, x., 4, 197-201.
BOOTH, EDWIN, x., 28, 38, 41, 42.
BOUCICAULT, DION, 28, 31-33.
Brontë, Charlotte, quoted, 86.
BROUGHAM, LORD, 261-265.
Brown, John, M.D., quoted, 92.
Browning, Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett, quoted, 146, 205.
BRUCE, KING ROBERT, 193.
BURKE, EDMUND, 168-171.
BURNS, ROBERT, 191-192.
BURR, AARON, xi., 246-249.
Burr, Aaron, quoted, 117.
Caine, Hall, quoted, 122.
CALHOUN, JOHN C., 254.
CANOVA, ANTONIO, 138, 150, 157, 158.
Carlyle, Thomas, quoted, 58, 99, 100, 211, 212, 222.
CAUNT, BEN, x., 85, 86.
CAVOUR, COUNT, 125, 126.
Chadwick, John A., quoted, 34.
CHALMERS, THOMAS, x., 92-96.
Chantrey, Sir Francis, quoted, 13.
CHARLES XII., xiii., 218-221.
Cheetham, James, quoted, 242.
Cicognara, Count, quoted, 157.
Clark, Lewis Gaylord, quoted, 254.
Clarke, Asia Booth, quoted, 38-41.
Clarke, Charles Cowden, quoted, 96, 106, 109.
CLAY, HENRY, x., 253, 254.
Coleridge, Ernest Hartley, quoted, 100.
COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, xii., 96-100.
Coleridge, Sara, quoted, 99.
Collins, Wilkie, quoted, 145.
Combe, George, quoted, 121.
Cottinet, Edmund, quoted, 53-54.
Croker, John Wilson, quoted, 171-172.
CROMWELL, OLIVER, x., 4, 205-213.
Cumberland, Richard, quoted, 19.
Cunningham, Peter, quoted, 145.
CURRAN, JOHN PHILPOT, 171.
Curtis, George William, quoted, 41, 150.
DANTE, x., 5-9.
d’Arblay, Madame, quoted, 46.
Davies, Thomas, quoted, 46.
Davis, Mrs. Jefferson, quoted, 150.
Dickens, Charles, quoted, 91.
Diodorus Siculus, quoted, 3.
DISRAELI, BENJAMIN, 177-182.
EDWARDS, HENRY, 28, 33, 37, 38.
Evans, Mary Ann, quoted, 125.
Evelyn, John, quoted, 209.
Faucit, Helen, quoted, 27-28.
Fitzgerald, Percy, quoted, 46.
Fowler, O. F., quoted, 221, 222, 246, 253, 254.
Francis, John W., M.D., quoted, 245.
FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN, 241.
Fraser, Sir William, quoted, 177.
FREDERICK THE GREAT, xi., 4, 50, 221, 222.
Frith, W. P., quoted, 142, 181, 182.
Gallenza, A., quoted, 131.
GARRICK, DAVID, 19-23.
“George Eliot,” quoted, 125.
George IV., quoted, 141.
Gilder, R. W., quoted, 106.
GRANT, U. S., x., 4, 222, 225-230.
Greville, Charles C. F., quoted, 100, 103.
Griffin, Gerald, quoted, 164.
Hale, Philip, quoted, 62, 67.
Hall, S. C., quoted, 100.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, quoted, 146.
Hay, John, quoted, 250, 253.
HAYDON, BENJAMIN ROBERT, 113-117, 138.
Haydon, Benjamin Robert, quoted, 103, 104.
Hazlitt, William, quoted, 103.
Healey, G. P. A., quoted, 253.
HENRY IV., 213-218.
Howells, William D., quoted, 132.
Hunt, Leigh, quoted, 46, 49, 103, 109, 164, 241, 242.
Irving, Henry, quoted, 41.
Irving, Peter, quoted, 49.
Jefferson, Thomas, 237, 238.
Jerrold, Douglas, quoted, 91.
JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 110-113.
KEAN, EDMUND, 23-28.
Kearsley, George, quoted, 110, 113.
KEATS, JOHN, x., xv., 105-110.
Kemble, Fanny, quoted, 27.
Kinglake, Alexander W., quoted, 202.
Kirkup, Seymour, quoted, 5.
Lampadius, W. A., quoted, 71.
Lavater, Johann Kasper, quoted, xiv., 221.
LAWRENCE, SIR THOMAS, 138-142.
LEOPARDI, GIACOMO, x., 132.
Leslie, Charles Robert, quoted, 24.
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, 249-253.
Lockhart, John Gibson, quoted, 187.
Longfellow, Henry W., quoted, 149.
Lorne, Marquis of, quoted, 172.
LOUISE OF PRUSSIA, xi., 50-53.
Macaulay, Thomas B., quoted, 114, 117.
Madden, R. R., quoted, 141, 142, 202.
MALIBRAN, MARIA F., 53, 54.
Manso, Giovanni Battista, quoted, 10.
MARAT, JEAN PAUL, 71, 72, 75, 76.
Martin, Lady, quoted, 27, 28.
MCCULLOUGH, JOHN, 28, 33.
MENDELSSOHN, FELIX, 68-71.
Mill, John Stuart, quoted, 117.
Mills, Clark, quoted, 237-238.
MIRABEAU, G. R., 71, 72, 76.
MOORE, THOMAS, 164-168.
Motley, John Lothrop, quoted, 86, 91, 265.
NAPOLEON I., x., 4, 197-201.
NAPOLEON III., xv., 201-205.
NEWTON, SIR ISAAC, x., 76, 81-82.
Newton, Sir Isaac, quoted, 5-6.
Niebuhr, Berthold George, quoted, 132.
Noble, Mark, quoted, 213.
Opie, John, quoted, 141.
O’REILLY, JOHN BOYLE, 132, 137, 138.
Osgood, Samuel, D.D., quoted, 146.
PAINE, THOMAS, x., 241, 246.
Palleske, E., quoted, 58.
PALMERSTON, LORD, 172, 177.
Parton, James, quoted, 117.
Payne, John Howard, quoted, 49.
Percy, Thomas, D.D., quoted, 113.
Pettigrew, Thomas J., quoted, 3.
Phillips, John, quoted, 181, 182.
PIUS IX., x., 131.
Poore, Ben Perley, quoted, 237, 238.
Porter, Horace, quoted, 229, 230, 233.
POWERS, HIRAM, 138, 146.
Procter, B. W., quoted, 27.
Procter, Mrs. B. W., quoted, 109.
Purrington, William A., quoted, 222, 225, 226, 229.
Redding, Cyrus, quoted, 209, 210.
Reid, T. Wemyss, quoted, 181.
Rickman, Clio, quoted, 242.
ROBESPIERRE, MAXIMILIAN, 76, 81.
Robinson, Henry Crabb, quoted, 27, 132.
Roche, James Jeffrey, quoted, 137.
ROSSETTI, DANTE G., 122-125.
Rossetti, William M., quoted, 122.
Ruskin, John, quoted, 157, 158.
Russell, Lord John, quoted, 167, 168.
SCHILLER, FREDERICK, xi., 54, 57, 58.
Schliemann, Heinrich, quoted, 2.
SCOTT, SIR WALTER, 187-191.
Scott, Sir Walter, quoted, 182, 197, 198.
Seward, William H., quoted, 150.
SHAKSPERE, 10-19.
Sharp, William, quoted, 109, 110.
SHERIDAN, RICHARD BRINSLEY, xii., 158, 163, 164.
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, quoted, 19, 168.
SHERMAN, WILLIAM T., 4, 233.
Sherwood, Mrs. M. E. W., quoted, 42.
SIDDONS, SARAH, 42, 45-50.
Smith, Southwood, quoted, 118, 121.
Smith, Sydney, quoted, 261.
Speed, John Gilmer, quoted, 105.
Spencer, O. M., quoted, 125, 126.
Story, W. W., quoted, xiv., 234, 237.
SUMNER, CHARLES, 150.
SWIFT, JONATHAN, xiii., 182-186.
TASSO, TORQUATO, x., 9-10.
Taylor, Bayard, quoted, 68, 71.
Taylor, Sir Henry, quoted, 104.
THACKERAY, WILLIAM M., 86, 91, 92, 95.
Ticknor, George, quoted, 49.
TURNER, J. M. W., 142-145.
Volk, Leonard W., quoted, 237, 238.
Warville, Brissot de, quoted, 117.
WASHINGTON, xiv., 4, 233-237, 241, 249.
WEBSTER, DANIEL, 253, 254.
Weld, Charles Richard, quoted, 82, 85.
Whipple, E. P., quoted, 149.
Whittier, John G., quoted, 250.
Wikoff, Henry, quoted, 202, 205.
Wilde, Sir William, quoted, 182, 186.
Willis, Nathaniel P., quoted, 167, 177, 178, 181.
Winter, William, quoted, 34, 37, 38.
WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM, 100-105.
Young, Julian Charles, quoted, 95, 96.
THE END
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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