neation of one of
the most prosaic of English watering-places--not once or twice, but in a
series of elaborate drawings, of which this is the fourth. The first
appeared in the Southern Coast series, and was followed by an elaborate
drawing on a large scale, with a beautiful sunrise; then came another
careful and very beautiful drawing in the England and Wales series; and
finally this, which is a sort of poetical abstract of the first. Now, if
we enumerate the English ports one by one, from Berwick to Whitehaven,
round the island, there will hardly be found another so utterly devoid
of all picturesque or romantic interest as Margate. Nearly all have some
steep eminence of down or cliff, some pretty retiring dingle, some
roughness of old harbor or straggling fisher-hamlet, some fragment of
castle or abbey on the heights above, capable of becoming a leading
point in a picture; but Margate is simply a mass of modern parades and
streets, with a little bit of chalk cliff, an orderly pier, and some
bathing-machines. Turner never conceives it as anything else; and yet
for the sake of this simple vision, again and again he quits all higher
thoughts. The beautiful bays of Northern Devon and Cornwall he never
painted but once, and that very imperfectly. The finest subjects of the
Southern Coast series--the Minehead, Clovelly, Ilfracombe, Watchet,
East and West Looe, Tintagel, Boscastle--he never touched again; but he
repeated Ramsgate, Deal, Dover, and Margate, I know not how often.

[T] It was left unfinished at his death, and I would not allow it to
be touched afterwards, desiring that the series should remain as far
as possible in an authentic state.

Whether his desire for popularity, which, in spite of his occasional
rough defiances of public opinion, was always great, led him to the
selection of those subjects which he thought might meet with most
acceptance from a large class of the London public, or whether he had
himself more pleasurable associations connected with these places than
with others, I know not; but the fact of the choice itself is a very
mournful one, considered with respect to the future interests of art.
There is only this one point to be remembered, as tending to lessen our
regret, that it is possible Turner might have felt the necessity of
compelling himself sometimes to dwell on the most familiar and prosaic
scenery, in order to prevent his becoming so much accustomed to that of
a higher cla