While Bryant published “Thanatopsis” and Irving made his studies for the “Sketch-Book,” another American of genius perhaps superior to theirs--Washington Allston--was painting in London, before returning to pass the remainder of his life in the neighborhood of Boston and Harvard College. Between thirty and forty years of age, Allston was then in the prime of his powers; and even in a circle of artists which included Turner, Wilkie, Mulready, Constable, Callcott, Crome, Cotman, and a swarm of others equally famous, Allston was distinguished. Other Americans took rank in the same society. Leslie and Stuart Newton were adopted into it, and Copley died only in 1815, while Trumbull painted in London till 1816; but remarkable though they were for the quality of their art, they belonged to a British school, and could be claimed as American only by blood. Allston stood in a relation somewhat different. In part, his apparent Americanism was due to his later return, and to his identification with American society; but the return itself was probably caused by a peculiar bent of character. His mind was not wholly English. Allston’s art and his originality were not such as might have been expected from an American, or such as Americans were likely to admire; and the same might be said of Leslie and Stuart Newton. Perhaps the strongest instance of all was Edward Malbone, whose grace of execution was not more remarkable than his talent for elevating the subject of his exquisite work. So far from sharing the imagination of Shawanee Indians or even of Democrats, these men instinctively reverted to the most refined and elevated schools of art. Not only did Allston show from the beginning of his career a passion for the nobler standards of his profession, but also for technical quality,--a taste less usual. Washington Irving met him in Rome in 1805, when both were unknown; and they became warm friends. “I do not think I have ever been more captivated on a first acquaintance,” wrote Irving long afterward. “He was of a light and graceful form, with large blue eyes and black silken hair. Everything about him bespoke the man of intellect and refinement.... He was exquisitely sensitive to the graceful and the beautiful, and took great delight in paintings which excelled in color; yet he was strongly moved and aroused by objects of grandeur. I well recollect the admiration with which he contemplated the sublime statue of Moses, by Michael Angelo.” The same tastes characterized his life, and gave to his work a distinction that might be Italian, but was certainly not English or usual.