Part 4

The allied families of Adams and Quincy are the only instances in this country, that present themselves to my mind, of hereditary ability manifesting itself and being recognized in the public service, for three and more generations. The Quincy family has done its work in local and more narrow spheres than the Adamses; yet Josiah Quincy, Jr., of Boston Port Bill fame, and his son, bearing the same name, who for so many years was at the head of Harvard University, have had a wide field for the spread of their influence. But the Adams family is the only one that has given father and son to the Presidential chair, and father, son and grandson to the English mission. The series of double coincidences in the Adams family connected with missions to England and treaties with that power, is most curious. John Adams, just

after having served as a commissioner to arrange the treaty of peace that concluded the Revolutionary War, was made minister to the court of St. James; his son John Quincy Adams, immediately after signing the treaty of Ghent, that concluded the war of 1812-15, was appointed minister to the same court; and his grandson, Charles Francis Adams, minister to England during the entire Civil War, took part in the treaty that disposed of the Alabama question.

John Adams was born in 1735 and died in 1826. The coincidences in his career, parallel with events in the career of Jefferson, are very remarkable. They were both on the committee of five to draft the Declaration of Independence; they both signed that American _Magna Charta_; they both represented this country in France; they both became successively Vice-President and then President of these United States, being the only signers of the Declaration of Independence thus elevated to the chair of state; and they both died, within a few hours of each other, on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Is it possible that more curious historical parallels can be found in the lives of any two men?

From Monticello, the home of Jefferson, Browere journeyed to Quincy, the home of Adams, in order to secure a mask of the face of the distinguished nonagenarian. But the Virginian story of the maltreatment of Jefferson had gotten there before him, and it was with difficulty that Browere could persuade Mr. Adams to submit. However, the old Spartan finally yielded, and submitted not only once but twice, as appears by his certificate:

QUINCY, MASS., Nov. 23, 1825.

This certifies that John H. I. Browere of the city of New York, has yesterday and to-day made two Portrait bust moulds on my person and made a cast of the first which has been approved of by friends.

JOHN ADAMS.

To this certificate, his son, Judge Thomas B. Adams, added a postscript:

“I am authorized by the ex-President to say that the moulds were made on his person without injury, pain or inconvenience.”

The bust from the mask of old John Adams is, next to that of Jefferson, the most interesting of Browere’s works. I do not mean for the subject, but for its truthful realism. There is an unhesitating feeling of real presence conveyed by Browere’s busts that is given by no other likeness. They present living qualities and characteristics wanting in the painted and sculptured portraits of the same persons. Such a comparison is easily made in the instance of John Adams, for the same

year as that in which Browere made his life masks, Gilbert Stuart painted his famous portrait of “John Adams at the age of ninety”; and Browere’s bust will bear comparison with Stuart’s portrait. I must tell a story connected with the painting of this portrait by Stuart, which, while a little out of place, especially as we have a chapter devoted to Gilbert Stuart, comes in better here than there. Stuart had painted a portrait of John Adams as a younger man. It is the familiar portrait of the great statesman by that artist. John Quincy Adams was desirous that Stuart should paint another of his father at the advanced age of ninety, and applied to the artist for the purpose. But Stuart was too old to go down to Quincy, and John Adams was too old to come up to Boston. Finally, Stuart agreed that he would go down to Quincy, for the purpose, if he were paid half of the price of the picture before he went. To this John Quincy Adams gladly assented, and Stuart went to Quincy and had the first sitting. Then John Quincy Adams could not get Stuart to go down for a second sitting, and, as his father was past ninety, he feared he might die before the picture was finished. He at last succeeded in getting Stuart to go down for a second sitting by paying him the balance of the price of the picture. Then the artist would not go down to finish it, and the only way John Quincy Adams got him to complete the portrait was by promising him, if he would make the journey and do the work, he would pay him the agreed price over again. This is only one of many illustrations of the character of the greatest portrait-painter this country has produced, and the peer of any portrait-painter who has ever lived.

Browere broke his journey from Virginia to Massachusetts by a rest at the country’s capital, and while there he took a mask of the ruling President, John Quincy Adams, and one of his young son, Charles Francis Adams. It was this young man who wrote to Browere as follows:

WASHINGTON CITY, October [28], 1825.

The president requests me to state to Mr. Browere that he will be able to give him two hours tomorrow morning at seven o’clock at his (Mr. Browere’s) rooms on Pennsylvania Avenue. He is so much engaged at present that this is the only time he can conveniently spare for the purpose of your executing his portrait bust from life.

C. F. ADAMS.

John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States, was born in Braintree, Massachusetts, July 11, 1767, and died in the Speaker’s room of the House of Representatives at Washington, February 28, 1848. He has been called the most cultivated occupant that the Presidential chair has ever had; but his administration was unimportant, and he

personally was the most unpopular man who has yet achieved the high office. He seems to have anticipated Whistler in the “gentle art of making enemies.”

Not the least interesting of Browere’s busts is the youthful head of Charles Francis Adams, made when Mr. Adams had just passed his eighteenth birthday, he having been born August 18, 1807, in Boston, where he died November 21, 1886. The services of Mr. Adams to his country, as minister to England from 1861 to 1868, covering the entire period of the war between the States, can never be forgotten or overestimated, and will remain among the foremost triumphs of American diplomacy.

It is certainly of curious interest to have busts of three generations, in one family, made by the same hand and within a few days of each other, as is the case with Browere’s casts of John, John Quincy, and Charles Francis Adams.

VII

_Mr. and Mrs. Madison_

“Jimmy” Madison and his wife “Dolly” were prominent characters in social as well as in public life. He early made a name for himself by his knowledge of constitutional law, and acquired fame by the practical use he made of his knowledge, in the creation of the Constitution of the United States, and in its interpretation in the celebrated letters of the “Federalist.” With the close of Washington’s administration Madison determined to retire to private life, but shortly before this he met the coy North Carolina Quakeress, Dorothea Payn. She was at the time the young widow of John Todd, to whom she had been married not quite a year, and Madison made her his wife.

James Madison was born in 1751 and Dorothea Payn in 1772, but the score and one years’ difference in their ages did

not prevent them from enjoying a married life of two score and two years of unclouded happiness. Madison died in 1836, and was survived by Mrs. Madison for thirteen years.

Madison’s temperament, like that of his young bride, was tuned to too high a pitch to be contented with quietness after the excitement incident to his earlier career. Therefore his retirement, like stage farewells, was only temporary, and he became afterward the fourth President of the United States. As we have seen, it was Madison who brought Browere to the notice of Jefferson, and Browere was commended to Madison in the following letter from General Jacob Brown, the land hero of the war of 1812, and later Commander-in-chief of the Army of the United States:

WASHINGTON CITY, Oct. 1st, 1825.

_My Dear Sir_:

Mr. Browere waits on you and Mrs. Madison with the expectation of being permitted to take your portrait busts from the life. As I have a sincere regard for him as a gentleman and a scholar, and great confidence in his skill as an artist (he having made two busts of myself), in the art which he is cultivating, I name him to you with much pleasure as being worthy of your encouragement and patronage. I am interested in having Mr. Browere take your likeness, for I have long been desirous to obtain a perfect one of you. From what I have seen and heard of Mr. Browere’s efforts to copy nature, I hope to receive from his hands that desideratum in a faithful facsimile of my esteemed friend ex-President Madison. Be pleased to present my most respectful regards to Mrs. Madison, and believe me always

Your most devoted friend,

JACOB BROWN.

From this introduction Browere seems to have gained the friendship of Mr. and Mrs. Madison, who took more than an ordinary interest in the artist and his family. They were on terms of familiar intercourse, and an infant, born to Mrs. Browere, July 3, 1826, was, by Mrs. Madison’s permission, named for her. Some years later this child accompanied her parents on an extended visit to Montpelier.

That Madison was satisfied with the result of Browere’s skill is shown by the following:

Per request of Mr. Browere, busts of myself and of my wife, regarded as exact likenesses, have been executed by him in plaister, being casts made from the moulds formed on our persons, of which this certificate is given under my hand at Montpelier, 19, October, 1825.

JAMES MADISON.

Mr. and Mrs. Madison each submitted to Browere’s process a second time, which is sufficient evidence that the ordeal was not severe and hazardous. The bust of Madison is very fine in character and expression, but that of Mrs. Madison is of particular interest, as being the only woman’s face handed down to us by Browere. Her great beauty has been heralded by more than one voice and one pen, but not one of the many portraits that we have of her, from that painted by Gilbert Stuart, aged about thirty, to the one drawn by Mr. Eastman Johnson, shortly before her death, sustains the verbal verdict of her admirers; and now the life mask by Browere would seem to settle the question of her beauty in the negative.

“Dolly” Madison was in her fifty and third year when Browere made his mask of her face, and she lived on for a quarter century. She has always been surrounded by an atmosphere of personal interest, not so much for what she was as for what she was supposed to be. She doubtless possessed a charm of manner that made her a most attractive hostess at the White House during her reign of eight years, in which particular she shares the laurels with the winsome wife of Mr. Cleveland.

VIII

_Charles Carroll of Carrollton_

The last of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, to be gathered to his fathers, was the distinguished Marylander, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who so signed his name to distinguish himself from a younger kinsman of the same name, his object being merely purposes of convenience, and not the patriotic purpose of identifying himself to the British, as is commonly stated. Charles Carroll was not a member of the Continental Congress when the Declaration of Independence was adopted, but took his seat a fortnight afterward, in time to sign the instrument with the rest of the sitting delegates, when it was placed before them on August 2, 1776.

Mr. Carroll died November 14, 1832, in his ninety-sixth

year, and his last public act was to lay the corner-stone of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad on July 4, 1828. From the description of his personal appearance at this time, as given by Hon. John H. B. Latrobe, it would seem as if it had been written of Browere’s bust, so true is Browere’s work to the life. Mr. Latrobe says: “In my mind’s eye I see Mr. Carroll now--a small, attenuated old man, with a prominent nose and receding chin, [and] small eyes that sparkled when he was interested in conversation. His head was small and his hair white, rather long and silky, while his face and forehead were seamed with wrinkles.”

At the present time, when foreign matrimonial alliances of high degree, with American women, are of almost daily occurrence, it is interesting to note that among the first American women to marry into the nobility of England were three granddaughters of the “signer,” Charles Carroll of Carrollton. They were the children of his daughter, Mrs. Caton, and became respectively the Marchioness of Wellesley, the Duchess of Leeds, and Lady Stafford.

Browere, when he presented himself to Mr. Carroll for the purpose of making his mask, was armed with the following letter from the eminent scientist, Doctor Samuel Latham Mitchill, which contains the super-added endorsements of Archibald Robertson, Richard Riker and M. M. Noah:

NEW YORK, July 8, 1825.

_My dear Sir_:

I approve your design of executing a likeness in statuary of the Honorable Charles Carroll of Carrollton. When you shall present yourself to him within a few days, I authorize you to employ my testimony in favor of your skill, having submitted more than once to your plastic operation. I know that you can perform it successfully without pain and within a reasonable time. The likenesses you have made are remarkably exact, so much so that they may be truly called facsimile imitations of the life. Your gallery contains so many specimens of correct casts that not only common observers, but even critical judges bear witness to your industry, genius and talents. I foresee that your collection of busts already well advanced and rapidly enlarging, will, if your labors continue, become a depositary of peculiar and intrinsic value. Without instituting any invidious comparison between sister arts, the professional branch under which you address Mr. Carroll, possesses, in my humble opinion, all the superiority that sculpture exercises over music and painting.

Yours, with kind feelings and fervent wishes for success,

SAMUEL L. MITCHILL.

IX

_The Nation’s Guest_

_La Fayette_

Gilbert Motier de La Fayette, who had fought side by side with Washington at Brandywine and at Yorktown, made his third and last visit to the United States in 1824. Landing at Castle Garden, in New York, on August 15th of that year, he set sail thirteen months later, on September 7th, 1825, to return to France, in the frigate _Brandywine_. He came as the invited guest of the nation, and during his sojourn here travelled over the whole country, visiting each one of the twenty-four States and receiving one continuous ovation.

At the request of the Common Council of the city of New York, La Fayette permitted Browere to make a cast of his head, neck and shoulders on July 11, 1825. For this purpose La Fayette visited Browere’s workshop, in the rear of No. 315 Broadway, New York, accompanied by Richard Riker, Elisha W. King and Henry I. Wyckoff, a committee of the Common Council. The composition had been applied and had set, and Browere was about taking it off, when the clock struck, and one of the committee remarked that the hour for the corporation dinner in honor of La Fayette, and which he was to attend, had arrived. “_Sacré bleu!_” said La Fayette, starting up, “Take it off! Take it off!” which caused a piece to fall out from under one of the eyes. This accident, which necessitated a second sitting, led to some interesting correspondence.

NEW YORK, Tuesday 12 o’clock, July 12, 1825.

_Dear General_:

We have just been to see your bust by Mr. Browere and have pleasure in saying it is vastly superior to any other likeness of General La Fayette, which as yet has fallen under our inspection. Indeed it is a faithful resemblance in every part of your features and form, from the head to the breast, with the exception of a slight defect about the left eye, caused by a loss of the material of which the mould was made. This defect or deficiency Mr. Browere assures us, and we have confidence in his assertion, that he can correct in a few minutes and without giving you any pain, provided you will again condescend to his operations, for a limited time. We should much regret that this slight blemish should not be corrected, which if not done will cause to us and to the Nation a continued source of chagrin and disappointment.

Most truly your Friends

RICHARD RIKER ELISHA W. KING HENRY I. WYCKOFF.

This letter was followed two days later by the following to Browere:

NEW YORK 14th July 1825.

_Dear Sir_:

Every exertion has been made to get General La Fayette to spend half an hour with you, so the eye of his portrait bust be completed, but in vain. He has not had more than four hours each night to sleep, but has consented that you may take his mask in Philadelphia. He left New York this morning at eight o’clock and will be in Philadelphia on Monday next, where he will remain three days. It you can be present there on Monday or Tuesday at furthest, you can complete the matter. He has pledged his word. This arrangement was all that could be effected by

Your friend

ELISHA W. KING.

P. S. Previous to going get a line from the Recorder or Committee.

Upon this letter Browere has endorsed:

NOTE.--The subscribing artist met the General on Monday, in the Hall of Independence, Philadelphia, and Tuesday morning [July 19, 1825] from seven to eight o’clock was busy in making another likeness from the face and head of the General. At 4 P.M. of that day he finished the bust under the eye of the General and his attendant, and had the satisfaction then of receiving from the General the assurance that it was the only good bust ever made of him.

JOHN H. I. BROWERE.

The result of the second trial was a likeness so admirable and of such remarkable fidelity, that General Jacob Morton, Rembrandt Peale, De Witt Clinton, S. F. B. Morse, John A. Graham, Thomas Addis Emmet and others, came forward and enthusiastically bore witness to its being “a perfect facsimile” of the distinguished Frenchman. The written commendations

of Peale and Morse are notably interesting as the views of two brother artists, each of whom had painted a portrait of La Fayette. Rembrandt Peale, widely known by his composite portrait of Washington, writes:

NEW YORK August 10th 1825.

The singular excellence shown by Mr. Browere in his new method of executing Portrait busts from the life deserves the applause and patronage of his countrymen. The bust of La Fayette, which he has just finished, is an admirable demonstration of his talent in this department of the Fine Arts. The accuracy with which he has moulded the entire head, neck and shoulders from the life and his skill in finishing, render this bust greatly superior to any we have seen. It is in truth a “faithful and a living likeness.” Of this I may judge having twice painted the General’s portrait from the life, once at Paris and recently at Washington.

REMBRANDT PEALE.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was, at the period of which we write, an artist of some reputation as a portrait-painter, and he was under commission, from the corporation of New York, to paint a whole-length portrait of La Fayette for the City Hall, where it now hangs. Its chief interest is as a study of costume; for if Browere’s bust is “a perfect facsimile” of La Fayette’s form and features, true to life, Morse’s portrait is a caricature. That Morse was destined to greater ends than painting mediocre portraits, was shown, a decade later, by his invention of the magnetic electric telegraph, a discovery of such importance that while millions of human beings know Morse the inventor, not a dozen perhaps ever heard of Morse the painter. He damns his own portrait of La Fayette by the following commendation of Browere’s bust:

NEW YORK August 15, 1825.

Being requested by Mr. Browere to give my opinion of his bust or cast from the person of General La Fayette, I feel no hesitation in saying it appears to me to be a perfect facsimile of the General’s face.

SAML. F. B. MORSE.

These are certainly strong words coming from a rival artist and a man of Mr. Morse’s character.

John A. Graham, who published a volume to prove that Horne Tooke was the author of the Letters of Junius, was one of the leading lawyers of New York. His closing words of eulogy upon the bust of La Fayette should have been, but unfortunately were not, prophetic. He wrote: “I have no doubt that the name of Browere, in virtue of this bust, will live as long as the memory of La Fayette shall be beloved and respected in America.” On the contrary, the name of Browere was wholly and entirely forgotten and unknown, until brought to light, and publicly proclaimed, by the present writer, in the fall of 1897. So much for the stability of man’s reputation!

X

_De Witt Clinton_

When Samuel Woodworth, the author of the well-known lines to the “Old Oaken Bucket,” who was a close friend of Browere, entered the artist’s workshop and caught a glimpse of the bust of De Witt Clinton, he made a gesture, as of restraint, and pronounced these impromptu lines:

“Stay! the bust that graces yonder shelf claims our regard. It is the front of Jove himself; The Majesty of Virtue and of Power, Before which guilt and meanness only cower. Who can behold that bust and not exclaim, Let everlasting honor claim our Clinton’s name!”

De Witt Clinton, who was born in 1769 and died in 1828, was the first recognized practical politician of this country. Apart from his immense service in pushing to completion the Erie canal, he was essentially a politician for what politics would yield. Consequently, he was always looked upon with distrust, and even his high private station was powerless to overcome this feeling. He posed as a connoisseur of the fine arts, was at one time President of the American Academy of Arts, and seems to have had a lofty appreciation of Browere’s work. He wrote: “I have seen and examined with attention several specimens of busts executed by Mr. Browere in plaster, and have no hesitation in saying that their accuracy is equally surprising and gratifying. I feel pleasure in recommending the fidelity of his likenesses, and the skill with which they are executed, particularly the portrait bust of General La Fayette.”

Of Clinton’s own bust the eminent Irish patriot and American advocate, Thomas Addis Emmet, wrote to Browere:

NEW YORK July 6th 1826.

_Sir_: