proposed as a toast the health of the painters and glaziers of Great Britain. The toast was drunk, and Turner, after returning thanks for it, proposed the health of the British paper-stainers.

PICTURES FROM THOMSON AND MILTON.

In Turner's early life, his favourite poet was Thomson, and he has taken from his Seasons four effects in four of his pictures, while he was yet in the infancy of his reputation. Round Dunstamborough Castle, on the coast of Northumberland, he has shown an effect of sunrise after a squally night, such as he imagined was in the poet's eye, when

The briny deep,

Seen from some pointed promontory's top,

Far to the blue horizon's utmost verge,

Restless, reflects a floating gleam.

On Norham Castle, on the Tweed, he threw an effect of a summer's morning:

But yonder comes the powerful King of Day,
Rejoicing in the East-the lessening cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow
Illumed with fluid gold, his near approach
Betoken glad.

On one occasion he had recourse to Milton, summoning to his canvas:

Ye Mists and Exhalations! that now rise

From hill or streaming lake, dusky or grey,
Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honour to the World's great Author rise.

And what his genius could embody in the way of exhalation he has given us as an effect of morning among the Coniston Falls, in Cumberland. He was thus early alive to the varieties of Nature, and copied her, when he chose, with a master's hand.-P. Cunningham; Turner and his Works.

TURNER'S ACCURACY.

Nearly thirty years ago, an antiquarian writer bore testimony to the accuracy of architecture of the backgrounds of Turner's pictures, at the same time that he acknowledged the beauty of the great Painter's colour: the former point having been often disputed. This testimony occurs in the opening of a paper on Historical Propriety in Painting, in Brayley's Graphic Illustrator, 1834; and is as follows:

"The greatest master of colour amongst the painters of the present day is at the same time the most remarkable for propriety in his architectural backgrounds: these frequently exhibit designs that may be studied with advantage by the architect and in expressing my admiration of Turner, I wish to avoid the appearance of advocating that servile imitation which an antiquary is supposed to require."

The writer who has taken the trouble to disinter the above, and send it to Notes and Queries, 2nd Series, No. 36, adds: "The king of colourists here gets his due, and nothing more; he did not often get that twenty years ago. It is different now."

TURNER'S ORIGINALITY.

In what does this consist? Let us hear John Burnet in reply. "Since the revival of painting, handed down to us by a succession of eminent artists, it would be strange if there could be anything original in treatment, or, indeed, of any other principle; but in Turner's works we find the practice of former painters given under the greatest variety of circumstances, and he has always the skill of concealing the means by which his works are produced, rendering what has been taken from his predecessors his own. The varieties in Nature are endless, but those of art are merely like the letters of the alphabet, altered by transposition; nevertheless, to read a picture is as difficult as to read a book printed in an untaught language: this it is that makes the ignorant scout the idea of rules in art, or the imbecile attempt to paint without them; those only can produce something original in painting, who have been taught the orthography and grammar of the art. Reynolds, Gainsborough, Richard Wilson, and others, were not understood in their own time, though now so highly valued ; the works of Turner must pass through the same ordeal. The engravings from his finest pictures have been unproductive, though executed by some of the best artists, and at present only called into notice since his death. paintings, being a gift to the nation, will have an advantage over others of the English school, and may become sooner understood."-Turner and his Works.

TURNER'S COMPOSITION.

His

The mode Turner took to improve his talent for this branch of the art seems to have been to select a picture of Vandervelde's, such as the Earl of Ellesmere's, or one of Claude's,

like Lord Egremont's, and paint companions to them of the same character; this was a severe trial, but having a point to start from, and examining these works, he more easily imitated their beauties, and eschewed their defects. Judging of the composition of Turner from his earliest drawings, we are led to believe it was of slow growth, nor does he seem to have fixed the principles in his mind which afterwards shone through all his works; there are few in the possession of all artists, but when once known and felt, are capable of endless changes.

UNDERSTANDING TURNER.

Burnet has well said that "Art is highly conventional; and the more ideal and poetical it is rendered, the more difficult it becomes for the public to comprehend it. This is one cause why the works of Turner convey a greater pleasure to the artist than the casual observer; and the higher the gratification becomes, the more they are studied and contemplated. The tutored eye sees fresh beauties spring up into notice, strictly in accordance with the effects in nature, but unperceived by him until rendered visible in Turner's works. This is the great charm of his pictures-they gain upon you; some forms are clear, others are only suggestive of what the imagination embodies.

"What we find in the historical works of Correggio, Titian, and Paul Veronese, we find adopted in the landscapes of Turner. The delicacy of his tints, and the dreamy character and indistinctness of many of the forms, add to the poetical look of the pictures. His colours appear also of a very refined quality, and never convey a vulgar or common look. This arises not only from the situation he places them in, but in mixing several tints together; and is very observable when one of his pictures is placed in contact with one by another artist. The effect is very evident in the lighter pictures of Rubens, and in those of Teniers. The general public do not yet appreciate the beauty of his compositions. People want something more definite and topographical in the character; in fact, more easy to be comprehended."

MR. RUSKIN'S CRITICISM ON TURNER'S WORKS.

To the ignorance and incompetence of the Art-critics of a few years since in appreciating the genius of Turner, we owe

the production of Mr. Ruskin's Modern Painters. He tells us, in the Preface to the First Edition, that this work "originated in indignation at the shallow and false criticisms of the periodicals of the day on the works of the great living artist to whom it principally relates. It was intended to be a

short pamphlet, reprobating the matter and style of those critiques, and pointing out their perilous tendency as guides of public feeling." From this small beginning the work has grown to five large 8vo volumes.

In the Preface to Vol. I., second edition, Mr. Ruskin says: "For many a year we have heard nothing with respect to the works of Turner, but accusations of their want of truth. To every observation on their power, sublimity, or beauty, there has been but one reply: They are not like Nature. I therefore took my opponents on their own ground, and demonstrated by the thorough investigation of actual facts, that Turner is like Nature, and paints more of Nature than any man who ever lived. I expected this proposition (the foundation of all my future efforts) would have been disputed with desperate struggles, and that I should have to fight my way to my position inch by inch. Not at all. My opponents yield me the field at once.

THE TRUTH OF TURNER.

Mr. Ruskin devotes a chapter of his great work, above named, to the positive rank of Turner as a Painter of Nature, having previously shown the extent of his knowledge, and the truth of his practice, by the deliberate examination of the characteristics of the four great elements of landscapesky, earth, water, and vegetation. Our author then proceeds to show the exceeding refinement of the truth of Turner,to the last line, and shadow of a line. "Such indeed is the case with every touch of this consummate artist; the essential excellence-all that constitutes the real and exceeding value of his works-is beyond and above expression: it is a truth inherent in every line, and breathing in every line, too delicate and exquisite to admit of any kind of proof, nor to be ascertained, except by the highest of tests-the keen feeling attained by extended knowledge and long study. Two lines are laid on canvas-one is right, and another wrong. There is no difference between them appreciable by the compasses— none appreciable by the ordinary eye-none which can be pointed out if it is not seen. One person feels it another

does not; but the feeling or sight of the one can by no words be communicated to the other: it would be unjust if it could, for that feeling and sight have been the reward of years of labour. And there is, indeed, nothing in Turner-not one dot nor line-whose meaning can be understood without knowledge; because he never aims at sensual impressions, but at the deep final truth, which only meditation can discover, and only experience recognise. There is nothing done or omitted by him which does not imply such a comparison of ends, such a rejection of the least worthy, (as far as they are incompatible with the rest,) such careful selection and arrangement of all that can be united, as can only be enjoyed by minds capable of going through the same process, and discovering the reasons for the choice.

"And, as there is nothing in his works which can be enjoyed without knowledge, so there is nothing in them which knowledge will not enable us to enjoy. There is no test of our acquaintance with Nature so absolute and unfailing as the degree of admiration we feel for Turner's painting. Precisely as we are shallow in our knowledge, vulgar in our feeling, and contracted in our views of principles, will the works of this artist be stumbling-blocks or foolishness to us; precisely in the degree in which we are familiar with Nature, constant in observation of her, and enlarged in our understanding of her, will they expand before our eyes into glory and beauty. In every new insight which we obtain into the works of God, in every new idea which we receive from His creation, we shall find ourselves possessed of an interpretation and guide to something in Turner's works which we had not before understood. We may range over Europe, from shore to shore; and from every rock that we tread upon, every sky that passes over our heads, every local form of vegetation or of soil, we shall receive fresh illustration of his principles, fresh confirmation of his facts. We shall feel, wherever we may go, that he has been there before us-whatever we see, that he has seen and seized before us and we shall at last cease the investigation, with a well-grounded trust, that whatever we have been unable to account for, and what we still dislike in his works, has reason for it, and foundation like the rest; and that even where he has failed or erred, there is a beauty in the failure which none are able to equal, and a dignity in the error which none are worthy to reprove."