es of
loaded corn, by some stronger gush from the cataract, and bowed again
upon the mossy rocks as its roar dies away." "Satque superque
satis"--we cannot go on. There is nothing like calling things by their
contraries--it is truly startling. Whenever you speak of water, treat
it as fire--of fire, _vice versa_, as water; and be sure to send them
all shattering out of reach and discrimination of all sense; and look
into a dictionary for some such word as "chrysoprase," which we find
to come from +chrysos+ gold, and +prason+ a leek, and means a precious
stone; it is capable of being shattered, together with "sunshine"--the
reader will think the whole passage a "flash" of moonshine. But there
is a discovery--"I believe, when you have stood by this for half an
hour, you will have discovered that there is something more in nature
than has been given by Ruysdael." You will indeed--if this be nature!
But, alas, what have we not to undergo--to discover what water is, and
to become capable of judging of Turner! It is a comfort, however, that
he is likely to have but few judges. Graduate has courage to undergo
any thing. Ariel was nothing in his ubiquity to him, though he put a
span about the world in forty minutes; "but there was some apology for
the public's not understanding this, for few people have had the
opportunity of seeing the sea at such a time, and when they have,
cannot face it. To hold by a mast or rock, and watch it, is a
prolonged endurance of drowning, which few people have courage to go
through. To those who have, it is one of the noblest lessons in
nature." Very few people, indeed, and those few "involuntary
experimentalists."

We are glad to get on dry land again, "brown furze or any thing"--and
here we must question one of his truths of vegetation: he asserts,
that the stems of all trees, the "ordinary trees of Europe, do not
taper, but grow up or out, in undiminished thickness, till they throw
out branch and bud, and then go off again to the next of equal
thickness." We have carefully examined many trees this last week, and
find it is not the case; in almost all, the bulging at the bottom,
nearest the root, is manifest. There is an early association in our
minds, that the birch for instance is remarkably tapering in its
twigs. We would rather refer our "sworn measurer" to the factor than
the painter, and we very much question whether his "top and top" will
meet the market. We are satisfied the fact is not