held. Turner sat watching the waves and the headlands, "like Atlas, unremoved." When we were off the island, and saw the sea breaking upon it, there seemed no possiibility of our landing, the line of white surf being connected and unbroken. There was a river called the Avon within the island, running up the main; we made towards it, and getting under the lee of the island, landed without much difficulty, with a little wetting. All this time I could see Turner silently glancing over the boisterous scene. The little island and solitary house or hut upon it, the bay in the bight of which they lay, and the Bolthead stretching darkly to seaward, against the precipitous rocky shore of which the sea broke furiously-all formed a striking scene, and Turner thought so. While the unfortunate shell-fish were preparing to be seethed, I missed Turner, and found him, with a pencil and small book, near the summit of the island. I observed, too, he was writing rather than drawing. The tumultuous waves boiling below were seen to great advantage from thence. I imagined he had observed something novel in their appear ance, but this, whatever it might be, I did not comprehend. We soon sat down to our repast, to which the artist did ample justice. He was much attached to vulgar porter, and discarded wine, at least with dinner, although afterwards he would take his glass freely, as was much more the custom in those days than at present.

leaving the gallant old Captain, he replied, "We had the best of it; I would have gone, if it had been daylight.' He did not enter into my ideas about our deficiency in good fellowship.

We rose at seven the next morning in Kingsbridge, and went before breakfast to see the house, at Dodbrook, in which Dr. Walcot (Peter Pindar) was born. The artist made a sketch of it and of another house, a picturesque place not far distant. We had now more than twenty miles to travel home. A vehicle was provided, but we walked much of the way, for Turner was a good pedestrian, capable of roughing it in any mode the occasion might demand. When we came to the Lara passage, we met Lord Boringdon, (afterwards Earl of Morley,) who invited Turner, Demaria, and myself to Saltram, to dine and sleep, the following day. We went accordingly. In the morning we ascended the high ground in the park, whence there is a fine view. There is also some fine scenery near the eastern entrance, at the mouth of the Plym, and Turner made some sketches here.

Among the guests at Saltram was Madame Catalani, who sang some of her favorite airs. Zuccarelli's best paintings adorn this hospitable mansion, but I could not extract from Turner any opinion regarding them. In the billiard-room was Stubb's fine picture of 'Phaeton and the horses of the sun," with which I remember the artist was much

pleased, as, indeed, everybody must be; but it elicited no further remark than the monosyllable "fine." Turner on retiring to rest had to pass my bedroom door, and I remarked to him that its walls were covered with paintings by Angelica Kauffman— nymphs, and men like nymphs, as effeminate as possible. I directed his attention to them, and he wished me Good night in your seraglio." There were very fine pictures in Saltram by the old masters, but they seemed to attract little of his attention, though they might have drawn more than I imagined, for it was not easy to judge from his manner what was passing in his mind.

Evening approached, and Captain Nicols proposed to return. The sea had not gone down, and there was not much inclination shown by the landsmen to tempt the passage back, which we knew must go far into the night. It would be necessary to work out into a stormy sea, in order to get an offing to make the sound. I proposed to Turner that I proposed to Turner that we should walk to Kingsbridge and sleep, returning how we could, if the boat would not stay, there being something to be seen in that vicinity. The whole party were of opinion, but the gallant old tar, with whom we offered to return the next day if he would pursue the same plan, would not listen to it. We separated, which I On looking at some of the wonderful thought we ought not, from good fellowship, fancy-works of this artist painted a little to have done. The boat left without us, and subsequently, I perceived that several were obliged to stretch out nearly to the Ed-composed of bits of scenery we had visited dystone. It did not get into Plymouth until in company. He told me afterwards in between four and five in the morning, through London, that if I would look into his gallery, a sea so bad that some of the men-of-war in I should see a picture some of the features the sound dragged their anchors and fired of which I could not fail to recognize. I guns in consequence. When I mentioned went accordingly, and traced three distinct this afterwards to Turner, and my regret at snatches of scenery on the river Tamar. It

the same

was

was a beautiful work. Though I cannot, be supposed. I pleased him further by recollect what name he gave it, I recognized inquiring whether bacon and eggs could be a scene on that river which he told me on obtained; and getting an affirmative reply, the spot he had never observed in nature we supped in clover, and sat until midnight before. I know that the headlands of Ply-in conversation. I found the artist could, mouth Sound closed the distance twelve miles off, and that the intervening objects were those to which he alluded. In his gallery at that time I first saw, too, his picture of "Hannibal crossing the Alps." Another picture, which was in the Exhibition, he told me was the fruit of our expeditions. I speak of his fancy compositions, for his pictures of existing scenery in the west cannot be mistaken; so faithful are they, so true to nature, and so deeply imbued with the magic of his genius. I was with Turner when he sketched Plymouth Sound, with part of Mount Edgecumbe; when he visited Trematon Castle, Saltash, the Wear Head, Calstock-in fact, all the views he made on the banks of that picturesque river, which have been since engraved.

We had one day reached the Wear Head of the Tamar, no great way below the Duke of Bedford's cottage at Endsleigh, when night came on. Turner was struck with admiration at the bridge above the Wear, which he declared altogether Italian. Our party consisted of four. To go down the river in the night was impracticable, on account of the chance of getting on shore upon the mud banks. There was an inn hard by at which beds could not be obtained; and some course must be resolved upon. We might walk to Tavistock, three or four miles off, but a vehicle which had come from Plymouth that day with two of our party, could do no more than carry two to the town. Turner said he would rather stay until the morning on the spot where we were debating the subject. He did not mind sitting up would any one volunteer with him? The horse would come over fresh in the morning with those who might then leave: I volunteered. Our friends drove off, and the painter and myself soon adjourned to the miserable little inn. I proposed to "plank it," in plank it," in the sailors' phrase-that is, to go to sleep on the floor; but some part of it was damp, and the whole well sanded, so that it was not a practicable couch, however hard. Turner said, before he considered any other matter, he must have some bread, cheese, and porter. Very good bread and cheese were produced, and the home-brewed suited Turner, who expatiated upon his success with a degree of excitement, which, with his usual dry, short mode of expressing his feelings, could hardly

when he pleased, make sound, pithy, though sometimes caustic remarks upon men and things with a fluency rarely heard from him. We talked much of the Academy, and he admitted that it was not all which it might be made in regard to art. The "clock that ticked against the wall" sounded twelve; I proposed to go to sleep. Turner leaned his elbow upon the table, and putting his feet upon a second chair, took a position sufficiently easy, and fell asleep. I laid myself at full length across three or four chairs, and soon followed his example.

Before six in the morning we rose, and went down towards the bridge. The air was balmy; the strong light between the hills, the dark umbrage, and the flashing water presented a beautiful early scene. Turner sketched the bridge, but appeared, from changing his position several times, as if he had tried more than one sketch, or could not please himself as to the best point. I saw that bridge and part of the scenery afterwards in a painting in his gallery. He had made several additions to the scenery near the bridge from his own imagination. The picture was poetical; and, if I remember rightly, he had introduced into it some of the fictitious characters of the heathen mythology. He had bathed it in the gorgeous glories of the southern sun, clothed it "in barbaric pearl and gold," in fact, enriched it with that indefinable attraction which true genius confers on all its works. In delineating ocean storm or calm, the effulgence of southern glory, or the chaste and highly decorated, but soberer scenery of his native land, Turner seemed to me then, as still, without a compeer. His sea-pieces far excel those of the higher Dutch masters. pictures of Italy's sunny clime, her melancholy ruins, and the unsullied azure of her blue heaven, have received from Turner a charm which is scarcely to be found in any other painter. He was truly the poet of painting.

His

Turner said that he had never seen so many natural beauties in so limited an extent of country as he saw in the vicinity of Plymouth. Some of the scenes hardly appeared to belong to this island. Mount Edgecumbe particularly delighted him; and he visited it three or four times. I have now in my possession a pencil-sketch, of the roughest kind,

which he drew. It is from the side of that | fairy spot which looks into Cawsand Bay. There is the end of the seat, over which projects a thatched roof, the table, the bottle of wine, and a full length of myself in the foreground-not the most flattering of his littleflattering impersonations. In the bay are several line-of-battle-ships at anchor. This, a mere scrawl, is as full a representation as he took of many scenes of which he made some of his finest pictures. His slender graphic memoranda induce me to think that he possessed the most extraordinary memory for treasuring up the details of what he saw in nature of any individual that ever existed, and that such outlines were to him what the few heads of a discourse would be to a person who carried them away with a good memory. Some have said that he was not conscious of his own superiority. I believe that he was; and enjoyed the reflection as much as a nature would permit that did not participate in common susceptibilities, nor build its satisfaction upon such pleasures as the common mind most esteems. His habits were of the simplest character; he had no relish for the tawdry displays that obtain so much conventional estimation. A splendid house and large establishment would have been an incumbrance rather than a luxury to Turner. His mind was set on higher objects. If he desired what every-day people estimate highest, it was at his command. He was called close and niggardly; but he had no desire to live and enjoy beyond the style of living and enjoying to which he was habituated. His mind lived in his art; he did not wish to appear other than he was. His wealth he had long determined to devote to a better purpose than giving dilettanti dinners, or assembling in a drawing-room the customary bevy of visitors that come and go to no good purpose, either as regards others or themselves. He was rather content to follow the path of most great men who have devoted themselves to a pursuit to which they have given their whole hearts. He did not fawn, as artists continually do, in the crowded rooms of men of rank and fortune for interested ends, while he did not shun an occasional intermixture in good society. His own time was too precious to be wasted as too many waste theirs. Turner felt that he bore, and desired still to bear, no surreptitious name in coteries, but to leave behind enduring renown as an artist. Concealed beneath his homely exterior there was much that was good and aspiring. Who with such ideas, humbly born as he was, so pre-eminent in

art, destitute of fluency in language, though always speaking to the point-who with such ideas has ever existed without being an object of attack from some quarter or other!

He was charged with being close in money matters. If he satisfied his simple personal wants, who has a right to call him niggardly when he preserved his wealth for a noble purpose? I denied to several artists who told stories of his love of money that his character was as they represented it. The most miserable of wretches is he who makes life a burthen in order to move in the track of other people's ideas. When I was out with Turner in Devonshire he paid his quota at the inns with cheerfulness; and some of our bills were rather higher in amount than bread and cheese would have incurred. Turner accommodated himself as well as any man I ever saw to the position of the moment.

1 chanced to relate to one of his brother Academicians that I was of a party to whom Turner had given a pic-nic in Devonshire, but I was scarcely credited-it was impossible, and so on. Yet such was the fact. There were eight or nine of the party, including some ladies. We repaired to the heights of Mount Edgecumbe at the appointed hour. Turner, with an ample supply of cold meats, shell-fish, and wines, was there before us. In that delightful spot we spent the best part of a beautiful summer's day. Never was there more social pleasure partaken by any party in that English Eden. Turner was exceedingly agreeable for one whose language was more epigrammatic and terse than complimentary upon most occasions. He had come two or three miles with the man who bore his store of good things, and had been at work before our arrival. He showed the ladies some of his sketches in oil, which he had brought with him, perhaps to verify them. The wine circulated freely, and the remembrance was not obliterated from Turner's mind long years afterwards. My opinion is, that this great artist always understood the occasion, and was prepared to meet it as any other individual would do. At home he led the life he preferred; he was not calculated for any but his own pursuit, and in that he shonehe knew and felt it. When I see a deviation

from the common track in such a man, I feel persuaded that it is the result of a preference or inclination that should be respected.

He had a great regard for his own fame. If he was a close and silent man, he had his

predilections and biases. Persons of such a close temperament can only be well understood by collateral acts or accidental develop

66

ing supplanted by that lust of gain which keeps art in a state of tame mediocrity. The Augustan age of literature or art is not that of merchandise.

There was a manly vigor about Turner, or what some would call a decision of character, which stood pre-eminent. He showed nothing of what the world calls nervous feeling. His touches on the canvas were firm, and never laid on doubtingly. We were standing outside the works on the lines at Plymouth, close under a battery of twenty-four pounders, which opened only three or four feet above our heads. I was startled with the shock, but Turner was unmoved. We were neither prepared for the concussion, but he showed none of the surprise which I betrayed, being as unmoved at the sudden noise and involvement in the smoke as if nothing had happened.

ments of their true character. Within two years of the decease of Campbell the poet, I met him in Cavendish-square. "I am coming," said he, "from your quondam acquaintance, Turner. I have just played him a trick." "What do you mean?” Why," observed Campbell, "I had gone to a great expense for Turner's drawings to be engraved for my illustrated poems." (I forget the number he said, for each of which he had paid twentyfive guineas.) "I was also told not to mind the expense, the drawings would sell, being Turner's, for what I had paid for them, as soon as the engravings were finished. They could not be disposed of at anything like the price. It was said they were not in his best style,-in short, I thought I should be compelled to keep them. One day I saw Turner, and told him what had occurred, and that I had hoped to make something of them. I added, in joke, that I believed I should put them up to auction. Turner said, feeling annoyed, I suppose, at my remark, "Don't do that; let me have them." I sent them to him accordingly," said the poet, "and he has just paid me for them." I think Campbell said twenty guineas each, but I am not sure of the sum, my recollection failing me about the precise amount. I could not help saying, "Turner does this because he is tender of his reputation; he will not have them in the market." Campbell had just before been censured for lending his name to books written by other people, which struck me when I made the the remark. The poet, however, was too joy-"Now," said he, "we shall see nothing finer ous about his bargain to apply the remark to himself. I have since thought whether Turner did not do this with a desire to befriend Campbell. He was just the character to do such an act silently and bluntly. If those who accuse the great artist of an over-love of money object upon that score, I could recite instances of more extraordinary sacrifices from mere money-grubbers. If it was from a regard to his own fame, it establishes my position. The love of fame in these days is no longer what it was; as a motive it is little understood, be

We visited Cothele together, where the furniture is of the date of the reigns of Henry VII. and VIII. Turner did not seem much interested in the building; but with the woods and the views from some of the head-lands round which the river winds he was so much taken, that, following him with a gig, we could not return, and were obliged to take out the horse, and lift the vehicle over a hedge by main strength. In doing this, and getting upon the hedge, there burst upon the view a noble expanse of scenery, which we had not anticipated. Here the artist became busy at once, but only for a short time. He had taken all down that he desired in ten minutes.

than this if we stay till sun-down; because we can't, let us go home." It was the last visit we paid to the scenery of the Tamar together. We subsequently had a pic-nic on the romantic banks of the Plym, and visited the crags and precipices of Sheep's Tor together. This visit closed nearly three weeks, for the most part spent in similar rambles. It was during these that I imbibed higher ideas, not only of the artist, but of the man, than I had previously held, and still hold, now death has closed his shining career. CYRUS REDDING.

From Bentley's Miscellany.

UNSUCCESSFUL GREAT MEN.

BY PROFESSOR CREASY.

Τὸ μὲν γὰρ Πέρας ὡς ἂν ὁ δαίμων βουληθῆ πάντων γίγνεται· ἡ δὲ Προαίρεσις αὐτὴ τὴν τοῦ Jyμsoúλou diavolav Snλo.-DEMOSTHENES, De Corona.

"The stern spirit of Coligui, ever the greatest after reverses, and unconquerable save by the dark-doctrines of the Reformation seemed destined est treachery."-HALLAM.