The Scot in America

PAINTINGS from Scotland by Scottish artists do not seem nowadays to find much acceptance in America. They are rarely found in the catalogues of the many art sales in New York or Boston or the other large cities, and in the art dealers' establishments the best-known painters of Scotland are unknown either by name or by example. In art circles, in periodicals devoted to art, and in the columns of newspapers which make a feature of artistic matters, hardly any attention is paid to collecting and presenting news from the Scottish studios, and even the gossip of American professional critics seldom troubles itself concerning what may be passing in Scotland, where so many recognized masters have gained their reputation and established a national claim to artistic recognition. The amateur lovers and professional creators of art in America talk glibly of Chalon, of Palmaroli, of Gamier, of Gerome, but of Thomson, Phillip, Macnee, MacCullough, Allan, Faed, or any of the recognized Scottish masters they seem to know nothing.

This is singular when we consider that so many other professional, as well as business and working, men from Scotland, and Scottish products generally, find such a kindly reception in America. The Scottish artisan is always welcomed in every section of the United States as a superior, thorough, and industrious workman, one with a degree of intelligence above his fellows; the Scottish farmer is hailed as an accession in each agricultural community, and it is safe to say that there is not an American steamer afloat on which the services of Scotch engineers are not in use or in demand. In the higher walks of life the influence of Scotland is everywhere seen. Scottish architecture has been closely studied, and the old Baronial style has been copied, adapted, or "applied" to the majority of American modern villas, and, in fact, along with the so-called Colonial style, was the main foundation for the exteriors of such places until recently supplanted by the nondescript "Queen Anne" and pseudo-Elizabethan styles. Even in many public buildings, although a sort of mongrel renaissance is the prevailing fad, the towers and peaks and gables of the Scottish school take the place of the "Grecian" front elevations, with their wooden pillars and impossible pediments. Scotch financiers stand above the tumults, the reactions, the bull-and-bear movements of the stock exchanges, veritable pillars of strength in a seething, sonic-times repulsive, sea of dishonesty and dishonor. Scottish theology has been gratefully accepted by Americans, and not even in Scotland have the writings of such men as Prof. A. B. Bruce, Dr. Calderwood, the late Dr. John Ker, Dr. Oswald Dykes, and Dr. Buchanan more appreciative readers. Scottish poetry, too, is also in great vogue; Robert Buchanan, for instance, used to be a favorite; several editions of "Olrig Grange" were readily disposed of when that poem first appeared; Shairp's verses also found a ready sale, and even Pollok's "Course of Time" has been printed in a dozen different forms. There are a half a dozen editions of Aytoun's "Lays," and there are numerous editions of Motherwell, Montgomery, Campbell, and most of our poets, printed and sold in this country. Scots songs are sung on every concert platform, and students of Burns are as numerous as in Scotland. Indeed, probably the most ambitious edition of the works of the Ayrshire bard—six large volumes with notes, steel engravings, and all sorts of editorial paraphernalia—was published in Philadelphia only a few years ago. Of the Waverley Novels there are over twenty-five distinct editions in the market, and editions of Scott's poetry seem to grace, either completely or singly, every publisher's catalogue. One firm has printed over 300,000 copies of Barrie's works, and there is a choice of various editions of any of the writings of Stevenson or Black. Excepting art, everything Scotch, from curling to philosophy, seems to find congenial soil in America.

This lack of appreciation of Scottish art applies as much to loan exhibitions and museums and public galleries, of which better things might be expected, as to private collections and the dealers offerings or stock in trade. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, at New York, the greatest institution of its kind in America, not a single work painted in Scotland by a Scottish artist is to be found. Even in the large and costly collection of Miss Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, which by terms of its bequest to the museum is kept distinct from the other pictures, and which is undoubtedly the crowning artistic feature of the institution, the absence of Scottish art is equally apparent.

In the Lenox Library of New York, founded by a Scotsman and still mainly directed by a Scotsman, we find a somewhat similar condition of affairs. True, the collection there is not large, but every picture on view is supposed to be a representative one, and ought to be, if placed on exhibition in accordance with the ideas on which the library was founded. In such a collection we would naturally expect to find some Scotch examples, yet, instead, we have some rather paltry sketches by Sir David Wilkie, of no interest to the public and of little value even to art students, certainly not representative of the man; a Painting of the Scottish regalia which is attributed to Wilkie, but with which he had no more to do than the man in the moon, and a couple of specimens (one of them doubtful) of Sir Henry Raeburn. These things, with a very commonplace bust of Scott from Steell's studio, but not his handiwork, and a really good bust of Dr. Chalmers, evidently modeled by Steell himself, are all that represent Scottish art in what might be or ought to he the great repository of that art in America. What has been said of these institutions may be held to apply to all the other art centres in the country. Even at the Chicago World's Fair Scottish artists were poorly represented. There were several Scotch canvases in the British section, but not one that really commanded attention. So far as art was concerned, Poland far outstripped Scotland in excellence, variety, and in the evident genius of the artists.

Scottish sculpture is no more highly regarded than the sister art of painting. Not long ago a replica of Stevenson's fine statue of Sir William Wallace, which is on the corbel over the entrance to the hero's monument on Abbey Craig, near Stirling, was unveiled in Baltimore, and the pose of the figure is laughed at in every circle that makes any pretention to art culture. The pose, they say, is theatrical, the drawn sword is too prominent a feature, the figure itself is stiff, there is nothing below the armor, and so on. Of course people who know why the figure and sword were posed as they are and the latter made so prominent will admit that the artist made the most of his original opportunity for a particular effect. But Americans do not know this, and so they criticise the figure as they find it—standing on an ordinary pedestal in the midst of a park landscape—and find much to sneer at and condemn. If they had said the pose was simply unsuited to the location in which the replica is placed, every one would have agreed with them, and an additional argument against the use of replicas would have been added to the stock on hand. But when they fail to take the change of position into account and simply condemn on general principles their criticism is not worth considering from an artistic standpoint, although, commercially, it is to be regretted. Sir John Steell is represented in America by two statues in Central Park, New York, one a replica in bronze of the figure of Scott, which, in marble, sits under the arch of the monument at Edinburgh, and the other his figure of Burns, of which there are replicas in Dundee and London. Those who know anything of the inside workings of Steell's studio while the Burns statue was in process of development will not be anxious, however patriotic they may be, to claim that statue as one of even his second-rate works, for it must be confessed that, while in parts it shows the genius of the sculptor, it certainly is, as a whole, disappointing. His statue of Scott, however, has long since passed the gauntlet of criticism, and been accepted as a masterpiece, in spite of the clumsiness of the plaid and the stiff massiveness of the whole figure. Yet in New York there is a sort of trades union society of local sculptors, which openly advocates the removal of both these figures to a less prominent place, and would not mourn were they stolen from their pedestals some night and broken up beyond hope of repair. One guide book, describing these statues says:

"They are coarsely modeled by a man with a local fame in Scotland, but no artist." This criticism, it must be remembered, was written in a city which contains more atrocious examples of the sculptor's art than any other in the world, such caricatures as the bronze figures of S. S. Cox, Roscoe Conkling, Horace Greeley, W. E. Dodge, and Secretary Seward, which seek honor and recognition in the most prominent thoroughfares. Beside any of them Steell's work, even his poorest, rises as the modeling of a master.

The trouble, however, does not lie now, nor has it ever lain, with any prejudice on the part of the people against either Scottish art or artists as such. It is rather the result of a fashionable current directing the public taste toward Continental schools and a lack of enterprise on the part of the artists in Scotland themselves in not catering to the wants and whines or tastes of the people. Scottish artists residing in America have, from the very beginning of its history, really attained as much honor and success as their countrymen have won in other walks of life. The names which follow will abundantly demonstrate the truth of this assertion.

So far as we have been able to discover, the first Scotch painter to make his home in America was John Smibert, who was born in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh in 1684. He served an apprenticeship as a house painter, but his artistic ambition led him to aspire higher, and he went to London, where, after a time, he made a comfortable living by copying paintings for dealers. Then, after he had saved a little money, he went to Italy, where he studied hard, copied many of the most famous works of the old masters, and made many friends, among them Dr. Berkeley, afterward Bishop of Cloyne. In 1728 he crossed to America in the company of that divine, with the idea of becoming professor of drawing, &c., in a university which it was proposal to found at Bermuda. While the negotiations regarding that seat of learning were in progress, Smibert took up his residence at Newport. When the university scheme was abandoned the artist settled in Boston, where he acquired not only reputation, but a comfortable fortune by his art. Horace Walpole, in his "Anecdotes of Painting," describes him as "a silent and modest man, who abhorred the finesse of some of his profession." A number of his paintings are still to be seen in Vale University, in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and in the houses of many old New England families. He married a lady belonging to a well-known Boston family, and had two children. One of them, Nathaniel, gave promise of attaining celebrity as an artist, but he died at an early age. Smibert died in 1751.

Smibert excelled as a portrait painter. America had not in his time got as far advanced in a love of art to affect to admire efforts that were not to a certain degree utilitarian, useful, and productive of dignity, as well as being ornamental. The most famous; perhaps, of American portrait painters was Gilbert Charles Stuart, who was descended from a Scotch family and was born in Rhode Island in 1756. He went to Scotland when a lad and studied painting there, but when his teacher died he returned to America and made his living by painting portraits at Newport. In 1778 he crossed over to London and attracted the attention of Benjamin West, the greatest of all American artists, and from that time he was able to date his success in life. His own studio in London, which he opened in 1781, was a fashionable resort, and he painted portraits of King George III., the Prince of Wales, (George IV.,) and many of the most celebrated characters of the time, He also painted, in Paris, a portrait of Louis XVI., the unfortunate sovereign on whom the wrongs and misgovernment of a race of Kings were avenged at the French Revolution. Stuart settled down in his native country in 1793 and painted many of its most distinguished sons. His portraits of Washington are generally accepted as the best which have been made of that great and good man, and by them Stuart's name has been kept prominently before the people of the United States. He died at Boston in 1828.

James Smillie, who may be regarded as the American founder of an artistic family, landed at Quebec in 1821. His father and elder brother, who were with him, were jewelers, and they at once went into business in that quaint, historic town. James did the engraving and chasing for the establishment. His abilities won the notice of Lord Dalhousie, then Governor General of Canada, and that nobleman sent him to London to study. Smillie failed to get the sort of instructor he wanted, and he returned to his native city of Edinburgh, worked there for five months, and then rejoined his relatives in Quebec. In 1829 he settled in New York and established himself as a line engraver. An engraving after Weir's picture of "The Convent Gate" brought him into favorable notice, and he soon had all the work on hand he could accomplish. In 1830 he became an associate of the National Academy, and an Academician in 1851. Among his most successful engravings are "Mount Washington," after Kennett; "Dover Plains," after Durand, and "The Rocky Mountains," after Hierstadt. Mr. Smillie in his latter years lived in retirement at Poughkeepsie, where he died in 1884. There is no doubt he was the most successful line engraver of his time in America, and one of his brothers, William Cumming Smillie, was long equally recognized as a leader among the bank-note engravers of this country and Canada.

Of Mr. Smillie's sons, two have carried on to the present day the reputation he so deservedly won for the family name. James D. Smillie, who was born in New York in 1835, made his mark by his engravings of Darley's illustrations to Cooper's novels. He became a National Academician in 1876. Besides being noted as an engraver, J. D. Smillie has won much success as a painter in oil and water colors, and such works as "The Cliffs of Normandy," in oil, and "The Passing Herd," in water color, have given him a place among the most praiseworthy artists of the country. He was President of the Water Color Society in 1873 and 1878. Mr. Smillie has also shown exquisite skill as an etcher, and the best-known specimen of his work in that method is the etching of the magnificent statue of Robert Burns at Albany, the work of his friend, Charles Calverley. His brother William M. was eminent as a letter engraver, and was General Manager of the American Bank Note Company when he died, in 1884. The third son of James Smillie, George Henry Smillie, is a National Academician and a master of oil and water color, and such works as "A Florida Lagoon," "A Lake in the Woods," and "Under the Pines of the Yosemite " show that he has inherited a full share of the wonderful talent of the family.

Among landscape artists in America none have been accorded a higher position by critics and the public alike than William Hart, who died at Mount Vernon June 17, 1894, in his seventy-second year. When a boy his parents removed from Kilmarnock, and, crossing the Atlantic, settled at Albany, where William, after a brief schooling, was apprenticed to a coachbuilder. He was then instructed in the art of decorating carriage panels, and that employment awakened his artistic tastes. A severe illness made him leave the coachmaker's employment when seventeen years of age, and on recovering he opened a studio at Trov, where he did both portrait and landscape work, and by dint of patient devotion to his subjects not only earned a livelihood, but steadily added to his knowledge of his art. A visit to Scotland completed his artistic education and training, and after three years' sketching there he returned, in 1853, to America with several portfolios filled with drawings and "bits," and suggestions for future works, He opened a studio in New York, and in 1855 was elected an Associate of the National Academy. Three years later lie was chosen an Academician. His works betokened careful, thoughtful, and conscientious work, and in country scenes introducing animal life lie particularly excelled. There was nothing outre in his methods; no straining after mere color effects, no desire to startle by following the dictates of some of the new schools, which, now and again, in his time, as to the present day, strive to capture public attention by sonic royal road to excellence, which ends in bathos—the Pre-Raphaelite, for instance. Hart's excellence was the result of a careful desire to reproduce nature and show on his canvases every little detail, which, taken together, make up completeness. Among his most noted works, all of which exemplify his technique, his devotion to the highest principles of art and his mastery of that art, are: "Coming From the Mill," "The September Snow," "Autumn in the Woods of Maine," "Scene on the Peabody River," "Twilight on the Brook," "Goshen, N. B."; "Twilight," "A Brook Study," "Easter Sky at Sunset," water color; "The Golden Hour," "'Morning in the Clouds," "Keene Valley," "Cattle Scenes," "Landscape with Jersey Cattle," "The Ford," "Scene on Napanock Creek," "A Modern Cinderella," and "After a Shower."

Mr. Hart was equally great in the use of water color as of oil. Indeed, the former, perhaps, was his favorite mode of artistic expression, and his love for it led him to take an active part in the formation of the American Society of Water Colorists, of which lie was President for three terms, 1870-73. For many years also lie was President of the Brooklyn Academy of Design.

A brother of this noted Painter, James McDougall Hart, has gained equal fame in the annals of American art. Born at Kilmarnock in 1828, be, like his brother, crossed the Atlantic in boyhood and began life in the service, of a coac1'bi'ilcier at Albany. In 1851 he went to Dusseldorf and studied art, and on his return settled in Albany, where lie opened a studio. After about four years' struggle in that good old phlegmatic Dutch town, he thought his opportunity for the future lay in New York, and there he removed, and soon won a prominent place among local artists. His pastoral scenes, especially, won him popularity, and as a landscape painter none of his contemporaries excelled him for his faithfulness to nature and the poetic glamour he threw into most of his work. Like his brother, he never tried any of the tricks which so many artists attempt to win attention, and it is noted that one can study any of the productions of this painter's easel and find the attractiveness of the subject growing as a result of that study. Such is notably the case with his "Summer Memory of Berkshire" and his "Indian Summer," both of which won deserved applause when exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1878. They are poems as well as pictures, and arouse many pleasing thoughts in the mind of the spectator who has any power of thought at all. So, too, with the masterpiece which he exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876— "A Misty Morning"—a work which stood out in bold relief among the contributions of American artists to the collection there displayed for its wonderful interpretation of one of nature's moods. Some affect to find little to praise or enlarge upon in such works as that of Mr. Hart, because they are so true to nature that they awaken nothing discordant in the mind or present anything particularly odd to attract the eye. Their very fidelity is apt to make them be overlooked in an exhibition, while a flaring canvas, with an unearthly green foreground, a wooden-like Figure in a glaring yellow gown, and a sky with a series of streaks of all the colors on the palette, would attract a gaping crowd and charm the dilettantes and the newspaper art critics, the latter mainly because it would give them a chance to display their stock of artistic slang. Such paintings as that of "Cattle Going home" are not enthusiastically praised for the same reason that the Scotch sewing woman saw nothing to admire in Burns's poem, "The Cotter's Saturday Night," because it told just what she saw done every night in her own father's house since ever she could remember. So long as Scottish art in America is represented by the examples we have named, and by such paintings as "Moonrise in the Adirondacks," "A Breezy Day on the Road," " On the North Shore," and a dozen others from the same studio, her lovers will have no occasion to " hints their heids."

Another landscape painter of note was James Hope, who was born not far from Abbotsford in i8iS, and settled on a farm in Canada, along with his parents, when a boy. lie was for a time a teacher in a seminary at Castleton, Vt., and it was not until 1848 that lie found it possible to put into practice an ambition which had long possessed him and devote his time entirely to art. After considerable struggles to gain a footing, he took up his abode in New York in 1853, and soon found a market for his canvases. In 1865 he was chosen an Associate of the National Academy, and such works as "Rainbow Falls," "The Forest Glen," or "The Gem of the Forest," amply proved his genius for landscape painting. From 1872 till his death Mr. Hope spent his time in quiet retirement at Watkins Glen, New York.

In a purely popular sense no Scottish-American artist ever commanded so wide attention as Alexander Hay Ritchie, who died at New Haven, Conn., Sept. 19, 1895. He was born at Glasgow in 1822, and in early life removed to Edinburgh and was educated in Heriot's Hospital. He was apprenticed to a firm of machinists, but developed a taste for art, and studied under Sir William Allan, one of the most famous of the historical painters of Scotland. In 1843 he settled in the United States, after a Short stay in Canada, and soon afterward took up his residence in Brooklyn, where he resided until just before his death. He quickly acquired high rank as an engraver in stipple and mezzotint, and gradually won a reputation as an original painter in oils, particularly of portraits and historic scenes in which figures predominated. His popularity reached its height by his painting of the "Death of Lincoln," and such works as "Mercy Knocking at the Gate," "Fitting Out Moses for the Fair," showed that he possessed the charms of fancy as well as the graces of art. His painting of "Washington and His Generals" proved equally popular, and by means of his own engraving of it, that patriotic group now decorates thousands of homes throughout the American continent. As a portrait painter, In which work his "Dr. Mc-Cosh," "Henry Clay," and "Professor Charles Hodge of Princeton" are notable examples, Mr. Ritchie left some particularly creditable examples of his skill, while as a book illustrator his graver was constantly employed for many years prior to his death.

Pleasing memories are recalled by such examples of pure art as "The Palisades," "Sugar Loaf Mountain," "Autumn in the Adirondacks," and other pictures of John Williamson, an artist who found in and around the magnificent scenery of the Hudson constant employment for his brush, and a perpetual incentive to attain the highest possible ideal of his art. He studied that noble stream from its source to the sea, and knew it, and could reproduce it in all its moods. Williamson was born in the very inartistic region of Tolcross, Glasgow, in 1827, and died at Glenwood-on-Hudson in 1885, nearly all of his life being passed on this side of the Atlantic, as he was taken from his native land while a child.

Another artist who had Glasgow for his birthplace was Thomas Lachlan Smith, whose specialty was winter scenes, and who contributed two notable pictures to the collection at the Centennial Exhibition—"The Deserted House" and "The Eve of St. Agnes." Smith received his artistic training in the studio of George H. Boughton (now winning yearly successes in London) at Albany, and he opened a studio in that city in 1859. 1n 1862 lie forsook Albany for New York, where he died in 1884, having won a recognized position among the American painters of his time.

So much for painters. We may now, having shown the merits of the Scottish-American " limners," bring forward some instances of those who have Avon fame with the chisel and molding tools. One of the earliest of these on our list is John Crookshanks King, who was born in the ancient and historic village of Kilwinning, Ayrshire, in 1806, and died in the historic city of Boston in 1882. He was educated in his native county, and there served his apprenticeship to his trade—that of machinist. In 1829 Le crossed the Atlantic, and for a time was Superintendent of factories in Louisville and Cincinnati. It was in 1834 that he began to understand the extent of his genius for modeling, and in that year he made a clay figure which so pleased Hiram U. Powers, America's most poetic sculptor, that he advised him to devote his entire attention to such work. After a brief residence in New Orleans, King settled in Boston in 1840, and in that city most of his artistic career was spent. Among his best-known busts are those of Daniel Webster, John Quincy Adams, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. King also excelled as a maker of cameo portraits a branch of art which at present has gone out of fashion, although there are not wanting signs that it will again become a fad in the society world.

Few if the man,,- thousands of visitors to the memorial temple which rises over the lloon, not far iroin the Auld Brig, as a national tribute to the memory of the genius who gave fame to that classic section of Ayrshire by his pen, know that the two figures representing "Tarn o' Shanter" and "Souter Johnnie" which are shown in the grounds below are the work of a sculptor who died on a farm at Ramapo, N. Y., in 1830. James Thom, the sculptor in question, ended his career in that lonely spot a sadly disappointed man. He was born in Ayrshire, and began life as a stone mason. He acquired the art of modeling mainly by his own personal observation and practice, and in 1828 produced the two figures which, shown on the banks of the Doon, have preserved his name to the present (lay. In an artistic sense he never advanced any further than these statues, and such works as his figure of "Old Mortality" simply reproduced their artistic beauties and defects. It seems a pity that Thorn (lid not have the benefit of two or three years' practical training at sonic of the art centres, but fate denied him the opportunity, and all his work was (lone in a narrow and rather primitive groove. But he was a genius undoubtedly, and lacked merely the necessary study to have been able to give full expression to the ideals he so earnestly tried to interpret with his chisel. His work was very popular with the people, but his studio at Ayr was never greatly burdened with orders, and it was in the hope of winning a more remunerative popularity that he emigrated. In America, however, there is no trace of his having had any success at all, or even of his doing any work.

A much more modern instance of a Scottish sculptor's success in America is that of Mr. I. M. Rhind, son of a once well-known Edinburgh sculptor. Mr. Rhind settled in New York from Edinburgh in 1888, and was not long in coming to the front among that city's sculptors. His most noted work—the Kin- memorial fountain at Albany—is an elaborate and thoughtful group of sculpture, rather than a single example, and shows the artist to be a man of imagination as well as of artistic ability. Its theme is that of Moses striking the rock, and the story is completely told in the attitude and composition of all the figures, from the majestic representation of Moses to the sweet outline of the baby which is getting from its mother a draught of the blessed water flowing from the rock in answer to the stroke from the Patriarch's staff. Mr. Rhind also executed one of the magnificent bronze doors now on Trinity Church.

Visitors to New York's Central Park have admired the beautiful carved work on the Terrace and Mall—work that is now beginning to lose its sharp outline under stress of the weather changes, which in the Northern States are so destructive of outdoor stonework. A great deal of this carving was done by Robert Thomson, a sculptor of exquisite taste, who, if we may judge by his work in Central Park, was as conscientious and thorough in his attention to the most trifling and almost hidden details as to those things which were certain to arrest the public eye. For many years there stood in the same park a group modeled by hint to which was given the name of "Auld Lang Syne." It represented Tam o' Shanter and Souter Johnnie enjoying a crack, with the usual accompaniments. To a Scotsman the group was more than a work of art; it was a glimpse o' hame. Every Scot resident in New York knew each line in the group, and every new arrival in the community was taken to the nook where it stood, or was sent there soon after his arrival. After several years of exposure the freestone in which the figures were carved began to show signs of disintegration, and to save the work it was removed to the building at the Casino where the Crawford models were on view, and there it was badly damaged in the fire which laid that building in ruins. It is still stored somewhere in the park, but too much worsted in its encounter with the flanges to be attractive—even to Scotsmen, it is said. After a residence of some fifteen years in this country, spent mainly in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, Mr. Thomson returned to Scotland, and, settling in Edinburgh, continued his work as a sculptor. He executed, among other things, several figures for the niches in the Scott Monument, including Jeannie Deans and the Laird of Dumbiedykes. He died in that city early in 1895. One of Thomson's pupils, Alexander M. Calder, a native of Aberdeen, has long held a noted position among Philadelphia sculptors. He cut or designed most of the carved work on the new Public Buildings, and that magnificent pile is crowned by his gigantic figure of William Penn.

George E. Ewing, the once noted Glasgow sculptor, whose figure of Burns stands in that city's famous plaza, George Square, closed a somewhat varied career in New York in 1884. He had done much good work in Glasgow and the West of Scotland, and many Scots in America were surprised when he forsook his native land and entered upon a new career in New York. Whatever expectations he had formed of America were doomed to disappointment, and his experience was a succession of failures. The fact was, he was too old on reaching America to begin life anew, and his artistic methods and ideals were too firmly cast to adapt themselves to the taste of the American connoisseurs, and so accomplish anything like satisfactory financial results. He executed some very pleasing busts, notably one of the Rev. Dr. Taylor, and one of the Rev. Dr. Omiston, both good examples of conscientious modeling, with, in the bust of Dr. Ormiston, a dash of genius which marked the artist; but these things brought no " grist to the mill." After two years' struggling in New York, Ewing went to Philadelphia, but there his success was no greater, and his life became full of sadness. When Henry Irvin- first visited Philadelphia Ewing called on hint—they were acquainted long before. Learning of his plight, the great actor at once gave him a commission to execute a medallion portrait of himself and one of Miss Terry. To get the necessary sittings he accompanied the actors to New York and lodged at the Brevoort House. There, one morning, lie was found lying dead in bed. The room was partly filled with gas from an open jet in the chandelier, and it was supposed that Mr. Ewing had either not noticecl the escape when he retired to bed, or, in extinguishing the light had involuntarily reopened the jet. The remains were interred in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn. Mr. Ewing virtually left nothing on this side of the Atlantic by which his ability as a sculptor can Publicly be judged, a fact which is to be regretted, for lie was a nian of brilliant parts, with high ideals as an artist, and would have at least amply justified his Scottish reputation had a fitting opportunity been vouchsafed to him.

In the Wellstood family, which for a long series of years had at least two representatives in the foremost ranks of American engravers, we find several men of undoubted artistic ability who devoted their whole lives toward improvement of that branch of art. The family was an Edinburgh one, and is still in some of its branches active in the daily doings of that grand old city. John Geikie Wellstood was born in Auld Reekie in 1813, and settled in New York in 1830. After being in business for several years, his firm merged in the American Bank Note Company, and he remained in that concern until 1871, when he founded the Columbian Bank Note Company in Washington, of which he became President. In connection with this establishment lie modeled and partly engraved the backs of all the United States Treasury notes. When all work of this class was undertaken by a Government bureau Mr. Wellstood returned to New York and became again connected with the American Bank Note Company. As a script engraver lie was considered superior to any man of his time.

His brother, William, born at Edinburgh in 1819, and who was for a long term of }'ears engaged in business in New York, devoted himself more to pictorial work, and his portraits of Longfellow, President Grant, and Florence Nightingale, were long ranked as among the best examples of the American engraver's art. High praise is due also to such works as his "Mount Washington," after Gifford, and his "Coast of Mount Desert," after William Hart. For a small engraving, an engraving in which the engraver has put his heart as much as painter ever did into his canvas, we know of nothing finer than the portrait of Hew Ainslie, the poet, with its emblematic wreath, which William Wellstood engraved after a design by his brother Stephen, for the edition of Ainslie's poems issued in 1855. James, a son of William Wellstood, who was horn in New York City in 1877 and died in 1880, was an engraver of much promise, as is amply evidenced by his "Safe in Port," after the painting of that name by William Moran. The whole family, however, have been in one way or another distinguished "above the lave," and would require a chapter to themselves, instead of merely the passing notice it is within the province of a volume like this to give.

A noted example of an engraver developing into a painter—and a painter of first rank—is furnished by the career of Walter Shirlaw. Born in Paisley—the town of poets—in 1838, and emigrating to the United States with his parents two years later, Mr. Shirlaw's entire education, artistic and otherwise, has been gained on this side of the Atlantic. He learned the trade of engraving—his specialty being work on bank notes—but even when a child had inclinations for the higher branch of art. and the first picture lie exhibited, at the National Academy in 1861, won such favorable comment that he decided to leave engraving alone for the future. After studying in Munich for a year or two, he returned to America, and his career since then as, a landscape artist has been one of continued and increasing success. Among his most noted works have been " Jealousy," now owned by the National Academy of Design; "Good Morning," "Sheep Shearing in the Bavarian Highlands," "Gossip," and "Indian Girl." Mr. Shirlaw became an Academician in 1888, and was one of the founders and the first President of the Society of American Artists.

We would like to devote considerable space to the hundreds of Scotch architects who have been at work in this country since it began to cultivate the arts, but the subject is too great to be even more than barely hinted at at the tail end of a chapter, and that is all that our scheme will permit. So we must content ourselves with a couple of examples.

In an issue of the New York "Scottish-American" for 1888 is the following notice regarding an early architect whose name is by no means yet forgotten in New York:

"The alterations now in progress at Castle Garden reveal much of the old work of Alexander McComb, the old New York architect, who was the most prominent member of his profession in this country in the middle of last century. He was a native of Scotland, but of what county is not known, although it is generally believed to have been Ayrshire. When the old City Hall, in Wall Street, was remodeled and practically rebuilt, Mr. McComb was the architect, and a very stately building it was. McComb amassed considerable wealth, bought a large tract of land in the Adirondacks, and finally settled there, leaving his business to his son, John. His name is still recalled by McConib's Dam Bridge, in the tipper Part of the city.

"John McComb was born in this city in 1763, and was as successful as his father. He erected a fine house for himself in Bowling Green, which was long known as the McComb Mansion, and all the principal buildings put tip in New York between 1795 and 1830 were designed by him. His greatest work, so far as we know, is the present City Hall, the cornerstone of which was laid in 1803, when Edward Livingston, the descendant of an old and aristocratic Scotch family, was Mayor. Another memorial of McComb's skill is old St. John's Church, on Varick Street, which in its day was thought to be a more perfect and comfortable church than old St. Paul's, at the corner of Vesey Street and Broadway. McComb also designed several improvements at Castle Clinton, (now Castle Garden,) some of which after being concealed by wooden erections for many years are again being exposed to view. He lived to a good old age, dying in this city in 1853, and left a name that will ever rank prominent among New York architects."

A more modern example may be selected in the career of John McArthur, who was born in Bladenock, Wigtonshire, in 1823. in 1848 he did his first public work in this country, when he designed the House of Refuge in Philadelphia. Since then he has designed scores of public buildings, such as the Naval Hospitals at Philadelphia, Annapolis, Md., and Mare Island, Cal.; Public Ledger Building, Philadelphia; Lafayette College, Easton, Penn., and for his crowning work, the new Public Buildings of Philadelphia. In 1874 Mr. McArthur declined the offer of the office of Supervising Architect of the Treasury.

It would hardly do to pass away from the architects without some mention of the men who interpret their ideas—the mechanics. In stonework, Scotch masons long held the lead in this country; wherever a stone building was being erected, Scotsmen in greater or lesser numbers were certain to be found. Every building of any size in the country, it may be safe to say, owes something to Scotch ingenuity. The Capitol at Albany, the State I-louse at Boston, the Tomns at New York, the Metropolitan Museum, the City Hall at Chicago, and hundreds of other edifices famous over the country were reared amid the sound of the Doric. To take one notable instance, the Smithsonian Institution at Washington was built by Gilbert Cameron, a native of Greenock, who for several years was the most noted contractor in the Capital City. When the civil war broke out Cameron, then an old man, found himself in possession of a competency, and, despising all schemes for amassing greater wealth, lie returned to his native country and spent his time in a house he called "Washington Cottage," at Greenock, until his death, in 1866.