Hiram Powers died in Florence in 1873, and lies in the Protestant Cemetery of that city. His mask, after death, was made by Thomas Ball and Joel T. Hart. Dr. Samuel Osgood said of Powers in 1870: “In his looks, his ideas, as well as in all his works, he is a man of the golden mean. There is nothing too much in his make or his manner. He is a good specimen of a well-formed man, and his own statue would make a good sign for the front of his studio.” In October, 1847, Mrs. Browning wrote: “Mr. Powers, the sculptor, is our chief friend and favorite. A most charming, simple, straightforward, genial American—as simple as the man of genius he has proved himself to be.... The sculptor has eyes like a wild Indian’s, so black and full of light—you would scarcely marvel if they clove the marble without the help of his hand.” “Mr. Powers called in the evening,” wrote Hawthorne in his _Italian Note-book_ in 1858—“a plain personage, characterized by strong simplicity and warm kindliness, with an impending brow, and large eyes which kindle as he speaks. He is gray and slightly bald, but does not seem elderly nor past his prime. I accept him at once as an honest and trustworthy man, and shall not vary from this judgment.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: HIRAM POWERS] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mr. Preston Powers, who possesses the mask of his father, has also in his possession a life-mask and a death-mask of Agassiz, and a death-mask of Sumner; the last two having been made by himself. Through his courtesy I am enabled to reproduce them all here. The life-mask of Agassiz was made when the subject was about forty years of age, and by an artist now unknown. It was given to Mr. Powers by Mr. Alexander Agassiz at the time of the elder Agassiz’s death. E. P. Whipple, in his _Recollections of Eminent Men_, said of Agassiz: “You could not look at him without feeling that you were in the presence of a magnificent specimen of physical, mental, and moral manhood; that in him was realized Sainte-Beuve’s ideal of a scientist—the soul of a sage in the body of an athlete. At that time [1845] he was one of the comeliest of men. His full and ruddy face, glowing with health and animation, was crowned by a brow which seemed to be the fit home for such a comprehensive intelligence.” And Longfellow, in his _Journal_ (January 9, 1847), wrote: “In the evening a reunion at Felton’s to meet Mr. Agassiz, the Swiss geologist and naturalist. A pleasant, voluble man, with a bright beaming face.” Mr. Curtis, in an oration upon Charles Sumner, delivered shortly after the statesman’s death, said that “his look, his walk, his dress, his manner, were not those of the busy advocate, even in his younger years, but of the cultivated and brilliant man of society, the Admirable Crichton of the saloons.”