purest reds and yellows he can use will appear dull and dead if placed beside those which nature daily displays.

change! The glory had well nigh departed from it. It was a majestic ruin. The sun, and all the once pearly flakes of summer cloud, were literally black,--by no means a solitary case. The once golden hues, shading off into the deep azure of the sky, were of a brownish grey; the picture, in short, was but the spectre of its former self.

All art is at best only a feeble approximation to nature. We ask the honest but timid critic to view the works of our modern painters in the annual exhibition, which will be open by the time these remarks are before him, keeping this truth in view and while he acknowledges how We know not where "The Mercury and immeasurably inferior all are to their great Argus" now is, but let any one who has the model, let him try, after careful and candid opportunity, take Willmore's engraving in study--not glancing round with the hasty his hand, and compare it with the original, pleasure-seeking of a butterfly among flow- he will then form some notion of the transers-whether, with all the truth that Tur- forming process through which the latter ner sacrifices, he does not embody a nearer has passed. When we saw it again, on the approximation to the great truths of nature, walls of the British Institution, it had been as a consistent whole, than any other pain- almost entirely repainted. Instead of the ter, living or dead. At the same time, we solitariness of the foreground, where the say again, Turner, to be truly known, must transformed object of Juno's ire browsed be studied in his water-color drawings, and apart, and almost alone, a whole herd of this for reasons that will presently appear. cattle now appear, and the ground is spot"Nothing," says our author, " has been ted over with the novel additions required for centuries consecrated by public admira- for its repair. From the middle distance a tion without possessing in a high degree newly-introduced range of ruinous towers some species of sterling excellence." Shall rise, jutting above the horizon into the we then rest contented to leave the reputa-lower sky; and the ruins that crown the tion of our great painter, as our great philosopher did his, "to foreign nations and the next ages?" Of foreign criticism we have already given a sample, and for future ages,--alas, the productions of our great painter are scarcely more durable than the ripple marks of the tide on the forsaken strand. Of all the works of Turner to which our author refers in confirmation of his criticisms, no one is so frequently pointed out for illustration, as "The Mercury and Argus." "In this picture," says he,—

bank to the right have been eked and patched in all ways, to modify or conceal, or to blend the old painting, and harmonize it with the fresh coloring of the sky.

Curious tales might be told of the fortunes of other pictures. We remember one that a well-known, engraver obtained from Turner for the purpose of transferring to the copper, at a time when our best landscape engravers were vying with one another for his works. The sky was in the same state as the middle stage of "The Mercury and Argus," already describeda most irritating one indeed for the engraHe accordingly washed it, when, lo! a great portion of the clouds disappeared. Alarmed at this, he put it into the hands is subdued and warmed at the same time by the of a picture-cleaner, who reduced the sky mingling grey and gold up to the ver zenith, to a bright yellow ground, and, moreover, where, breaking through the flaky mist, the trans-returned it with certain figures in the foreparent and deep azure of the sky is expressed with ground in a state of nudity, who, when last a single crumbling touch; the key-note of the seen, had been clad in Turner's most brilwhole is given, and every part of it passes at once far into glowing and aerial perspective."

"The pale and vaporous blue of the heated sky is broken with grey and pearly white, the gold color of the light warming it more or less as it approaches or retires from the sun.

All

ver.

liant draperies. The painting had to be sent home to Turner unengraved, and reappeared soon after, like the former, in a

second edition.

"The

We have watched this painting through all its rapid phases; we remember when its golden hues excited the witlings of the press Our author is not altogether ignorant of.. to exhaust their fancies in devising terms this. Perhaps he knows more than he is of ridicule and contempt. When next we willing to confess even to himself. saw it, it was in the studio of Mr. Will-reader will have observed," he remarks, in more, when his beautiful engraving was far an unobtrusive foot-note, "that I strictly advanced toward completion; but what a limited the perfection of Turner's works to

the time of their first appearing on the whole to the texture of parts, such as we walls of the Royal Academy. It bitterly have reiterated, in reviewing the works of grieves me to have to do this, but the fact Burnet, Watt, Doo, and others of our ablest is indeed so. No picture of Turner's is engraveis. But his condemnation is far seen in perfection a month after it is paint- too sweeping. It is extravagant in its ed." After following up this grave limita-everity. "All attempt to record color in tion, by remarks partly apologetic, partly engraving is heraldry out of its place." censorious, he adds: "It is true that the (Vide" Modern Painters," vol. I., p. 256.) damage makes no further progress after the True in part only, Mr. Graduate. The first year or two, and that even in its alter- difficulties, as well as the triumphs of the ed state the picture is always valuable, and engraver, are not thus summarily to be setrecords its intention; but it is bitterly to tled. A texture that shall realize the cobe regretted that so great a painter should lor of the soldier's red coat in the forenot leave a single work by which in suc- ground, at the cost of the whole tone of the ceeding ages he might be estimated." (Vol. picture, were indeed heraldry misplaced. I., p. 163.) We wish we could believe But the abuse of texture, like the abuse of even this statement of their comparative color, is no argument for its banishment evanescence. But we have had too many from the arts. How often does it occur opportunities of observing these wonderful that the distant hill and the sky, the creations of genius-transcripts of living tree and the grassy bank behind, or any nature in her sublimest moods-painted two features in juxta-position-even the poetry;-lovely, but, alas! as fragile as the figures in the foreground, are relieved only downy wing of the butterfly, the bloom of by difference of tint. The tone is the same, which vanishes with a touch."The fact," the quantity of color that each holds is continues our graduate, "of Turner using equal. Ask the critic which should be renmeans so imperfect, together with that of dered dark and which light? He cannot his utter neglect of the pictures in his own tell. Here lies one prominent difficulty of gallery, are a phenomenon in human mind the engraver's art. He is no mere copyist, which appears to me utterly inexplicable." (Ibid., vol. I., p. 134.) But those who have had the longest opportunities of knowing this strange, wonderful man, will feel least surprise at any unwonted characteristics of his mind. Who knows Turner? Who will ever know him? One man we have here at last who not only appreciates, but understands his works, and will make hundreds understand them, and rise the better from the teaching. But Turner's biography will require a man among a thousand, if ever it shall be written. A Turner's Boswell would be invaluable, but his great genius scorns the social familiarities of common life. He is deaf to the voice of flattery, as to the vulgar's senseless censure; and when he dies, his memory will dwell with those who know him best, a wonder-an enigma!

Still, we have his drawings, and, what are far more imperishable than these, the numerous translations of his best works by the engraver's art. Our author, however, is disposed to esteem at a very low rate the latter versions of his paintings. Without one solitary exception, he discards the whole of the larger plates, and many of the smaller ones. His censure is often just; the test he applies to engraving, sound; and his complaints as to the sacrifice of the

but a translator, who must possess a genius of like kind, though less in degree, if he is to equal his original. To this, fully as much as to "the engraver's getting unavoidably embarrassed," must be ascribed many of the modifications of the original drawing. ("Modern Painters," vol. I., p. 134.) An equivalent must be found where the language of the sister art possesses no synonyme. Bear this in remembrance, and then look at Miller's version of his "Grand Canal, Venice," his "Durham," "Windsor," and others of the plates of England. and Wales. Colors, indeed, they want; but air, light, tone, distance, are all there, and will bear out our author's praises, when not a vestige of an original painting or drawing survives. Goodall, too, has done much to preserve these great works, though, we confess, not without one or two striking failures. Witness his "Cologne," for example, the original drawing of which hangs in Mr. Windus's drawing-room, fresh as when it came from Turner's hands-a glorious work of art, of which the print preserves only a very imperfect sketch, yet such a sketch as might make the reputation

* We say nothing of the embarrassment of copying thing occurs in the drawings from which the majoa picture whose whites have turned black. No such rity of engravings have been made.

of almost any otheir painter. Nor must Turner's own "Liber Studiorum," be forgot, compared to which, the "Liber Veritatis" of Claud, is as the pleasant cadence of Pope's measured numbers, beside the deep organ-tones of Milton.

But we must take example from our author, and follow the great painter into his field, which is the world-the world of nature. One word, however, before we part. Our author has the following among other remarks, in his advices to young artists, that we would fain hope some at least will be found to ponder :

"Nothing is so bad a symptom, in the works of young artists, as too much dexterity of handling; for it is a sign that they are satisfied with their work, and have tried to do nothing more than they were able to do. Their work should be full of failures, for these are the signs of efforts. They should keep to quiet colors-greys and browns; and making the early works of Turner their example, as his latest are to be their object of emulation, should go to Nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously and trustingly, having no other thoughts but how best to penetrate her meaning, and remember her instruction, rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing; believing all things to be right and good, and rejoicing always in the truth," &c. -I., 416.

time a learner, he is learning still. Did he
speak out his thoughts, it might be in the elo-
quent words of a living poetess :-"I have
done my work, so far, as work--not as a mere
hand and head work, apart from the personal
being, but as the completest expression of
that being to which I could attain, and as
work I offer to the public; feeling its short-
comings more deeply than any of my
[critics], because measured from the height
of my aspiration; but feeling also that the
reverence and sincerity with which the work
was done should give it some protection
with the reverent and sincere."

The great canon of art with our author,
is, study nature. It is no mere cuckoo cry,
however, but a thoroughly understood prin-
ciple, in developing which he discloses the
fruits of deep study and thought. Paint-
ing, when it accomplishes its aim, is poetry
rendered in another language,-a univer-
sally understood tongue. Mark the poet of
inferior power; we will not take the poet-
aster, but your Pope, or Addison, or Young.
Nature is not good enough, or great enough
for them. Her refined gold must be gilded
anew, and tricked out with borrowed lustre
in their own crucible, before it attain to
their ideal standard. It is your Shakspeare
who never tires of her simplicity. Fuseli
used to exclaim, in his impatience, that
Nature puts out many
nature put him out.
more than him; for one or other must be
wrong.

Let such as have the opportunity, compare the earliest drawings of Turner with his middle age, and his last and best works. The first class are by no means rare. Every body now-a-days visits Abbotsford, where "I am quite sure that, if Mr. P, or any some lovely specimens of a later period other painter who has hitherto been very careful in hang-their beauties all unappreciated his choice of subject, will go into the next turnwhile the great novelist lived, who would pike road, and taking the first four trees that he not have given the clever caricature of comes to in the hedge, give them a day each, Queen Bess, by "Conversation Sharpe," drawing them leaf for leaf, as far as may be, and for the whole lot of them! Then look at even their smallest boughs, with as much care as his latest works, at Trafalgar-square, or if they were rivers, or an important map of a newwherever else they may be seen, and mark brought them all home, that at least three out of ly-surveyed country, he will find, when he has the astonishing difference. It is not pro the four, are better than the best he ever inventgress alone, neither is it the mere abandon-ed."-Modern Painters, vol. i., p. 310. ment of one style of coloring or of thought for another; but it is in the one case the Those are the rudiments of the artist's gifted child seeing here one detached bit of schooling; the solid foundation on which nature and there another, and with honest the lofty building may rise securely heavenloving ardor transcribing and studying ward, wherein his spirit shall dwell serene each; and then the full-grown man, look- and safe, like the lark at home on its quiing abroad over the whole vast field, and vering wing far up in the deep blue. Our comprehending the diversity he beholds young artists seem to regard genius, not as and the deeper unity that it veils. There a power by which the soul may concentrate is no mannerism here; no wretched copy-its efforts and accomplish the lifework that ing of himself; no trick of art supplanting defies weaker minds; but as an intuitive the patient teaching of nature, and haunting its uncomplaining victim through every fature effort. Turner has been all his lifeVOL. XIII. No. II.

13

faculty that can comprehend what they have never studied, and recreate what they have hardly glanced at; in fact, a sort of

animal magnetism that can read nature just | feebleness in its fits. Your Byron boasts as well with the pit of the stomach as the of a Corsair, written in some ten days; eye, and sleeping as waking. Such have to your Dante or Milton make a life-work of learn that no undying work was ever pro- a Divina Commedia. Let critics, too, reduced by sleight of hand. The things member that which the labor of genius has "that posterity will not willingly let die," produced is not to be judged of at a glance are creations educed by powers adequately or dismissed in a flippant period. exerted, not by the chance struggles of

From the Metropolitan.

THE LITERARY FORGERIES OF CHATTERTON.

observe, was a firm believer in the truth of unknown youth in a provincial town, in the the Rowleian MSS. In the preface to a seventeenth, is very probable. Nor is it copy of the poems, published in 1777, he much to be wondered at, that he should remarks, that he """ was a young man of all along continue to deny that the poems he very uncommon abilities, but bad princi- had published were forgeries. Having once ples." Again we are informed, "he dis- asserted their genuineness, he felt himself covered an uncommon taste for poetry; he bound, by every principle of honor, to was also a great proficient in heraldry." maintain it. Chatterton's notions of right "He was not, however, of an open or in- and wrong, were neither rigid nor troublegenuous disposition; and consequently some; and, to a person of his habit of never would give any satisfactory account thinking, the doubtful fame resulting from of what he possessed, but only from time to a connexion with the ideal Rowley, might time, as his necessities obliged him, pro- seem much preferable to that which the duced some transcripts from these origi- poems, divested of the charm of antiquity, nals!" so Mr. Catcott, in his simplicity, might obtain for their author. At any rate, thought them; "and it was with great the forgery once committed, his (to use his difficulty and some expense, I have procur- own words) "native unconquerable pride" ed what I have." Mr. Catcott's avidity, would never suffer him to own them to be as Dr. Johnson would say, were he alive, simply the productions of his muse. is singularly refreshing. Surely, of all men But even allowing the forgeries to be he must have been the most guileless, the genuine, even then the contents of the most easily imposed on by old wives' fables. writings, and the time of the discovery are, Here was a young man whose whole life to say the least, calculated to excite suspihad been devoted to the study of antiqui- cion. It is strange-passing strange-a ties, drinking in that spirit from his very thing most rare even in our days, when, if birth-"falling in love," as his mother we may believe the newspapers, no one is says, at an early age, with the illuminated old-fashioned enough to look surprised on capitals of a French MS.-learning to read tales, in comparison with which the advenfrom an old black-lettered Bible; passion- tures of Baron Munchausen are mere dull, ately fond of poetry; at the age of eleven, sober, every day facts, that there should be writing better verses, more readable, with such an admirable, such an extraordinary better rhymes, more neatly expressed than adaptation of the contents of the papers to are those of many men or women twice that the circumstances of the localities in which age; of no principles whatever; unnoticed they were published, or to the characters of and unknown; panting for fame; necessi- those to whom they were addressed. Thus tous to an extreme. Surely here are the a new bridge is built over the Avonvery materials for a literary impostor, as in straightway there appears an account of the the singular, unsuspecting confidence of passing over the old bridge for the first Mr. Catcott, there were those for a ready time in the thirteenth century; an account dupe. All this we have said about Chat- accidentally found and published by Chatterton, and more Mr. Catcott knew, for he terton Our poet's friend, Mr. Burgham, acted the part of patron and a friend; yet reckons amongst his other amiable weakthough, as he himself says, he could get no nesses, a love of heraldic honors-directly satisfactory information, though the myste- Chatterton traces his pedigree from the rious pretended originals were carefully time of William the Conqueror, and allies kept from his sight, knowing as he did, that him to some of the first families in the Chatterton was a young man of bad princi- kingdom, by means of old manuscripts acci ples, of great talents, and equally great dentally discovered. Again, Mr. Burgham, necessities, without any suspicion, against which is very natural, believes these Rowall probability, through evil and good report, believed, asserted, contended for the authenticity of the Rowleian MSS.

leian manuscripts to be genuine. Chatterton, to reward and strengthen his credulity, presents him with a poem entitled, This knowledge of Chatterton's character "The Romaunt of the Cnyghte," written will enable us the better to judge of the about four hundred and fifty years before degree of importance to be attached to his by one John de Burgham, one of his own own statements. That he might imagine ancestors. Chatterton wishes to please one that the public would be more likely to of his own relations, a Mr. Stephens; he take an interest in the poems of a monk of does so by proving him to be the descendthe fifteenth century, than in those of an ant of Fitz-Stephen, grandson of the Earl