THE LIFE

OF

J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

CHAPTER I.

THE CURTAIN RISES.

JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER was born on St. George's-day (day ominous of greatness), the 23rd of April, 1775, and was baptised on the 14th of May following, in the parish church of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, where his name may still be seen in the register.

His father, William Turner, a barber,* well known in the district of the Garden, lived at the west end of Maiden-lane, on the right-hand side, opposite the Cider-Cellars (opened about 1730); at the time of the future painter's birth the studio of an Artist Society. Only a side door of the murky house is still extant,† and that is now absorbed into the sticky warerooms of Mr. Parkin, an adjoining grocer, who has pushed his conquests even to Hand-court. Geographically

* Turner's father had a large theatrical connexion; no doubt Garrick often came to his shop and talked of Johnson and Goldsmith.

+ Pulled down this very year, 1861.

20

LIVING UNDERGROUND.

considered, the consecrated house was No. 26, and stood on the left-hand corner of Hand-court, near the south-west corner of Covent Garden. This court is a sort of gloomy horizontal shaft, or paved tunnel, with a low archway and prison-like iron gate of its own.

You must stand for some minutes in the quenched light of this archway before you can see the coffinlid door to the left that led to the small barber's small shop, in the days of Dr. Johnson. The front window, once grotesquely gay with dummies such as Hogarth loved to stop and draw, is still extant.

Indeed, if I may trust wavering tradition, the barber of Maiden-lane lived most of his time in the cellar under his shop; but this is but living in an underground kitchen, as London servants generally do now, even in grand houses. Still I am inclined to disbelieve the story,* because I think I see in it a sort of dramatic effort to get contrast, to heighten the son in fact by lowering the father. It is, however, not improbable that the Turners cooked underground, in what might be called by many people a cellar, and spent much of their time there, keeping their upper rooms for special holidays and festivals.

Turner mentioned his birthday as April the 23rd, in the first codicil of his will. In the parochial books of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, we find that his father was married (by licence) to Mary Marshall, also of the parish of Covent Garden, on the 29th of August, 1773. In this In this year he first appears as a householder in Covent Garden parish, paying thirty pounds rent

Mr. Alaric Watts, on the authority of Mr. Duroveray.