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from Durand's favorite themes known to me. Doubtless Mr. Sturges wished to try his friend's skill in a grand imaginative work, and Durand studied earnestly, but it cannot be called entirely successful.

One of the later pictures (the largest, I believe, he ever painted,) and one of the grandest and best, is the "Forest Scenery" now in the Corcoran Gallery. It was the last he painted before moving from New York to New Jersey. It is a noble work, broadly and simply painted. It represents the profound solitude of the forest primeval in its grandeur and silence, reveals the vigor of a master's hand and the ripe experience of a long life of serious study, and it is, moreover, strongly characteristic of the calmness and solidity of the author's mind. It is a subject of congratulation that such a grand and representative work is permanently placed in a fire-proof public institution so important as the Corcoran Gallery.

After his retreat to his pleasant country residence in Orange, he seldom exhibited at the Academy. On occasions he sent groups of his studies from nature, which were eagerly welcomed by the artists.

A large number of these invaluable studies are at this moment to be seen at the exhibition in Broadway, held by his executors, and are of great variety, beauty, and interest.

In 1874, he made his last academic exhibit-- the "Franconia Notch," now belonging to the widow of Robert L. Stuart-- a fine picture, painted several years earlier.

His last picture, painted in 1879, was a "Souvenir of the Adirondacks"- a sunset, in which the softly diffused light, spreading over a placid lake and quiet sky, aptly figures the tranquility of his closing years. As he made the last touches to this picture, with a hand enfeebled by the weight of eighty-three years, he laid down his palette and brushes for ever, saying that "his hand would no longer do what he wanted it to do."

On the resignation of Prof. Morse, in 1845, Durand was elected President of the Academy of Design, to which office he was unanimously re-elected till 1860. He guided the affairs of the Academy with wisdom, and the schools, exhibitions, and the general affairs were successfully conducted during his energetic but conservative administration. There were troubles, however, which annoyed him. The Academy struggled with financial disasters, owing partly to business crises, partly to the distraction of free exhibitions, which diminished its receipts. We had no permanent home, the antique casts were in a hired loft, and, in order to raise money for a new building and other