hing but that of Shakespeare
comparable with it. A soldier's wife resting by the roadside is not
beneath it; Rizpah watching the dead bodies of her sons, not above it.
Nothing can possibly be so mean as that it will not interest his whole
mind and carry his whole heart; nothing so great or solemn but that he
can raise himself into harmony with it; and it is impossible to prophesy
of him at any moment whether the next he will be in laughter or tears."

In 1832 Turner made a will in which he bequeathed the bulk of his estate
for the founding of an institution "for the Maintenance and Support of
Poor and Decayed Male Artists being born in England and of English parents
only, and of lawful issue." It was to be called "Turner's Gift," and for
the next twenty years the artist pinched, and economized to increase the
fund for his noble purpose. At this time he was entering upon his third
manner--that of his highest excellence, when he "went to the cataract for
its iris, and the conflagration for its flames; asked of the sky its
intensest azure, of the sun its clearest gold." It is remarked by Ruskin,
who has made most profound study of Turner's works, that he had an
underlying meaning or moral in his groups of foreign pictures; in
Carthage, he illustrated the danger of the pursuit of wealth; in Rome, the
fate of unbridled ambition; and in Venice, the vanity of pleasure and
luxury. The Venetian pictures began in 1833, with a painting of the Doge's
Palace, Dogana, Campanile, and Bridge of Sighs; and with these were
exhibited "Van Tromp Returning from Battle," the "Rotterdam Ferry-boat,"
and the "Mouth of the Seine." In 1830 or 1831 he made, on commission from
the publisher Cadell, twenty-four sketches to illustrate Walter Scott's
poems--published in 1834--and while doing this he was entertained royally
at Abbotsford, and made excursions with Scott and Lockhart to Dryburgh
Abbey and other points of interest. He went as far north as the Isle of
Skye, where he drew Loch Corriskin, and nearly lost his life by a fall.
About this time he made a series of illustrations for Scott's "Life of
Napoleon." Turner spent some time in Edinburgh, frequently sketching with
Thomson, a clergyman and local artist, who was preferred by some of the
Scotch amateurs to Turner. He one day called at Thomson's house to examine
his paintings, but instead of expected praises he merely remarked, "You
beat me in frames." Turner made thirty-three illustrations for