On May 8, 1847, The Literary World—the newly founded vehicle in New York City for the program of “nativist” literature—reviewed an exhibition at the National Academy. The magazine had just undergone an editorial revolution and the new management was endeavoring to tone down the strident nationalism of the first few issues; still, the exuberant patriotism of the reviewer could not be restrained, for he had just beheld two exciting landscapes of Staten Island painted by J. F. Cropsey.