Cooper's Clarksburg register. [volume] (Clarksburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1851-1861, 1853-02-09
HISTORY OF THE JACKSON STA.



1t was in the year 184G, while the Jack
son statute committee were looking for an
artist, that Mr.. Mills chanced to be pas
sing through Washington City on his way
to Italy. He had been house plasterer
in Charleston, South Carolina. He was
citizen of that State, having left the State
of New York, the State of his nativity,
when boy, and settled in South Carolina
His first efforts in art were directed to
making plaster busts. He succeeded in
giving such admirable likenesses that he
soon was much employed. He then re-
solved to make a bust of Mr. Calhoun in
marble.
The great South Carolinian saw there
was genius in the man, and he sat to him.
Mills chose the finest peice of Carolinian
marble he could find, and chiscled it into
shape amid the gibes and sneers of the
people. What folly they said, .for this
plasterer to presume to sculpture marble
like the great artists of Italy!' He shut
himself up from their gaze-he hid himself
from their sneers in his little shop until he
had finished his work. He had never
seen works of art, the manner in which
the sculptor does his work, nor the instru-
he produced one of the finest pieces of
sculpture in the world in the bust of Mr..
Calhoun. 1t was the admiration and as
tonishment of all. The city of Charleston, ),
as an appreciation of the work, presented
him splendid gold medal, and placed the
bust in the City Hall. Some friends, ad
miring his genius, offered the means to send
him to Italy; and he was, as we have said,
on his way there. passing through Wash
ington, at the fortunate moment when the
Jackson-statue committee was in search of
an artist. He had never before been in
| Washington. But spending a few days in
this city, to look at its public buildings and
its works of art, he became acquainted with
some of the committee and with their OBJ
ject. They invited him to give design.
At first he declined, never having seen an
equestrian statue. He was modest-that
is his character. But the genius of his
fame disturbed his rest, and woke up the
strong native powers of his mind. 1t
haunted his Imagination when all the
world was asleep, a thousand beautiful
forms tloated before his waking vision-
There was the great jackson who has i'm
pressed the grandeur of his soul and the
republican simplicity of his character on
the institutions and mind of his country,
and on the future of the world. That
. form passed before the imagination of the
artist in the character of poor peasant
boy, of hardy pioneer of the wilderness,
of IL Judge, of Il senator, of general, and
as President of the United States; the ar
tst saw him in all the remarkable scenes of
his life. He imbodied them in marble and
| in bronze. One form he seized-one vi
sion he arrested and fixed in his mind
1t was the hero of New Orleans, in all his
characteristic majesty ,intrepidity and firm
ness, mounted on ma jestic war-steed,
paving the air with ferceness and restless
impatience, as if conscious of the coming
battle, yet yielding to the iron nerve Of
his rider. 1t was the battle of New Or
leans, when the General was hurriedly
riding in review of his forces, few mo-
ments before the engagement, which was
the form and scene that fastened itself up
on the artists mind. In AN instant he
worked it into bronze, and it stood before
him living thing. His mind was agi-
| tated he was "haunted with an idea. -
But doubts came. He looked back to his
past history, and the difficulties before
him-a fatal stumbling block to modest
genius. The world of art, with its schools,
its authorities and its rules, stood up to
rebuke the presumptuous plasterer. 1t
did not recognize him; he was out of the
pale of its society; he had never gradua-
ted For moment he felt discouraged.
But then he heard a whisper in his ear
the Genius of his fame said ''Follow Ma
ture-Genius is superior to Art-Art
makes its rules from Nature-such is the
evidence of history-Nature is as grand,
as beautiful, as various in America as in
| Italy or EurOpe-study Nature-folIow