pondent. If I have occasionally indulged myself in levity, it was not because I thought ridicule a proper test of truth. But if this writer, whoever he may be, should think that he has been improperly treated by me, he is at liberty to vindicate himself. I am at all times willing to bow beneath the lash of correction, whenever it shall be proved that I have advanced a sentiment incompatible with truth. W. A.

THE FINE ARTS-FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

Ir affords us peculiar satisfaction to be, to our fellow citizens, the organ of communication of any intelligence that may be gratifying to them and honourable to our country. Of this description, and that, we trust, in an eminent degree, is the information we are enabled to impart respecting three young Americans, who are now in Europe, cultivating their talents in the art of painting. We allude to Messrs. Leslie, Morse, and Allston, who, to speak of them in terms of perfect moderation, exhibit, as we are told, the fairest promise of becoming, after their great predecessors shall have disappeared, the West, the Copeley, and the Trumbull of the age.

That we may not be suspected of dealing in any of the extravagancies of eulogy, we are prepared to lay before the public the evidences, equally strong and authentic, on which the opinion we have expressed is founded.

In relation to Mr. Leslie the following correspondence occurred, as appears by the annexed dates, in March last, between Mr. Randolph and our illustrious countryman, Mr. West, of London. It is but justice to add, that for the letters of these two gentlemen we are indebted to the polite attention of Mr. Tompkins, to whom we avail ourselves of this opportunity to express our obligations and to tender our thanks.

"Buckingham-street, Strand, London, March 17, 1814.

"DEAR SIR,

"Honoured, as I am, by your confidence and kind attention, and equally proud of the extraordinary talents of my young coun

tryman, Mr. Leslie, I should be happy to receive, in reply to this communication, a repetition of the high and distinguished encomium you were pleased to pass on Mr. Leslie's production of the "Witch of Endor." To the liberty of this request I am induced by the suggestion of another esteemed young countryman, Mr. Joseph Y. Tompkins, who had the honour of an interview with you to-day; and who is desirous of having your authority for his favourable representation of Mr. Leslie's success to his friends, on his return to the United States, by the Fair American, now at Liverpool.

"I am, respectfully, your obliged friend, &c.
"D. M. RANDOLPH.

"Benjamin West, 14 Newman-street, Oxford road."

"DEAR SIR,

"Newman-street, March 21, 1814.

"There is no occurrence which affords me a higher gratification, than that of properly appreciating the talents of those professing any of the branches of the fine arts-particularly so, when those talents are found in youth modest and virtuous. Mr. Leslie, the young gentleman, from Philadelphia, respecting whom you inquire, appears to me to be blessed with all those natural endowments (connected with a suitable education) requisite for giving appropriate character to a subject. To these he unites a hand capable of executing his conceptions on canvas with the pencil. His picture of Saul, in the house of the woman of Endor (when the ghost of Samuel appears) is, from the knowledge I have of painting, almost without an example in art, considering it to have been done by a youth in his nineteenth year, and to have been the second picture, in history, he ever painted. Having given so ample a display of genius and talents at so early a period of life, and continuing, as he does, with some of the ablest and most refined productions of art before him, to pursue the study and prac tice of his profession, with the most amiable dispositions and unwearied industry, to what excellence in the higher departments of painting may we not expect him to attain, when his pencil shall have become matured, and all his powers completely evolved by time and cultivation!

"The junior artists in painting who have passed me in review within the last fifty years, have not presented to me a similar excellence at the same age in which Mr. Leslie produced his picture of Saul, now under notice. Respecting this picture, which, being in my own room, I have a daily opportunity to examine, you are at liberty to make this my opinion of it known to whomsoever you may think proper.

"D. M. Randolph, Esquire."

"I am, sir, yours, respectfully,

"BENJAMIN WEST.

"P. S. It affords me great pleasure to inform you, that sir John Leicester, bart. has given Mr. Leslie one hundred guineas for the above mentioned picture of Saul."

Soaring at once to the highest department of his profession, historical painting, Mr. Allston has placed on canvas the scene of the Dead man restored to life by touching the bones of the prophet Elisha; an effort, which, we are authorised to say, procured for its author, at a late exhibition of the arts in the British gallery, the first prize of two hundred guineas.

Of this celebrated picture we extract the following notice from the "Examiner," a London paper, which appears to be conducted with no small degree of ability, candour, and taste:

"The dead man restored to life by touching the bones of Elisha, W. ALLSTON, is a work which comes at once before us with the double and delighted surprise of high excellence from a novel hand, such a hand as would justify its being placed at the side of some of the best masters in history, and which makes us deeply regret that the brother natives of two such countries as Great Britain and the American republic should be engaged in any other war than that of social and intellectual rivalry, the only rational hostility of sentient beings. The faces and forms in this picture are all impressed by a strong, and highly natural feeling; but there is rather a monotony in the countenances of the three chief spectators of the miracle, we mean in the form and feature, abstracted from the expression of fear and wonder, which must necessarily be similar; and we doubt whether those above and beyond the man in the fore ground, are not deviations from perspective pre

cision, as to prominence of size and colour. But these are venial errors, when compared to the life, to the impassioned feelings, that breathe throughout; to the astonishment and fear, to the mute gazing, and shrinking at the awful resuscitation. The female in a fit at the terrific sight, while her daughter clings to her with a mixed emotion of fear and filial concern, is an impressively natural incident. Equally so are the two youths engaged in a conversation of inquiry and surprise, one with his finger of one hand significantly laid on the other, the second with his arms emphatically stretched forth. Excepting the disproportioned length of the reviving man, too much praise cannot be given for his admirably painted character, the contraction of the toes, the dimly-beaming eyes, staring with faint dawnings of consciousness and sensation, the anatomical drawing, and the mixed carnation and livid hue of his flesh, in which the hitherto stagnant stream of life is beginning to thaw under the warmth of that hallowed and wonder-working flame, which beams on the skeleton of Elisha-a conception truly poetical and explanatory of the returning vitality. It is problematical, whether this figure would not make an equal, if not a more suitable impression, and at the same time render the general effect more pleasing, were its lower extremities and drapery in some degree, shrouded in shade, instead of destroying, by its strong light, the unity of the general effect of the picture's light and shade; for though, as the figure of chief importance, it ought to be strikingly marked, still the universal attention which it attracts from the surrounding groups, would sufficiently point it out to the spectator. Though the flesh throughout would have a more epic dignity of style were it of a broader and more Titianesque hue, it is a beautiful specimen of carnation tinting. Mr. Allston's mind's eye is evidently nourished by invigorating, close, and intelligent study of the lively graces of the old masters and the antique. For the rich, ocular, and intellectual treat he has afforded us, we offer him as a small proof of our thankfulness and esteem, the testimony of our humble approbation."

By Mr. Allston's loftiest ambition,, higher praise can scarceJy be aspired to than this paragraph spontaneously bestows.

Of the talents and attainments of Mr. Morse, son to our celebrated geographer of the same name, an authentic letter enables us to speak in terms of nearly equal applause. It represents that young American as receiving, in consequence of his merit as an artist, even in the capital of an enemy's country, the highest encomiums and most honourable rewards that taste and liberality are able to bestow:

"At the last Sommerset-house exhibition, says our correspondent, he (Mr. Morse) produced a large picture of the dying Hercules, which was honoured with universal admiration.

"A few days previously his grace the duke of Norfolk, in a numerous assembly, presented Mr. Morse with an elegant gold medal, for an exquisite model of the same subject, of his own composition and workmanship, presented to the Society of the Adelphi in London."

On contemplating the height to which these three young Americans are thus early elevated by their talents and attainments, what native of the United States can fail to glow with the love of his country, while he exults in the unrivalled genius of his countrymen! And with what contempt must each one of us regard the narrow sentiments, the insolence and folly of those European writers-philosophers in the present instance we will not call them-who have represented the intellect of man as sinking from its native level beneath the influence of the American climate! It is neither our intention nor our province to boast; but we deem it due to our countrymen, and perfectly consistent with truth to assert, that, taking promiscuously, and without selection, from the United States and from any one of the countries of Europe, an equal number of native inhabitants, and comparing them with each other, the balance, if any exist, will be found to be in favour of the Americans, on the score both of intellectual and corporeal qualities-vigour of body and vigour of mind. It will be understood that, in this comparison we have allusion to native vigour of mind; not to those mental attainments, constituting artificial strength, which are the result of education, and cannot be regarded as appertaining exclusively to any climate. It must not be denied, that longer time, and more favourable opportunities of intellectual improvement are requisite to enable us