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occasion, when Mr. Charles Heath was sitting beside him, he drew towards him listlessly a pile of papers which were lying on the table, asking him what he had got there: "Oh," replied Turner, "some old receipts and papers not wanted." Mr. Heath's attention had been attracted by a bill of exchange for £200, evidently unpaid, and due on that very day, of the existence of which Turner appeared to be wholly unconscious. This carelessness did not, however, extend to many of his transactions, for never was any one more rigorous in exacting the last farthing in a contract than he was, or more punctual in executing within the stipulated time whatever he undertook. Mr. Heath was wont to declare that in spite of his exactions, and the difficulty of bringing him to any reasonable terms, he had greater satisfaction in dealing with Turner than with any other artist. When once he had pledged his word as to time and quality, he might be implicitly relied on.

Mr. Ruskin ranks many of the subjects included in the present volume among Turner's most successful works of the class, and refers to them as helping very materially to illustrate the principles of his art. We transcribe a few of his remarks:

CHATEAU GAILLARD.' Black figures and boats; points of shade; sun touches on castle and wake of boat; of light. See how the eye rests on both, and observe how sharp and separate all the lights are, falling in spots edged by shadow, but not melting off into it.

"ORLEANS.' The crowded figures supply both points of shade and light. Observe the delicate middle tint of both in the whole mass of buildings, and compare this with the blackness of Canaletto's shadows, against which neither figures nor anything else can ever tell as points of shade.

"BLOIS.' White figures in boats, buttresses of bridge, dome of church on the right for light; woman on horse

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back, heads of boats, for shadow. Note especially the isolation of the light on the church dome.

"CHATEAU DE BLOIS.' Torches and white figures for light, roof of chapel and monks' dresses for shade.

"BEAGENCY. Sails and spire, opposed to buoy and boats. An exquisite instance of brilliant, sparkling, isolated, touches of morning light.

"'AMBOISE.' White sail and clouds; cypresses under castle. "CHATEAU OF AMBOISE'. The boat in the centre, with its reflections, needs no comment. Note the glancing lights under the bridge. This is a very glorious and perfect instance.

"ST. JULIEN, TOURS.' Especially remarkable for its preservation of deep points of gloom, because the whole picture is one of extended shade."

Mr. Ruskin enumerates, from the same series of plates, a few instances of chiaroscuro more especially deserving of study, namely: Scene between QUILLEBŒUF and VILLEQUIER. HONFLEUR. The scene between NANTES and VERNON. The LANTERN OF ST. CLOUD. Confluence of the SEINE and MARNE. TROYES.

He also instances the following :

"JUMIEGES.' The haze of sunlit rain of this most magnificent picture, the gradual retirement of the dark wood into its depth, and the sparkling and evanescent light which sends its variable flashes on the abbey, figures, foliage, and foam, require no comment. They speak home at once. But there is added to this noble composition an incident which may serve us at once for a further illustration of the nature and forms of cloud, and for a final proof how deeply and philosophically Turner has studied them. We have on the right of the picture the steam and the smoke of a passing steamboat. Now steam is nothing but an artificial cloud in the process of dissipation; it is as much a cloud

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as those of the sky itself, that is, a quantity of moisture rendered visible in the air by imperfect solution. Accordingly, observe how exquisitely irregular and broken are its forms, how sharp and spray-like; but with the convex side to the wind, the sharp edge on that side, the other soft and lost. Smoke, on the contrary, is an actual substance, existing independently in the air, a solid opaque body, subject to no absorption but that of tenuity. Observe its volumes; there is no breaking up or disappearing here; the wind carries its elastic globes before it, but does not dissolve nor break them. Equally convex and void of angles on all sides, they are the exact representations of the clouds of the old masters, and serve at once to show the ignorance and falsehood of the latter, and the accuracy of study which has guided Turner to the truth."

Mr. Ruskin also instances the following subjects from the plates contained in the present volume as remarkable examples of the effects of light given by Turner: BAUGENCY, as representing the Sun half an hour risen, cloudless sky. LANTERN OF ST. CLOUD, midday, serene and bright, with streaky clouds. AMBOISE, sun setting, detached light, cerri and clear air. TROYES, Sun setting, cloudless; new moon. CAUDEBEC, sun just set; sky covered with clouds; new moon setting. MONTJEAN; sun five minutes set, serene; new moon; CHATEAU DE BLOIS, sun a quarter of an hour set, cloudless; CLAIRMONT, sun half an hour set; light cerri. ST. JULIEN, TOURS, an hour after sunset; no moon; torchlight. NANTES, the same hour; moon rising. CALAIS, midnight; moonless, with lighthouses. He also refers for instances of a grand simplicity of treatment to HONLEUR, and the scene between CLAIRMONT and MAUVES, the latter more especially for its expression of the furrowing of the hills by descending water, the complete roundness and symmetry of their curves, and in the delicate and sharp

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shadows which are cast in the undulating ravines. He cites CAUDEBEC as an example of the mode with which the height of the observer above the river is indicated by the loss of the reflection of its banks.

Mr. Peter Cunningham relates an anecdote illustrative of Turner's skill in bargain-making, on the authority of George Cooke, the engraver, which is characteristic enough. In an interview with Messrs. Hurst, Robinson, and Co., the booksellers, it was arranged, after some haggling, that he should make them a series of drawings for a topographical work at the rate of twenty-five pounds a piece, and he went away expressing his entire satisfaction with the arrangement. He came back, however, a few minutes afterwards, and thrusting his head in at the door of the room he had just left, ejaculated "guineas." "Guineas let it be," responded the publishers, and he once more retired. He soon returned, however, and added "my expenses.' "Certainly," was the answer. This facility of disposition he seemed determined to test to the utmost, for he came back a third time to remind them that he must have in addition twentyfive proofs. This story was communicated to the writer, soon after the occurrence of the fact, by Mr. Robinson himself. It is due to the astute bargain-maker to add, that his bills for expenses on such excursions were exceedingly moderate, and confined to absolute necessaries. We remember an item in one of these bills, however, that puzzled us a good deal at the time; " Boxing Harry, 28. 6d. !" Our ignorance was, however, soon enlightened, when we found to our infinite amusement that it was the slang phrase on "the road" for making one meal answer the purpose of two, that one being tea with meat "fixings." Turner was an abstemious man, so far as creature comforts were concerned. He had, however, no objection to a glass of good wine, but considered that the best was

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that which he drank at other people's expense. He was very liberal in his offers to visitors of a glass of wine, but was seldom known to produce it.

On the death of Sir Martin Archer Shee, Turner became the father of the Royal Academy, that is to say, had survived the thirty-nine members who were his colleagues at the time of his election. He seems to have expected to be chosen President, and if genius were the sole qualification for such an office he had a paramount claim to the honour. "What" (he used to growl,) "have the Academy done for me? No one has knighted me, Callcott has been knighted, and Allan has been knighted, but no one has knighted me!" He was certainly better entitled to a knighthood than some of his predecessors.

With great but not exaggerated notions of his own pretensions as a painter, he was painfully alive to the ungainness of his personal appearance, and the defects of his education; and if he was acquainted with the conventional courtesies of modern civilised society, he seldom condescended to practise them. He was an intolerant criticiser of the works of his brother artists, more especially of landscape painters, and liked to "check-mate" them (as he called it) whenever they presumed to attempt effects which he considered patent to himself. To amatenr artists in general he had an invincible dislike, and warmly resented on the whole body some slight which had been offered him in early life by Sir George Beaumont, of whom he used to speak with hearty contempt for his affectation in carrying with him a picture of Claude wherever he went. It has been suggested, and with some show of reason, that Turner's early attempt to "check-mate" the Blind Fiddler of Wilkie, painted for Sir George, had its origin less in enmity to Wilkie than in a desire to mortify the dilettante baronet, who had shown so strange an indifference, nay even dislike, to his own art.