placed above him, not only by the public but by the press, his sensitiveness is hardly to be wondered at.

"When at the height of his fame, he admired the leafage of some landscape-painter whose name he did not mention, and asked him to let him see him work, which he did; but Turner said it was so tedious it was of no use to him. Nothing angered Turner more than piracy. Owen, the water-colour painter,

had been imitating him, on which he wrote him a very brisk note, requesting him in future to draw from his own resources, and not from his. He once saw some one making a memorandum of his pictures in Queen Anne-street gallery, whereupon Turner walked up to him and whisked him out forthwith, greatly to his surprise.

"I once went out fishing with him, and having forgotten to take the bait, we had to send back for them. Turner gave the messenger a shilling; he would not let me give it. This was about twenty years ago. He had taken Campbell's 'Pleasures of Hope' with him, and showing me one of the prints, said, 'That is pretty.' 'Nothing first-rate,' I said, 'is it?" 'It is pretty,' he said; and he is a poor man with a large family.' This he said with much good feeling.

"The funeral of Sir Thomas Lawrence was in winter, and there had been a fall of snow that day. During the service, Wilkie, who was next Turner, whispered into his ear, Turner, that's a fine effect!' from which untimely observation Turner turned away with disgust. This I had from Constable, who was on the other side of him, and who, when telling me the

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THE OLD HOUSEKEEPER.

anecdote, remarked that Turner had a great deal of good feeling about him.

"My late father, Mr. Trimmer, Vicar of Heston, was Turner's eldest executor; they had known each other many years. When Mrs. Danby read from the Times the decease of a namesake of my father's, whom they mistook for him, Turner was very much affected, and said, 'Ah, poor fellow: so he is gone.' After Turner's death, my father called at Queen Anne-street to make inquiries touching his last moments; when Mrs. Danby opened the door she started as if she had seen an apparition.

"I mention these as instances of Turner's kindness of heart and sincerity in friendship.

"Mrs. Danby was his housekeeper, and had lived with him many years. She had some fearful cancerous malady which obliged her to conceal her face, which did not add to the charms of his domicile.

"At first sight, Turner gave one the appearance of a mean-looking little man. Once in a sketching ramble, in descending a hill, he snapped a tendon Achilles; and limping about afterwards with a stick, did not add to his appearance. But all this wore off. To be appreciated, he required to be known. Though not polished, he was not vulgar. In common with many men of genius, he had not a good flow of words, and when heated in argument got confused, especially, I am told, in his lectures on Perspective, though he was well master of his subject. He was rather taciturn than talkative. His hair was darkbrown, bordering on black, and his complexion sallow.

"There is a picture of a windmill, a yellow pic

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DRAWING IN A POST-CHAISE.

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ture, etched in the 'Liber Studiorum.' It hung in Turner's gallery over the 'Bligh Shore,' and was purchased by one of the executors. He made the sketch one evening returning from my father's. It is Hanwell Windmill,' since pulled down, and the Asylum is built nearly where it stood. It is a most charming picture, and though highly ideal, one of the most realistic representations of the spot. How modern critics can prefer 'Napoleon standing on the Shore' to such charming productions, is to me incomprehensible.

"His High-street, Oxford,' is a well-known subject, and displays his architectural knowledge. This, he told my father, he drew in a post-chaise in Highstreet, I think opposite the corner print-shop.

“Turner once went with my father and mother to see the pictures at Osterley House, collected by Mr. Child. There was a splendid Gainsborough my father had once rescued from a garret. Of this picture Turner made, memoriter, a small pencil drawing in the evening, and also a sketch of a woman gathering water-cresses whom they had seen on the way, on which he had written,' Checked blue apron.' 'These,' said my mother, when he had finished them, 'are for me.' 'If you take them,' said Turner, 'I must do two more.' These were sold at my father's sale. However, once at my father's brother's he drew a very clever water-colour drawing, which they have now, of two of my cousins playing on the floor. I never heard of another instance of his giving away his drawings.

"He once said to my mother, who was looking at

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THE WINDING-SHEET.

'The Building of Carthage,' 'That picture shall be my winding-sheet;' but he has, I am told, often made the same remark. He also said at the same time, pointing to the 'Fall of Carthage,' That is the best picture of the two, but they do not understand it.' Shifting to another subject, I rather think he was much smitten by a sister of my mother's. Singularly enough, my father had written two letters of proposal for two rejected suitors, and Turner wrote to my father a mysterious letter when they were on the Eastern coast. It is of about the date 1813. I give it elsewhere.”

CHAPTER XI.

TURNER IN SCOTLAND.

TURNER was on the Tweed in 1798, but whether he then went on to Edinburgh I do not know; but in 1801 he exhibited pictures of the "Falls of the Clyde" (afterwards used in the "Liber"), "Kilchern Castle, with the Cruchan-Ben Mountains," Edinburgh from Leith and Ben Lomond.

But his two great visits, both times to illustrate Sir Walter Scott's works, were in 1818 and 1831, the first the year of his Waterloo picture, the second that of the exhibition of his "Caligula's Palace and Bridge:"

Lockhart, in his delightful book, "The Life of Sir Walter Scott," describes his father-in-law in 1818, as busy collecting and revising for publication his "Topographical and Historical Essays," which had originally appeared in the successive numbers of the splendidly illustrated work, entitled "Provincial Antiquities of Scotland."

He did this partly to gratify his own love of the subject, and partly because, well or ill, he must be doing something. He even generously declined all pecuniary recompence for his labour of love, but afterwards, when the success of the work