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too soon, approach and look more closely: and see how each single object is absorbed, illumined, glorified in the hues of heaven, till all becomes a sort of revelation, not of material facts, but of gracious influences; and rippling waves and airy pennons seem like the pulses of a delicious rapture you feel stirring within yourself. You may now turn to Turner Agonistes, and pronounce accordingly.

As to the smaller Turner, the question needs no such ordeal. As a proof of imitative skill it has, no doubt, great merit, or it would not be there; beyond that it is not easy to say why it is anywhere. A picture supposes the picturesque: here is a picture without one single object that, for form, colour, or anything else, has any cognisable relationship with such a word: dirty clouds, dirty sun, dirty boats, dirty people, dirty fish, and, if not dirty water, a dirty shore. Mr. Ruskin talks of truth, and of certain" Van somethings libelling the sea; " such a picture would go far towards verifying the legal proverb, "the greater the truth the greater the libel."

But, for the larger picture. Alas, that we are doomed never to see Turner but through the smoke and fire of battle! In point of handling we say, of course, dismiss all thought of comparison with the "School Copy;" and, in point of colour, with the tamed original. We want, in fact, the Doria Claude on one side, and the Ursula Claude on the other.

I will not ask the Regent's Park report of the Carthage" to pair off with a certain lampoon on the "Mulino." I will content myself with a single

question. Is not the "Carthage," properly speaking, a Claude by Turner? Can any one believe, who has compared the "Liber Studiorum" with the "Liber Veritatis,” that, if Claude had not painted his Tyre and Sidon pictures, Turner would ever have painted this? So far as there is ground for comparison, is such comparison to involve the dethronement of Claude Lorraine? Does even Homer's royalty stand on the absolute unapproachableness, say of the parting of Hector and Andromache? Can any look at these two rival pictures as they hang together, without feeling one pervading difference — that the Claude looks, in its quiet air, an emanation; the Turner, every inch of it, an artistic effort?

I will not dwell on minor points the primrose sunshine; which may be prophetic, if we had but the "previous knowledge:" or the trees-in themselves noble enough; when not compared with those in Claude's "Mulino," but which make a sort of blot. in the composition. I cannot even admire the picture but one irrepressible feeling comes over me; Mr. Ruskin is perfectly right: "everything is sacrificed ;" but it is to intense rivalry. I cast a glance at the adjoining Claude, and think of Carthage by the side of Rome.

CHAP. IX.

THE TURNER CONTROVERSY CONTINUED.-TURNER'S VIEWS.

WE have seen that, in the estimation of his panegyrist, Turner must not be judged by his efforts in the Epic style. In fact he says, in so many words

“In general, the picture rises in value as it approaches to a view" (Modern Painters, pt. ii. sec. i. chap. vii. § 42.);

that is to say that Turner also succeeded in "the descriptive," rather than " the reflective." The present chapter shall be given to his treatment of this inferior order of landscape.

It was my happiness, in the autumn of 1853, to go down the Seine, from Rouen to Harfleur. The Seine is not, of course, the Rhine: yet was there no sensible lack of interest to stir unhandsome comparisons. Scarce adrift from our moorings, the busy quay, the old grey towers, and terraced heights became a landscape which, as it mellowed in aerial perspective, grew each moment into poetry. all vanished like a beautiful dream; and we glided on between alternations of sapphire verdure and dark brown forest, hanging on bold but graceful declivities, that came rushing tumultuously down to laugh lovingly upon the river. Every here and there the rapture of nature was rather exhilarated,

F

Soon

softened, or solemnised than disturbed by the peaceful village, the joyous town, the baronial mansion, or the monastic ruin: till, by degrees, the hills receded, the stream expanded, the sun declined, and whispering eve shed her thousand hues upon the waters, on whose distant darkening verge were historic castles, and sea-girt crags.

We are told that Turner's illustrations of this very voyage are amongst his happiest works: let us take one of the "Landscape Annuals" they were painted for.

Honour where honour is due! Some of these are, as views, beyond all praise. Two of Hâvre, two of Tankerville, the front of Rouen Cathedral, above all the glorious prospect from St. Catherine's Hill, are such as few but Turner could have made them. Of the rest, there is not one that does not vindicate all Mr. Ruskin has told us of his power in rendering every possible accident of earth and sky.

"One fatal remembrance" will be understood if I transcribe a few memoranda made in turning over the volume

No. 1. Hâvre: glorious scene; a vista of merchant vessels; and a white column of steam. 2. Lighthouse of ditto: moonlight equally glorious, with steamboats puffing under cover of the heights. 3. Tower of Francis I.: tearful sky, with a very ugly white sail, and black smoke from a steamboat. 5. Harfleur: white steeple on a black sky; no steamer; but a boat with pitch pot, flames and smoke instead. 10. Caudebec: admirable, save that the white steam of the boat is the central object, and

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rivals at once the faint moon and the spire of the church. 11. Jumieges: superb; but consecrated, not to hoary time, the feudal system, the "Dame de Beauté," or the monks of Benedict, but, as Mr. Ruskin shall presently testify, to "the rain cloud," which (despite a foreground boat with figures, and the half of a steamer with a black effusion, of which more anon) has entire possession of the picture, and makes the abbey, really standing in a plain, look as if it stood beneath a mountain. 12. La chaise de Gargantue: would puzzle "Garagantua's mouth:" white waves in the foreground; black sky overhead; black steamboat smoke on one side, and a flash of lightning on the other. 13. Rouen bridge, quay, and cathedral: all one could wish, but with a fretful sky, and a bit of rainbow looking like a projectile that has struck the cathedral. 14. Rouen again: sky no better; but the inkiest part serves as background for the whizzing steam of the bateau. 16. "La Maillerie " a mockery! the name stands for an old château nestled amongst gardens, groves, and forests, of which the French would say that it domines the river: we have here a large boat, with peasant women, on a black piece of water; overhead the eternal "rain-cloud region," a meteor half of a rainbow, with a white column from the steamboat; and La Maillerie, domined by the boat aforesaid, looking as if it stood on "the lake of the dismal swamp." 17. Between Quillebeuf and Villagaier: the steamboat in its glory; the sullen sky makes a background for all sorts of funnel issues, black, white, and a mixture of both. 18. The same