AMERICAN THEATRE, BOWERY.-This establishment is being rebuilt under the direction of Mr. DINNEFORD, who will be associated with Mr. HAMBLIN in the lesseeship and management. This last named gentleman takes a 'Farewell and Complimentary Benefit,' previous to his present departure for Europe to enlist recruits for the new establishment. It should be a 'benefit' indeed, for no one deserves it more than the beneficiary, whose hand on all occasions has been 'open as the day to melting charity.'

THE FINE ARTS.

COLE'S PICTURES OF THE COURSE OF EMPIRE.'- The great merits of this series of pictures-five in number are doubtless known to a great portion of our NewYork readers. The conception of the artist is a bold and poetical one, involving in its execution genius, or the power of original creation, of the highest order. Mr. COLE has fully succeeded in embodying a succession of scenes, which not only stamp him as an artist of the first grade, but as a poet in whom 'the divinity' is an ever-present prompter. We had contemplated an extended notice of this admirable performance; but we find one so well executed to our hand, in the printed description of the artist himself, that we annex it, as far more graphic and intelligible than any thing which we could offer :

No. 1., which may be called the 'Savage State,' or 'the Commencement of Empire,' represents a wild scene of rocks, mountains, woods, and a bay of the ocean. The sun is rising from the sea, and the stormy clouds of night are dissipating before his rays. On the farthest side of the bay rises a precipitous hill, crowned by a singular isolated rock, which, to the mariner, would ever be a striking land-mark. As the same locality is represented in each picture of the series, this rock identifies it, although the observer's situation varies in the several pictures. The chase being the most characteristic occupation of savage life, in the fore-ground we see a man attired in skins, in pursuit of a deer, which, stricken by his arrow, is bounding down a water-course. On the rocks in the middle ground are to be seen savages, with dogs, in pursuit of deer. On the water below may be seen several canoes, and on the promontory beyond, are several huts, and a number of figures dancing round a fire. In this picture, we have the first rudiments of society. Men are banded together for mutual aid in the chase, etc. The useful arts have commenced in the construction of canoes, huts, and weapons. Two of the fine arts, music and poetry, have their germs, as we may suppose, in the singing which usually accompanies the dance of savages. The empire is asserted, although to a limited degree, over sea, land, and the animal kingdom. The season represented is Spring.

No. 2. The Simple or Arcadian State, represents the scene after ages have passed. The gradual advancement of society has wrought a change in its aspect. The untracked and rude' has been tamed and softened. Shepherds are tending their flocks; the ploughman, with his oxen, is upturning the soil, and Commerce begins to stretch her wings. A village is growing by the shore, and on the summit of a hill a rude temple has been erected, from which the smoke of sacrifice is now ascending. In the fore-ground, on the left, is seated an old man, who, by describing lines in the sand, seems to have made some geometrical discovery. On the right of the picture, is a female with a distaff, about to cross a rude stone bridge. On the stone is a boy, who appears to be making a drawing of a man with a sword, and ascending the road, a soldier is partly seen. Under the trees, beyond the female figure, may be seen a group of peasants; some are dancing, while one plays on a pipe. In this picture, we have agriculture, commerce, and religion. In the old man who describes the mathematical figure in the rude attempt of the boy in drawing in the female figure with the distaff in the vessel on the stocks, and in the primitive temple on the hill, it is evident that the useful arts, the fine arts, and the sciences, have made considerable progress. The scene is supposed to be viewed a few hours after sunrise, and in the early Summer.

In the picture No. 3, we suppose other ages have passed, and the rude village has become a magnificent city. The part seen occupies both sides of the bay, which the observer has now crossed. It has been converted into a capacious harbor, at whose entrance, toward the sea, stand two phari. From the water on each hand, piles of architecture ascend temples, collonades and domes. It is a day of rejoicing. A triumphal procession moves over the bridge near the fore-ground. The conqueror, robed in purple, is mounted in a car drawn by an elephant, and surrounded by captives on foot, and a numerous train of guards, senators, etc.-pictures and golden treasures are carried before him. He is about to pass beneath the triumphal arch, while girls strew flowers around. Gay festoons of drapery hang from the clustered columns. Golden trophies glitter above in the sun, and incense rises from silver censors. The harbor is alive with numerous vessels war galleys, and barks with silken sails. Before the doric temple on the left, the smoke of incense and of the altar rise, and a multitude of white-robed priests stand around on the marble steps. The statue of Minerva, with a victory in her hand, stands above the building of the Caryatides, on a columned pedestal, near which is a band with trumpets, cymbals, etc. On the right, near a bronze fountain, and in the shadow of lofty buildings, is an imperial personage viewing the procession, surrounded by her children, attendants, and guards. In this scene is depicted the summit of human glory. The architecture, the 81

VOL. VIII.

ornamental embellishments, etc., show that wealth, power, knowledge, and taste have worked together, and accomplished the highest meed of human achievement and empire. As the triumphal fête would indicate, inan has conquered man-nations have been subjugated. This scene is represented as near mid-day, in the early Autumn.

No. 4. The picture represents the Vicious State, or State of Destruction. Ages may have passed since the scene of glory-though the decline of nations is generally more rapid than their rise. Luxury has weakened and debased. A savage enemy has entered the city. A fierce tempest is raging. Walls and colonnades have been thrown down. Temples and palaces are burning. An arch of the bridge, over which the triumphal procession was passing in the former scene, has been battered down, and the broken pillars, and ruins of war engines, and the temporary bridge that has been thrown over, indicate that this has been the scene of fierce contention. Now there is a mingled multitude battling on the narrow bridge, whose insecurity makes the conflict doubly fearful. Horses and men are precipitated into the foaming waters beneath; war galleys are contending; onevessel is in flames, and another is sinking beneath the prow of a superior foe. In the more distant part of the harbor, the contending vessels are dashed by the furious waves, and some are burning. Along the battlements, among the ruined Caryatides, the contention is fierce; and the combatants fight amid the smoke and flame of prostrate edifices. In the fore-ground are several dead and dying; some bodies have fallen in the basin of a fountain, tinging the waters with their blood. A female is seen sitting in mute despair over the dead body of her son, and a young woman is escaping from the ruthan grasp of a soldier, by leaping over the battlement; another soldier drags a woman by the hair down the steps that form part of the pedestal of a mutilated colossal statue, whose shattered head lies on the pavement below. A barbarous and destroying enemy conquers and sacks the city. Description of this picture is perhaps needless; carnage and destruction are its elements.

The fifth picture is the scene of Desolation. The sun has just set, the moon ascends the twilight aky over the ocean, near the place where the sun rose in the first picture. Day-light fades away, and the shades of evening steal over the shattered and ivy-grown ruins of that once proud city. A lonely column stands near the fore ground, on whose capitol, which is illumined by the last rays of the departed sun, a heron has built her nest. The doric temple and the triumphal bridge, may still be recognised among the ruins. But, though man and his works have perished, the steep promontory, with its insulated rock, still rears against the sky unmoved, unchanged. Violence and time have crumbled the works of man, and art is again resolving into elemental nature. The gorgeous pageant has passed the roar of battle has ceased — the multitude has sunk in the dust- the empire is extinct.

These pictures were painted for the late LUMAN REED, whose encouragement of the fine arts has been mentioned with just applause, and they are now exhibited by permission of his family.

A SCENE FROM THE DELUGE.—This historical painting, from the pencil of Mr. F. ANELLI — an artist yet young, but possessing an advanced reputation, and talent of an exalted character - has attracted many visiters, and much admiration, since it has been open for exhibition. It is, in truth, a spirited and highly-wrought effort, and in most respects a preeminently beautiful picture. The form and features of the mother strike us as faultless; the countenance and image of the husband, too, are beyond criticism; while the muscular figure of the brother, admirably fore-shortened upon the overhanging rock, deserves equal praise. The infant, however, and the aged father, impressed us less favorably. There are defects, especially in the drawing, in each of these. The scene itself is well portrayed, and — excepting perhaps a greenness of too deep a hue in the waters- - is without blemish. Altogether, the picture is well imagined and well depicted.

'THE POOR RICH MAN AND THE RICH POOR MAN.' - Such is the expressive title of a small but closely printed volume, from the gifted pen of Miss SEDGWICK, just published by the Brothers HARPER. We have room but to say, that it is worthy of its author, and that, in the deep interest which it excites, and the moral which it conveys, it is a forcible an beautiful illustration of the truth of the passage which stands as its motto: Tave is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing; there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches.'

STATEN ISLAND. - To those who would hold communion with nature, during the brief reign of that 'Sabbath of the Year' which makes an American fall so calm and holy a season, we know of no spot, of easy access to our citizens, more delightful than Staten Island. Every hour in the day, scenes of natural beauty may here be enjoyed, which it is not too much to say have very few peers in the world. As the visiter leaves behind him the empire city, that sits like Tyre, in the midst of the sea, and 'whose merchants are princes,' let him mark the forests of masts that encompass her on every side— the wide expanse of her matchless bay, enlivened by water-craft of every description; Long Island, with its crowning city, and dwelling-sprinkled shore — the crowded river on the east, and the noble Hudson - the key to the far western region - rolling its broad waters to the main, its bosom whitened with the treasures of the vast inland that stretches beyond the sight. Before him widens the Narrows, the great gate between the eastern and western world. At the Quarantine, near the pretty village that swells upward from the shore, hundreds of vessels are riding at anchor. Let him land at the trim town of Tompkinsville, and proceed along the shore; and when he shall have gained the first of the various eminences that rise in irregular undulations far around him, pause for a moment, and survey the scene. The city, mellowed by distance, and reposing in the chastened autumnal light, rises 'like a sweet creation of enchantment from the silver bosom of the deep ;' far to the northward, the view of the Hudson is broken by the bold and picturesque front of the Pallisades; the blue mountain line, bounding the view on the north-west and west, forms an appropriate back-ground to a varied landscape, indented with bays, and chequered with towns and villages. When, in beholding all this, the enamored lover of nature becomes 'dizzy and drunk with beauty,' let him pursue his journey, until he finds himself on other upland slopes, of greater elevation, near where a redoubt was thrown up at a period when war was in our borders. Gazing toward the east, the view suddenly changes from the beautiful to the sublime. Before him spreads the 'throne of the Invisible' — the great and wide sea, with all its swelling multitude of waves. Sun-lit ships are flitting into dimness in the distance, while others, every sail spread, and homeward bound, are sweeping into the broad offing. On every hand, the Spirit of Beauty sits enthroned. It cannot be, that scenes like these will be long left to waste their wealth of various and noble beauty upon the merely casual beholder. Pass but a little while, and on all these commanding summits - these irregularly-distant and gracefully-rounded hills, which overlook the peerless scenes we have described-white dwellings, garnished by the hand of taste and art, will glimmer in the day-beam; the leafy magnificence of waying trees, and the sheen of gay gardens flowering in the summer sun, will be here: the uncultivated spot will have been converted into the fields of elysium.

COLLEGIATE. We have received, and perused with much gratification, 'An Oration delivered by the Hon. WILLIAM ALLEN, of Chillicothe, (Ohio,) before the Calliopean Society of the Granville Literary and Theological Institution,' in August last, 'being their first anniversary celebration.' This effort is the result of a searching examination and comparison of the tendencies of the different courses of national government. Its views of human action are enlarged its inculcations beneficial and exalted - while its style rarely lacks the graces of composition. A single paragraph is all for which we have space:

'If it should be asked, 'Where is the guaranty of liberty in the United States?' the answer may be found in the unawed freedom and untrammeled action of the press-in the numerous seminaries of learning-in the common schools-in the millions of printed volumes in the boundless circulation of the public journals—in the accessibility of all these to the entire body of the people. It may be found in the public discussions of the legislature, of the desk, and of the bar-in the free and frequent assemblages of the people, and their unrestricted interchange of ideas. It is through these

numerous channels that a great body of popular intelligence is accumulated, which forms a deep, broad stratum of solid sense, extending throughout the whole community, and sustaining, as its foundation, the splendid structure of a free and faultless government. While these channels are kept open-while the mind of man acts freely and fearlessly through them- civilization and liberty are secure against the most formidable dangers. If despotism would change this scene, it must begin with murdering the schoolmaster, the professor, the orator, the author, and the printer; it must demolish your seminaries, your school houses, your public buildings - consume your volumes, strike down your press, and disperse your multitudes; it must benumb the mind, blunt the sensibility, chill the passions, and break the spirit of the whole people; in a word, it must recall the ideas that are abroad, and imprison them once more in the strong dungeon of monopoly. When this is done - when men shall have become dumb with terror, oblivious of the past, insensible to the present, and indifferent to the futurethen, and not until then, will the free system of popular government be in danger - then, and not until then, will the arbitrary establishments of the old world be incombustible to the scorching and consuming blaze of science, of letters, and of liberty, which is now silently enkindling around them.'

LITERARY RECORD.

MEMORIALS OF MRS. HEMANS. - Messrs. SAUNDERS AND OTLEY's edition, in two volumes, of the 'Memorials of Mrs. HEMANS, with illustrations of her literary character from her private correspondence,' deserves extensive patronage. The volumes proceed from the pen of H. F. CHORLEY, Esq., one of the editors of the London Athenæum. Portions of the work were originally published in that journal, and subsequently generally circulated in the United States. These were well calculated to whet the public appetite for those which remain. Throughout the whole progress of the work, the reader will be forcibly struck with the evidences of the reality and truth of the beautiful exhibitions of domestic affection which characterize the poetry of Mrs. Hemans. The author, bringing to his task both capacity and adequate reverence for his subject, has acquitted himself with credit.

We make a few desultory selections from Mrs. Hemans' correspondence, which will give some idea of the entertainment afforded by this portion of the work. The following characteristic letters were written from Chiefswood, in the neighborhood of Melrose and Abbottsford:

Chiefswood, July 13.

"How I wish you were within reach of a post, like our most meritorious Saturday's Messenger, my dearAmidst all these new scenes and new people I want so much to talk to you all! At present I can only talk of Sir Walter Scott, with whom I have just been taking a long, delightful walk through the 'Rhymour's Glen.' I came home, to be sure, in rather a disastrous state after my adventure, and was greeted by my maid, with that most disconsolate visage of hers, which invariably moves my hard heart to laughter; for I had got wet above my ankles in the haunted burn, torn my gown in making way through the thickets of wild roses, stained my gloves with woodstrawberries, and even-direst misfortune of all! scratched my face with a rowan branch. But what of all this? Had I not been walking with Sir Walter Scott, and listening to tales of elves and bogles and brownies, and hearing him recite some of the Spanish ballads till they stirred the heart like the sound of a trumpet?' I must reserve many of these things to tell you when we meet, but one very important trait, (since it proves a sympathy between the Great Unknown and myself,) I cannot possibly defer to that period, but must record it now. You will expect something peculiarly impressive, I have no doubt. Well we had reached a rustic seat in the wood, and were to rest there, but I, out of pure perverseness, chose to establish myself comfortably on a grass bank. Would it not be more prudent for you, Mrs. Hemans,' said Sir Walter, to take the seat?' 'I have no doubt that it would, Sir Walter, but, somehow or other, I always prefer the grass.' 'And so do I,' replied the dear old gentleman, coming to sit there beside me, and I really believe that I do it chiefly out of a wicked wilfulness, because all my good advisers say that it will give me the rheumatism.' Now was it not delightful? I mean for the future to take exactly my own way in all matters of this kind, and to say that Sir Walter Scott particularly recommended me to do so. I was rather agreeably surprised by his appearance, after all I had heard of its homeliness; the predominant expression of countenance is, I think, a sort of arch good-nature, conveying a min

gled impression of penetration and benevolence. The portrait in the last year's Literary Souvenir is an excellent likeness.

Chiefswood, July 13.

"Will you not be alarmed at the sight of another portentous-looking letter, and that so soon again? But I have passed so happy a morning in exploring the Rhymour's Glen' with Sir Walter Scott, that following my first impulse on returning, I must communicate to you the impression of its pleasant hours, in full confidence that while they are yet fresh upon my mind, I shall thus impart to you something of my own enjoyment. Was it not delightful to ramble through the fairy ground of the hills, with the mighty master' himself for a guide, up wild and rocky paths, over rude bridges, and along bright windings of the little haunted stream, which fills the whole ravine with its voice! I wished for you so often! There was only an old countryman with us, upon whom Sir Walter was obliged to lean for support in such wide walks, so I had his conversation for several hours quite to myself, and it was in perfect harmony with the spirit of the deep and lonely scene; for he told me old legends, and repeated snatches of mountain ballads, and showed me the spot where Thomas of Ercildoune

Was aware of a lady fair,
Come riding down the glen,'

which lady was no other than the fairy queen, who bore him away to her own mysterious land. We talked too of signs and omens, and strange sounds in the wind, and all things wonderful and wild;' and he described to me some gloomy cavern scenes which he had explored on the northern coast of Scotland, and mentioned his having heard the deep foreboding murmur of storms in the air, on those lonely shores, for hours and hours before the actual bursting of the tempest. We stopped in one spot which I particularly admired; the stream fell there down a steep bank into a little rocky basin overhung with mountain ash, and Sir Walter Scott desired the old peasant to make a seat there, kindly saying to me, I like to associate the names of my friends and those who interest me, with natural objects and favorite scenes, and this shall be called Mrs. Hemans' seat.' But how I wished you could have heard him describe a glorious sight which had been witnessed by a friend of his, the crossing the Rhine at Ehrenbreistein, by the German army of Liberators, on their return from victory. At the first gleam of the river,' he said, they all burst forth into the national chant 'Am Rhein, Am Rhein! They were two days passing over, and the rocks and the castle were ringing to the song the whole time, for each band renewed it while crossing, and the Cossacks with the clash and the clang, and the roll of their stormy war-music, catching the enthusiasm of the scene, swelled forth the chorus 'Am Rhein, Am Rhein ! I shall never forget the words, nor the look, nor the tone, with which he related this ;* it came upon me suddenly, too, like that noble burst of war-like melody from the Edinburgh Castle rock, and I could not help answering it in his own words,

"Twere worth ten years of peaceful life,

One glance at their array.'

"I was surprised when I returned to Chiefswood to think that I had been conversing so freely and fearlessly with Sir Walter Scott, as with a friend of many days, and this at our first interview too! for he is only just returned to Abbottsford, and he came to call on me this morning, when the cordial greeting he gave me to Scotland, made me at once feel a sunny influence in his society. I am going to dine at Abbottsford to-morrow-how you would delight in the rich baronial-looking hall there, with the deep-toned colored light, brooding upon arms and armorial bearings, and the fretted roof imitating the fairy sculpture of Melrose in its flower-like carvings! Rizzio's beautiful countenance has not yet taken its calm clear eyes from my imagination; the remembrance has given rise to some lines, which I will send to you when I write next. There is a sad fearful picture of Queen Mary in the Abbottsford dining-room. But I will release you from farther description for this time, and say farewell. "Ever faithfully yours,

"F. H." We close our quotations with an extract or two descriptive of Mrs. Hemans' personal appearance, and illustrative of points in her character:

"It has been said that no woman can form a fair estimate of another's personal attractions; but in contradiction to this sweeping assertion, I shall draw upon a woman's

*Upon this anecdote Mrs. Hemans afterwards based one of the most spirited of her national lyrics, The Rhine Song of the German Soldiers after Victory.' The effect of this, when sung with a single voice and chorus, is most stately and exciting. The air had never before been mated with suitable words; the German Trinklied, (drinking song,) which belongs to it in the original, falls far behind the music, which is high-toned and spirited.