162 IN THE OPEN AIR. man, Loutherbourg the quack, a cheating, perhaps self-deceived enthusiast, who imagined he could cure all diseases by prayer. On a certain occasion he invited the sick (by advertisement) to come, at a day and hour named, and be healed. They arrived by hundreds, but finding after some time that they remained uncured, they commenced a riot, and all but pulled the house down about the madman's foolish ears. It is said that Mrs. Loutherbourg grew very jealous of Turner's frequent visits to her husband, and that at last suspecting the young painter was obtaining all her husband's secrets from him, on his next visit she shut the door in his face and roughly refused him admittance. "At the beginning of the century, Turner had a place at Kensington Mall," says a friend. "A garden ran down to the river, at the end of which was a summer-house. Here, out in the open air, were painted some of Turner's best pictures. It was here my father, who then resided at Kew, became first acquainted with him; and expressing his surprise that Turner could paint under such circumstances, he remarked that lights and a room were absurdities, and that a picture could be painted anywhere. His eyes were remarkably strong. He would throw down his water-colour drawings on the floor of the summerhouse, requesting my father not to touch them, as he could see them there, and they would be drying at the same time." It was when Turner lived at Kensington that Mr. Trimmer, then a child, remembers walking with his father and Turner at night under the blaze of the THE WILLING DRUDGE. 163 great comet. Turner was fond of children; and children discovered it, and were fond of him. Turner's house at Twickenham was introduced by Havell into one of his drawings for Cooke's "Thames Scenery," 1814, the year our painter went there. He lived in it more or less till 1826 (twelve years); he then sold it to a Mr. Ford. He probably found it inconvenient to be so far from the Academy, and from the engravers, and his patrons the art publishers. A Londoner born always grumbles at London, and yet when absent pines for it. The powder-tax that the Tories imposed in 1795 (Turner, aged twenty) drove out wigs, for the simple republican manners of the Revolution had already undermined and spoiled the barber's foolish trade. Turner, senior, gave up his shop some.time between this and 1800, in which year his son went to live in Harleystreet, and he removed with him to Twickenham. "The old man latterly," says Mr. Trimmer, "was his son's willing slave, and had to strain his pictures, and varnish them when finished, which made Turner say that his father began and finished his pictures for him. But I doubt if he varnished many pictures; few of them, I believe, were varnished at all; still, he was of great assistance to his son, and I think it was Mr. Turner, the engraver, who told me that once making bold to enter Turner's studio, he found the old man on his knees colouring a canvas, when Turner made his appearance, and good-humouredly trundled out the visitor, telling him he was on forbidden ground. Turner was much attached to his father, and at his death stayed with us a few days at Heston for change of scene. 164 THE OLD BARBER. He was fearfully out of spirits, and felt his loss, he said, like that of an only child. When at Sandycomb Lodge Turner, senior, was much respected, and I was told by the vicar that he was a regular attendant at the parish church. As he advanced in years, his son had him with him in London, and sold the place at Richmond, much to the old man's dislike. I have heard Turner censured for it; but he told my father that "Dad" was always working in the garden and catching cold, and required looking after. Turner never appeared the same man after his father's death; his family was broken up. Phrenologically speaking, the father had the best skull of the two." Turner's father is described to me as very like his son in face, particularly in his nose. He was a little, thin, common-looking old man, very short, and with all the barber's loquacity about him. He had a habit of nervously jumping up on his toes every two or three minutes, which rather astonished strangers. The father and son lived on very friendly terms together; and the father attended to the gallery, showed in visitors, and took care of the dinner, if he did not himself cook it. That he ever received the shillings at the door is, I believe, entirely untrue, though, had they been offered to him, I fear the temptation might have been too much for him to resist. Soon after Turner first went to Solus Lodge at Twickenham, his old father was met by a friend, very disconsolate, in Queen Anne-street. The expense of coming up daily to open the gallery was weighing heavily on his heart. Life was embittered to him by the thought. A week after, the same friend met him again, gay, happy, and jumping up on his old toes; he asked him the reason of the sudden change in his spirits: he replied,-" Why, lookee here, I have found a way at last of coming up cheap from Twickenham to open my son's gallery-I found out the inn where the market-gardeners baited their horses, I made friends with one on 'em, and now, for a glass of gin a-day, he brings me up in his cart on the top of the vegetables." Turner's father died in 1830, and was buried in St. Paul's Church, Covent-garden; his son wrote for his monument the following confused epitaph: "In the vault Beneath and near this Place are deposited the remains of WILLIAM TURNER, many years an inhabitant of this parish, who died September 21st, 1830. To his memory and of his wife, Their son, J. M. W. Turner, R.A., Old Turner, when he lived at Twickenham, used to come up now and then to dress the wigs of former customers round Maiden-lane. Turner, always fond of architecture from the time he had worked as a draftsman for architects, several times essayed the arduous task of designing a house—a task which seems to me by no means beyond the intellect of an intelligent man, especially if he have an artistic taste. He designed his own house, Solus 166 A HUMBLE MEAL. Lodge, at Twickenham; he designed his own doorway in Queen Anne-street; and he made designs for his friend Fawkes's house at Farnley, in Yorkshire. The name of this Solus Lodge-so called, I suppose, to express his love of, or wish for, solitude-Turner afterwards changed into Sandycomb Lodge, which has a sort of Devonshire flavour about it, to my mind. Here he once received some Academicians, including Mr. Mulready, to tea; and here he once feasted Mr. Pye, his celebrated engraver and the great opponent of Academic abuses, with a bit of strong cheese and a pint of stale porter. It was here, too, he used to protect from the birds'-nesting boys the blackbirds who sang and cheered him after his day's work; and it was |