o be explained or illustrated by
appeals to our feeling of what is beautiful. There is an expression and
a feeling about all the hill lines of nature, which I think I shall be
able, hereafter, to explain; but it is not to be reduced to line and
rule--not to be measured by angles or described by compasses--not to be
chipped out by the geologist, or equated by the mathematician. It is
intangible, incalculable--a thing to be felt, not understood--to be
loved, not comprehended--a music of the eyes, a melody of the heart,
whose truth is known only by its sweetness.

Sec. 25. Works of other modern artists. Clarkson Stanfield.

Sec. 26. Importance of particular and individual truth in hill drawing.

I can scarcely, without repeating myself to tediousness, enter at
present into proper consideration of the mountain drawing of other
modern painters. We have, fortunately, several by whom the noble truths
which we have seen so fully exemplified by Turner are also deeply felt
and faithfully rendered; though there is a necessity, for the perfect
statement of them, of such an unison of freedom of thought with perfect
mastery over the greatest mechanical difficulties, as we can scarcely
hope to see attained by more than one man in our age. Very nearly the
same words which we used in reference to Stanfield's drawings of the
central clouds, might be applied to his rendering of mountain truth. He
occupies exactly the same position with respect to other artists in
earth as in cloud. None can be said really to _draw_ the mountain as he
will, to have so perfect a mastery over its organic development; but
there is, nevertheless, in all his works, some want of feeling and
individuality. He has studied and mastered his subject to the bottom,
but he trusts too much to that past study, and rather invents his hills
from his possessed stores of knowledge, than expresses in them the fresh
ideas received from nature. Hence, in all that he does, we feel a little
too much that the hills are his own. We cannot swear to their being the
particular crags and individual promontories which break the cone of
Ischia, or shadow the waves of Maggiore. We are nearly sure, on the
contrary, that nothing but the outline is local, and that all the
filling up has been done in the study. Now, we have already shown (Sect.
I. Chap. III.) that particular truths are more important than general
ones, and this is just one of the cases in which that rule especially
applie