Similarly, a delicate fancy rather than imagination pervades the monument erected to the memory of the poet O’Reilley. This group of three figures may be felt also to establish a doubt, aroused by the previous work, as to whether the sculptor is fortunate in the treatment of a composition which involves more than one figure. Neither of them is conspicuous for organic unity or for relational value in the parts. It is, indeed, in the management of a single figure that French produces the most complete _ensemble_. Among these the colossal “Statue of the Republic” at the Chicago Exposition marks, if I mistake not, a turning-point in his art. Here, for the first time, his matured powers came into direct contact with the influence of architecture. Hitherto his imagination had played around the subject represented; now it became absorbed in the architectonic significance of the statue itself, as a feature of isolated and conspicuous emphasis in a great scheme of monumental architecture. Removed from the surroundings for which it was conceived, the “Republic” is scarcely beautiful, the contours being rigid, the pose monotonous; yet these qualities became in its appointed place the very source of its indubitable stateliness; of its value as a focus-point in the long vista of the Court of Honour and as an expression in heroic shape of the dignity of the Republic. At this time French came into close contact with the architect, Charles F. McKim, and the intimacy has ripened into very frequent collaboration, so that, although he has executed other commissions, such as that clever character-study, the statue of Rufus Choate, and, in coöperation with E. C. Potter, a spirited and impressive equestrian statue of Washington, his work has become more and more identified with sculpture in its relation to architecture. To a mind like his, that seems always to have leaned toward the abstract, this alliance with an art so free from direct human allusion must have followed quite naturally. Yet we may be disposed to regret a transition which has in a measure, if I may use the word, dehumanised his art, which broke off his development when it had acquired a charm of poetical expression not too usual in this country, and would appear to have curtailed the freedom and individuality of his manner. Certainly, the series of figures for the Capitol at St. Paul, Minn., lack the distinction and vital worthiness of some of his earlier work; and even the latest statue of “Alma Mater,” beautiful as it unquestionably is, I can hardly feel belongs among his best.