THE engraving represents one of the wildest and most beautiful Lakes in the State of New York, and probably in the United States. It is situated partly in the counties of Warren and Essex, is nine miles long and about one mile wide. The view is taken from an island in the north end of the Lake, at the time when "Twilight's shade comes stealing on, O'er mountain, wood, and stream, It is peculiarly American in its character, being both wild and picturesque, and one which the artist delighted to portray. Schroon, Pharaos or Bluebeard Mountain, which is the most prominent peak in the picture, is about four miles from the Lake, and attains an altitude of 3,200 feet. The more distant are the peaks of the Eastern range of the Adirondacks. That at the right of the engraving is the Saddleback Mountain. The shores of the Lake are covered with the dense foliage as seen in the engraving. ART IN THE UNITED STATES. BY GEO. W. BETHUNE, D. D. THE comprehensive title at the head of this page is not a promise of a formal essay, but has been taken as a convenient because sufficiently expansible heading, to cover some desultory remarks suggested by the rapid growth among us, during the last few years, of talent and taste for Art. 3 The American has frequent occasion to say, in answer to hasty strictures of foreigners, particularly those from Great Britain, that they "do not understand us;" and the reply, irrepressible from its truth, has been much ridiculed by our transatlantic cousins, as if it were easy to draw conclusions from superficial facts. The reverse is, however, the case, both from the difficulty of knowing all the facts, and the necessity of having a right point of view. As, because of the variety, which gives individuality of character, no one man can thoroughly understand another, but each has received a distinctness from his peculiar temperament, mental structure, early circumstances, and all those influences which make up his education, so we may well doubt the ability of an observer, however candid and intelligent, to understand the people of another nation. Forms of government, climate, pursuits of life as affected by soil or position, descent whether pure or mixed, seclusion from other portions of mankind or intercourse with them, historical associations, hereditary habits and prejudices, language, literature, religion, with many other less scrutable but important coalescing causes, render each nation an enigma to all others. Civilization is a mystery to the savage, and the savage no less a mystery to his civilized brother. A Laplander and an Arab, if thrown together, would scarcely agree in aught but the appetites, passions, and faculties common to man. An adult Turk could never be turned into an Anglo-Saxon, nor an Anglo-Saxon into a Turk; they might exchange countries and garments, but, while life lasted, the one would delight to steal away from the bustle around him that he might enjoy in cross-legged repose his revery of trustful fatalism, and the other would shuffle forth in his slippers eager after the latest news. It is hardly more possible for an Englishman to comprehend a Frenchman, or a Frenchman an Englishman, though they have been within a few hours of each other since time immemorial. Solid John Bull looks upon the grimaces of his mercurial neighbor, as upon the tricks of a mountebank's monkey, while he of the Grande Nation, shrugging his elastic shoulders, returns the contempt by muttering, "Bête !" How utterly strange to us in this country is the readiness with which the revolutionary masses of the old world, after months of fire and carnage and bluster, subside before the bayonets of an autocrat! And how far beyond the conception of European statesmanship is the simple law by which the very multiplicity of our wellguarded state sovereignties best secures our national union! There are strong reasons why our American characteristics are slowly understood by others; biassed through our reading of historical precedents, we are apt to judge incorrectly of ourselves; nor can any question touching our manners or tendencies, be properly discussed without going over and carefully considering the circumstances in which they have been developed. Our origin, situation, constituents, and manner of growth, are so unexampled as almost to exclude analogy. Compared with all others, ancient or modern, our nation is an anomaly. Coming into being when the mind of Europe, especially of Great Britain, had reached a high degree of cultivated strength, the American people sprung less from the loins than from the brain of her great parent, not, indeed, full-grown, but with a precocious vigor far beyond childhood. The early colonists of British race were, for the most part, of that stern, indomitable faith, which, loyal to a divine sovereign, unhesitatingly challenged human usurpations. Those from Holland, then just emancipated, after a long struggle with bigot Spain, and the Huguenot exiles, preferring expatriation to apostacy, were of the same liberty-loving, yet severe creed. Religious sympathy prepared them for political co-operation; and they, acting really long before they acted formally together, gave, as the predominating element, a unity of purpose to the scattered settlements, which could not otherwise have been expected from their heterogeneous origin. Educated by difficulties in the old world, they were ready to meet, with intelligent, hopeful courage, the difficulties of the new. They were also of equal rank, and, for the most part, equal fortunes. Hereditary nobility and privileged classes were not recognized among them. Such pretensions, where personal labor was required of all, would have been ridiculous. Oppressed, at times, by the imperial exactions of the mother country, and the insolence of its proconsular representatives, they yet could not be debarred the filial prerogative of using the English tongue and the unequalled stores of wisdom, political, literary, and religious, already provided by English pens. The land in which they sought a new home, seemed to have been |