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 compassesnone 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."

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

here; we must look to the imitation or to nothing. Consequently, 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 canvas, till Turner gave them with a power precluding all imitation."

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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