s then young, and had yet to learn that the quality that
so attracted me in these pictures is, indeed, the rarest virtue in any
work of Art,--that, although pictures without imagination are without
savor, yet that the larger number of those that are painted are
destitute of that grace,--and that, when, in later years, I should visit
the principal galleries of Europe, and see the masterpieces of each
master, I still should return to the memory of Allston's works as to
something most precious and unique in Art. I have also, since that time,
come to believe, that, while every sensitive beholder must feel the
charm of Allston's style, its intellectual ripeness can be fully
appreciated only by the aid of a foreign culture.

Passing through Europe with this impression of Allston's genius, in the
Venetians I first recognized his kindred; in Venice I found the school
in which he had studied, and in which Nature had fitted him to study:
for his eye for color was like his management of it,--Venetian. His
treatment of heads has a round, ripe, sweet fulness which reminds one
of the heads in the "Paradiso" of Tintoretto,--that work which deserves
a place in the foremost rank of the world's masterpieces. The great
praise implied in this comparison is justly due to Allston. The texture
and handling of his work are inimitable. Without any appearance of
labor, all crudeness is absorbed; the outlines of objects are not so
much softened as emptied of their color and substance, so that the light
appears to pass them. The finishing is so judicious that the spectator
believes he could see more on approaching nearer. The eye searches the
shade, and sees and defines the objects at first concealed by it. The
eye is not satiated, but by the most artful means excited to greater
appetite. The coloring is not so much harmonious as harmony itself, out
of which melodies of color play through the picture in a way that is
found in no other master but Paul Veronese. As Allston himself expressed
it, he liked to echo his colors; and as an echo is best heard where all
else is silence, so the pure repose of these compositions gives
extraordinary value to such delicate repetitions of color. The effect
is, one might say, more musical than pictorial. This peculiar and
musical effect is most noticeable in the landscapes. They are like odes,
anthems, and symphonies. They run up the scale, beginning with the
low-toned "Moonlight," through the great twilight piece