time he was his master; and from him, and John | The following, accepting an invitation to dine Cozens, and one Dayes, Turner learned much. with his valued friend and patron, Mr. Windus, All three of these were men of the greatest prom- of Tottenham, on the occasion of his birthday, is ise, but lacked Turner's self-control and perse- characteristic: "My dear Sir,-Yes, with very verance. Girtin died in 1802, of intemperance, great pleasure. I will be with you on the B. D. leaving only some fine drawings behind him. Many of them to yourself and Mrs. Windus; Cozens died in a mad-house, in 1799; and Dayes and, with the compliments of the season, believe committed suicide in 1804. Turner alone had me, yours faithfully, J. M. W. TURNER." patience to work and wait; and although many many years were passed in oblivion, and some of his greatest works were but poorly appreciated when first exhibited, the time came when he had his reward; and when he died, in 1852, his name was known and honored all over the civilized world. Had he died as young as Girtin, his name would only have survived as that of a second-rate painter. Of the middle period of Turner's life not much is known. He was always a recluse, an uncompanionable man, absorbed in his art, and having his eyes too wide open to be able to use his mouth much. He kept most profoundly the mystery of his art, and never allowed a brother artist to see him at work. When he was painting for Lord Egremont at Petworth he worked with the room door locked, and only Lord Egremont was admitted by a certain pre-arranged knock. Chantrey, the sculptor, who was also staying in the house, hribed the butler to show him the peculiar signal, and then, one day, imitating Lord Egremont's peculiar walk and cough, gave the knock. The door was opened, and in walked Chantrey, to Turner's great annoyance, which he got over, however, by remembering that though once a painter Chantrey was then a sculptor. He had great activity of body, and a wonderful memory, and the secret of his success was his constant recourse to nature. He would walk through portions of England, twenty to twentyfive 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 afterward. His pencil was always in use. An intimate friend, while traveling 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.” He was always on the alert for any remarkable effects. In 1792, when he was eighteen years of age, the Pantheon in Oxford Street was burned down. It happened to be a hard frost at the time, and huge icicles were seen the next morning depending from different parts of the ruins. The young artist quickly repaired to the spot, and his picture, "The Pantheon on the Morning after the Fire," exhibited at the Royal Academy in the following May, witnessed the force with which the scene was impressed upon him. In like manner, the "Burning of the Houses of Parliament" forty years afterward was an event that could not escape the pencil of He was very fond of fishing, his only amusement; and while staying at Petworth another time devoted himself so entirely to this, that one of the other guests remarked to the host, "Turner is going to leave without having done any thing; instead of painting he does nothing but fish." To every body's surprise, as he was on the point of leaving he produced two or three wonderful pictures, which he had painted in en-Turner. He repaired to the spot to make sketchtire seclusion and reserve, in the morning before the family were up. His conversation was sprightly, but desultory and disjointed. Like his works, it was eminently sketchy. He would converse for half an hour, and then be amused at finding his companion in doubt of what he had been talking about. es of the fire at different points, and produced two pictures, one for the Academy, and another for the British Institution. Here was a glowing subject for his pallet. Lord Hill, on looking close to the latter picture, exclaimed, “What's this? Call this painting? Nothing but dabs!" But upon retiring and catching its magical effects, he added, "Painting! God bless me, so it is!" 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 He either never knew, or never would tell, his birthday. One who was a fellow-student with him at the Academy, and his companion from boyhood, once said to him, "William, your birthday can't be far off? when is it? I want to drink a glass of wine to my old friend." "Ah!" growled Turner, "never mind that; such a fool as to believe it?" replied Turner, in leave your old friend alone." He was never married, and had no relations, except two or three cousins, to whom, probably, it never occurred to ascertain the day of his birth. 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. He had a peculiar dislike of having his adHe wrote few letters, and these were, like his dress known, and to the last, with his immense conversation, abrupt, and referred little to art. I wealth, lived poorly. Though he owned a house in London, he lived much in country lodgings. | was the result of a plot, which may now be reWhen he went to Chelsea he looked at lodgings, vealed without offense to the honored victim. asked the price, found them cheap, and declared Rev. Mr. Daniell, a gentleman who was exthey were quite to his liking. But the land-tremely intimate with Turner, prevailed upon lady wanted reference. "I will buy your house outright, my good woman," was the reply, somewhat angrily. Then an agreement was wanted; met by an exhibition of bank-notes and sovereigns, and an offer to pay in advance; an offer which was quite satisfactory. The painter's difficulties were not, however, yet over. The landlady wanted her lodger's name, "in case any gentleman should call." This was a worse dilemma. "Name, name," he muttered to himself in his usual gruff manner. "What is your name?" "My name is Mrs. Booth," was the reply. "Then I am Mr. Booth;" and as Admiral Booth he was known in the neighborhood, his sailor-like appearance favoring this belief. When his residence became known he changed it, and his ingenuity in baffling the curiosity of his friends was marvelous-almost equal to that of Dr. Paul Heffernan. Offers were made to walk home with him from the Athenæum Club for a chit-chat about Academy matters. No: he had got an engagement, and must keep it. Some of the younger sort attempted to follow him, but he managed to steal away from them, to tire them out, or pop into cheap omnibuses, or round dark corners. If he suspected that he was followed, he would set off for a tavern haunt; but as soon as this got to be known he left it, and the landlord lost his customer. Once his hiding-place was nearly discovered. Turner had dined with some friends at Greenwich, had drunk freely, and, on reaching town, was thought to be not sufficiently collected to call a cab. The party, as had been plotted, dropped off, and there was left with Turner only one friend, who placed him in a cab: thinking to catch the bemused painter unawares, he shut the cab-door, and said, "Where shall he drive to ?" Turner was not, however, to be caught, and collectedly replied, " Along Piccadilly, and I will tell him where." Till he became known he lived in a room over his father's barber-shop. Then he changed to costlier lodgings, and when his father wished to retire from business he took care of him tenderly, till the old man died at the age of eightyfour. When Turner was elected to the Academy, he not only wrote A.R.A. after his name, but also changed the initials of his signature. Before, he had been content to exhibit as "W. Turner." From and after his elevation into the Academy he is "J. M. W. Turner" in Court Guides and Exhibition Catalogues. his eccentric friend occasionally to dine with him. Linnell, without exciting any suspicion of his object, was always one of the party, and by sketching on his thumb-nail, and, unobserved, on scraps of paper, he at length succeeded in transferring the portly bust and sparkling eye of the great artist to his canvas. The picture was finished, and passed in due time, at the price of two hundred guineas, into the possession of Mr. Birch, a gentleman residing near Birmingham. Turner never knew it. Mr. Peter Cunningham describes Turner as "short, stout, and bandy-legged, with a red, pimply face, imperious and covetous eyes, and a tongue which expressed his sentiments with a murmuring reluctance. Sir William Allan was accustomed to describe him as a Dutch skipper. His hands were very small, and, owing to the long cuffs to his coats, only his fingers were seen. His look was any thing but that of a man of genius." But a second glance would find far more in his face than belongs to any ordinary mind. There was a peculiar keenness of expression in his eye which denoted constant habits of observation. His voice was deep and musical, but he was a confused and tedious speaker. was very joyous at table, and was very apt at repartee. He was a social man in his nature; and Mr. Leslie considers the recluse manner in which he lived to have arisen from his strong wish to have his time entirely at his command. He Like most great men, he had a hobby for something else than his profession. As Rachel could never be convinced that her forte was not comedy, so Turner always desired to be a great poet. He is said to have left behind a long MS. poem, called the "Fallacies of Hope," which is chiefly known to the world by extracts from it which he used to put under his pictures; and of which none are either good enough or bad enough to be quoted here. He was very indifferent to praise; and it is curious to know, was not always pleased with Mr. Ruskin's eulogies. "He knows a great deal more about my pictures than I do," said Turner; "he puts things into my head and points out meanings in them that I never intended." A well-known collector, with whom he had long been intimate, once invited Turner 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, he scarcely noticed them, but kept his eye fixed upon the ceiling. It was paneled and neatly grained in oak. "What are you looking at so intently?" said the host. "At those boards," was the reply; "the fellow who did that must have known how to paint." And nothing would induce him to turn to the magnificent pictures that sparkled on the walls. He never talked about his own It pictures, but would occasionally give hints to He would never sit for his portrait, but several were taken of him surreptitiously. He thought his likeness would throw a doubt upon his works. "No one," said he, "would believe, upon seeing my figure, that I painted those pictures.' The best and only finished portrait of him is, however, one of half-size, in oil, by J. Linnell. other artists; and when these were adopted, | ther acquaintance; but the above was his then they were always certain improvements. impression. He never allowed a picture of his own to be sold at public auction without trying to buy it in himself. So well was this known that the auctioneers made a point of calling his attention to the catalogue whenever they had any of his pictures for sale. If time pressed, and he was unable to attend in person, he would sometimes, but rarely, intrust his commission to the auctioneer; his ordinary practice was to send some agent, with written instructions, to bid in his behalf, and he was not always very fastidious in his selection. At the sale of the pictures of Mr. Green, the well-known amateur of Blackheath, two pictures by Turner were among the most attractive lots, though neither important in size nor of his best time. In those days their market value might have been about eighty guineas each. They would, however, have been knocked down for considerably less, but for the impetus given to the biddings by one of Turner's agents, whose personal appearance did not warrant the belief that he was in search of pictures of a very high order. He was, in fact, a clean, ruddycheeked, butcher's boy, in the usual costume of his vocation, and had made several advances, in five-guinea strides, before any thing belonging to him, excepting his voice, attracted Mr. Christie's notice. No sooner, however, did the veteran auctioneer discover what kind of customer he had to deal with, than he beckoned him forward, with a view, no doubt, of reproving him for his impertinence. The boy, however, nothing daunted, put a small piece of greasy paper into his hand-a credential, in fact, from the painter himself. The auctioneer smiled, and the biddings proceeded. The first picture of Turner that came to this country was ordered by Mr. James Lenox, of New York city, who wrote to Mr. Leslie to inquire if a Turner could be had. Leslie replied that Turner's rooms being full of unsold pictures, doubtless he would part with one. Mr. Lenox then consented to give £500, and left the choice to Mr. Leslie. He called on Turner, and asked if he would let a picture go to America. A night or two after Mr. Leslie received Mr. Lenox's letter he met Turner at the Academy, who asked if he had heard from Mr. Lenox; to which Mr. Leslie was obliged to say yes. "Well, and how does he like the picture?" "He thinks it indistinct." "You should tell him," he replied, "that indistinctness is my fault." This calls to mind a story of Turner which, it is believed, has never been in print. An engraver, engaged in transferring one of Turner's paintings to steel, came one morning to the great artist, and owned, not without hesitation and fear of exciting his anger, that, though he had tried his best, he could not distinguish what object was meant to be represented by a dab of bright color in the immediate fore-ground of the picture. Turner looked at it for a while, then said: "What do you think it is?" "I can't tell, Sir," was the reply; "but if I were to make a guess I should think it might be a wheel-barrow." The Very well! Then make it a wheel-barrow," said Turner, and dismissed the engraver. shape of the object made no difference to him, but the color was every thing; and this great stress placed upon general effect and harmony of color in a picture probably led to that indistinctness in detail which he declared to be his weak point. Turner was very chary of his opinions on art; but on the occasion we are about to relate he said more than was expected. He was taken to see the pictures of Thomson, of Duddingston, called by his countrymen, in the fondness of their admiration, "the Scottish Turner." The friend who took him was anxious to hear what the original Turner thought of his Scottish representative. Thomson, too, was equally eager. Turner examined with attention, mumbled some sounds of apparent approbation, but began and ended by asking, "Where do you get your frames, Mr. Thomson?" We must close our paper with a few stories of Turner's expertness in coloring. "No; they won't come up to the scratch." This referred to another American friend hav- In 1839, when Constable exhibited his "Opening offered him a low price for the "Témé-ing of Waterloo Bridge," it was placed in one of raire." Mr. Leslie named £500, which a friend would give for any thing 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. It Mr. Leslie chose a sunset view of Staffa. was in an old frame, but Turner had a new frame made for it. the small rooms at Somerset House, next to a sea-piece, by Turner-a gray picture, beautiful and true, but with no positive color in any part of it. Constable's "Waterloo" seemed as if painted with liquid gold and silver, and Turner came several times into the room while he was heightening with vermilion and lake the decorations and flags of the city barges. Turner stood behind him, looking from the "Waterloo" to his When it reached New York, and Mr. Lenox own picture, and at last brought his pallet from had hastily glanced at it, he wrote to Mr. Leslie, the Great Room, where he was touching another expressing his great disappointment. He almost picture, and putting a round daub of red lead, fancied the picture had sustained some damage somewhat bigger than a shilling, on his gray sea, on the voyage, it appeared to him so indistinct went away without saying a word. The intensthroughout. Still, he did not doubt its being ity of the red lead, made more vivid by the coolvery fine, and he hoped to see its merits on fur-ness of his picture, caused even the vermilion and lake of Constable to look weak. "I came into the room," says Mr. Leslie, "just as Turner left it." "He has been here," said Constable, "and fired a gun." On the opposite wall was a picture, by Jones, of "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego in the Furnace." "A coal," said Cooper, "has bounced across the room from Jones's picture and set fire to Turner's sea." Turner did not come again into the room for a day and a half; and then, in the last moments that were allowed for painting, he glazed the scarlet seal he had put on his picture, and shaped it into a buoy. In 1827, when Turner exhibited his "Rembrandt's Daughter," in a red robe, the portrait of a member of one of the Universities was hung by its side, with a college-gown that was still redder. Upon finding this out on varnishing day, Turner was observed to be very busy adding red lead and vermilion to his picture. "What are you doing there, Turner?" asked one of the hangers. "Why, you have checkmated me," was the reply, pointing to the University gown, "and I must now checkmate you." One cold day Chantrey stopped before a picture by Turner, and seizing the artist's arm, placed his hands before a blaze of yellow, in an attitude of obtaining warmth, and said, with a look of delight, "Turner, this is the only comfortable place in the room. Is it true, as I have heard, that you have a commission to paint a picture for the Sun Fire Office?" Many a lively gossip passed between these two friends. Turner had expressed an eccentric intention to be buried in his picture of "Carthage; " and said to Chantrey, "I have appointed you one of my executors; will you promise to see me rolled up in it?" "Yes," said Chantrey, "and I promise you also that as soon as you are buried I will see you taken up and unrolled." Mr. Leslie tells us this story was so generally believed, that when Turner died, in 1851, and Dean Milman heard he was going to be buried in St. Paul's, he said, "I will not read the service over him if he be wrapped up in that picture." THE SLEIGHERS. THE trackless fields are white with snow, By frozen stream, through drifted ridge, By naked trees, whose stout limbs creak; Where glows the fire across the floor, The clock, within its case of oak, With eager gaze she strains her sight; They heed her not, nor turn aside; By frozen stream, through drifted ridge, By naked trees, whose stout limbs creak; Her feet grow cold, her eyes grow dim, She gropes with outstretched arm and hand; She droops, she falls upon the snow; Once more her wasted strength returns; She, trembling, kneels and lifts the vail: was his Corunna, his heights of Abraham-sickly, weak, wounded, he fell in the full blaze and fame of that great victory. What manner of man was the genius who penned that famous song? What like was Wolfe, who climbed and conquered on those famous heights of Abraham? We all want to know details regarding men who have achieved famous feats, whether of war, or wit, or eloquence, or endurance, or knowledge. His one or two happy and heroic actions take a man's name and memory out of the crowd of names and memories. Henceforth he stands eminent. We scan him: we want to know all about him: we walk round and examine him, are curious, perhaps, and think are we not as strong and tall and capable as yonder champion? were we not bred as well, and could we not endure the winter's cold as well as he? Or we look up with all our eyes of admiration; will find no fault in our hero; declare his beauty and proportions perfect; his critics envious detractors, and so forth. Yesterday, before he performed his feat, he was nobody. Who cared about his birth-place, his parentage, or the color of his hair? To-day, by some single achievement, or by a series of great actions, to which his genius accustoms us, he is famous, and antiquarians are busy finding out under what schoolmaster's ferule he was educated, where his grandmother was vaccinated, and so forth. If half a dozen washing-bills of Goldsmith's were to be found to-morrow, would they not inspire a general interest, and be printed in a hundred papers? I lighted upon Oliver, not very long since, in an old Town and Country Magazine, at the Pantheon masquerade, "in an old English habit." Straightway my imagination ran out to meet him, to look at him, to follow him about. I forgot the names of scores of fine gentlemen, of the past age, who were mentioned besides. We want to see this man who HAVE been reading the Memorials of Hood, has amused and charmed us; who has been our She stoops to kiss the clay-cold brow: ABOUT THOMAS HOOD. BY W. M. THACKERAY. I friend, book will have the same interest for others, and ionship and kindly thought. I protest when I for younger people, as for persons of my own age came, in the midst of those names of people of and calling. Books of travel to any country fashion and beaux and demirips, upon those become interesting to us who have been there. names-"Sir J. R-yn-lds, in a domino; Mr. Men revisit the old school, though hateful to Cr-d-ck and Dr. G-ldsm-th, in two old English them, with ever so much kindliness and senti- dresses," I had, so to speak, my heart in my mental affection. There was the tree under mouth. What! you here, my dear Sir Joshua? which the bully licked you: here the ground Ah, what an honor and privilege it is to see you! where you had to fag out on holidays-and so This is Mr. Goldsmith? And very much, Sir, forth. In a word, my dear Sir, You are the the ruff and the slashed doublet become you! most interesting subject to yourself of any that Oh, Doctor! what a pleasure I had and have in can occupy your worship's thoughts. I have no reading the "Animated Nature." How did you doubt a Crimean soldier, reading a history of learn the secret of writing the decasyllable line, that siege, and how Jones and the gallant 99th and whence that sweet wailing note of tenderness were ordered to charge, or what not, thinks that accompanies your song? Was Beau Tibbs "Ah, yes, we of the 100th were placed so and a real man, and will you do me the honor of also, I perfectly remember." So with this memo-lowing me to sit at your table at supper? Don't rial of poor Hood; it may have, no doubt, a greater interest for me than for others, for I was fighting, so to speak, in a different part of the field, and engaged a young subaltern in the Battle of Life, in which Hood fell, young still, and covered with glory. "The Bridge of Sighs" VOL. XXII.-No. 128.-Q you think you know how he would have talked ? Would you not have liked to hear him prattle over the Champagne ? Now Hood is passed away-passed off the earth as much as Goldsmith or Horace. The times in which he lived, and in which very many |