ent two years there. During this
period he modeled busts of Andrew Jackson, J.Q. Adams, Calhoun, Chief
Justice Marshall, Woodbury, Van Buren, and others. Being unable to
secure a model of Webster in Washington, the statesman invited him to go
with him to Marshfield for that purpose. Powers accepted the invitation,
and declares that he looks back upon his sojourn there as one of the
most delightful portions of his life.

General Jackson was very kind to him, and won his lasting esteem and
gratitude. Upon being asked if he would sit for his bust, the old hero
hesitated, and, looking at the artist nervously, asked: "Do you daub any
thing over the face? Because," he added, "I recollect poor Mr. Jefferson
got nearly smothered when they tried to take his bust. The plaster
hardened before they got ready to release him, and they pounded it with
mallets till they nearly stunned him, and then almost tore off a piece
of his ear in their haste to pull off a sticking fragment of the mold. I
should not like that." Powers assured him that such a terrible process
would not be necessary, but that he only wished to look at him for an
hour a day, sitting in his chair. The General brightened up at once, and
cordially told him it would give him pleasure to sit for him. He at once
installed the artist in a room in the White House, and gave him a
sitting of an hour every morning until the model was done.

Mr. Powers regards the bust of Jackson as one of his best efforts, and
the President himself was very much pleased with it. After he had
completed his model, Mr. Edward Everett brought Baron Krudener, the
Prussian Minister to Washington, to see it. The Baron was a famous art
critic, and poor Powers was terribly nervous as he showed him the bust.
The Baron examined it closely, and then said to the artist, "You have
got the General completely: his head, his face, his courage, his
firmness, his identical self; and yet it will not do! You have also got
all his wrinkles, all his age and decay. You forget that he is President
of the United States and the idol of the people. You should have given
him a dignity and elegance he does not possess. You should have employed
your _art_, sir, and not merely your _nature_." The artist listened in
silence, and Mr. Everett stood by without saying a word, "conscious," as
he afterward confessed, "of a very poor right to speak on such a
subject," after listening to so famous a critic. "_I_ did not dare,"
says P