distance is brought out by a violent exaggeration of the
gloom in the valley; that the forms of the green trees which bear the
chief light are careless and ineffective; that the markings of the crags
are equally hasty; and that no object in the foreground has realization
enough to enable the eye to rest upon it. The Turner, a much feebler
picture in its first impression, and altogether inferior in the quality
and value of its individual hues, will yet be found to the end more
forcible, because unexaggerated; its gloom is moderate and aerial, its
light deep in tone, its color entirely unconventional, and the forms of
its rocks studied with the most devoted care. With Gainsborough
terminates the series of painters connected with the elder schools. By
whom, among those yet living or lately lost, the impulse was first given
to modern landscape, I attempt not to decide. Such questions are rather
invidious than interesting; the particular tone or direction of any
school seems to me always to have resulted rather from certain phases
of national character, limited to particular periods, than from
individual teaching; and, especially among moderns, what has been good
in each master has been commonly original.

Sec. 18. Constable, Calcott.

I have already alluded to the simplicity and earnestness of the mind of
Constable; to its vigorous rupture with school laws, and to its
unfortunate error on the opposite side. Unteachableness seems to have
been a main feature of his character, and there is corresponding want of
veneration in the way he approaches nature herself. His early education
and associations were also against him; they induced in him a morbid
preference of subjects of a low order. I have never seen any work of his
in which there were any signs of his being able to draw, and hence even
the most necessary details are painted by him inefficiently. His works
are also eminently wanting both in rest and refinement, and Fuseli's
jesting compliment is too true; for the showery weather in which the
artist delights, misses alike the majesty of storm and the loveliness of
calm weather: it is great-coat weather, and nothing more. There is
strange want of depth in the mind which has no pleasure in sunbeams but
when piercing painfully through clouds, nor in foliage but when shaken
by the wind, nor in light itself but when flickering, glistening,
restless, and feeble. Yet, with all these deductions, his works are to
be deeply respe