study as
the works of nature herself." This is "coming it pretty strong." We
confess we are with the majority--not that we wish to depreciate
Turner. He is, or has been, unquestionably, a man of genius, and that
is a great admission. He has, perhaps, done in art what never has been
done before. He has illuminated "Views," if not with local, with a
splendid truth. His views of towns are the finest; he led the way to
this walk of art, and is far superior to all in it. We speak of his
works collectively. Some of his earlier, more imaginative, were
unquestionably poetical, though not, perhaps, of a very high
character. We believe he has been better acquainted with many of the
truths of nature, particularly those which came within the compass of
his line of views, than any other artist, ancient or modern; but we
believe he has neglected others, and some important ones too, and to
which the old masters paid the greatest attention, and devoted the
utmost study. We have spoken frequently, unhesitatingly, of the late
extraordinary productions of his pencil, as altogether unworthy his
real genius; it is in these we see, with the majority of the public,
"more falsehood and less fact" than in any other known master--a
defiance of the "known truths" in drawing, colour, and composition,
for which we can only account upon the supposition, that his eye
misrepresents to him the work of his hands. We see, in the almost
adoration of his few admirers, that if it be difficult, and not always
dependent, on merit to attain to eminence in the world's estimation,
it is nearly as difficult altogether to fall from it; and that nothing
the artist can do, though they be the veriest "aegri somnia," will
separate from him habitual followers, who, with a zeal in proportion
to the extravagances he may perpetrate, will lose their relish for,
and depreciate the great masters, whose very principles he seems
capriciously in his age to set aside, and they will from followers
become his worshippers, and in pertinacity exact entire compliance,
and assent to every, the silliest, dictation of their monomania. We
subjoin a specimen of this kind of worship, which will be found fully
to justify our observations, and which, considering it speaks of
mortal man, is somewhat blaspheming Divine attributes; we know not
really whether we should pity the condition of the author, or
reprehend the passage. After speaking of other modern painters, who
are so superior to the