ed Stuart,
and in his later years spoke much of him, with strong appreciation for
his skill in describing character, and the refined taste which is such a
marked feature of his best manner.

His work in Boston made no particular impression upon the public mind,
and after five years' trial of it he removed to New York, where he
joined that brilliant circle of painters and sculptors which, with its
followers, has made one of the strongest impressions, if not the most
valuable or permanent, upon the art of America. During his residence in
that city he devoted himself almost exclusively to portrait-painting, in
which he developed a manner more distinguished for conventional
excellence than any particular individuality. It was remarked of him,
however, that he was disposed, even at this time, to seek to present the
thought and disposition of his subjects more strongly than their merely
physical features, and among his principal associates excited no little
appreciative comment upon this tendency. In some of his portraits of
women of that period, wherein he evidently attempted to present the
superior fineness and sensibility of the feminine nature, this effort
toward ideality is quite strongly indicated; they are painted with a
more hesitating and lingering touch than his portraits of men, and with
a certain seeming lack of confidence, which throws about them a thin
fold of that veil of etherialism and mystery which so enwraps nearly all
his pictures of the last eight years. This treatment, however, seems to
have been at that time more the result of experiment than conviction;
later in life he wrought its suggestions into a system, the principles
of which we may study further on. His earlier work, as has been said,
was chiefly confined to portrait-painting, although it is a significant
fact that among his pictures of that time are two which show that the
feeling for poetical and imaginative effort was working in him. At a
comparatively early age he painted an impression of Coleridge's
Genevieve, which showed marked evidence of power, and later, after
seeing a picture of the school of Rubens, which was owned by one of his
artist friends, produced a study which he afterward seems to have
developed into his well-known Boy and Bird; a Cupid-like figure, holding
a bird closely against its breast. These exercises, however, seem to
have been, as it were, accidental, and had little or no effect in
leading him to the practice in which