I will not anticipate the duty of the biographer by an extended notice
of the life of Mr. Allston; but it may be interesting to some readers
to know the outline of his life, and the different circumstances under
which the several pieces in this volume were written.

WASHINGTON ALLSTON was born at Charleston, in South Carolina, on the
5th of November, 1779, of a family distinguished in the history of
that State and of the country, being a branch of a family of the
baronet rank in the titled commonalty of England. Like most young
men of the South in his position at that period, he was sent to New
England to receive his school and college education. His school days
were passed at Newport, in Rhode Island, under the charge of Mr.
Robert Rogers. He entered Harvard College in 1796, and graduated in
1800. While at school and college, he developed in a marked manner
a love of nature, music, poetry, and painting. Endowed with senses
capable of the nicest perceptions, and with a mental and moral
constitution which tended always, with the certainty of a physical
law, to the beautiful, the pure, and the sublime, he led what many
might call an ideal life. Yet was he far from being a recluse, or from
being disposed to an excess of introversion. On the contrary, he was
a popular, high-spirited youth, almost passionately fond of society,
maintaining an unusual number of warm friendships, and unsurpassed by
any of the young men of his day in adaptedness to the elegancies and
courtesies of the more refined portions of the moving world. Romances
of love, knighthood, and heroic deeds, tales of banditti, and stories
of supernatural beings, were his chief delight in his early days. Yet
his classical attainments were considerable, and, as a scholar in the
literature of his own language, his reputation was early established.
He delivered a poem on taking his degree, which was much admired in