in his paintings of the
same period, may be seen the extreme attention to finish, always his
characteristic, which, added to increasing bodily pain and infirmity,
was the cause of his leaving so much that is unfinished behind him.

His death occurred at his own house, in Cambridge, a little past
midnight on the morning of Sunday, the 9th of July, 1843. He had
finished a day and week of labor in his studio, upon his great picture
of Belshazzar's Feast; the fresh paint denoting that the last touches
of his pencil were given to that glorious but melancholy monument of
the best years of his later life. Having conversed with his retiring
family with peculiar solemnity and earnestness upon the obligation and
beauty of a pure spiritual life, and on the realities of the world to
come, he had seated himself at his nightly employment of reading and
writing, which he usually carried into the early hours of the morning.
In the silence and solitude of this occupation, in a moment,
"with touch as gentle as the morning light," which was even then
approaching, his spirit was called away to its proper home.

Contents

Preface By The Editor

Lectures on Art.
Preliminary Note.--Ideas
Introductory Discourse
Art
Form
Composition

Aphorisms.
Sentences Written by Mr. Allston on the Walls of His Studio

The Hypochondriac

Lectures on Art.

Preliminary Note.

Ideas.

As the word _idea_ will frequently occur, and will be found
also to hold an important relation to our present subject, we shall
endeavour, _in limine_, to possess our readers of the particular
sense in which we understand and apply it.

An Idea, then, according to our apprehension, is the highest or most
perfect _form_ in which any thing, whether of the physical, the
intellectual, or the spiritual, may exist to the mind. By form, we do not
mean _figure_ or _image_ (though these may be included in relation to the
physical); but that condition, or state, in which such objects become
cognizable to the mind, or, in other words, become objects of
consciousness.

Ideas are of two kinds; which we shall distinguish by the terms _primary_
and _secondary_: the first being the _manifestation_ of objective
realities; the second, that of the reflex product, so to speak, of the
mental constitution. In both cases, they may be said to be
self-affirmed,--that is, they carry in themselves their own evidence;
being therefore not only independent