ut it seems that
I had to come to America to look upon the most almighty sea that I have
ever beheld on canvas."

Admiral Hopkins was not aware that, in this, he was in fact
complimenting one of his own fellow-countrymen, though, in truth, Mr.
Moran had become an American of Americans through his patriotic ardor
and long residence here.

In this painting the powers of Mr. Moran as an artist were tested to the
utmost. For while others have attempted to paint the sea, among whom
Turner stands pre-eminent, few have ever succeeded in depicting it on so
large a scale, without a single other object to disturb the aspect
excepting only the thirteen sea-gulls hovering over its surface, which
through their number suggest the whole series of these paintings and the
interesting events connected with the marine history of the United
States.

This picture is the largest of the series. Not only the water but the
sky in this painting is superb, with the faint shimmer of the sunlight
breaking through the clouds. The color is that peculiar green gray,
which is the most fascinating hue known to the sea, and only present
when the sky is overcast. The water and the motion of the waves are
grand beyond comparison--an actual living, moving, foaming mass and as
seen in mid-ocean. The conception of this painting as introductory to
the whole series is most poetic. It suggests the deep, dark, dreaded,
unknown waste of waters which was shrouded in mystery for thousands of
years until a few daring seamen, first the Norsemen, and then Columbus
with his little band, undertook the perilous task of lifting the veil.
Its unexplored expanse naturally and logically preceded every voyage of
discovery and is the keynote of all the marvellous achievements which
subsequently constituted it the link between America and the Eastern
world. It also typifies the greatest of all republics, which was to
spring up beyond its westernmost limits, for nothing is so free,
unfettered and seemingly conscious of its own strength and possibilities
as the mighty ocean.

This painting may be likened to the opening stanzas of an epic poem, in
which the theme of the story is foreshadowed, and no grander epic was
ever written than is depicted in these thirteen mighty paintings, of all
those qualities of heroism and adventure which have ever been thought
worthy of commemoration in song or story.

How well the famous stanzas of Lord Byron, in Childe Harold's
Pilgrimage, ill