Turner

Chapter I Introduction To Turner’s Life And Work

The strong attraction of personality—Ruskin Turner’s chief expositor —The danger to the student of being carried away by his charm of style—Turner’s desire to be a public teacher through the medium of Art—This idea illustrated by the frontispiece to the Liber Studzorum—The meaning of the little central picture—The explanation of its margin : : _ : ‘ page

Chapter II Turner’s Childhood, School-life, And First Drawings

‘Turner's parents and his devotion to his father—Hand’s Court, Maiden Lane, Turner’s birthplace—Ruskin’s description of it—Turner’s affection for his early home—His schooldays at Brentford and first drawings there—Folly Bridge first water-colour—The influence of adjacent localities—School at Margate—Student of the Royal Academy, first drawing there of Lambeth Palace—First drawing of Kirkstall Abbey—Tintern Abbey, early water-colour—First portrait of himself; now in Ruskin Museum . f 4 3

Chapter III Turner And Girtin: Their First Engagements

Expansion of Turner’s life—Work at Dr. Munro’s house—Turner and Girtin—Their differences of temperament—Turner’s admiration for Girtin’s genius—Contradictions of Turner’s nature—Influence of Girtin on Turner’s work—Turner’s first engagement on the Coferplate Magazine—His first experience of the country and its influence —Ruskin’s comparison of Turner and Giorgione—Architectural studies of this time; their influence on his after work—Employed colouring backgrounds for architects—‘‘ An Interior”: picture of kitchen in his own home—First visit to France: its influence on his colouring—Turner’s growing strength—First turns to poetry for inspiration 5 3 :

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CONTENTS

Chapter IV Turner’s Love-story

Turner made Associate of Royal Academy—The strong fascination of the sea— First sea-pictures attract the attention of the critics— “Norham Castle” his first great success—His first Academy pictures show the influence of Wilson—Turner’s strenuous work at this time—Turner’s love-story—The slightness of the account in all biographies—Its influence on his life—His perennial love for Margate —‘‘Moonlight: A Study of Millbank”—His first classical pictures —Experiments in water-colour—Again associated with Girtin— Their great developments in water-colour—‘‘London from the South?” . d 7 : c 5 page

Chapter V Turner's First Notable Oil Paintings

Turner elected R.A.—The strong painting of Kilchurn Castle—His ambition to outdo Vandeveldt as a sea-painter—‘‘ Dutch Boats ina Gale”—The death of Girtin—Comparison between Turner and Girtin—‘‘ Coniston Fells” attracts attention—Turner’s first studio in Hand’s Court—When R.A. removed to Harley Street—Turner makes a second visit to France—‘‘ Calais Pier” greatly attracts the public—‘‘ The Shipwreck” —Turner’s rivalry with Wilkie—The *‘Blacksmith’s Shop”—Turner’s jealousy of Claude—‘‘The Sun Rising in a Mist’”’"—Turner made Professor of Perspective at Royal Academy—‘‘ The Garden of the Hesperides”—Great expansion in seascape and landscape—‘‘Ivy Bridge’’—Turner’s visits to Yorkshire—Becomes known to Mr. Fawkes of Farnley Hall

Chapter VI The Southern Coast Scenery

The Southern Coast Scenery—Turner’s liberal alteration of places to get their effect—His first visit to Devon: his affection for the place —The long delays in publication of Southern Coast Scenery— Turner’s quarrels with Messrs. Cooke—His eccentricities as a writer —The Southern Coast Scenery expressive of his deep love of the sea —Descriptions of the drawings—Turner’s fine skies, and his frequent visits to Dover—The spirit of the drawings—Turner moves to Queen Anne Street—Takes his father to live with him—Builds a villa at Twickenham—The father’s peculiarities—Turner’s great friend, the Rey. Mr. Trimmer—Turner’s house in Upper Mall, Hammersmith —Homeliness of Turner’s domestic life a

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Chapter VII The ‘‘liber Studiorum”

Turner’s amazing activity and variety in art—Sketch of his work at this time—Begins the Liber Studiovum: its great attraction for critics—The Liber begins in rivalry of Claude—The difference in its aim—The scope of the work—The idea first discussed with the artist Wells—Descriptions of the drawings—The work best understood as a whole—The high prices now paid for the different subjects and for sets—Its partial failure when published—Fine sets in public galleries and in private collections . A page 8t

Chapter VIII The Rivers Of England

The Rivers of England: Messrs. Cooke’s publication—Description of the drawings: some of the most perfect of Turner’s water-colours in this set—Incidental difference between Turner and Girtin in this set—Turner’s great variety: series illustrates his love of England —The Rivers of France—Turner’s grasp of the spirit of French scenery 6 ‘ “ 5 p c Los

Chapter IX Turner’s Great Time In Art

Turner’s great time in art—Description of some of the famous oil paintings: their differences—The quiet charm of “‘ Abingdon”— His affection for his ‘‘ Frosty Morning ”—His biblical and classical subjects—‘‘ London from Greenwich ”—‘“‘ Dido Building Carthage” painted in rivalry of Claude—Its loss of tone—List of other well-known pictures—‘‘ Bligh Sand”’: its loss of colour—Turner refuses to sell it to Sir George Beaumont—Turner tries to learn Greek: cannot overcome its difficulties—‘‘ Crossing the Brook ”—Pictures of Italy—Ruskin’s divisions of Turner’s periods : F + 103

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Chapter X Some Of Turner’s Water-colours

Turner’s water-colours at South Kensington—‘‘A View of the Thames”: its exquisite harmony—“‘ View of a French Town” warmth of colouring—‘‘ Hornby Castle’’: other English scenes— The great charm of his water-colours, their enduring beauty— **Loch Long: Morning”—The Harbours of England: his last series—Delay in their publication : description of the drawings— Some water-colours in a private collection: a proof of Turner's eccentricity—One belonging to Mr. H. B. Brabazon . page

Chapter XI Changes In Turner’s Life

Death of Turner’s father: changes the manner of his life—Gradual deterioration of his work— Description of pictures of Italy— “Ulysses deriding Polyphemus’”—Other classical subjects—The “Burial of Sir David Wilkie""—‘‘ The Old Temeraire”—Turner'’s | supremacy in landscape—His glory in colour—His poem, 7%e Fallacies of Hope—His second visit to Italy—Illustration of Sir Walter Scott’s, Moore’s, and Rogers’ poems—Pictures of light : ‘Line Fishing off Hastings,” ‘‘ Royal Yacht Squadron at Cowes,” “St. Michael’s Mount”: paintings upon a white ground—The Venetian pictures—‘“‘ Golden Visions”

Chapter XII Aspects Of Turner’s Art And Character

Occasional exhibitions: Guildhall Galleries—Beauty of the water-colours: their arrangement—The charm of ‘‘ York Minster’”— Description of the pictures: some of Ruskin’s opinions—The foreign subjects—‘‘ Barnes Terrace”: differences of account— Pictures of Venice most nearly approach the spirit of Italy— Rogers’ /¢aly—Accent of the French scenery—Turner’s scope in water-colour—Oil-paintings: some pictures in private houses— Turner and Ruskin exhibits at the Fine Arts Gallery—Turner’s secretiveness: means of obtaining effects—The Fadlacies of Hope: Turner’s utter want of language—Letters and friends: his affection for them— Wilson prepares the way for Turner—Thornbury’s anecdotes 5 3 ‘

CONTENTS

Chapter XIII Turner’s Last Days

Closing scenes of Turner’s life: his abode in Chelsea—Discovery by his old housekeeper—Turner’s habits in his decline—The fascination of the Thames—The view of his house—Conditions of his will—Turner’s personal appearance—His acquisition of money: peculiarities of his character—Fame at time of death—His rank: Ruskin’s opinion—Some of Turner’s limitations— Difficulty in accepting all Ruskin’s views—‘‘ A Retrospect”—His comparison with Wagner—Turner, like Wagner, a new force 4 page

CATALOGUE OF PICTURES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

187 209

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

J. M. W. TURNER IN 1800, BY GEORGE DANCE, R.A. Frontispiece

FRONTISPIECE ‘*LIBER STUDIORUM” A ‘i ¢ ay FOLLY BRIDGE - é ; A ‘ 16 TINTERN ABBEY F : : F LO) INTERIOR OF A KITCHEN S 7 5 oe 34 NORHAM CASTLE ON THE TWEED : F Saks DUTCH BOATS IN A GALE 4 : ; ar Sie CALAIS PIER . i 3 . fs ee 5 THE SHIPWRECK ‘ : é : eats.

SUN RISING IN A MIST ; : : OC) IVY BRIDGE . : 3 ; : 5 (ee, WHITSTABLE OYSTER BEDS : ; : 5 6) DOVER 5; : ¢ : z | Of PORTSMOUTH - 7 ; 2 a Y/ei FOLKESTONE : : : Fi nA: ENTRANCE TO CALAIS HARBOUR F 8 a ete) ISIS A A ; , : oS INVERARY PIER x : ? 2 5 Ge) TOTNES ON THE DART : : - 2 Of6) NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE . : j : . 100 ABINGDON . A A ‘ . 104 LONDON FROM GREENWICH A : : LOO

BLIGH SAND . . ; 5 5 109 xi

Sci LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

DIDO AND ENEAS ; i CROSSING THE BROOK .

VIEW OF THE THAMES : PLYMOUTH, FROM MOUNT BATTEN LOCH LONG: MORNING

BAY OF BAI4E: APOLLO AND THE SIBYL THE GOLDEN BOUGH .

THE “OLD TEMERAIRE”

LINE-FISHING OFF HASTINGS VENICE , i

ST. MICHAEL’S MOUNT

VENICE: THE GRAND CANAL APPROACH TO VENICE. : VENICE FROM THE GUIDECCA ANCIENT ITALY :

MODERN ITALY ;

THE HOUSE WHERE TURNER DIED

.

159 177

Chapter I Introduction To Turner’s Life And Work

The strong attraction of personality—Ruskin Turner’s chief expositor—The danger to the student of being carried away by his charm of style—Turner’s desire to be a public teacher through the medium of Art—This idea illustrated by the frontispiece to the Liber Studiorum. The meaning of the little central picture—The explanation of its margin.

HE interest that always attaches to a domin-

ating figure in the world of Art surrounds the life and work of Turner. His name, like the names of Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth, and Charlotte Bronté—to quote only a few from the numbers of the modern great—has the attraction of a direct appeal.

None of these, not even the poets, are in the very foremost rank in their art: their names are not yet unchallenged as are those of the mighty in the classic and medizval annals. They have not the might of Homer, or Plato, or of the great triad of the Greek tragic writers in the one,

B nor of Shakespeare, of Dante, of Raphael, in the other; for though they have clearly passed the test of Time, they are still too near to us for the volume of their light to be accurately determined. Yet being no more accredited by Time than a host of others who have won renown in the modern world, still, by reason of some distinctiveness of personality, or by something special in their environment, they stand out more directly as visible objects. The romantic strain of Byron’s life has stamped itself upon his work; Shelley, like a beautiful spirit of unrest, moves through the impassioned music of his verse; the figure of the recluse of the great Lake country comes into view when we mention Wordsworth; the vision of Charlotte Bronté on her lonely moors flits before us when we open her books; and the figure of Turner, eccentric, morose, indefatigable, enters our mind when we survey the works of his hands.

Hence the perennial attractiveness of these controlling personalities as a theme for discourse, and hence, too, the untiring readiness of the listener to hear the fresh account. Every new exposition of the life and work of those whom I have named has, in every instance in which it has itself been instinct with life, found an interested public awaiting it. The lives of Turner alone, with all the writing—critical, explanatory, or other—

RUSKIN 3 which has gathered about his name, already make a well-defined section of modern literature.

Yet every new delineator thinks that he has found a point of view that did not come into his predecessor’s account; with all his admiration and respect for accredited histories, he has still the belief that he, with perhaps some fresh data, could give yet another explanation of the painter’s peculiarities, and, with close and earnest study of the pictures, a fresh and independent impression of their claims and their meaning.

Of all those who have been widely acknowledged as expounders of the beauty and the importance of Turner’s works, Ruskin is admittedly the chief. No other writer has so exhaustively treated the subject, has so laboriously gone over the ground with his eyes upon every step of the way. He is so possessed with his subject, he writes at such a white heat of admiration for the painter’s achievements, that the reader is, as it were, insensibly led to look at Turner with Ruskin’s eyes. For although the great teacher brings all his erudition, all his insight, as well as his great love, to bear upon his interpretation of individual subjects, yet in his treatment of the whole range of Turner’s work we have to think of his power of idealisation. He sees Turner, at all times, through his own poetic gaze; and the student, enveloped by the charm of the description, has to be on his

4 TURNER guard against allowing this medium to affect his own independence of judgment.

Beside the exhaustiveness of Ruskin’s treatment of Turner and his works, all other accounts must seem less fervid in expression and more circumscribed in scope. For although the Rev. Stopford Brooke, as a disciple of the great master of language, in his notes on the Zzber Studiorum, writes under the influence of the same close sympathy with his subject, there is not, as a rule, in the case of Turner’s other historians, the same personal nearness to affect the view. But although the standpoint may be different, it cannot be held to affect the value of the result. For everyone who takes Turner for his subject, and brings to the matter either sympathetic insight or critical experience, or both, or even eyes to see, may thereby help to a wider understanding of his genius.

Turner is a subject to which indeed the saying ‘¢Tn the multitude of counsellors there is wisdom ” may well apply. What one may, in a work so vast and so varied as his, overlook, another may bring to light. Something explanatory of the man himself may be revealed to the devoted seeker. For, speaking broadly,-his life is expressed in his works. There we find his possessing industry, his enduring patience, his rugged strength, as well as his extreme delicacy, his love of nature, his human feeling, and many another related thing besides. Everything about the production of the pictures, the circumstances .,of the painter, and how they affected him at the time of such production, is of help in getting at his mental standpoint. That we realise him so constantly, his persistence, his peculiarities, in relation to his works, is a proof that he lived through them.

That the one central aim of his life was to be a great public teacher through the medium of Art, we are assured not alone by the testimony of some of his ablest critics, but by his own admission.

As the purpose of these compressed pages is to reveal the man, and this view of him, through a consideration of his great productions, there can be no fitter illustration for the opening of the attempt than the frontispiece to the Lzber Studtorum, a masterpiece, to speak of the complete set of drawings as a whole, which he himself regarded as one of the most enduring of his works, and in which his assumption of teacher is most directly expressed.

Incidentally this frontispiece illustrates the many lines of his own art in which Turner was a master, for the exquisite little central picture was drawn, etched, and engraved by his own hand. The processes of its production bear witness to the painter’s wonderful delicacy of touch that could, within so small a compass, give line and curve and faintest shadow with perfect clearness. The central picture, its framework and the wide marginal border that surrounds it, are all symbolic of the painter’s intention in the Book of Studies. Perhaps the centre picture may be said to have more of the inner symbolism than has that of the outer margin. This, at least, is the teaching of Ruskin with regard to its meaning, and in agreement with his interpretation is that of the Rev. Stopford Brooke. Both writers find that he here indicates the decay and the humiliation that overtake the productions of human pride—that, he thus symbolises the decay of Europe by this picture of the great sea-empire at sunset. For the illustration represents Tyre at the height of her glory, and Europa, as the type of her beauty and her charm, departing from her—borne away, as the Greek records relate, by Jupiter, and borne, too, upon the waves of the sea. In the choice of such a subject as the keynote to the whole intention of the work, it seems clear that the artist must have intended to bear witness to the alternate rise and fall of human history. But does he mean no more than this? May he not by this picture desire to illustrate the glory and the power of the sea itself, and how it leads to all, and links all the lands of the world? About the outer symbolism of the margin there is no difficulty at all. It is clearly the painter’s intention to show the scope of the Empire of Painting, and how it takes in all

if objects in both Life and Nature. The oars point to man’s dominion of the waters; the scroll with the engraver’s names to the combination of forces in his work; moulding and sculptured stonework to the glory of the buildings his hands have made ; while the white peacock in the centre may be taken as an emblem of the pride and beauty of the world, and perhaps also, as it is there as a symbol, of the province of the imagination in the art of ‘painting. Yet to the lover of beauty the chief interest will lie in the exquisite effect of the environed picture itself, for so opalescent is it, so bathed in light, that, although only produced in sepia, it has all the effect of vivid colouring. The glow of effulgent warmth, the richness of the East seem to rise to meet the eyes of the gazer in this little piece of perfect art.

Chapter II Turner’s Childhood, School-life, And First Drawings

Turner’s parents and his devotion to his father—Hand’s Court, Maiden Lane, Turner’s birthplace—Ruskin’s description of it—Turner’s affection for his early home—His schooldays at Brentford and first drawings there—Folly Bridge first water-colour—The influence of adjacent localities—School at Margate—Student of the Royal Academy, first drawing there of Lambeth Palace—First drawing of Kirkstall Abbey —Tintern Abbey, early water-colour—First portrait of himself, now in Ruskin Museum.

HERE is nothing to prove that Turner’s

immediate ancestors were in the least endowed with artistic tastes. In his walk of life such indications would be more likely to be noted and preserved, if only by oral tradition, than in cultivated circles, where they would be regarded as too much in the natural order of things to call for comment.

There is no hint, in any existent records, that his mother’s trying peculiarities of temper and subsequent madness had any relation to abnormal brain-power. Although it is possible to surmise,

BIRTH 9 as Hamerton would appear to suggest from his consideration of the parallel case of Lord Byron’s mother, that madness in the mother might have been transformed to genius in the son. It certainly seems reasonable to conclude that Turner’s eccentricities of behaviour, living, etc., were a resultant of his mother’s mental aberration. It would appear from all that can be gathered of the matter, that the good things of Turner’s childhood in the way of kindness, care, and example, came from the paternal side. And the great painter, who was by nature adhesive, would seem from the care with which he provided for his comfort, and the close companionship which he gave him to the end of his days, to have been at all times warmly attached to his father.

The date of Turner’s birth, like the dates of some others who have achieved greatness—and in this connection his gifted companion, Girtin, may be mentioned—is somewhat uncertain, but the year is always given as 1775, and the month as, supposedly, April. May the 14th is also given as the date of his baptism at St. Paul’s.

According to the memoir of Peter Cunningham, written in 1852, the year after Turner’s death, the house over the barber’s shop, in which the great painter was born, was then still standing. It is described as 26, Maiden Lane, at the corner of Hand’s Court, Covent Garden.

IO TURNER

The locality may be surmised to have been somewhat fashionable at the time of Turner’s birth, from the fact that it was deferentially alluded to as ‘‘The Gardens.” The fashionable part was probably at some little distance from the bustle of the Market and the shops of the Lane: unless, indeed, they had the reflected distinction of places at which the fashionable people of the neighbourhood made purchases. It is certain that they patronised the little barber at No. 26, either by going to his shop for his ministrations, or by summoning his services to their houses. For, in accordance with the authority just quoted, it was upon one of the latter occasions that the small genius accompanied his father, and made his first drawing from a coat-of-arms upon a table; and that the father after this, when jocularly asked by his customers what the boy was going to be, would reply with pride, ‘‘ William is going to be a painter.”

Although the throngs of busy people who now frequent Covent Garden and Maiden Lane never possibly give the matter a thought, lovers of Turner still like to think of it as a neighbourhood permeated with memories of his early days. For here he received his first impressions of life, first made sketches of the things around him, first unconsciously began to get form and colour into his mind, and, in some undefined way, to feel within

COVENT GARDEN Lz him the power of great achievements. And although his lovers will look in vain for even a simple tablet to notify to the passer-by that here someone who helped largely to the glory of England’s name in art first began existence, yet to this spirit of reverence for the early footsteps of genius they owe Ruskin’s affectionate study of Turner’s birthplace and the abode of his childhood.

The student of the present, for whom no trace remains, may well be grateful to the great teacher for his exact description as he saw it in 1860, then some years after Turner’s death. With the Modern Painters for our guide, we can, in fancy, walk to the far end of Maiden Lane, can pass through the low, dark archway and the iron gate, and stand before the square window, looking into Covent Garden, of the small shop where his father, the barber and hairdresser, carried on his business. And when his understanding began to quicken it was, no doubt, in the shop itself that it was somehow borne in upon Turner’s consciousness that to make money by the work of your hands was one of the chief duties of life—it was, at least, a principle to which he closely adhered to the end of his days.

We may pause to think how many thousand times the boy’s feet must have trodden that pavement, hurrying on to his great world—the river.

a TURNER

Or we stroll up and down, and imagine ourselves looking in at the other shops and wondering about their contents, and chiefly are we interested in the friendly oystermonger, his father’s friend, whom, when he had become the rich and famous painter, he still delighted to visit ; for to the last, as far as his domestic life was concerned, Turner clung to the class to which he himself originally belonged.

Although the Covent Garden of Turner’s days may have been less crowded, less glaring, than now, it is hardly possible to think of it without its masses of refuse, its dirt and clamour; or, even with the colours of its fruits, and with the sunbeams of summer and autumn touching the roofs and spires that encircle it, as holding the sources of inspiration, but for the thought that genius being lighted from within does in itself illumine ~ the things without. And this being so, it is possible to feel a little surprise at the emotional note in Ruskin’s view of their inadequacy—‘‘. . . the best, however, it seems, that England was able to provide for a boy of gift.” And in his comparison of Turner with Giorgione he dwells insistently upon the fact that the surroundings of the latter were so much more inspiring, more varied, more liberal than were those of the former. Yet one might say of Giorgione that his birthright of beauty came to him because he belonged to Italy,

BOYHOOD 13 and not to any special provision of Fortune in his favour.

Yet apart from the mere accident of birth which brought him to a small and homely condition of life and its accompanying coarsenesses, there was nothing particularly hard in Turner’s circumstance in his boyhood. He had not, as genius has so often had, to fight against family opposition to his choice ; for when his father, who, it may be supposed, looked at the question from the profit and loss point of view, found that the pursuance of art, in his son’s case, meant making a little money in the present, with the prospect of more in the future, he, to the best of his ability, aided and abetted his son’s ambitions.

More instructive, as a clue to certain striking peculiarities of Turner’s work, is Ruskin’s obser vance of the force of the great painter’s love of his early surroundings—‘“‘. . . loves them, never indeed forgets them. The short waists modify to the last his visions of Greek ideal. His foregrounds have always a succulent cluster or two of greengrocery in the corner. Enchanted oranges gleam in Covent Gardens of the Hesperides, and great ships go to pieces to scatter chests of them on the: waves. That mist of early sunbeams of the London dawn crosses many and many a time the clearness of Italian air.” The student of Turner’s pictures might do well to bear in mind this point of view of a controlling influence of the great painter in estimating the characteristics of his representation of classic things.

Although as Hamerton, commenting upon the dearth of biographical matter in Turner’s case, remarks: ‘‘La plupart des personnes qui ont connu le grand peintre sont morts, et chaque année augmente la difficulté de recuiller quelque chose de nouveau de lui,” still it is possible from such memoranda as we possess to get an adequate idea of the manner of Turner’s childhood. He began, it would seem, almost as soon as he could handle a pencil, to draw the things around him— fruit and vegetables in the market, the people in the streets, and, above all, the Thames and its trafic. For, even in his restricted early days, Maiden Lane, and the delights of Covent Garden, are not his whole world. His great outer world is the river, where, from London Bridge, he can watch the ships that come and go to all quarters of the earth. There he made studies of mast and sail and cordage, and other things that pertain to seafaring life. For if his home neighbourhood earliest awoke sentiment in his heart, the Thames, we may be sure, first gave his imagination wings. Here he was in Wonderland—the Wonderland that each fresh revelation of the unknown world makes for the imaginative child. This river, then, that winds itself through the pageantry of London’s

BOYHOOD Is historic life, should be an enchanted stream for lovers of Turner’s genius. For here we can hardly doubt those wonderful sea-pictures of his first indefinitely formed themselves in his mind in those early days.

It is not difficult to form a picture of the boy at this time: an interesting and vivid little lad, to assume from the portrait of himself, painted when he was seventeen, when his mind had grown, and he felt the glory of Art luring him on to effort. We can fancy him eager to be about watching the procession of life in the streets. There is not, it may be assumed, much inducement to stay in the dark little rooms behind the shop, where it is possible that he has to be very much on his guard against the vagaries of the maternal temper ; though he may linger in the shop to gain scraps of information about the great world, from his father’s patrons and customers, who would themselves be encouraged by the shrewd and affectionate father to take an interest in his clever son.

The life in the streets, and the river, made up the sum of the material of his impressions in those days of childhood. Religion apparently made no appeal to him, for nowhere do we find its inspiring influence in his work. On the human side it had no softness, warmth, as far as he knew from observation of its processes, to draw him to its € 4d; and on the side of Art it had no spell of beauty. His only two connections with the Church were those in which he had no volition— his baptism and his burial.

Turner’s schooldays at Brentford, to which place he had been sent, when ten years old, for the sake of his health, by his father, made the next stage in his life after that of Maiden Lane. At Brentford he was under the care of an aunt, and this probably meant for him a large modification of former domestic discomfort. He would seem to have developed a strong liking for the place and for the adjacent country, for thither he frequently returned in after years. It was here, while still at school, that he began proudly to earn his first money by the practice of art, for we find him colouring engravings, at fourpence each, for the foreman of the Brentford Distillery. And as the next step to success his drawings, copies probably of engravings, are shortly afterwards being sold in his father’s shop at the price each of one shilling.

It must have been at this time that he produced his earliest preserved drawing, that of ‘‘ Folly Bridge,”’ now in the water-colour rooms of the National Gallery, as it bears the date 1787, when he could only have been about twelve years old. ‘‘ Folly Bridge” already shows great firmness of handling in the drawing of the bridge and adjacent buildings, and with ideas of expanse in the sky. It is

@SdaINad ATION

BOYHOOD 17 a pencil outline, shaded with grey and touched with local colour, but, as the trees and stones show, cold and thin in tint, according to the creed of the time ; yet, cold and subdued as they are, interesting as the first almost silent notes in that scale of colour culminating at last in the glories of the great Venetian pictures.

There can be no doubt that these early successes gave an impetus to the boy’s endeavours; and there are few indeed who have fought their way to Fame who have found their devotion to Art so quickly remunerative. His school life at Brentford gave him opportunities for long rambles amidst the then rural surroundings of Putney, Twickenham, and Hampton; and these rambles afforded him his first delightful glimpses of lordly mansion and shady grove: perhaps the more delightful to him, since, through the medium of translations, his mind had been touched with the beauty of classic times. His peculiar retentiveness of everything relating to his early life may have been the reason why, in some of his finest work, he has introduced English scenery and English sentiment into classical subject. The carved pillars and wrought stone-work of these lordly halls, the shady groves, the smooth lawns and terraces, the white swans, and the ornamental water, may have so commingled in his mind with the tales of ancient Greece that to the