Nevertheless, in poetry of feeling, in grandeur of conception, in exquisite fineness of detail and in execution, Horatio Greenough’s statue of George Washington is transcendently the greatest work in marble yet wrought at the command of the government for the Capitol. It is scarcely human, certainly not American, but it is godlike. The face is a perfect portrait of Washington. The veining of a single hand, the muscles of a single arm are triumphs of art. Washington’s chair is twined with acanthus leaves and garlands of flowers. The figure of Columbus leans against the back of the seat to the left, connecting the history of America with that of Europe; an Indian chief on the right represents the condition of the country at the time of its discovery. The back of the seat is ornamented in _basso-relievo_ with the rising sun, the crest of the American arms, under which is this motto: “_Magnus ab integro sæculorum nascitur ordo._” On the left is sculptured in _bas-relief_ the genii of North and South America under the forms of the infant Hercules strangling the serpent, and Iphiclus stretched on the ground shrinking in fear from the contest. The motto is “_Incipe posse puer cui non risere parentes._” On the back of the seat is the following motto: “_Simulacrum istud ad magnum Libertatis exemplum. Nec sine ipsa duraturum._” One of the greatest works of contemporary art, the masterpiece of a master, it has been the subject of more rude and vulgar jests than any other piece of American sculpture. The painful disparity which so often exists between the judgment of the multitude and the inspiration of the creator has never been more touchingly illustrated than in the following words of Horatio Greenough, concerning this monument to his own genius and to the Father of his country. He says: “It is the birth of my thoughts, I have sacrificed to it the flower of my days, and the freshness of my strength; its every lineament has been moistened with the sweat of my toil and the tears of my exile. I would not barter away its association with my name for the proudest fortune that avarice ever dreamed of. In giving it up to the nation that has done me the honor to order it at my hands, I respectfully claim for it that protection which is the boast of civilization to afford art, and which a generous enemy has more than once been seen to extend even to the monuments of its own defeat.”