he same moderation of slope in the contours of his higher hills.

But these, and hundreds of others which it is sin not to dwell
upon--wooded hills and undulating moors of North England--rolling surges
of park and forest of the South--soft and vine-clad ranges of French
coteaux, casting their oblique shadows on silver leagues of glancing
rivers,--and olive-whitened promontories of Alp and Apennine, are only
instances of Turner's management of the lower and softer hills. In the
bolder examples of his powers, where he is dealing with lifted masses of
enormous mountain, we shall still find him as cautious in his use of
violent slopes or vertical lines, and still as studied in his expression
of retiring surface. We never get to the top of one of his hills without
being tired with our walk; not by the steepness, observe, but by the
stretch; for we are carried up towards the heaven by such delicate
gradation of line, that we scarcely feel that we have left the earth
before we find ourselves among the clouds. The Skiddaw, in the
illustrations to Scott, is a noble instance of this majestic moderation.
The mountain lies in the morning light, like a level vapor; its gentle
lines of ascent are scarcely felt by the eye; it rises without effort or
exertion, by the mightiness of its mass; every slope is full of slumber;
and we know not how it has been exalted, until we find it laid as a
floor for the walking of the eastern clouds. So again in the Fort
Augustus, where the whole elevation of the hills depends on the soft
lines of swelling surface which undulate back through leagues of mist
carrying us unawares higher and higher above the diminished lake, until,
when we are all but exhausted with the endless distance, the mountains
make their last spring, and bear us, in that instant of exertion, half
way to heaven.

Sec. 24. The peculiar difficulty of investigating the more essential truths
of hill outline.

I ought perhaps rather to have selected, as instances of mountain form,
such elaborate works as the Oberwesel or Lake of Uri, but I have before
expressed my dislike of speaking of such magnificent pictures as these
by parts. And indeed all proper consideration of the hill drawing of
Turner must be deferred until we are capable of testing it by the
principles of beauty; for, after all, the most essential qualities of
line,--those on which all right delineation of mountain character must
depend, are those which are only t