ore
night. The ship of war in the distance is one of many instances of
Turner's dislike to draw _complete_ rigging; and this not only because
he chose to give an idea of his ships having seen rough service, and
being crippled; but also because in men-of-war he liked the mass of the
hull to be increased in apparent weight and size by want of upper spars.
All artists of any rank share this last feeling. Stanfield never makes
a careful study of a hull without shaking some or all of its masts out
of it first, if possible. See, in the Coast Scenery, Portsmouth harbor,
Falmouth, Hamoaze, and Rye old harbors; and compare, among Turner's
works, the near hulls in the Devonport, Saltash, and Castle Upnor, and
distance of Gosport. The fact is, partly that the precision of line in
the complete spars of a man-of-war is too formal to come well into
pictorial arrangements, and partly that the chief glory of a ship of the
line is in its aspect of being "one that hath had losses."

The subtle varieties of curve in the drawing of the sails of the near
sloop are altogether exquisite; as well as the contrast of her black and
glistering side with those sails, and with the sea. Examine the wayward
and delicate play of the dancing waves along her flank, and between her
and the brig in ballast, plunging slowly before the wind; I have not
often seen anything so perfect in fancy, or in execution of engraving.

The heaving and black buoy in the near sea is one of Turner's "echoes,"
repeating, with slight change, the head of the sloop with its flash of
luster. The chief aim of this buoy is, however, to give comparative
lightness to the shadowed part of the sea, which is, indeed, somewhat
overcharged in darkness, and would have been felt to be so, but for this
contrasting mass. Hide it with the hand, and this will be immediately
felt. There is only one other of Turner's works which, in its way, can
be matched with this drawing, namely, the Mouth of the Humber in the
River Scenery. The latter is, on the whole, the finer picture; but this
by much the more interesting in the shipping.

VI.--MARGATE.

[Illustration: MARGATE.]

This plate is not, at first sight, one of the most striking of the
series; but it is very beautiful, and highly characteristic of
Turner.[T] First, in its choice of subjects: for it seems very notably
capricious in a painter eminently capable of rendering scenes of
sublimity and mystery, to devote himself to the deli