Today, our equestrian statues are the work of accomplished sculptors. Such commissions are not bestowed on weaklings or beginners, on irresponsibles or mere experimenters. In addition to genius, the highest equestrian art demands of the sculptor certain pedestrian virtues; such as foresight and perseverance and common sense and ability to cope with the unsuspected deviltries of men, beasts, and things. As said in another chapter, every sculptor who triumphs over his equestrian problem is heroic. This is true whether he works single-handed or in collaboration with some other sculptor, some one with a special gift for animal form. And it remains true, even though in our day, no sculptor can well hope or desire, like Houdon, to be “considered under the double aspect of Statuary and Founder.” Earnest men like Cellini and Houdon, Clark Mills and Brown have long since, by working on their knees in sweat and grime, paved the way for the modern organization of bronze founding to be carried on as a craft in purlieus outside the sculptor’s studio. Many tribulations are thereby removed from the sculptor, but enough have been added for his proper chastening. Those who know our American equestrian statues, those who have seen the pluck and energy with which their makers have achieved their goal, will certainly set down valor as one of the gifts belonging to the spirit of American sculpture. III Clark Mills, Brown, Ball, Ward, Saint-Gaudens, French, Potter, Partridge, Remington, Bush-Brown, Elwell, Proctor, Rhind, Lukeman, Bitter, Niehaus, Ruckstull, Bartlett, MacMonnies, Dallin, the two Borglums, Fraser, Aitken, Miss Hyatt, Mrs. Farnham, Roth, Packer, Shrady;--if without benefit of catalogue memory at once speaks all these names, no doubt there are others also. And in what infinite variety of imagination and of rendering their works stand before us! The whole procession of mounted heroes produces no sense of monotony. Originality, that quality overprized when prized at all as an end in itself, appears in sufficient measure. Yet, beginning with Saint-Gaudens, most of these well-trained artists would undoubtedly admit their debt of gratitude to Barye and Frémiet and Dubois, the French masters, and beyond these, to Donatello and to Verocchio and Leopardi, through whom the Renaissance gave to the world those two vivid masterpieces, the Gattamelata and the Colleoni. If that almost mythical third masterpiece, da Vinci’s Sforza, had been saved to round out a trinity of high accomplishment, how great would have been our debt to Italy! As it is, the void left is something every sculptor is free to fill, if his powers permit; there are still worlds to conquer. IV