led back to her father's lodge, she avoided the society of the maiden throng, and fled from the young warriors who would have courted her smiles. She ceased to be numbered among the dark eyed beauties of her tribe; and but a few moons had passed away since the visit of the white strangers from the land of the rising sun, when a little hillock on the summit of a lonely mound in the prairie, covered the remains of the beautiful and love-stricken MAID OF ILLINOIS.

SUNRISE AT NEW-YORK, IN 1673.

BY MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY.

"Then, the Dutch mayor, went the rounds at sunrise, to open the gates, and to restore the keys to the officer of the fort; and every evening, at sunset, he proceeded with a guard of six, to lock the city gates."-Watson's Historic Tales of the Olden Times.

Lo, with the sun, come forth a goodly train,
The portly mayor, with his guard of state,-
Hath aught of evil vexed their fair domain,
That thus its limits they perambulate,

With heavy, measured steps, and brows of care,
Counting its scatter'd roofs, with fix'd, portentous stare?

Behold, the keys with solemn pomp restored

.

To one in martial costume stoutly braced,-

He, of yon fort, the undisputed lord,

Deep lines of thought are on his forehead traced,

As though of Babylon the proud command,

Or hundred-gated Thebes were yielded to his hand.

See, here and there, the buildings cluster round,
All to the street their cumbrous gables stretching;
With close-clipt trees, and snug enclosures bound,
(A most uncouth material for sketching.)

Each with its stoop, from whose sequester'd shade,

The Dutchman's evening pipe, in cloudy volumes played.

Oh, had those ancient dames of high renown,

The Knickerbockers, and the Rapaeljes,
With high-heel'd shoe, and ample, tenfold-gown,
Green worsted hose, with clocks of crimson rays,--
Had they, through time's dim vista stretch'd their gaze,
Spying their daughters fair in these degenerate days,—

With muslin robe, and satin slipper white,
Thronging to routes, with Farenheit at zero;
Their sylphlike forms, for household toils too slight,
But yet to Winter's piercing blasts a hero.
How had they marvell'd at such wondrous lot,

And scrubbing-brush and broom, for one short space forgot.

Yet deem them not for ridicule a theme,

Those worthy burghers, with their spouses kind,
Shunning of heartless pomp, the gilded dream,
To deeds of peaceful industry inclined;

In hospitality, sincere and grave,―
Inflexible in truth-in simple virtue brave.

Hail, mighty city! high must be his fame

Who round thy bounds should now ere sunrise walk ; Still wert thou lovely, whatsoe'er thy name,

New-Amsterdam, New-Orange, or New-York ;--Whether in cradle-sleep, or sea-weed laid,

Or on thine island throne, in queenly power arrayed

THE FINE ARTS IN AMERICA,

AND ITS PECULIAR INCENTIVES то THEIR CULTIVATION.

BY J. HOUSTON MIFFLIN.

Nothing which relates to the improvement and refinement of the mind can be indifferent; and an inquiry into the prospects of the Arts in our country, must be particularly interesting to a literary community, since there can be no surer evidence of the propitious state of its Literature and Science, than the success of the Arts in a country. Art has ever flourished most where these have been most assiduously cultivated, naturally demanding all the talent and all the fostering causes which conduce to their prosperity, and requiring, too, a longer period of improvement, and more decided and permanent encouragement.

Indeed, so intimately are all their interests connected, that science, literature, and art, are words almost invariably associated in the history of intellectual prosperity. And from their earliest infancy the arts of Poetry and Painting have been known as sisters. How much must the disposition of the votaries of both resemble !-How much the master-minds of either are alike!

Had Angelo been sightless, or had Raffaelle been blind, they might have sung the Illiad or the Odyssey; and Homer, with the eyes of the artists, would have painted epics as immortal as his song. How well would Milton have portrayed in colours, the sublime conceptions which no language but his own could picture, but which the pencil of our own great epic painter, West, has given with congenial grandeur to the world.

And Shakspeare! But who shall we compare with him! What artist may not envy him, whose pictures never can grow dim with time, but, century after century, will delight mankind, from youth to age; and in different lands, at the same moment, rouse the raptures of admiring myriads! We have often thought if this great poet-painter of mankind had been born where written language was unknown, but painting had endeavoured to express the mind, the irrepressible poetry of his soul would have flowed in the forms of the pencil, and shone in the colours of the canvass. His "thoughts that breathe," debarred of their delightful melody, have found expression in harmonious hues; his "words that burn" have blazed effectively in brilliancy of light! What scenes of Arcadian beauty would his magnificent imagination have concentrated in the landscape! And what diversity of human character would he have portrayed !-The young, enthusiastic Juliet-the gentle and confiding Desdemona-the stern, imperious lady of Macbeth-and all those delicate shades of mental beauty,

which no pencil, but his own, might hope to delineate. And then, the melancholy Dane-the heart-broken Lear-the brave and constant Brutus, "the noblest Roman of them all,”—and his impetuous, gallant Hotspur!Nor would his single portraits only, have excelled, but how graceful would have been his grouping-how grand and how imposing the action of his picture!

It is superfluous here, to vindicate the importance of the Fine Arts; yet those are not wanting, who, bestowing upon them the name of superfluity, object to them as useless; others, even, conscientiously as they imagine, reject them as pernicious.

So far from attaching any idea of merit to what some may deem their self-denial in rejecting intellectual luxuries their practice seems to me, allied too nearly to irreverence, to use the mildest term:—it is as if the children of boundless benevolence flung back his choicest gifts, and preferred, ungratefully, to feed upon the refuse of his bounty; or invited to the flowery walks, and purer air of higher intellectual life, they chose the miry ways and murky atmosphere of sensual existence.

"Sure, he, that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before, and after, gave us not

That capability and god-like reason

To rust in us unused."

No-nor this capability of intense enjoyment from the works of nature and the wonders of art: the imagination which exults in creation, which delights in creating-which disposes us to look through all the glories of the visible world, to their glorious fountain, in the invisible-which inspires with admiration of the manifold pleasures and powers of mind, till it believes in their boundless improvement and illimitable perfection, and which conversing only with the beautiful and great, becomes, to a degree, what it admires; revolts at moral deformity, and, a lover itself, inspires all others with a love of virtue.

The present president of the Royal Academy, Sir Martin Archer Shee, the painting of whose pen is only surpassed by the poetry of his pencil-in the preface to his poem upon Art, observes,-" Whatever may be the power or prosperity of a state; whatever the accumulations of her wealth or the splendour of her triumphs, to her intellectual attainments must she look for rational estimation; on her arts she must depend 'for living dignity and deathless fame.' "They are the vital principle—the breathing soul of empire, which, when its cumbrous body has decayed, when it has shaken off the mortal coil of greatness, survives in spiritual vigour throughout the long futurity of time."

It is by no means a merely fanciful speculation, that the mind must acquire a poetical temperament, or tone, from familiarity with the natural beauty of our delightful country. We find, in our every day intercourse with men, that the objects with which they have most frequently associated present themselves, by way of illustration, freely to their minds; and they

display a felicity of description, and discrimination of judgment, in conversing on such subjects, which they do not evince in considering others. To the observer of nature our country presents a boundless and magnificent variety of charms. Valleys of quiet beauty, where hamlets are reposing in plenty and in peace-and fertile fields, that stretch before the eye, like gardens magnified immensely-streams that steal in murmurs through the underwood; torrents that rend the rock, and dash through all impediments; and rivers moving in their majesty, as silent and sublime, and as resistless as the sweep of destiny. These, with the rugged grandeur of her unreached mountains and untamed wilds, nature has lavished in inexpressible affluence around us. Here spring arrays our woods and fields in beauty. But perhaps our forests claim, pre-eminently, admiration. Of unbounded extent and infinite variety; presenting every form, and hue, and density of foliage; from the lightest leafage of the locust, to the massive gloom of the cypress-many, as the magnolia, tulip-tree, locust, and catawba, (with majesty of form and grace of foliage,) by the very beauty of their blossoms rivalling the pride of the flower garden. While, in the shadow of all these, the wanderer's foot must press innumerable wild flowers-delicate in hues and forms, and endless in variety. Summer continues the splendours of the vegetable world. But, after her golden glories have been gathered-when the orchard and the vine have yielded their grateful fruits and brilliant treasures-the full triumph of the year begins! It is autumn, (and perhaps particularly autumn in Pennsylvania,) that displays our forests in their most resplendent hues ;-when sloping on the hill-side to the river that reflects them, they vie with the sunset in splendour or the rainbow in beauty; when every tint, from the delicate yellow to the crimson leaf-deepest purple-dusky brown, and still, occasional bright green, gives a gorgeousness to our scenery, which, in other countries, is but imagined in their visions of a fairy-land.

If, then, the climate, scenery, productions-all the exterior of our country -predisposes the mind for enjoying and executing works of taste, the society of our cities, distinguished by grace, and beauty, and intelligence; and more for warmth of affection and purity of manners, must create an atmosphere congenial to the most exquisite spirit of art.

The past history of our country too incites its recording genius to action. The aboriginal inhabitants, with their wild and picturesque attire-their peculiar mode of life-their various exercises-fleet in the chase and fierce in the battle-commanding in their councils, or relaxed in their sports-offer such materials for the composition of a picture as the painter will not find in the exhausted fields of Europe. While their noble countenances and finely-moulded figures, exposed through carelessness of costume, supply the undulating outline, and require the eminent skill, which are so idolized by artists, and which have heretofore confined their devotions to primitive scenes or ancient history; where scanty dress and simple drapery were adapted to the climate of the country. These, with their excellent localities for pictorial effect, and their connection with our own heroic fathers,