attention to the admiration of his own pictures. A wellknown collector, with whom the artist had long been intimate, once invited him to be present at the opening of a new gallery, in which the principal pictures were from his pencil. To the disappointment of the connoisseur, Turner scarcely noticed them, but kept his eye fixed upon the ceiling. It was panelled and neatly grained in oak. "What are you looking at so intently?" said the host. "At those boards,” was the reply; "the fellow that did that must have known how to paint." And nothing would induce him to turn to the magnificent pictures that sparkled on the walls. never talked about his own pictures, but would occasionally give hints to other artists; and when these were adopted, they were always certain improvements. We never heard of his saying anything, however, that would give pain, and he felt keenly the ignorant criticisms and ridicule with which his own pictures were often treated.

TURNER'S WATER-COLOUR DRAWINGS.-SECRET OF

HIS SUCCESS.

He

Turner's water-colour drawings did more for extending his reputation than his oil pictures, for contemporary with these his style in oil began to change. He indulged more freely in the use of primitive tints, and consummate as was the skill with which he used them, exciting the admiration of many to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, they were yet as caviare to the multitude. There can be no doubt that a still greater elaboration of the same principle, founded as it is in Nature, might have refined them into a neutrality of effect that would have been pleasing to the ordinary beholder, while they retained for the artist and connoisseur all that has made his

name so great among them as a colourist. Mr. Thackeray, upon a certain occasion, made light of Turner's style in the columns of Punch, by drawing some obscure outline, signifying nothing, as an example of the master. Shortly afterwards he was introduced to the gallery of a well-known connoisseur, especially rich in his pictures, both oil and water-colour. Astounding!" said the author of Vanity Fair; "I will never abuse Turner again."

66

The great secret of Turner's fame was his constant recourse to Nature, and his wonderful activity and power of memory, coupled with great natural genius, and indifference to praise. His religious study of Nature was such, that he would walk

through portions of England, twenty to twenty-five miles a day, with his little modicum of baggage at the end of a stick, sketching rapidly on his way all good pieces of composition, and marking effects with a power that daguerreotyped them in his mind with unerring truth at the happiest moment. There were few moving phenomena in clouds or shadows which he did not fix indelibly in his memory, though he might not call them into requisition for years afterwards.

Turner's faculty of observation was prodigious, and his mind was always intent upon the work of his profession. He could not walk London streets without seeing effects of light and shade and composition, whether in the smoke issuing from a chimney-pot, or in the shadows upon a brickwall, without storing them in his memory for use at any time when needed. Frequently on looking at another artist's landscape, all the details of the scene would rise to his recollection, and he would good-humouredly criticise any exaggeration for effect. "Now those trees," he would say, 66 are not in that corner-they are there." He saw beauties in things and groups of things, that nobody else could see,—and painted pictures of them. He frequently started off to the Continent, nobody knew when and nobody knew where, until the result of his labours came forth to illustrate some costly book-now to France, now to Venice, and not unfrequently painted his views in oil on the spot. His pencil was always in requisition. An intimate friend, while travelling in the Jura, came to an inn where Turner had only just before entered his name in the visiting book. Anxious to be sure of his identity and to be in pursuit of him, he inquired of the host what sort of man his last visitor was. "A rough clumsy man," was the reply; "and you may know him by his always having a pencil in his hand." Nature was his inspiration in the fullest sense of the word.

Few were intimate with him, and few even knew him. Once, upon being told that an eminent publisher had boasted of having obtained admission to his studio, "How could you. be such a fool as to believe it?" replied Turner, in his usual abrupt manner. And his reserve in this respect was responded to by a most faithful servant who had lived forty-two years with him, to the day of his death.-Abridged from the Literary Gazette, 1852.

BB

APPENDIX.

HOGARTH'S SOUTHWARK FAIR.

(Page 18.)

It has been erroneously stated that the picture of Southwark Fair was destroyed by fire; whereas, it is in the possession of the Duke of Newcastle. It differs considerably in effect of light and dark from the print, and we see more distinctly in it what Hogarth intended as the principal points. His was a genius that delighted to touch, and knew how to touch, the master-chords of human nature; and in the foreground groups of this picture, the admiration of beauty by man, and of valour by woman, are the things on which the chief lights are thrown.-Leslie's Handbook, p. 124.

HOGARTH PAINTING "CHILDREN."

There is a charming picture by Hogarth at Holland House, in which children are the principal personages. It represents the private performance of a play at the house of Mr. Conduitt, the Master of the Mint, before the Duke of Cumberland and a few other people of fashion. Three girls and a boy are on the stage, and seem to be very seriously doing their best; but the attitude and expression of one little girl, on a front seat among the audience, is matchless. She is so entirely absorbed in the performance, that she sits bolt upright, and will sit, we are sure, immovably, to the end of the play, enjoying it, as a child only can, and much the more because the actors are children. The picture is beautifully coloured, and is one of those early works painted from nature, the execution of which prepared the way to Hogarth's greater efforts. - Leslie's Handbook, p. 131.

SIR JOSHUA'S FATHER.
(Page 96.)

The Rev. Mr. Reynolds had, like a few old divines of his time, a turn for astrology. Mr. Cotton, in his volume published in 1860, relates:

"That old Mr. Reynolds was an astrologist, and used to cast nativities, I have been told by a lady staying at Ivybridge, whose mother had a servant that once lived with Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds, at Plympton, and she told her the following singular circumstance. When the birth of one of his children was about to take place, Mr. Reynolds diligently employed himself in taking its horoscope. Being informed of the exact time of the birth, he exclaimed: 'How unfortunate! for there is a most malign conjunction of the planets, which threatens danger to the child at a certain period of its life.' The greatest care was consequently taken of the infant on the day on which some evil was expected to happen. Mr. Reynolds mounted his horse, to allay the disturbance of his mind, and rode away some distance from home. As soon as he returned, he looked up to the room in which the child was supposed to be, and was overjoyed to see him at the window. At this moment the little boy over-reached himself, and falling from some height to the ground below, was killed. The fears and predictions of Mr. Reynolds were thus fulfilled in a most extraordinary manner."

REYNOLDS'S STUDIES IN ITALY.
(Pages 102-103.)

These

In January, 1859, Mr. Cotton published several Extracts from Reynolds's Italian Journals and Sketch-books, lately purchased by the Trustees of the British Museum. passages supply, in some measure, the distinct record of Reynolds's method of study whilst in Italy. The Extracts from his note-books, published by Northcote, served in a measure to explain his practice during his long stay in Rome; but of his studies in Venice-and, as has always been said, it was upon the system of the great Venetian painters his own theory of colour was based-the only account was that furnished in his Notes to Mason's Translation of Du Fresnoy. When Mr. Ruskin was consulted as to the expediency of publishing these Italian memoranda, he replied, "Publish them by all means."

The notes before us commence with an account of the 'Copies of Pictures I made at Rome," the earliest date being the 16th of April, 1750. As we know, he soon emancipated himself from "the drudgery of copying, . . . at best a delusive kind of industry," as he long after told the Academy students; but the copies we here, at the opening of the book, find him

to Time of fo in the Duke of Cumberland and 1.3 GH Hopè disum. foss, member for time and equess of one little girl on a front seat mony too mean is matchless. She is so entirely absorbed a for petomncs, that she sits bolt upright, and will sit, we an son inmovably, to the end of the play, enjoying it, as a mild only com, and much the more because the actors are men. The picture is beautifully coloured, and is one d five any works painted from nature, the execution of which memed the way to Hogarth's greater efforts. - Leslie