could be a sculptor?' We may imagine the delight of the student at such commendation. The same day one of his fellow pupils called his attention to a notice issued by the Adelphi Society of Arts, offering a prize for the best single figure, to be modeled and sent to the rooms of the association within a certain period. The time fixed would expire in three days. Morse profited by the occasion, and placed his 'Dying Hercules' with the thirteen other specimens already entered. He was consequently invited to the meeting of the society on the evening when the decision was to be announced, and received from the hands of the Duke of Norfolk, the presiding officer, and in the presence of the foreign ambassadors, the gold medal. Perhaps no American ever started in the career of an artist under more flattering auspices; and we can not wonder that a beginning so successful encouraged the young painter to devote himself assiduously to study, with a view of returning to his own country fully prepared to illustrate the historical department of the art."
Morse spent four years in Europe in close study, and was then obliged to return to America by lack of means to carry on his education in the Old World. He had not indeed reached the high degree of proficiency which he had hoped to obtain before returning home, but he was possessed of natural talents and acquired skill, which fairly entitled him to recognition as one of our leading artists. This recognition never came to him, however, and his artist life in this country was a series of sorrowful disappointments. He found no opportunity of devoting himself to the higher branches of his art, and was obliged to confine himself entirely to portrait painting as a means of livelihood. His artist career is thus referred to by Mr. Tuckerman:
"Morse went abroad under the care of Allston, and was the pupil of West and Copley. Hence he is naturally regarded by a later generation as the connecting bond that unites the present and the past in the brief annals of our artist history. But his claim to such recognition does not lie altogether in the fact that he was a pioneer; it has been worthily