Siena—xii. July 1867."

His life was a busy and an earnest one. During his forty years of patient labour he executed about a hundred works in the round and in relief, including a considerable number of busts and statuettes. Of these, perhaps the most important are: The statues of Cain and Abel, the original bronzes of which are in the Pitti Palace in Florence, and by which he leaped at once to fame as a sculptor; the group of the Pietà in the cemetery of Siena; the large bas-relief of the Triumph of the Cross on the façade of the Church of Santa Croce in Florence; the monument to Cavour at Milan; the Ferrari monument in San Lorenzo, with the angel of the resurrection; the Sappho; the pedestal for the colossal Egyptian Tazza, with its alto-reliefs, representing Thebes, Imperial Rome, Papal Rome, and Tuscany, each with its accompanying genius; the portrait statue of Giotto; the ideal statue of St Francis; and the Risen Christ.

The Tazza, the Pietà, the Triumph of the Cross, and the Risen Christ, were selected by him out of all his works to send to the French Exposition of 1867, and it may therefore be supposed that he considered them as the best representatives of his genius and power. Indeed, in a letter to Professor Pietro Dotto (1866) he mentions particularly these last three as the statues which in conception he considers to be the most worthy of praise of all his works. This selection also indicates the religious character of his mind and his works. At this Exposition he was one of the jury on Sculpture, and though he gave his own vote in favour of the eminent sculptor Signor Vela of Milan, who exhibited on that occasion his celebrated statue of the Last Hours of Napoleon I., to his surprise the grand medal of honour was awarded to himself. He had scarcely dared to hope for this; and in his letters to his family he wrote that he considered it certain that the distinction would be conferred upon Signor Vela. When the award was made to him, he wrote a most characteristic letter to his daughter, announcing the result. "Mia cara Beppina," he says, "I have just returned from the sitting of the jury, and hasten at once to answer your dear letter. It is true that the Napoleon I. of Vela is a beautiful statue. There is always a crowd about it, and consequently every one thought it would receive the first prize. I have given him my vote; but the public and I and you, Beppina, were wrong. The first prize has come to me, your father! Vela received two votes with mine. You see, my dear, how the Holy Virgin has answered your and our prayer. Let us seek to render ourselves worthy of her powerful protection."

It was toward the close of his life, as has already been said, that he wrote his 'Biographical Reminiscences and Thoughts upon Art,' of which the present book is a translation. It was at once received by the Italian public with great favour, and is by no means the least remarkable of his works. It would be difficult for any autobiography to be more simple, honest, frank, and fearless. The whole character of the man is in it. It is an unaffected and unpretending record of his life and thoughts. He has no concealment to make, no glosses to put upon the real facts. He speaks to the public as if he were talking to a friend, never posing for effect, never boasting of his successes, never exaggerating his powers, never assailing his enemies and detractors, never depreciating his fellow-artists, but ever striving to be generous and just to all. There is no bitterness, no envy, no arrogance to deform a single page; but, on the contrary, a simplicity, a naïveté, a sincerity of utterance, which are remarkable. The history of his early struggles and poverty, the pictures of his childhood and youth, are eminently interesting; and the story of his love, courtship, and early married life is a pure Italian idyl of the middle class of society in Florence, which could scarcely be surpassed for its truth to nature and its rare delicacy and gentleness of feeling. If the 'Thoughts upon Art' do not exhibit any great profundity of thinking, they are earnest, instructive, and characteristic. His descriptions of his travels in France and England; his criticisms and anecdotes of artists and persons in Florence; his account of his daily life in his studio and at his home,—are lively and amusing. Altogether, the book has a special charm which it is not easy to define. In reading it, we feel that we are in the presence and taken into the confidence of a person of great simplicity and purity of character, of admirable instincts and perceptions, of true kindness of heart, and of a certain childlike naïveté of feeling and expression, which is scarcely to be found out of Italy.

In respect of style, this autobiography resembles more the spoken than the written literary language of Italy. It is free, natural, unstudied, and often careless. But its very carelessness has a charm. Duprè was not a scholar nor a literary man. He was not bound by the rigid forms of what is called in Italy "lo stile," which but too often is the enemy of natural utterance. Undoubtedly this book needs compression; but no exactness of style and form could compensate for the absence of that unstudied natural ease and familiarity which are among its greatest charms. The writer, fortunately for the reader, is as unconscious of elaborated style as Monsieur Jourdain was that he was talking prose. The character of Duprè's writing has been admirably caught and reproduced by Madame Peruzzi, in the translation to which these few words may serve as preface.

As an artist, Duprè was not endowed with a great creative or imaginative power. His spirit never broke out of the Roman Church in which he was brought up, and all that he did and thought was coloured by its influence. The subjects which he chose in preference to all others were of a religious character, and his works are animated by a spirit of humility and devotion, rather than of power and intensity. His piety—and he was a truly pious man—narrowed the field of his imagination, and restricted the flights of his genius. "But even his failings leaned to virtue's side," and what he lacked in breadth of conception, was compensated by his deep sincerity of purpose and religious feeling. He was not a daring creator—not an originator of ideas—not a bold discoverer. He hugged the shore of his Church. He wanted the passion and overplus of nature that might have borne him to new heights, and new continents of thought and feeling. His Cain, almost alone of all his works, breathes a spirit of defiance and rebellion, and breaks through the limitations of his usual conceptions. But it was not in harmony with his genius; and in natural expression it falls so far below his previous statue of Abel, that it was epigrammatically said that his Abel killed his Cain. There was undoubtedly a certain truth in this criticism, for though the Cain is vigorously conceived and admirably executed, the heart of the man was not in it, as it was in the gentle and placid figure of Abel. In mastery of modelling and truth to nature, this latter statue could scarcely be surpassed. Indeed, so remarkable was it for these qualities, that it gave rise in Florence to the scandalous calumny that it had been cast, not modelled, from nature,—a calumny which, it is scarcely necessary to add, was as false in fact as it was inconsistent with the honest and lofty spirit of Duprè; and which, though intended as a reproach, proved to be the highest testimonial to the extraordinary skill of the artist.

Within the bounded domain of thought and conception which his religious faith had set for him, he worked with great earnestness and devotion of spirit. Though he created no works which are stamped by the audacity of genius, or intensified