seemed to feel that the world had not done him justice, and I have long felt so myself. But, although I could hardly help weeping at the sight of the gray-haired painter, grown sad, and perhaps misanthropic by disappointment and neglect, yet it didn't discourage me much. I thought the world would treat other painters better, and I was determined to run my chance. Seeing me resolute he said he would trans porticoes, windows, mantles, reliefs, etc. He suggested many tasteful and valuable models for his father, which proved essentially useful. But this study soon lost what little charm it had for "the young man who was born to be a portrait painter." His "long thinkings about the future" ended in his asking his father's consent to come to New York "to learn to be a painter." This was at once granted, and the glad day of freedom came. He started, too, with as gen-gress the rules of the Academy, which admitted erous a provision as his wants required. Here the young painter made his way at once with a letter of introduction to Colonel Trumbull, who had his studio at the time in the old Acade:ny of Fine Arts, of which he was then President. The veteran painter examined all the candidate's drawings, and one or two of his essays in oil, and then "strongly advised him to give up all idea of becoming a painter, and to apply himself wholly to architecture." "I do this," said the Colonel, "for two reasons. You don't seem to possess so much genius for painting as for architecture; and you will make a better living in this country by the latter profession. America will yet be a great field for the architect, and you certainly indicate uncommon talents that way." Elliott respectfully replied that "he had gratified all his architectural propensities up in the country, and was fully determined, and had been ever since he was ten years old, to be a painter, and live or die by that business." It was very natural for Trumbull, on the evidence before him, to give that advice; for young Elliott had bestowed little care upon any thing but architectural drawing; and as these drawings seen by the great painter indicated extraordinary genius, he was fully justified in his opinion. "Let me dissuade you, my young friend," replied Trumbull, "from this resolution by the history of my own life. I have devoted many years to my art, and from my career you can judge all you may hope for, even if you should be very successful. I have, it is true, received some commissions from Congress for national pictures, but this was only a piece of good luck. Aside from this what shall I say? I have painted a great many pictures which have been praised by connoisseurs, and amateurs, and artists; and yet you see hanging around this room nearly all the works on which I expended the principal energies of my artistic life. ple come, and admire them, and go away; and yet here are nearly all the pictures of almost half a century of labor. I am now an old man, and time and disappointment have chilled my ambition. I have waked from the dream of life, and its reality, death, is looking steadily on me. My principal solicitude now is to make some good disposition of this gallery, which I think will yet have value even in the estimation of my own countrymen. I must take time to look about and see if I have friends enough in the world to give these pictures to." students only during the winter, and allow me to visit the Antique Gallery. He had a good deal of leisure time, and would give me instruction in drawing, and furnish me the necessary apparatus.' I began immediately, and I am happy to say that he more than redeemed his pledge. I owe much to the good old man, and I shall always be proud to own it." Elliott remained a considerable time with Trumbull, and applied himself with great industry and earnestness to correct drawing. His progress was evident enough. But still Trumbull, who, during the later years of his life, advised all young painters to turn cobblers, insisted upon Elliott's becoming an architect. "But," Elliott said, "do what I could for the old man, I could not agree with him." And he went to study with Quidor, a fellow-pupil with Inman under Jarvis. "While I was with Quidor," says Elliott, "I spent most of my time in copying prints in oil, which, for want of a better market, I sent to the auction; for, being determined to support myself, it had now become with me most decidedly a question of bread and butter." It was not long, however, before he began to paint portraits, at any price he could get; and although these early efforts could not of course indicate much knowledge of the practice or principles of art as taught in the schools, "yet" (as Inman once said to the writer) "there was in Elliott's portraits, from the beginning, an air of fidelity, earnestness, and truth; there was warm and genial expression, and a rich, glowing, generous coloring in his rude portraits which make them still charming to look at, even to those who are not familiar with his later masterly creations." He said "sometimes during this period how glad he would have been if he could have had the opportunity of painting some things besides Peo-portraits-especially if he could devote some years to a careful, elaborate, and persevering course of study in the principles and the practice of correct delineation." While in Quidor's studio with some four or five other young men who have since been heard from (among them Colonel T. B. Thorpe), Elliott went off on another "great picture"“The Battle of Christina,” drawn from “Knickerbocker's History of New York," in which Peter Stuyvesant and his wooden leg are very conspicuous characters. It is perhaps safe to say that even to this time that is the only great historical representation of that decisive battle, which terminated after ten hours of hard fighting without the loss of a man on either side! 66 It can hardly be known, while Elliott lives, how many portraits he painted during these ten After a year of hard work Elliott returned to years of country life; but (carefully and conpass a winter with his friends, painting, in the scientiously as he always painted) the number mean while, a great number of excellent por- must have been very great. We find, too, in traits. The following spring he resumed his comparing his pictures at the beginning and the labors in New York, and with considerable suc- end of these ten years, that he had made astoncess. In the intervals of his portrait painting ishing progress in his art. He was never stiff, he threw off two compositions of peculiar merit or clumsy, or cold; but gradually grace, and -"The Bold Dragoon," and a spirited illustra- ease, and warmth, and high feeling, stole into tion of Paulding's Dutchman's Fireside," the forms on his canvas, until he reached the which were exposed for sale in a shop-window. point-which every true painter and writer Trumbull, who had not met Elliott since he left reaches on his road to excellence - when all his studio, happened to see them while walk-things undertaken are ennobled, and forms of ing leisurely by "in the style of a gentleman of real beauty come forth clothed with celestial the old school." "Who painted these pic- light. tures?" he asked of the shop-keeper. "Elli- Nor were those ten years of exile from the ott, Colonel Trumbull." "Where is his room?" heated air of artificial life lost in any sense He hurried to the place, knocked, and en- whatever. Nature sometimes asserts her right tering uncovered with all the stateliness of the to nurse her great children on her own breast, last century, said to the young artist: "You and Providence comes to her aid. The schools can go on painting, Sir. You need not follow can not do much except for common men. Naarchitecture. I wish you good-day, Sir," and ture is the great teacher; from her the highest withdrew. Elliott never saw him again. and deepest lessons are learned. But Elliott had learned those lessons; he "had staid in the country long enough;" he "needed the electric influences of metropolitan life;" he "felt that he could now go to New York with real pleasure and brush up," "for I had begun to get lazy." Banishment from the inspiring scenes of nature to a man who loved her so well could not last long; and, "tired of the city and the city's ways, I determined," he said to a friend, "to go back into the country for a considerable period." And, fixed in this purpose, he returned to the region where his boyhood had been passed. There he lacked not employment; "and above all," said he, "I found more satisfaction in the honest way of doing things among old neighbors and friends than can be found in great towns, and I am satisfied I painted better pictures." The next ten years he passed chiefly in Central New York-ten of the brightest and best years of his life. Elliott's love of nature was deep as the earnest, true man ever feels for any thing, and tender, trusting, and filial as a child's. Nor did he cultivate this love of nature as a misanthropist, for his great heart was large enough for all that is true and generous. He once said: "There is something very great and inspiring in fine scenery; but what would it all amount to without the society of friends? After all, there is nothing in all nature like a fine human face. Portrait painting is a big thing when it is portrait painting." While painting the portraits of the Faculty of Hamilton College (Oneida County, New York) Elliott fell in with Huntington (now President of the National Academy of Art), a young student, whose portrait he painted with great care a picture which even now would not be thrown into the back-ground of any collection. The meeting of those two young men in that secluded place will hereafter furnish suggestive matter for the pen or pencil of some true artist, who, when the men now living have rested from their labors, will conjure up beautiful thoughts and glowing images to thrill the fancy and touch the heart of future times. ready the world loves both their names. 66 66 But once in the metropolis he "had to begin his career anew." His old circle had been broken up. Some of his patrons and friends had gone abroad, many gone West," and not a few were dead." But he got a studio, and went to work with a serious and fixed "purpose to do something worth while in art. He sent some of his best portraits (" for," said he, "by this time I had thrown aside every thing but portraits-I wasn't made for any thing else") to the Academy, and had the satisfaction of knowing that an unbiased judgment had set upon them the seal of judicious and enlightened approbation. He now went on painting with industry and conscientiousness any and all portraits that were offered. But there was nothing in the man or his pictures of the sensation style. In the very depths of his honest soul he "hated the whole thing; only let us have fair play." His reputation grew rather slow, but it was to be enduring. He met with no great "success" till 1845, when his picture of Colonel Ericsson excited universal admiration. The best judges unhesitatingly said it was the best American portrait since Stuart. This soon became the general feeling, and that feeling has been growing, until now (1850) Elliott stands unquestionably at the head of the portrait painters of his time. The following year (1846) a considerable number of his pictures were sent to the Academy-among others those of Horatio Stone (the sculptor, now in Rome), T. B. Thorpe, Clarke (of the Knickerbocker), and Thayer, which seemAl-ed to be regarded, especially by the best judges, as the finest work Elliott had yet done. The latter was one of the finest subjects the painter space, even if we could, to make out the list of all Elliott's portraits executed up till the present time which will be considered well worthy of preserving. As this sketch is but the merest outline of Elliott's artistic life thus far, we shall close it by a word or two concerning the chief characteristics of his portraits, and inquire in what the power and charm of his genius for is ever favored with. In transparent honesty In recalling that year (1846) we can never forget how sad the world of art was made by the too-early death of Henry Inman. He had just returned from Great Britain with his executed commissions of the portraits of Wordsworth, Chalmers, etc. His works had commanded universal admiration, as the man had inspired the deepest love. He had none of the jealousies which so often mar the magnanimity of contemporary artists, and although the world was ringing with Elliott's praises, and he had not met him for many years, yet he said, "I must choose the first fine day to go to Elliott's studio-he is painting so superbly, and he is so fine a fellow." Inman's friends saw that his life was drawing to a close, although he did not seem to notice the shadow that was moving over his path. We all felt that it would have been cruel to pluck from his "hope-illumined brow" those last golden beams which the genial sun was casting as he went to his setting. 1. Extreme fidelity of likeness-this is the starting-point; without it there can be no complete portrait painting. When we look on one of Elliott's portraits we feel that he must have known not only the peculiarities of the person's face and form, but that he must have read intimately and genially the spirit of the character. In all his pictures we can trace the decisive points of the individuality-the prevailing expression. 2. But having observed that all Elliott's people, like Vandyck's, look well, we naturally ask, "How is this? all people are not good-looking." True, but it so happens that artists of reputation either choose good subjects, or, as Elliott once said, "People who want good portraits are generally apt to be good-looking themselves.' Art, however, claims the right of portraying the best expression. It is the attribute of the pencil, as it is of love, to usurp those golden moments of enchantment, when every look is wreathed with fascination, when every smile breathes voluptuousness, when every glance flashes with a higher passion than the common observer sees. There should be-and is there not?-some holy spot left in the heart of every man and woman from which something joyous, touching, loving, humane at least, and perhaps divine, will now and then come forth with a flash which, when genius holds the pencil, sets the Inman entered Elliott's studio, and gave him the thin white hand and loving look of the great-hearted artist, and sat down. Still looking at him with a tenderness all his own, he finally said, after much friendly and sunny talk: "My dear Elliott, when I shall have somewhat recovered my health and spirits we must exchange portraits. I have never been quite so well paint-canvas all aglow. Elliott used to say, "Every ed as I desire. Nothing will give me more pleasure than to paint yours, except to have you paint mine." They pledged each other that the first work they were to do after Inman got ready should be this courteous exchange of the fruits of their gifted pencils. It must have been a touching scene to them; for it is impossible for those two men not to have known that in that studio were then standing the first two portrait painters in America. Poor Inman pressed Elliott's hand kindly, and gave him his characteristic "Good-by," just as we do so carelessly when we expect to meet again in a day or two. Inman returned to his home, never to leave it again till we bore him in that wild winter day to his home at Greenwood. The friends of art will never cease to regret that those portraits were never exchanged. "Elliott is now painting great pictures all the time." These words were uttered a few days ago by one of the dearest and best names in this country, for which, in another department of the highest culture, he has done more perhaps than any other man. We have not the face almost ought to make a good picture." We take it for granted that when Elliott paints a portrait he can not miss a likenessnor a good picture. The first point is gained by accurate delineation-the rest follows by a skillful arrangement of position, light, shadow, and the artistic blending of all the accessories, and the infusion of the sentiment of the subject into the whole work. This brings the picture out on the sunny side of each sitter's better life. This charm belonged to Elliott, and his magnetic genius infused it into all he painted. When the man Elliott has painted looks on his own picture he becomes, in spite of himself, a better man. He is inspired with purer imaginations, tenderer sentiments, and loftier purposes. He goes away from the portrait more generous in impulse, purer in fancy, and more courteous in manner. In a word, there is something in Elliott's painting not unlike that spirituelle aura that pervades the writings and breathed from the form and manner of William Ellery Channing, who sanctified the atmosphere around him by the perfect human sympathy he every where inspired. We feel while we read the writings of the one as we do when we look | looking into my face with one of those rosy exon the portraits of the other. We go away, and as our better nature speaks to us from the inspiration given, we feel that the world is better, and life worth more than it was before. II-LATER ARTISTIC LIFE. The foregoing sketch left Elliott on the threshold of his fame. Long years of patient toil were to fix the verdict of history. He had reached the point on which the eye of every true artist rests from the beginning of his career. Subjects came to him without seeking, and he could now enforce upon the tyrant of circumstances the despotism once imposed on himself. He could paint when and whom he pleased. "This was a great comfort to me," he once said, " for I never liked even the thought of slighting any picture, and I was glad to be placed beyond the temptation." We need not enumerate even the best of Elliott's pictures; the world knows them by heart, as it does the names of Irving's and Cooper's books-a word tells the whole story. Elliott was throughout life a great, unspoiled child of Nature. He loved her in the depths of his soul. He communed with her there there he heard her own language, and in his pictures he gave her utterances to the world. He loved all her works, but man the most, for he was her last and greatest. And of this human form, the noblest part of it, the human face, was the study and the worship of his life. For twenty years now he lived a serene, cheerful, beautiful life. He painted many of the first, the fairest, and the best forms of the nation. Happy are the possessors of his works. Of him it may be said with truth, each of his portraits is an historical picture. pressions which sometimes made his always handsome face look divine, said: "There! that fellow has gone; let's get on the sunny side of the hedge now. Elliott was supremely happy in his home, with a wife who was his angel of love and tenderness till the last hour. And he provided generously for that home, and with rare foresight and judgment put a solid thatch over the dwelling where those he loved can rest securely. Of most men we are apt to speak of (in certain moods) "their better nature.' Nobody ever made such a distinction in talking of Elliott. He had no bad nature. Like the finest fruit ripening in the Italian sun, one can hardly say which is the sunny side-so luscious is it all the way through. Its first petal opens on joyous air; its whole life is a blissful bath of sunshine. You have seen the large mezzo-giorno nectarine thus growing on the purple shore of Sorrento. And yet a stray leaf-albeit a sheltering one-had lapped over and rested on the fairest nectarine there, till some insect (the warm air swarming with them-all little ones) had stopped and staid there. It did not eat in far, only it did not go away, and it cast a shade over quite a space, and it made a spot there. But at last, just before the ingathering gardener came round, a breeze, stronger than usual, but kinder it may be too, detached that leaf, and sent it and the dead worm whirling off, and so the spot went away, only the scar remained. But who thought of that? In all the grove there had been but one such nectarine. A triple curse on rum-so often the baneful inheritance of genius, whose path through the Gardens of Armida seems to be haunted by the infernal enchantress forever and forever! But see how superbly this orb moved out from the clouds as he went to his setting. Elliott and I had both trod the enchanted ground If the suggestion of his life-long friend Thorpe be carried out (and the world will demand it), that some of his pictures should be brought together in an Elliott Gallery for a while, the col--we had wandered in these upas gardens tolection will be his apotheosis in the Temple of Art forever, while the fund thus raised will build him a tomb where sculpture may write his epic in stone. IIL-SOCIAL LIFE. It was full of the light of love from dawn till sunset. His friends were all who knew him; his enemies! he had none. The loving and reverent old painters always traced the halo around "Mary's" head. The Rosicrucians held that each good person is surrounded by an aura which has something celestial in it. Where Elliott went, this aura seemed to go. It always came with him. Something of it seemed to linger when he went away. It was the magnetism of a fine soul, blended with the starry twinkle of white intellectual light-not of wit, which was too cold and ungenial for him. Once when a 66 man of genius" left the room after " scintillating away" for an hour, saying sharp things at the expense of most of his acquaintance, Elliott took my arm, and VOL. XXXVIII.-No. 223.-4 gether. Years before, after I had seen half the friends of my youth go down, and my own feet were pressing the same verge, I had waked from the spell and thrown down the wine-cup. My example had saved some; my love others. But the one of all others in the wide world my soul longed for I could not win. And yet the white-robed angel of redemption was winging his blessed flight that way. I find this record in my "Life Sketch-Book:" April 17, '68.-Called to see Elliott by appointment, to talk about the new art of coloring marbles through the entire mass, and if it were a lost art. Found him usual. But his head was clear, and his heart overdown in the saloon. He had been drinking more than flowing with the richest and most generous humanity. He was alone. He listened for a few moments, and then putting his hand on my shoulder said, with a deep and tender voice, "My dear L, I don't want to talk art to-day-I want to speak of something a great deal bigger than that! I must stop drinking. I have thought it all over. You know all about this it to me as a friend? It will be better so." business. I want to take the pledge. Can't you give "I can, my dear fellow." 'Well, then, come up to the bar, and write it out beautiful colors. His last effort was to carry his pencil to his lips, as if to wet it, and then made the familiar motion with it in his fingers, as if he were painting, and then fell into a stupor from which he never recovered. For several days he lay totally without pain, and breathed his last as quietly as if an infant had fallen asleep." "My God, Charley, you must not die now!" This was the single loud plaint of unsubmissive sorrow that went up from a thousand of the best hearts in America. But his earthly task was done. "Home he'd gone and ta'en his wages." Apelles and Raphael, young Vandyck and old Titian, were waiting for their younger brother -the all-excelling Portrait Painter of the New World. His brother artists bore that casket from the National Academy of Art (his proper receiving tomb) to Greenwood-a fitting train of pallbearers. But our fancy saw another and fonder procession in that evening's twilight flitting through the sacred groves of that peerless City of the Dead: Through the long shadows of the wood-land dim, While mourning nymphs, their golden tresses tearing, "All the houses he occupied were models of cheer- Weep o'er the urn and wail the funeral hymn. M THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM: A LOVE STORY. BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN." CHAPTER XXIX. RS. STEDMAN was sitting with all her children round her, trying to make the evening pass as usual, in reading, lesson-learning, drawing; broken by fits of play and merry chat. None of the boys, except the eldest, knew of what had occurred, or saw any thing remarkable in their father's absence-and she had charged Julius to be silent for the present. He, wise and grave beyond his years, and his parents' confidant in many things, was the only one who had been told more about Uncle Julius than that his father had had such a brother, who died abroad. And even he knew comparatively little; but it was enough greatly to interest and excite him. Besides, his motherthe one grand idol of his life, whom he worshiped with that adoring filial tenderness which is Heaven's best instrument for making noble men-his mother had been put into his charge, and he watched her with especial care-distracted the attention of the rest from her-and hovered about her with endless little caresses, listening all the while to every sound of the hallbell, which made her start whenever it rang. For Edna, more imaginative and quicker than her husband to put things together, could not get out of her mind a strange impression, which came very near the truth. And when her son brought her the letter, having first carefully allured her away from the rest, that she might read it unobserved, her hands shook so that she could scarcely break the seal. The next minute she had burst out with a great cry of "Julius!" Her boy ran to her alarmed, and took her in his arms-his dear little mother. "Not you, my son. I did not mean you, but your Uncle Julius. Papa has found Uncle Julius." There is a belief-a feeling-Julius had had it strongly not so many weeks before, when he stood in the dark outside his brother's shut door-that if the dead were to come back to us again, they would find their place filled up, their loss mourned no longer, and the smooth surface of daily life grown greenly over them, like the grass over their graves. degree, and Infinite Mercy makes it so; else human nature could not possibly endure its anguish to the end. But there are exceptions, This is true, in |