Of these, no one has done more within the last few years, than Powers.  With a tireless and persevering energy, such as could have belonged to few but Americans, he has already gained a name in his art, that posterity will pronounce in the same breath with Phidias, Michael Angelo and Thorwaldsen.  I cannot describe the enjoyment I have derived from looking at his matchless works.  I should hesitate in giving my own imperfect judgment of their excellence, if I had not found it to coincide with that of many others who are better versed in the rules of art.  The sensation which his “Greek Slave” produced in England, has doubtless ere this been breezed across the Atlantic, and I see by the late American papers that they are growing familiar with his fame.  When I read a notice seven or eight years ago, of the young sculptor of Cincinnati, whose busts exhibited so much evidence of genius, I little dreamed I should meet him in Florence, with the experience of years of toil added to his early enthusiasm, and every day increasing his renown.

You would like to hear of his statue of Eve, which men of taste pronounce one of the finest works of modern times.  A more perfect figure never filled my eye.  I have seen the masterpieces of Thorwaldsen, Dannecker and Canova, and the Venus de Medici, but I have seen nothing yet that can exceed the beauty of this glorious statue.  So completely did the first view excite my surprise and delight, and thrill every feeling that awakes at the sight of the Beautiful, that my mind dwelt intensely on it for days afterwards.  This is the Eve of Scripture—­the Eve of Milton—­mother of mankind and fairest of all her race.  With the full and majestic beauty of ripened womanhood, she wears the purity of a world as yet unknown to sin.  With the hearing of a queen, there is in her countenance the softness and grace of a tender, loving woman;

    “God-like erect, with native honor clad
    In naked majesty.”

She holds the fatal fruit extended in her hand, and her face expresses the struggle between conscience, dread and desire.  The serpent, whose coiled length under the leaves and flowers entirely surrounds her, thus forming a beautiful allegorical symbol, is watching her decision from an ivied trunk at her side.  Her form is said to be fully as perfect as the Venus de Medici, and from its greater size, has an air of conscious and ennobling dignity.  The head is far superior in beauty, and soul speaks from every feature of the countenance.  I add a few stanzas which the contemplation of this statue called forth.  Though unworthy the subject, they may perhaps faintly shadow the sentiment which Powers has so eloquently embodied in marble: 

THE “EVE” OF POWERS.

A faultless being from the marble sprung,
She stands in beauty there! 
As when the grace of Eden ’round her clung—­
Fairest, where all was fair!

Pure, as when first from God’s creating hand
She came, on man to shine;
So seems she now, in living stone to stand—­
A mortal, yet divine!