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CERTAIN lady often relates how she assisted at the beginning of a distinguished career, by holding in her arms a young goat which an eager little boy used as the model for his first essay in modelling from life. The clay and the model were tractable; perhaps the master's touch could be felt already in the small fingers; and the effort produced the first work in sculpture of Paul Bartlett.

This American boy, born in New Haven, Connecticut, was then living in the village of Marly, near Paris, and it was not long before his strong propensity for sculpture attracted the attention of the famous sculptor, Frèmiet, who saw him modelling in the garden at Marly, criticized his work from time to time, and also received him for instruction in his class in animal sculpture and drawing in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. At an age when most boys are absorbed in ball and skates he was zealously studying form and proportion, light and shade, the mechanics of the sculptor's art; and was observing animal life so watchfully that in after years he could

portray it with portray it with wonderful skill. Those hours among the strange and varied inhabitants of the Jardin, of intimate intercourse with bird and beast and reptile, were hours when the observant eye and willing fingers were preparing for a a later acknowledged mastery of animal sculpture. In a year, his heads of animals were marked by spirit and accuracy, and had the seal of public approbation by finding ready pur

chasers.

The results of this early drill may be seen in such works of boyhood as the lion of the Porte St. Denis, the Cerberus with the Orpheus in the Luxembourg; and, of maturer life, the Dying Lion, the sea-horses at the Pan-American Exposition, and the noble horses of his equestrian

statues.

The lessons had a definite aim; when fourteen years old, the boy attained the honor of exhibiting in the Salon a bust of his grandmother, his first public work; and in the same year, 1880, he entered L'Ecole des Beaux Arts. Years of diligent application to work followed and at twenty-two, in 1887, he exhibited

in the Salon his group, The Bohemian Bear-Tamer. This had been ready for the public a year before, but it did not satisfy the requirements of the ambitious young sculptor, and thus had been subjected to reformation for another twelvemonth. It received a recompense at the time of exhibition and it is unnecessary to say anything more about the merit of this youthful production than that the original cast is in the Chicago Institute of Art, while the bronze has one of the most distinguished places in the noble new Hall of Modern Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum. It is characteristic that this early work was not a reflection of a classic Hebe or Endymion, nor even a Fisherboy or Indian Maiden. but was an interpretation in bronze through life to-day of a thought that enters every meditative mind.

Here are two bear-cubs, "delightfully clumsy," as some one has said, gambolling with such grace as pertains to half-grown bruins, whether of Berne or of the Yellowstone Park, enjoying the moving of their newly-found muscles, too young to realize the full extent of their power, and yet with the possibility of revengeful harm in their brute strength. These cubs are cowed by the superior power of the man who looks down on them with the easy smile of conscious control. The reason for their latent fear, the hand of steel within the glove of velvet, is perceived in the folded whip held behind the tamer's back. Yet there is no rough force even suggested in act or attitude.

But the right hand is held up with a snap of the thumb and finger. He looks down and commands. They look up and obey. It is another version of man's dominion over Nature,

and very delicately is the version rendered. The technique is admirable; from every point of view the lines are good, the balance is satisfying, and the modelling clear. The tamer is not an Apollo, but his muscles are there, ready for action. when required, and you know that an instant of rebellion on the part of his pupils would bring the whip around with well-directed energy.

A little later, the Indian Ghost Dance was made, a strong work, full of technical ability "like a plaster cast from Nature put in a difficult pose," exhibited at the Columbian Exposition and now in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

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He did remarkable things in bronze casting. As the musician is trained so that hand and arm carry to the ear the finest shadings of the composer's thought, so Paul Bartlett became so intimate with the idiosyncrasies of sleepy owl or crusty crocodile, of things that creep and crawl and fly, of slippery fish, mettlesome horse and lordly lion, that he could play with a sure touch on any theme in the life of the brute creation. some deft magic, he gave to these varied shapes hues as varied, gemlike purples and greens, blues and golden browns, iridescent like the lining of shells or the metallic luster of ores and semi-precious stones. In this department of art he is quite unrivalled. The collection of these bronzes as exhibited in the Salon of 1895 was considered quite extraordinary, and won for him honors; while it was one of the unique exhibits in the Sculpture Hall of the World's Fair at St. Louis, so much. admired by the Japanese, worldmasters in the art of bronze-casting, that they asked to buy some of the

Law, Columbus and Michael Angelo. The colossal ones, ten and one half feet high and standing fifty eight feet from the floor, represent characteristic elements of civilized. life and thought-Religion, Commerce, History, Art, Philosophy, Poetry, Science, Law; and are the work of such men as Ward, St. Gaudens, French and Pratt.

Among these figures, Law takes her place with dignified mien; a scroll, the law worked out during man's experience on earth, in her hand; the stone table of the unchanging law from on high supporting her on the right, confidence

is inspired by the tranquillity of assured right; awe, by the deep shadow cast over her brow by a fold of the robe, which falls to her feet in grand lines.

To Mr. Bartlett was also entrusted the statue of Columbus on the gallery of the same rotunda. Columbus, the much-praised, illrequited Columbus, who unlocked the door of the western world for our prosperous nation, always will have a tinge of romance about him, no matter how sedulously we delve into archives. Here he stands, with the light of the seer, the adventurer, the hero, around him. His well

proportioned figure, full of life and vigor, his left foot advanced, is fit to stand before kings. He has dressed carefully for the important audience, in leather jerkin, short. puffed breeches and upper sleeves, tight leather lower sleeves, coming over the hand, long stockings, low shoes, and long fur-lined coat, widely turned back.

His face, of heroic mold, with broad forehead, deep-set eyes, and firm mouth, is enframed in thick. long locks. His right hand points to the untried route and the unknown lands which he sees in an ecstatic vision. In his left hand hangs the folded map which he has used in his argument. He has finished that, and having exhausted everything in the way of convincing proof by fact and theory he throws back his head and lets loose the flood of his eloquent persuasion. He seems to say, "Can you let slip so great an opportunity?" And we know that in this instant Isabella yields.

Again in this magnificent ambulatory, among the sixteen statues of the superlatively great ones of the earth, do we see Paul Bartlett's name on the Michael Angelo, of all his statues probably the most discussed. The average art-lover likes to think of Michael Angelo as at least a David if not a Prophet or an Apollo; but history and biography tell us of a spare figure worn by the incessant struggle with fate and Popes and the problems of his threefold art. The Michael Angelo who is portrayed is he who was inspired by his his own vast possibilities to achieve alone what seemed impossible, who conceived and wrought the Moses and the Sibyls, who was absorbed in the realization of his ideals. His workman's cap and apron are the royal crown and mantle of his kingdom. He who made the marble chips fly like "sparks from the anvil" is saying to the block. "Give me my thought that is imprisoned within you."

Those who cast a disappointed