ted with the
geological laws and facts he has thus illustrated; I am not aware
whether he be or not; I merely wish to demonstrate, in points admitting
of demonstration, that intense observation of, and strict adherence to
truth, which it is impossible to demonstrate in its less tangible and
more delicate manifestations. However I may _feel_ the truth of every
touch and line, I cannot _prove_ truth, except in large and general
features; and I leave it to the arbitration of every man's reason,
whether it be not likely that the painter who is thus so rigidly
faithful in great things that every one of his pictures might be the
illustration of a lecture on the physical sciences, is not likely to be
faithful also in small.

Sec. 22. Expression of retiring surface by Turner contrasted with the work
of Claude.

Honfleur, and the scene between Clairmont and Mauves, supply us with
farther instances of the same grand simplicity of treatment; and the
latter is especially remarkable for its expression of the furrowing of
the hills by descending water, in the complete roundness and symmetry
of their curves, and in the delicate and sharp shadows which are cast in
the undulating ravines. It is interesting to compare with either of
these noble works such hills as those of Claude, on the left of the
picture marked 260 in the Dulwich Gallery. There is no detail nor
surface in one of them; not an inch of ground for us to stand upon; we
must either sit astride upon the edge, or fall to the bottom. I could
not point to a more complete instance of mountain calumniation; nor can
I oppose it more completely, in every circumstance, than with the
Honfleur of Turner, already mentioned; in which there is not one edge
nor division admitted, and yet we are permitted to climb up the hill
from the town, and pass far into the mist along its top, and so descend
mile after mile along the ridge to seaward, until, without one break in
the magnificent unity of progress, we are carried down to the utmost
horizon. And contrast the brown paint of Claude, which you can only
guess to be meant for rock or soil because it _is_ brown, with Turner's
profuse, pauseless richness of feature, carried through all the enormous
space--the unmeasured wealth of exquisite detail, over which the mind
can dwell, and walk, and wander, and feast forever, without finding
either one break in its vast simplicity, or one vacuity in its
exhaustless splendor.

Sec. 23. T