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from the antique, united in a society for evening study, which soon resulted in the foundation of the National Academy of Design. To the first exhibition of this Academy, in 1826, and to several succeeding ones, he not only contributed proof impressions of his engravings, but paintings; and the landscape backgrounds he introduced in portraits of ladies and children charmed the visitors and gave a foretaste of his talents in that direction. It is evident from the early catalogues, that he was then aiming at serious historical painting. In 1826, the first exhibition of the N. A. D., he sent "Mary Magdalen at the Sepulchre." The following year he contributed "Samson shorn of his locks by Philistines while asleep in the lap of Delilah," and, in 1829, a "Hagar and Ishmael." In 1831, another "Samson and Delilah," meaning, doubtless, to warn the strong men of New York to beware of the blandishments of the enticing belles of the period, whose snares were spread at that time only from the Battery to Chambers St. The same year he exhibited the first decided venture in the field where he was to win such unfading laurels-—"A View of the Catskill Mountains," probably the scene on the creek, which he afterwards engraved of a small size with great delicacy and refinement.

In 1833, he sent a portrait of a noted man who, at

that day, was stirring the vitals of the dyspeptic world by his lectures on diet—-Sylvester Graham, the founder of "Graham Bread," "one slice of which," Catherine Sedgwick said, "was enough to sanctify a whole dinner." Graham not only invented brown bread, but he wrote verses. One of his efforts in this line is a satirical poem, called forth on the first appearance of that fashionable protuberance to a lady's costume, called "The Bustle," which is the title of the said poem. Durand, to please Graham, and doubtless willing to help satirize a form, which belied so villainously the chaste contour of a Venus or Diana, furnished a design for the cover, representing a lady in profile with a number of cupids hovering over and dancing on this part of her attire. The poem was printed, but, on the eve of publication, suppressed. Mr. John Durand has a copy, and it would well come in play now that the bustle is again raging and rampant.

In the same exhibition, 1833, appeared that striking and truthful portrait of Gov. Ogden, now in the collection of the Historical Society.

Then follow in '34 and '35 the fine portraits of President James Madison and John Quincy Adams, the property of the Century Club. That of Madison was painted in the extreme old age of the ex-President, and is accurately drawn and refined in color, representing