ragments, each burning with separate energy, as in the
Temeraire; sometimes woven together with fine threads of intermediate
darkness, melting into the blue as in the Napoleon. But in all cases the
exquisite manipulation of the master gives to each atom of the multitude
its own character and expression. Though they be countless as leaves,
each has its portion of light, its shadow, its reflex, its peculiar and
separating form.

Sec. 11. His vignette, Sunrise on the Sea.

Take for instance the illustrated edition of Rogers's Poems,[31] and
open it at the 80th page, and observe how every attribute which I have
pointed out in the upper sky, is there rendered with the faithfulness of
a mirror; the long lines of parallel bars, the delicate curvature from
the wind, which the inclination of the sail shows you to be from the
west; the excessive sharpness of every edge which is turned to the wind,
the faintness of every opposite one, the breaking up of each bar into
rounded masses, and finally, the inconceivable variety with which
individual form has been given to every member of the multitude, and not
only individual form, but roundness and substance even where there is
scarcely a hairbreadth of cloud to express it in. Observe, above
everything, the varying indication of space and depth in the whole, so
that you may look through and through from one cloud to another, feeling
not merely how they retire to the horizon, but how they melt back into
the recesses of the sky; every interval being filled with absolute air,
and all its spaces so melting and fluctuating, and fraught with change
as with repose, that as you look, you will fancy that the rays shoot
higher and higher into the vault of light, and that the pale streak of
horizontal vapor is melting away from the cloud that it crosses. Now
watch for the next barred sunrise, and take this vignette to the window,
and test it by nature's own clouds, among which you will find forms and
passages, I do not say merely _like_, but apparently the actual
originals of parts of this very drawing. And with whom will you do this,
except with Turner? Will you do it with Claude, and set that blank
square yard of blue, with its round, white, flat fixtures of similar
cloud, beside the purple infinity of nature, with her countless
multitude of shadowy lines, and flaky waves, and folded veils of
variable mist? Will you do it with Poussin, and set those massy steps of
unyielding solidity, with th