thirteen years old, and Turner was only two years the senior of John Varley, this shows how early he began to have a reputation.

The acquaintance between Turner and Girtin is one of the most interesting facts in Turner’s Life. Being more than two years Turner’s senior (Girtin was born on February 18th, 1773) and having at least equal talent as a boy, it is probable that he was “ahead” of Turner at first, and that Turner learnt much from him. We may therefore accept as true his reputed sayings, “Had Tom Girtin lived, I should have starved;”[14] and (of one of Girtin’s “yellow” drawings), “I never in my whole life could make a drawing like that, I would at any time have given one of my little fingers to have made such a one.”[14] With regard to their mutual studies and their respective talents we have information in the studies and drawings themselves, but with regard to their human relationship we have very little. Turner always spoke of him as “Poor Tom,” and proposed to, and possibly did, put up a tablet to his memory; but there are no letters or anecdotes to show that what we all mean by “friendship” ever existed between them.

We are equally ignorant as to the amount of intimacy between him and Dr. Monro, for though the latter did not die till 1833, there is nothing to show that they ever met after Turner’s student days were over.

It may, however, be fairly assumed that we should have known more about his intimacy with his Achates and his Mæcenas if it had been great and continuous. The absence of documents or rumours on the subject are all in favour of his having kept himself to himself, of his absorption in his art from an early date, neglecting the social advantages that were open to him, neglecting intellectual intercourse with his artistic peers, neglecting everything except the pursuit of his art, and the road to wealth and fame. This self-absorption, this concentration of all his time and power to this one but triple object, the trinity of his desire, may have arisen from a natural cause, the strength of impelling genius over which he had no control; it may have arisen from secretiveness, suspicion, selfishness, and ambition, which he could have controlled but would not; but whatever its cause, there is no doubt that it existed, and that with every external facility for becoming a social and cultivated being, he took the solitary path which led him to greatness (not perhaps greater than he might have otherwise attained), but a greatness accompanied with mental isolation and ignorance of all but what he could gather from unaided observation, and an uncultivated intellect.

The education of Turner may be summed up as follows: he learnt reading from his father, writing and probably little else at his schools at Brentford and Margate, perspective (imperfectly) from T. Malton, architecture (imperfectly and classical only) from Mr. Hardwick, water-colour drawing from Dr. Monro, and perhaps some hints as to painting in oils from Sir Joshua Reynolds, in whose house he studied for a while. The rest of his power he cultivated himself, being much helped by the early companionship of Girtin. Nearly all, if not all, this education except that mentioned in the last paragraph was over in 1789, when Sir Joshua laid down his brush, conscious of failing sight, and young Turner became a student of the Royal Academy.

NANTES.
From “Rivers of France.”

These were his principal living instructors, but he learnt more from the dead—from Claude and Vandevelde, from Titian and Canaletto, from Cuyp and Wilson. He learnt most of all from nature, but in the beginning of his career his studies from art are more apparent in his works. There is scarcely one of his predecessors or contemporaries of any character in water-colour painting that he did not copy, whose style and method he did not study, and in part adopt. We have within the last few years only been able to study at ease the works of the early water-colour painters of England, and the result of the interesting collections now at South Kensington and the British Museum, bequests of Mr. and Mrs. Ellison, Mr. Towshend, Mr. William Smith, and Mr. Henderson, has been on the one hand to increase our opinion of their merit, and on the other to show how far Turner outstripped them. We can now see how true and delicate were the lightly-washed monochrome water scenes of Hearne; how robust the studies of Sandby; that Daniell and Dayes could not only draw architecture well, but could warm their buildings with sun, and surround them with space and air; that Cozens could conceive a landscape-poem, and execute it in delicate harmonies of green and silver; that Girtin could invest the simplest study with the feeling of the pathos of ruin and solemnity of evening; the first of water-colour painters to feel and paint the soft penetrative influence of sunlight, subduing all things with its golden charm. In looking at one of his drawings now at South Kensington, a View of the Wharfe, and comparing it with the works around, one cannot help being struck with this difference, that it is complete as far as it goes, the realization of one thought, the perfect rendering of an impression, harmonious to a touch. Broad and almost rough as it is, it is yet finished in the true sense as no English work of the kind ever was before. There are more elaborate drawings around, plenty of struggle after effects of brighter colour, much cleverness, much skill, but nowhere a picture so completely at peace with itself. In looking at it we can realize what Turner meant when he said that he could never make drawings like Girtin. Equal harmony of tone, far greater and more splendid harmonies of colour, miracles of delicate drawing, triumphs over the most difficult effects, dreams of ineffable loveliness, very many things unattempted by Girtin he could achieve, but never this simple sweet gravity, never this perfection of spiritual peace.

But in spite of this, the great fact in comparing Turner with the other water-colour painters of his own time—and we are speaking now of his early works—is this, that whereas each of the best of the others is remarkable for one or two special beauties of style or effect, he is remarkable for all. He could reach near, if not quite, to the golden simplicity of Girtin, to the silver sweetness of Cozens; he could draw trees with the delicate dexterity of Edridge, and equal the beautiful distances of Glover; he could use the poor body-colours of the day, or the simple wash of sepia, with equal cleverness. He was not only technically the equal, if not master of them all, but he comprehended them, almost without exception.

Such mastery was not attained without extraordinary diligence in the study of pictures. At Dr. Monro’s he could study all the best modern men, including Gainsborough, Morland, Wilson, and De Loutherbourg, and he could also study Salvator Rosa, Rembrandt, Claude, and Vandevelde. One day looking over some prints with Mr. Trimmer,[15] he took up a Vandevelde and said, “That made me a painter.” And Dayes (Girtin’s master) wrote in 1804:—“The way he acquired his professional powers was by borrowing where he could a drawing or a picture to copy from, or by making a sketch of any one in the Exhibition