Sketch of the History of Yale University (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Sketch of the History of Yale University
Bo...)
Excerpt from Sketch of the History of Yale University
Board of Trustees - oi what class of persons, and of how many, it should consist - had not been worked out; so that the transaction at Branford can have gone no further than the adoption of a general policy, to be developed later.
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This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Memoranda Concerning Edward Whalley and William Goffe (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Memoranda Concerning Edward Whalley and Will...)
Excerpt from Memoranda Concerning Edward Whalley and William Goffe
("Second Narrative of the late Parliament," 1658, in Harleian Miscellany, iii, 482. Cf. "Treason Discovered." 1660.) Sir Philip Warwick, in his Memoirs of the Reign of King Charles I (p. 307), more kindly describes his as "a ridiculous Phanatick, as well as a crack-brained fellow, though he was a Gentleman of a good family, of which sort of men they had very few among them." There is other testimony that he sided with Parliament from religious conviction, and in opposition to the sentiments of some of his nearest relatives. (See "Noble's Memoirs of the House of Cromwell.")
In the midsummer of 1642, "Mr. Oliver Cromwell," a member of Parliament for the town of Cambridge, began to superintend the defence of Cambridgeshire against the insane movements of the king; in August he was Captain of a volunteer troop of horse, and by March, 1643, was Colonel. In the same August, his kinsman, Edward Whalley, was Cornet of the 60th regiment of horse (John Ftennes, Captain), and by March, 1643, was Captain.
The next mention found of his name is the letters of Cromwell, reporting an indecisive action at Gainsborough, in Lincolnshire, July 28, 1643: "Major Whalley," he writes," did in this carry himself with all gallantry becoming a gentleman and a Christian" (Carllye's Cromwell, i, 159); and again, "The honor of this retreat, equal to any of late times, is due to Major Whalley and Captain Ayscough, next under God."
By March, 1645, when the newly modeled army was organized, with Fairfax Commander-in-Chief, Whalley was prominent enough to be made Colonel of one of the eleven cavalry regiments, and as such helped notably to win the day at Naseby.
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The History of American Sculpture (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from The History of American Sculpture
No more c...)
Excerpt from The History of American Sculpture
No more composite nation than the United States has existed in modern times. The influx of foreign elements has been enormous; yet, despite the varied antecedents and the wide affinities of the American people, our language remains English and our traditions (such as exist) are and always have been English. In matters of religion and law, the inheritance was adequate, and familiar princi ples were readily harmonized with a new environment. In our literature, likewise, the ancestral traditions have been positive and potent; but in regard to the other fine arts they have been negative, though not less significant, since they explain, in large measure, the unpromising conditions amid which our national art was cradled.
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This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Henry Dexter was a talented American sculptor. He was completely self-taught and did not seek to study the European or classical Greek styles of his compatriots, for this reason he is considered among the first true American sculptors.
Background
Henry Dexter was born on October 11, 1806, in Nelson, New York, the son of Smith and Clarasa (Dexter) Dexter. He was born in grim poverty on a wilderness-surrounded farm, where his parents had settled the year before. He could trace his ancestry through eight generations to the Reverend Gregory Dexter of Olney, England, called the first educated printer in New England, who in London in 1643 printed for Roger Williams a dictionary of the Indian language and in the following year accompanied Williams to Providence. When he was eleven years old, his father disappeared. His mother was from Connecticut.
Education
Henry’s childish impulse toward art was inborn. Having neither canvas, colors, nor the money with which to buy them, he painted on scraps of cloth with the juice of red and green berries. His efforts met reproof as signs of sinfulness.
His mother was from Connecticut, and returning thither, placed the boy on a Connecticut farm, where he worked industriously three years. He was kindly treated, went to school in winter, and stood at the head of his class.
At sixteen, much against his secret hope for an artist’s career, he was apprenticed to a blacksmith.
Career
Henry's childish impulse toward art was inborn. Having neither canvas, colors, nor the money with which to buy them, he painted on scraps of cloth with the juice of red and green berries. His efforts met reproof as signs of sinfulness.
In 1828, having mastered his craft, Henry was induced to work at Francis Alexander's trade. At last, in the spring of 1836, Dexter went to Providence, Rhode Island, where he opened a studio, and for some months painted likenesses, first at five, then at ten, then at fifteen, and finally at twenty dollars apiece, Alexander giving him friendly counsel. That autumn, he moved to Boston, where, acting on a chance suggestion to make use of some clay left by the sculptor Greenough, he attempted the modeling of portrait busts.
Having completed in marble (1838) the portrait of Samuel A. Eliot, mayor of Boston, he presently received commissions for busts of other distinguished men. Among his sitters were Longfellow, Agassiz, Henry Wilson, Anson Burlingame, Professor C. C. Felton of Harvard, and Charles Dickens. While the novelist was sitting, Dexter's studio was a rendezvous for the elite of Boston. Both Dickens and his wife expressed pleasure in the portrait when completed.
Dexter's success in portrait-busts shows what could be done by a self-taught pioneer, inventive, industrious, and agreeable, working in a circle of intelligent and even intellectual persons, at a time when knowledge of the art of sculpture was extremely limited in the United States. Undoubtedly his training as a blacksmith was of service, not only because of the skill of hand gained thereby, but because of the ability it gave him to make and keep in condition the tools necessary in marble cutting. Also, he had a gift for "catching the likeness, " and this was mainly what his sitters wanted.
Dexter formed an interesting project of making portrait-busts of all the governors in the United States. As a prelude, taking with him a letter from Edward Everett, he went to Washington, where he was favorably received by President Buchanan, whose bust he made. He thereupon began his tour as itinerant sculptor of governors, visiting every state but California and Oregon. In 1860 he returned to Boston with his plaster casts of thirty-one portraits, exhibiting these casts in the State House rotunda, and preparing to immortalize their subjects in marble. Unfortunately the Civil War defeated this ambition; only four of the portraits were made permanent. The collection was largely dispersed, history, if not art, losing thereby.
Dexter's eight marble statues, ranging from the "Binney Child, " Mt. Auburn Cemetery (1839), to the "Gen. Warren, " Charlestown (1857), appear today of little importance, however remarkable they may be as the work of a self-taught artist, who before his own attempts had never seen any one model in clay or carve in marble. He died in Boston at the age of seventy, honored and beloved.
(Excerpt from The History of American Sculpture
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Personality
Dexter’s nature was at once sensitive and energetic.
Interests
Dexter enjoyed music and poetry, and wrote interestingly of his experiences.
Connections
In 1828, Dexter married Calista Kelley, daughter of Ebenezer Kelley and niece of the enterprising portrait painter, Francis Alexander, a man but six years Dexter's senior. Alexander dissuaded him from trying to make likenesses for a living, and induced him to work at his trade seven years longer. In 1857 his wife died, and two years later he married Mrs. Martha Billings of Millbury, Massachusetts.