ject similar in properties and circumstances.
An allegory is also a continued metaphor, and is,
in words, what hieroglyphics are in painting:
"Claudite jam rivos, pueri, sat pratu biberunt."
Stop the streams, boys, the fields have drunk enough-
(that is, cease your music, our ears have been
sufficiently delighted,) is an allegory.

In the sayings of our Saviour, we find the allegory in its greatest perfection. "The Sower and the Seed," "The Good Samaritan," and the "Prodigal Son," are in point. "The Course of Empire," "The Voyage of Life," and "The Cross and the World," are allegorical landscapes in the truest sense of the term; and under this department, we propose to consider the genius and the great artistic merits of Thomas Cole. But, before discussing the claims of these great works on the attention of the world, we will give a brief sketch of his life.

Our artist was the only son of Mary and James Cole, and the youngest of eight children. He was born at Bolton, in Lancashire, England, February 1, 1801.

His father was a woolen manufacturer, endowed with a highly poetical temperament, and was more disposed to weave the unavailable webs of fancy, than the more substantial woofs of wool. After a series of misfortunes, he left Bolton and removed to Chorley, a town in the same shire.

Here the artist of nine years began to take lessons of adversity. He went to the Chester school, where he learned something of books and the birch, which stuck to his memory with a sort of stinging sensation through life. His schooldays were over at Chester-and in the teeth of his father's wish to apprentice him to an attorney or an iron manufacturer, Thomas become an engraver of simple designs for caliço, in one of the print works at Chorley. This silly choice put the hopes of paternity to flight, and stamped the embryo painter the block-head of the family. They remonstrated with him. They pictured to him the boundless wealth that would accrue to him in the one case, and the immortal speeches that he would make in the other; but it was no use, Thomas absolutely refused to have his heart iron-cast, either by the law or the common method of shaping melted ore, and was determined to become a simple artist-and to harken to the still small voice of his soul.

The young painter paid little attention to paternal discontent. He was in love with his aew profession. Every gaudy print that sat itself down by his graver, had alluring beauties for his untutored fancy. The colors, the figures, were so beautiful, so entrancing. He looked at

He placed them in all them with a lover's eye. possible lights,' while a still small voice within him, said, "Thomas, can't you do something like this?"

Then a strange flush passed over his face, and a light flashed in his eye, that was not the sun's. Hope stirred the embers on the hearth-stone of his heart. Faith lifted up the windows of his soul, and let in a new beam. Fancy plumed her wings, and bore the young debutant away in a dream of future glory. The swift putting forth of the divine germ that nature had sown in the rich soil of Thomas' mind, isolated him from his rude fellows, and compelled him to seek companionship among the picturesque scenery of the surrounding country. By ivy walls and mosscovered castles, he delighted to roam with beauty and nature.

As time passed, the young artist became a great reader of books of foreign travel. He was enraptured with the accounts given of America. The great lakes, the extensive plains, the mighty forests, the Alleghanies, the broad rivers, kindled all his enthusiasm. He talked of them, sang of them, and made rude sketches of them, until, to cross the Atlantic, and plant his standard in the mighty forests of America, became the absorbing dream of life.

In the spring of 1819, the Cole family came to America, and settled in Philadelphia, where the father engaged in mercantile business, and Thomas applied himself to the graver. The elder Cole not finding such thrift in the city of brotherly-love, as he had anticipated, sought a home in Steubenville, on the fertile banks of the Ohio.

Thomas continued, for a time, his profession of wood-engraver, in Philadelphia-then, with a young friend, embarked for St. Eustatia. Here, in this mountain island of the tropics, he caught his first views of nature in her richest and loveBrimmed with inspiration, Cole liest forms. painted a picture of St. Eustatia, and drew a few heads in crayon, which are among his earliest and best artistic efforts. The following May he returned to Philadelphia, and thence wound his way to his father's home, on the banks of the The deep rivers, the solitary beautiful Ohio. forests, and the fairy-peopled solitudes of this wild region, harmonized with the naturally sensitive and melancholy spirit of the painter. Here, in the depth of the silent woods, he went forth to talk with his soul, and to hold converse with nature. Here, day after day, surrounded by woodnymphs, and beneath the approving eye of God, sat the pale trio in deep communion.

"Here,*

said his soul unto nature, "I have dwelt with | street, below Third, and the pictures filled up thee, and have listened to thy melodious voice, nearly one end of it." unaccompanied by the jarring instruments of life. Here I have drank thy breezy whispers, and stood speechless before thy divine eloquence. Here thou hast taught me the height and the depth of myself. Here I have gazed on thy beautiful face, and have fallen irrevocably in love. Here, at thy silent founts, I have tasted the draughts, that can alone slake my burning thirst, and satisfy my unearthly longings. I have tried by the language of poesy and music, to evolve the thoughts that burn within me, but these were not sufficient. The language which thou hast taught me, and which represents thy spirit and thy visible beauty, is my true medium. Henceforth, I will speak it to the world. Take me into thy service. Be thou my guide, and I will be unto thee a faithful follower."

Our artist's works, at this period of his career, were but an earnest of his future excellence. A landscape, painted in Pittsburg, and still in the possession of his family, is a fair specimen. Although faded, it bears unmistakable evidence of the same mind that created "The Voyage of Life,” and "The Good Shepherd."

In 1825, Cole went to try his fortune in the city of New York. This was the commencement of his prosperity. For the first two years his studio in New York was in the narrow garret of his father's house, in Greenwich street. Here, in a semitwilight, squeezed and elbowed by low and rude partitions, the great allegorical landscapist, leaning only on Youth, Faith, and Hope, applied the pencil and the brush. The garret, in our opinion, is the only fit abode for the artist and the poet. If they seek any other, they do it at the risk of losing that holy inspiration which may never illumine the mansions of their souls again. No

Young Cole passed two years in this wild home; two years of self-communion; and then staked his all upon one throw-the cast for art. About this time he read a work upon art, which great work of art was every executed in a palace. made a deep impression on his mind.

His first efforts were in landscape, dictated by the recollections of fancy. Crude as these were, they attracted the attention of an amateur artist, who gave him colors and pencils. This attention encouraged Cole, and he went onward.

It never will be. The attendant Spirits of Genius will never follow it into gilded halls. They shake hands at the gate, and return to the garret and the mountain cave.

dollars.

With these heavy rocks in his pocket, Cole, with the lofty step of a king, made a journey to the Catskills, pausing on the cliffs of the beauti

The first pictures that Cole placed on exhibition in New York, were three, entitled composiHis second efforts were in portraiture. A tions: a Storm, a Tree, and a Battle Scene. For wandering portrait painter stopped in his neigh-three of these, George Bruen, Esq., paid the sum borhood; Cole went to see his pictures-caught of twenty-five dollars-and for a fourth, ten the idea at once-and immediately started off as an itinerant portrait painter. And after having painted portraits in most of the towns and large villages west of Philadelphia, he returned to that city in the autumn of 1823, and there, under in-ful Wehawken, scaling the Palisades, and wanderexpressible hardships, commenced his artist-life. ing through the storied Highlands. The beauty In a great city, in a garret, without bed, fire, and grandeur of these scenes charmed his eye, or furniture; with a baker's roll, and a pitcher and took his soul captive. of water for his daily refreshment, toiled this young artist at his easel for one long winter. "This," he afterwards said to a friend, the winter of my discontent."

" was

During this winter he painted a great number of pictures, sketched from nature, and drew in the Academy. “The only comic pictures I ever painted," he was wont to say, "were executed during this forlorn situation."

His most elaborate picture of this period, was one from an engraving of Louis XVI., parting with his family. "I recollect well," says a friend of his, "of meeting Cole one morning in Third street, in a very cheerful mood. He said he was painting a piece from French history, and asked me to come and see him. His room was in New

On his return to New York, he painted "A View of Fort Putnam," "The Lake with Dead Trees," "The Falls of the Caterskills." These were purchased for twenty-five dollars each, by Trumbull, Dunlap, and Durand. Three artists acknowledged the merits of these works, and continued ever after to be the friends of Cole.

The star of his fame now ascended above the horizon, and attracted thousands of eyes in both hemispheres, to its sure and steady march into the zenith. Friends gathered around him, and orders for pictures flowed in from all directions. Cole now felt himself to be a free man. world had learned that he could paint pictures, and would give him honorable employment. He should no longer be the victim of base, coarse

The

patrons, compelled to paint pictures for them for his board, and to sit at table with their servants. He should eat no more bitter bread, but sail down the stream of life, without another storm. He was mistaken. He had yet to hear the howl of envy's pack at his heels, and to feel the sting of her barbed arrows. He had yet to see on the lips that had praised him, the freezing sneer of derision-and to feel that success was an unpardonable offence.

A single pass of one long blade of lightning through the silence, followed by a crash, as of a cloven mountain, with a thousand echoes, was the signal for the grand conflict. A light troop of rain-drops first swept forward, footing it over the boughs with a soft and whispery sound; then came the tread of the heavy shower; squadrons of vapor rolled in; shock succeeded shock; thunderbolt fell on thunderbolt; peal followed peal; waters dashed on every crag from the full In the autumn of 1826, Cole again visited the sluices of the sky. I was wrapped in the folds Catskills. It was his delight to roam from gorge of the tempest, and blindfolded to every prospect to gorge-from mountain to mountain-and to beyond the rugged doorway of the cave. Then hold communion with nature in her varied lan-came up a thousand fancies. I thought myself guage. He loved to talk with the old gnarled careering in a chariot of rock, through airy trees, scarred with the battle-swords of the ele-wastes, beyond the reach of gravitation, with no ments, and to watch their affectionate intertwi- law but my own will; now I rose over mountainnings. He loved to dwell with the weeping-ous billows of mist, then plunged into the fathomwillows, and to list to their melancholy sighing. We give his own description of sketching in the Catskills:

less obscure; light shot athwart the darkness, darkness extinguished light; to musical murmurs succeeded quick explosions; there was no finish, no fixedness, nor rest. But the storm kept on, strong and furious; no fancy could dissipate the awful reality; no imagery of the mind could amuse the fears that began to throng around my heart. Trees fell with a stifled crash; cataracts mingled their din with the general uproar. I actually began to fear the rocks would be loosen

"At an hour-and-a-half before sunset, on the 8th of October, 1826, I had a steep and lofty mountain before me, heavily wooded, and infested with wolves and bears, and no house for six miles. But I determined, in spite of all difficulties, and an indescribable feeling of melancholy, to attain the height of the mountain. After climbing some three miles up a steep and brokened from the brow of the mountain above me, and road, I found myself near the summit, with a wide prospect. Above me jutted out some bare rocks, which I clambered up, and sat upon my mountain throne, the monarch of the scene. The sun was setting, and the shadows lay heavily along the valley. Here and there a stream faintly sparkled; clouds, flaming in the last glories of day, hung on the points of the highest peaks, like torches lifted by the earth to kindle the lamps of Heaven. Summit rose above sum-captive to the floods, and actually began to medimit-mountain rolled away beyond mountain—a tate the possibility of having to pass the night in fixed, stupendous tumult. The prospect was this dismal nook. There was the hard rock, a sublime. I made a sketch or two, and de- little mat of moss, and the remains of a mountain scended." dinner in my knapsack. The wind now drove the chilly vapor through my portal, the big drops

THE STORM IN THE CATSKILLS.

roll down with overwhelming voice. The light-
ning played around my very tenement, and the
thunder burst on my door-stone. I felt as feeble
as a child. Every moment my situation was be-
coming more comfortless, as well as romantic;
a torrent, to all appearance parted by the pro-
jecting crag which formed the roof of my shelter,
came rushing down on both sides of me, and met
again a short distance below me.
Here I was, a.

"In one of my mountain rambles, I was over-gathered on my stony ceiling, and pattered on taken by a thunder-storm. The thunders muttered in the distance; a sudden darkness enveloped the scene, which a few minutes before was one gush of sunlight. I took shelter under a hanging rock. Here, thought I, as I paced the rocky floor of my temporary castle, I will watch unharmed, the battle of the elements. The storm came down in all its majesty. Like a hoarse trumpet sounding to the charge, a strong blast roared through the forest. The deep gorge below me grew darker, and the gloom more awful.

my hat and raiment; and, to complete my calamity, the water began to flow in little brooks across my floor. My anticipated bed of moss suddenly became a saturated sponge; I was reduced to the hard necessity of piling up the loose flakes of rock that lay scattered through my inhospitable hall, and courting contentment on the rugged heap. I had one remaining hope, the sudden cessation of the storm. All at once, a blast, with the voice and temper of a hurricane, swept up through the gulf, and lifted with magi