Mr. Ruskin then eloquently illustrates Turner's adherence to nature, in his great picture of the Pools of Solomon :— "Now this is Nature! It is the exhaustless living energy with which the universe is filled; and what will you set beside it in the works of other men? Show me a single picture in the whole compass of ancient art, in which I can pass from cloud to cloud, from region to region, and from first to second and third heaven, as I can here, and you may talk of Turner's want of truth. Turn to the Pools of Solomon, and walk through the passages of mist as they melt on the one hand into those stormy fragments of fiery cloud, or, on the other, into the cold solitary shadows that compass the sweeping hill; and when you find an inch without air or transparency, and a hair's breadth without changefulness and thought; and when you can count the torn waves of tossing radiance that gush from the sun, as you can count the fixed, white, insipidities of Claude; or when you can measure the modulation and depth of that hollow mist, as you can the flourishes of the brush upon the canvas of Salvator-talk of Turner's want of truth!"

CLAUDE AND TURNER COMPARED.

The Sun rising in a Mist, and the Dido building Carthage, were bequeathed by Turner to the National Gallery, on condition that they should be hung between two Claudes, now placed by their side. The Sunrise was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1807, and was exchanged with Sir John F. Leicester, for the Shipwreck, and was repurchased by Turner, at the De Tabley sale in 1827.

The principal object in the foreground of the Carthage is a group of children sailing toy-boats. The exquisite choice of this incident, as expressive of the ruling passion, which was to be the source of future greatness, in preference to the tumult of busy stone-masons or arming soldiers, is quite as appreciable when it is told as when it is seen-it has nothing to do with the technicalities of painting; a scratch of the pen would have conveyed the idea and spoken to the intellect as much as the realizations of colour. Such a thought as this is far above all art; it is epic poetry of the highest order. Claude, in subjects of the same kind, commonly introduces people carrying red trunks with iron locks about, and dwells, with infantine delight, on the lustre of the leather and the ornaments of the iron. The intellect can have no occupation

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here; we must look to the imitation or to nothing. quently, Turner rises above Claude in the very first instant of the conception of his picture, and acquires an intellectual superiority which no power of the draughtsman or the artist, (supposing that such existed in his antagonist,) could ever wrest from him.

"Were we disposed to look for blunders in Turner," says Leslie, "we might notice that palpable one in the Dido Building Carthage, of a shadow from a beam of wood projecting from the brick wall on the extreme left of the spectator, in a direction which can only come from a sun much higher than that in the picture."

It is unfortunate for Turner that his Dido Building Carthage is placed in the National Gallery beside Claude's Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba; for Mr. Ruskin's notice of the two pictures of Carthage is among the few instances in which he admits a fault in Turner. "The foreground," he says, "of the Building of Carthage, and the greater part of the architecture of the Fall of Carthage, are equally heavy and evidently faint, if we compare them with genuine passages of Claude's sunshine." Upon this Mr. Leslie remarks: "For my part, when I look at the Building of Carthage, I feel as if I were in a theatre, decorated with the most splendid drop-scenes; but when I stand before Claude's Embarkation, I am in the open air, enjoying the sea-breeze, and listening to the plash of the waves on the beach. Yet this does not convince me that Claude was a greater master than Turner, because it is a comparison of one of the most artificial pictures of the English painter with one of the most natural works of the Frenchman; and I only make the comparison to show that Claude is not to be deposed, to place on his throne one who wants it not, because he has raised himself. to a throne, unoccupied before, and from which his sway is extended over a wider dominion, though, for that very reason, with less absolute power in every corner of it. Claude could not paint a storm; Turner's sea-storms are the finest ever painted; and though Claude is best seen in tranquil sunshine, yet there are many beautiful and brilliant mid-day appearances of perfect stillness, that were never seen on canvas, till Turner gave them with a power precluding all imitation."

TURNER'S YORKSHIRE DRAWINGS.

Mr. Ruskin considers the influence of the scenery of Yorkshire to be traced most definitely throughout Turner's works; and of all his drawings, those of the Yorkshire series to have the most heart in them, the most affectionate, simple, unwearied, serious finishing of truth. These drawings have unfortunately changed hands frequently, and have been abused and illtreated by picture-dealers and cleaners; the greater number of them are now mere wrecks. In them may be traced the peculiar love of the painter for the rounded forms of hills. "It is, I believe," says Mr. Ruskin, "to the broad-wooded steeps and swells of the Yorkshire downs that we in part owe the singular massiveness that prevails in Turner's mountain-drawing, and gives it one of its chief elements of grandeur. Let the reader open the Liber Studiorum, and compare the painter's enjoyment of the lines in the Ben Arthur, with his comparative uncomfortableness among those of the aiguilles about the Mer de Glace.

"The Yorkshire drawings indicate one of the culminating points of Turner's career. In these he attained the highest degree of finish and quantity of form united with expression of atmosphere, and light without colour. His early drawings are singularly instructive in this definiteness and simplicity of aim. No complicated or brilliant colour is ever thought of in them; they are little more than exquisite studies in light and shade, very green blues being used for the shadows, and golden browns for the lights. The difficulty and treachery of colour being thus avoided, the artist was able to bend his whole mind upon the drawing, and thus to attain such decision, delicacy, and completeness, as have never in any wise been equalled, and as might serve him for a secure foundation in all future experiments. Of the quantity and precision of his details, the drawings made for Hakewill's Italy are singular examples. The most perfect gem in execution is a little bit on the Rhine, with reeds in the foreground, in the collection of G. B. Windus, Esq. of Tottenham; but the Yorkshire drawings seem to be on the whole the most noble representatives of his art at this period."

TURNER'S TREES.

The many admirers of Turner are angry with Mr. Leslie for saying that he (Turner) was a poor hand at painting a

tree. "With the exception of here and there a willow, and, in his Italian views, the frequent pine and cypress, I look in vain," says Mr. Leslie, "for a specific discrimination in his trees; or in the vegetation of his foregrounds, in which there is little that is English. I cannot remember an oak, an elm, an ash, or a beech in any picture by him; nor do I remember anything much like the beauty of an English hedge. Neither has he expressed the deep verdure of his own country; hence he is the most unfaithful among great painters to the essential and most beautiful characteristics of English midland scenery."

Turner kept most profoundly the mystery of his art: he never allowed any brother artist to see him at work. When he was painting for Lord Egremont at Petworth, he worked with the door of the room locked. Only Lord Egremont, his patron, was admitted, and this by a pre-arranged knock at the room-door. Chantrey, when also at Petworth, by a cunning trick, obtained access. By a bribe, he ascertained from one of the servants of the house the peculiar knock, which Lord Egremont was accustomed to give at Turner's door. Thus prepared, he imitated Lord Egremont's step and cough, and imitated the very knock of the patron. The door was at once opened, and in walked Chantrey! Turner was annoyed, but was soon won over,-but only by the recollection that Chantrey, though once a painter, was now living by sculpture.

THE FIRST OF TURNER'S PICTURES SENT TO AMERICA.

Mr. James Lenox, of New York, wishing to possess one of Turner's pictures, (which he knew only from engravings,) wrote to Mr. Leslie to that effect. Mr. Leslie replied that Turner's rooms being full of unsold pictures, doubtless, he would part with one. Mr. Lenox then consented to give 5007., and left the choice to Mr. Leslie. He called on Turner, and asked if he would let a picture go to America. "No: they won't come up to the scratch." This referred to another American friend having offered him a low price for the Téméraire. Mr. Leslie named 5007., which a friend would give for anything Turner would part with. His countenance brightened, and he said at once, "He may have that, or that, or that,"-pointing to three not small pictures. Mr. Leslie chose a sunset view of Staffa: it was in an old frame, but Turner had a new frame made for it. When it reached New

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York, and Mr. Lenox had hastily glanced at it, he wrote to Mr. Leslie, expressing his great disappointment. He almost fancied the picture had sustained some damage on the voyage, it appeared to him so indistinct throughout. Still, he did not doubt its being very fine, and he hoped to see its merits on further acquaintance; but the above was his then impression.

A night or two after Mr. Leslie received Mr. Lenox's letter, he met Turner at the Academy, and he asked if he had heard from Mr. Lenox, to which Mr. Leslie was obliged to say yes.

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Well, and how does he like the picture?"

"He thinks it indistinct."

"You should tell him," he replied, "that indistinctness is my fault."

In the meantime, Mr. Leslie had answered Mr. Lenox's letter, pointing out the merits of the picture, and saying, "If, on a second view, it gains in your estimation, it will assuredly gain more and more every time you look at it." Mr. Lenox, in reply, said, "You have exactly described what has taken place. I now admire the picture greatly, and I have brought one or two of my friends to see it as I do, but it will never be a favourite with the multitude. I can now write to Mr. Turner, and tell him how conscientiously, I am delighted with it.” *

NUMBER OF PICTURES BY TURNER, AND PRICES.

From the time of Turner's becoming a Royal Academician, to his death, a period of nearly forty-nine years, he was absent on four occasions only from the Exhibition walls. These were 1805, 1821, 1824, and 1851.

The number of his exhibited works is 252; to these we must add some dozen pictures sent to the British Institution, and some forty more never publicly exhibited. This would bring his oil pictures to some 300; while to these we must add, perhaps, 1,000 finished drawings, of which 500 at least are of his best period.

Turner's prices for his pictures between 1803 and 1815— certainly his best period-were far from large. They ranged from 150 to 200 guineas, and at such prices he obtained a Autobiographical Recollections of the late C. R. Leslie, R.A. edited by Tom Taylor, Esq. 2 vols. 1860.

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