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The following Hale "item" is reprinted from The Saturday Chronicle of June 30, 1917. I offered in 1907 to erect a tablet to Hale in Battell Chapel but the project was delayed for one reason and another, chiefly on account of the con- troversy over the statue to Hale, until 1917, when the tablet was put up just before Commencement.
MEMORIAL TO NATHAN HALE IN BATTELL CHAPEL.
An interesting feature in connection with the Yale Commencement exercises of last week was the dedication of the Nathan Hale tablet, which was recently erected in Battell Chapel. The tablet is five feet high by two feet ten inches wide, and consists of a slab of purplish grey Vermont slate.
The inscription is as follows :
NATHAN HALE.
Durable stone preserve the monumental record. Nathan Hale, Esq., a Capt. in the army of the United States, who was born June 6th, 1755, and receiv'd the first honors of Yale College Sept. 1773, resigned his life a sacrifice to his country's liberty at New York Sept. 22d, 1776 Etatis 22d.
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THE COVENTRY TABLET
EPITAPH AT COVENTRY.
His last words were "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."
"Thus while fond virtue wished in vain to save Hale bright & generous found a hapless grave With genius living flame his bosom glowed And science lured him to her sweet abode In Worth's fair path his feet adventured far The pride of Peace the rising hope of War In duty firm in danger calm as even To friends unchanging and sincere to Heaven
How short his course the prize how early won
While weeping Friendship mourns her favorite gone."
TIMOTHY DWIGHT, 1785.
The first section of the inscription reproduces the epitaph on the head- stone erected to Hale in the old burying ground in South Coventry, proba- bly in 1794, by his father, Deacon Richard Hale. This epitaph, undoubt- edly written by the Rev. Joseph Huntington, Yale 1762, who prepared Hale for college, is regarded as the best single tribute ever paid to Hale.
Hale's last words form the second section of the inscription. For the last words we are indebted to Captain William Hull, Yale 1772, Hale's comrade in arms and intimate friend. Hull got them from Captain John Montresor, one of Sir William Howe's aides, who befriended Hale the morning of his execution and communicated to Hull practically all that we know concerning Hale's last hours.
The third and last section of the inscription is the rhymed tribute to Hale by the first President Dwight of Yale, who was one of his tutors, and an active worker with Hale in building up the Linonia Library, both Dwight and Hale being enthusiastic members of Linonia. Dwight's tribute to Hale he inserted into his epic, "The Conquest of Canaan," greatly admired when published in 1785, but now forgotten except for the ten lines devoted to Hale.
The tablet was designed by Henry Charles Dean, with Messrs. Cram and Ferguson, the Boston architects. The lettering follows the lettering on Hale's tombstone at South Coventry.
The tablet is the gift of George Dudley Seymour, Hon. M.A., 1913.
Hale's Last Words.
As early as 1912, the writer's attention was drawn to the striking similarity between Hale's memorable last words: "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country," and a passage in Addison's tragedy of "Cato," where, when the body of his son Marcus is brought before him, Cato says : "How beautiful is death when earned by virtue! Who would
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not be that youth ? What pity is it that we can die but once to serve our country." (Cato, Act 4, Scene 4. )
The writer reported the striking coincidence to several friends and collected considerable evidence in support of the proposition that Hale derived his last words from the "Cato," including a long list of the performances of the tragedy in the American Colonies prior to the Revolution. He also prepared and read a paper on the subject before a club of which several members were on the Faculty of the University. This paper, too long for inclusion in this book, the writer intends to publish at another time. This note is here inserted to enter a claim to priority over an article published in the New York Nation of August 30, 1919, entitled "Nathan Hale's Dramatic Interests."
OUTLINE SKETCH OF HALE'S LIFE AND FATE
"A brief sketch of Hale's short life and we must part from him. Nathan Hale was born at Coventry, Connecticut, June 6th, 1755, the fourth son and sixth child of the twelve children of Deacon Richard Hale, an energetic farmer, a man of sturdy character and public spirit. On both sides the inheritance was of the best old New England stock. He was prepared for college by the village minister and entered Yale in 1769 with the Class of 1773. It is plain from the evidence at hand that he was one of the foremost figures in his Class. His engaging personality, serious-minded- ness, skill as an athlete, and his ardent temperament, made him a marked man in the college world of his time. He was one of the chief supporters and a strong partisan of Linonia and assisted Tutor Dwight in building up its library. We have no more interesting and attractive picture of fra- ternity life at Yale than we get through the fading minutes of the Linonia Society now preserved in the College Library, and partly written in Hale's own clear and even elegant hand. After graduation in 1773, he taught school in East Haddam for a few months, leaving there in March, 1774, to become the preceptor of the Union Grammar School in New London, where he was teaching when the war broke out. Ardently patriotic, he enlisted and served as First Lieutenant in a Connecticut Regiment through- out the Siege of Boston. In March, 1776, he went with his regiment to New York and served there until his untimely end, meanwhile having been commissioned a Captain in the Continental Army.
In responding to Washington's call in September, 1776, for information of the enemy's strength and position, he seems to have been fully con- scious of the danger of his undertaking. He started on his hazardous mission about September 12th, crossing the Sound at Norwalk. Nothing
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is known of his experiences in the enemy's lines, and no satisfactory account of the place and mode of his capture has yet appeared. He was executed in New York Sunday morning, September 22d, 1776-one hundred and forty years ago. It is hard for us now to realize that he was only in his twenty-second year, having passed his twenty-first birthday on the 6th of the previous June. Recent researches by Professor Johnston place his execution at about the intersection of Third Avenue and 65th or 66th Streets.
"That life is long which answers life's great end."-Young.
From The Martyrdom of Nathan Hale; a scene written by G. D. S. for the Yale Pageant, October, 1916.
VII
PAUL WAYLAND BARTLETT'S "LAFAYETTE." 26
A few months ago the Register published an account of the visit of the President of the French Republic, the Minister of Fine Arts, and the architect of the Louvre, to the studio of Paul Wayland Bartlett, for the purpose of inspecting Mr. Bartlett's finished model for an equestrian statue of Lafayette, to be placed by the children of the United States in the court of the Louvre. The model was approved and the statue is being cast and will be formally dedicated on the 4th of July, if in readiness by that time.
This matter is of particular interest to the New Haven public, as Mr. Bartlett was born here in New Haven62a and was a pupil for a time in our New Haven schools. To-day he stands in the front rank of living sculptors. There are many, indeed, who will claim that he is the greatest living master of American birth of the sculptor's art on the plastic side-the side which concerns itself with work modeled in clay and cast in metal. On the other hand, in considering preëminence in work cut in stone-admirers of Mr. Bartlett's work will point to the figures in the pediment of the New York Stock Ex- change, which Mr. Bartlett executed from a composition designed by the venerable dean of American sculptors, J. Q. A. Ward, and claim that these figures are unequalled in the coun- try as examples of truly monumental sculpture in the nude.
Mr. Bartlett was commissioned to do an equestrian statue of Lafayette in 1899 for dedication in 1900, as though the pro- duction of an equestrian statue was the work of but a few months rather than of years. Mr. Bartlett, however, com- pleted a design, which was executed in composition or staff
62 Reprinted from the New Haven Register of Sunday, May 19, 1908 62a Paul Wayland Bartlett was born in New Haven in 1865.
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BARTLETT'S "LAFAYETTE"
and placed upon its pedestal in 1900. His work did not stop there. From 1900 until the middle of last year he worked unremittingly in his studio in Paris before completing his final model.
To show the difference between the statue as dedicated in 1900 and the final work, the Register presents two cuts, one from the plaster-staff statue as it appeared in place on its pedestal, and one showing the final model as it appeared in Mr. Bartlett's studio in Paris. It will be seen from a com- parison of these two cuts, how incomparably finer the final work is; yet the original design was highly praised by the critics. The horse of Mr. Bartlett's "Lafayette" at once suggests the horses of Greek sculpture, since in sculpture designed to be placed out of doors in full light, the Greeks took pains to employ large, rounded surfaces so as to avoid the production of shadows, which tend to cut up, as it were, and destroy the effect of the mass.
To secure the quality of Greek sculpture and the sense of weight essential to monumental sculpture, Mr. Bartlett has modeled his horse as the Greeks modeled theirs-with many rounded surfaces for the diffusion of light and the avoidance of strong shadows. By proceeding on this principle the horse of Mr. Bartlett's "Lafayette" is seen to have many points in common with horses of San Marco which are of Greek work- manship though it is not known by whom or when or where they were made, with the horse of Donatello's "Gatamelata" at Padua and the horse of Verrocchio's "Col- leoni"62b at Venice. But the horse of Mr. Bartlett's "Lafay- ette" though founded on the principles of Greek sculpture, is not a copy in any sense, but thoroughly modern in its quality.
62b "This is perhaps the noblest equestrian statue in the world being in some respects superior to the antique bronze of Marcus Aurelius in Rome, and to that of Gattamelata at Padua by Donatello. The horse is designed with wonderful nobility and spirit, and the easy pose of the great General, combining perfect balance and absolute ease and security in the saddle, is a marvel of sculpturesque ability." J. M. H. in Encyclopædia Brit. vol. 24, p. 176.
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It has the mass and weight of the old work and at the same time displays an observation of form and anatomy not common, at least in modern equestrian statues. It would be interesting in this connection to study the origin of the Greek horse, and to ascertain how far Greek sculpture portrays him. Mr. Bartlett, it may be added, had for his model a splendid young Percheron stallion, a breed of horses characteristic of eighteenth century France. Bred in the southeastern part of Normandy, called "La Perche," this animal was in the eighteenth century a strong trotting horse, always of the same color, dappled grey, and was mainly used for riding and drawing coaches. In the latter part of the Nineteenth century, the Percheron breed was crossed with the heavy Boulonnais, or Flemish horse, so that the Percheron, so called, of to-day means for most people a draft horse of varied coloration. The horse of Mr. Bartlett's "Lafayette" is a heavy and powerful, though alert, animal and thus in keeping with the usage and traditions of the time portrayed. A mili- tary horse was still in a sense a parade horse, though no longer loaded with several hundred weight of armor. We are apt to forget that up to quite modern times a military horse was chosen with reference to his ability to carry loads of iron and steel furniture such as no modern riding horse could manage. As for the rider himself, he was so encumbered with heavy mail armor that he had to be assisted to his seat.
The horse of Mr. Bartlett's "Lafayette" is a superb, thoroughbred creature and accords fully with the time and the theme. Of course Mr. Bartlett's return to the principles of Greek sculpture in the horse of his "Lafayette" does not settle the question for us of the modern world. Some may prefer a characteristic or romantic treatment, like the horse of Saint Gaudens' "Sherman," a western-bred horse of the period of the Civil War.
In contrast with the heavy mass of the horse, the slender, high-bred rider symbolizes the youthful enthusiasm and ideal- ism which fired Lafayette at the age of nineteen to put aside
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BARTLETT'S "LAFAYETTE"
the life of a young man of his class and throw his fortunes in with the American colonists. By some perversity of fate, Nathan Hale has been portrayed in sculpture so old that the fact that he was only twenty-one when he met his tragic fate has largely been lost sight of. So, too, Lafayette has so long been portrayed for us in the peg-top trousers in vogue at the time of his visit in 1824, that we forget that when he first came to America he was under twenty. Hale was given a captaincy in the Continental Army at twenty-one; Lafayette was a major general of the United States at twenty.
Mr. Bartlett has wisely chosen to treat Lafayette as a young man, as best suited to subjectively express the idea of youthful enthusiasm. The fresh, alert, elastic figure contrasts finely with the heavy mass and brute power of the horse he rides.
As a native of Connecticut it was fitting that the State Capitol Commission should commission Mr. Bartlett to prepare a scheme for the sculptural decoration of our State Capitol. A better choice could not have been made. A sculptor of the first rank himself, he has lived so much of his life abroad as to understand the use of sculpture, not alone to express ideas, but as the supreme decorative adjunct of architecture. With- out this understanding he would never have been allowed by the French Government to place his "Lafayette" in the court of the Louvre. It is not too much to say that the court of the Louvre is the choicest spot in Paris for the display of sculpture adjusted to grand architecture. Mr. Bartlett fully justified the confidence of our State Commission when he produced his sketch for the sculptural decoration of the North front of our Capitol, on which he proposes to write, as it were, in sculpture, the history of the State. It is not the intention to have Mr. Bartlett execute all the work. No one man could do that, even if the money was forthcoming. Nor is it likely that Mr. Bartlett's scheme will be rigidly followed. But in a general way it will be adhered to, to the extent required to secure a logical and harmonious result, though the work take a long time. Mr. Bartlett, however, has already done two figures-
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Governor Winthrop and Governor Eaton; the former is in place and the latter is being cut. He has also designed two reliefs for the main front-"An Attack Upon an Indian Fortress," and "Captain Holmes Passing the Dutch on the Connecticut River."63 What further work will be given to Mr. Bartlett to do for our State Capitol building remains to be seen. It is to be hoped that he will be given something to do in bronze, for his mastery over the plastic art is complete.
Mr. Bartlett was born in New Haven in 1865 and educated in the public schools of New Haven and Boston. He began sculpture while a boy and, under the care of M. Fremiet of Paris, at the age of fourteen, exhibited in the Paris Salon a bust of his grandmother. In 1880 he entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts, where he was a pupil of Cavelier. In 1887 he received recompense at the Salon for his group, "The Bear Tamer," now in the Metropolitan Museum of New York. He was hors concours at the Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1889. Again he was hors concours, and represented the United States on the international jury of awards for sculp- ture, Exposition International, Paris, 1900. In 1895 he received from France the coveted decoration of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor of France. At the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis he received the only grand prize in the American section. In 1908 he was made an officier of the Legion of Honor.
Personally Mr. Bartlett is of slight build, fair haired, and though outspoken in his convictions, a man of modest demeanor. He cares nothing for social life, his tastes are of the simplest, and he is an indefatigable worker. He has spent most of his life abroad, but now proposes to take up his permanent residence in this country. New Haveners, whether interested in the fine arts or not, will certainly follow his further career with interest. Every Connecticut man should be proud that a Connecticut sculptor was chosen to ornament the court of the Louvre in Paris with a statue of Lafayette,
"3 Both of these works are now in place, the reliefs having been cut in situ in the old-fashioned way.
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and proud that the sculptor has produced a work which any sculptor in any age might have been proud to claim as his own. 64
New Haven has the distinction of having produced one of the earliest American sculptors, Hezekiah Augur, who was
64 Since the foregoing article was written, Mr. Bartlett has been com- missioned to execute a pediment for the House of Representatives at Washington, and six figures to be placed over the main entrance of the New York Public Library-perhaps the two most important commissions given in recent years to an American sculptor. He has also finished the model of a statue of Captain John Mason for the north façade of the State Capitol at Hartford.
In his "History of American Sculpture," Lorado Taft, himself a sculptor of distinction, says of Mr. Bartlett, pp. 381-382 :
"His equestrian figure of Lafayette (Fig. 58) will stand in one of the most coveted sites in all Paris; it is to be erected in the Place du Car- rousel, within the court of the Tuileries. In allowing Mr. Bartlett to aspire to the decoration of this square-the very jewel-case of the palace demesne-the present architect of the Louvre pays a remarkable com- pliment to the taste and ability of the young American sculptor. A work for such a place of honor in Paris must possess more than negative qualifications. It is not enough that it should be inoffensive; it must be strikingly good. It must have great qualities of style and it must dis- close mastery of every sculptural problem. It must be just right in size and in perfect harmony with its surroundings, for it cannot be seen apart from them. Whatever its inspiration, it must be decorative in effect; it is part of an architectural scheme. The silhouette must be carefully studied, for while few look closely at an equestrian statue, all get an impression of it. Thousands will see the "Lafayette" from the windows of the palace, to one who approaches its pedestal. Therefore its lines must be monumental, strong, and legible, its action and sig- nificance so simple as to be gathered at a glance. The sculptor has described the work and his intention as follows: 'Lafayette is represented in the statue as a fact and a symbol, offering his sword and services to the American colonists in the cause of liberty.' He is shown sitting firmly on his horse, which he holds vigorously. He is attired in the rich embroidered costume of a noble officer. His Flemish steed is represented with its mane knotted and tail dressed in the style of the time. Lafayette's youthful face is turned toward the west, his sheathed sword being slightly uplifted and delicately offered. He appears as the emblem of the aristocratic and enthusiastic sympathy shown by France to our forefathers. His youth, his distinction, his noble bearing, the richness of his costume and of the trappings of his horse-everything serves to emphasize the difference of his race and his education. An equestrian
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born here in 1791. His chief works are a bust of Chief Justice Ellsworth in the Supreme Court's room at Washington, and two small marble statuettes, Jeptha and his Daughter, now in the Yale Art School. After a life of disappointment, Augur died here in 1859.65
Another Connecticut sculptor was Olin Warner, who was born in West Suffield in 1844. Warner rose to a high position and left some work of the first order. He did the seated portrait statue of Governor Buckingham in Hartford, a work,
statue of Lafayette is appropriate, for, after landing in South Carolina, he rode from Charleston to Philadelphia on horseback, and there offered . his services to Congress."
The foregoing was written by Mr. Taft before the statue was finished. Mr. Bartlett adhered to his original conception, but as the work progressed it grew simpler. As the enrichments were one by one discarded, the sculptor's intent became more apparent; the symbolical significance of the statue was deepened. No one knew better than the Greeks that details destroy the power of sculpture, which by its very nature can effectively express only general ideas. Therefore, as the work developed it moved back from complex to simple forms; in a word, it became more sculpturesque-more in accord with the spirit of Greek sculpture. That Mr. Bartlett achieved a result which places his "Lafayette" among the very first equestrian statues in the world-with the first two or three- will, I feel confident, be the judgment of posterity. It combines the beauty and sanity of the work of the Greek sculptors with the crux of Christian thought -- the thought of service, which is absent from the Greek work. This idea of service Bartlett's "Lafayette" preëminently expresses. In his "Shaw Memorial," Saint Gaudens has expressed the same idea in a more picturesque and less sculpturesque way. For a fuller account of Bartlett's work, attention is called to Charles Noel Flagg's "Evolution of an Equestrian Statue," in Scribner's Magasine, March, 1909. "In every part," Mr. Flagg says, "the composition expresses the idea, the youth of France is coming to join in the fight for liberty, with young America."
65 For accounts of Hezekiah Augur, see Dunlap's "History of the Arts of Design" (1834), p. 438, Atwater's "History of the City of New Haven," (1887) p. 208, and Taft's "History of American Sculpture" (1903), pp. 24-28. Augur was perhaps more gifted though less practical and less fortunate than his pupil, Chauncey B. Ives, born in Hamden, 1812. Ives was commissioned by the State to execute the statues of Trumbull and Sherman which represent Connecticut in the so-called National Hall of Statuary and which were "introduced to that very promiscuous gathering in 1872." Ives also did the "much vaunted bust of Ithiel Town in the Yale Art School at New Haven." See Taft's "History," pp. 112-13. Ives was a mediocre sculptor, no doubt, but Taft seems rather hard on him.
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says Taft, of "fine sculptural quality." He was commissioned to do two sets of bronze doors for the new Congressional Library at Washington, but finished only one set. They are among the finest works in Washington to-day. The other set was finished from Warner's designs by Herbert Adams, who has been commissioned to execute a memorial to General Joseph R. Hawley for the State Capitol at Hartford.
Bela Lyon Pratt, the Boston sculptor who did the "Win- throp" at New London, the "Andersonville Prisoner Boy" at Andersonville, and who has just finished a fine relief of Gen- eral Hawley on the order of Col. Frank W. Cheney of South Manchester, is a native of Connecticut, having been born at Norwich in 1867. At sixteen he studied here in New Haven in the Yale Art School under Professor Weir and Professor Niemeyer. He had the privilege of working with Saint Gaudens and afterwards studied in Paris. Since his return to this country he has had many important commissions. 65a
New Haven, May, 1908.
"Two of the noblest equestrian statues the world has probably ever seen are the Gattamelata statue at Padua by Donatello and the statue of Colleoni at Venice by Verrocchio and Leopardi. A third, which was probably of equal beauty, was modeled in clay by Leonardo da Vinci, but it no longer exists." Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 21, 589.
"The finest equestrian statue of modern times is unquestionably the earliest of all in date, the 'Gattamelata' by Donatello in Padua. In serene dignity and restrained strength it has never been approached, and is perhaps unapproachable. Its air of quiet courage and determination makes the picturesque swagger of Verrocchio's 'Colleone' at Venice seem almost theatrical by comparison."-"Old Masters and New," by Kenyon Cox. New York, 1905.
65a Pratt died May 18, 1917. His statue of Nathan Hale on the Yale Campus, erected September, 1913, is greatly admired, though not the tour de force of modelling of MacMonnies' Hale in City Hall Park, New York.
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