Liber
Studiorum, and compare the painter's enjoyment of the lines in the Ben
Arthur, with his comparative uncomfortableness among those of the
aiguilles about the Mer de Glace. Great as he is, those peaks would have
been touched very differently by a Savoyard as great as he.

I am in the habit of looking to the Yorkshire drawings, as indicating
one of the culminating points in Turner's career. In these he attained
the highest degree of what he had up to that time attempted, namely,
finish and quantity of form united with expression of atmosphere, and
light without color. His early drawings are singularly instructive in
this definiteness and simplicity of aim. No complicated or brilliant
color is ever thought of in them; they are little more than exquisite
studies in light and shade, very green blues being used for the shadows,
and golden browns for the lights. The difficulty and treachery of color
being thus avoided, the artist was able to bend his whole mind upon the
drawing, and thus to attain such decision, delicacy, and completeness as
have never in any wise been equalled, and as might serve him for a
secure foundation in all after experiments. Of the quantity and
precision of his details, the drawings made for Hakewill's Italy, are
singular examples. The most perfect gem in execution is a little bit on
the Rhine, with reeds in the foreground, in the possession of B. G.
Windus, Esq., of Tottenham; but the Yorkshire drawings seem to be on the
whole the most noble representatives of his art at this period.

About the time of their production, the artist seems to have felt that
he had done either all that could be done, or all that was necessary, in
that manner, and began to reach after something beyond it. The element
of color begins to mingle with his work, and in the first efforts to
reconcile his intense feeling for it with his careful form, several
anomalies begin to be visible, and some unfortunate or uninteresting
works necessarily belong to the period. The England drawings, which are
very characteristic of it, are exceedingly unequal,--some, as the
Oakhampton, Kilgarren, Alnwick, and Llanthony, being among his finest
works; others, as the Windsor from Eton, the Eton College, and the
Bedford, showing coarseness and conventionality.

Sec. 40. The domestic subjects of the Liber Studiorum.

I do not know at what time the painter first went abroad, but among the
earliest of the series of the Liber Studiorum (da