of the river have indeed been in old times
under the large arches; while the antiquity of the bridge is told us by
a long tongue of land, either of carted rubbish, or washed down by some
minor stream, which has interrupted this curve, and is now used as a
landing-place for the boats, and for embarkation of merchandise, of
which some bales and bundles are laid in a heap, immediately beneath the
great tower. A common composer would have put these bales to one side or
the other, but Turner knows better; he uses them as a foundation for his
tower, adding to its importance precisely as the sculptured base adorns
a pillar; and he farther increases the aspect of its height by throwing
the reflection of it far down in the nearer water. All the great
composers have this same feeling about sustaining their vertical masses:
you will constantly find Prout using the artifice most dexterously (see,
for instance, the figure with the wheelbarrow under the great tower, in
the sketch of St. Nicholas, at Prague, and the white group of figures
under the tower in the sketch of Augsburg[65]); and Veronese, Titian,
and Tintoret continually put their principal figures at bases of
pillars. Turner found out their secret very early, the most prominent
instance of his composition on this principle being the drawing of Turin
from the Superga, in Hakewell's Italy. I chose Fig. 20, already given to
illustrate foliage drawing, chiefly because, being another instance of
precisely the same arrangement, it will serve to convince you of its
being intentional. There, the vertical, formed by the larger tree, is
continued by the figure of the farmer, and that of one of the smaller
trees by his stick. The lines of the interior mass of the bushes
radiate, under the law of radiation, from a point behind the farmer's
head; but their outline curves are carried on and repeated, under the
law of continuity, by the curves of the dog and boy--by the way, note
the remarkable instance in these of the use of darkest lines towards the
light--all more or less guiding the eye up to the right, in order to
bring it finally to the Keep of Windsor, which is the central object of
the picture, as the bridge tower is in the Coblentz. The wall on which
the boy climbs answers the purpose of contrasting, both in direction and
character, with these greater curves; thus corresponding as nearly as
possible to the minor tongue of land in the Coblentz. This, however,
introduces us to anot