. Whatever is obscure, misty, or
undefined in his objects or his atmosphere, he takes care that the
shadows be sharp and clear--and then he knows that the light will take
care of itself, and he makes them clear, not by blackness, but by
excessive evenness, unity, and sharpness of edge. He will keep them
clear and distinct, and make them felt as shadows, though they are so
faint, that, but for their decisive forms, we should not have observed
them for darkness at all. He will throw them one after another like
transparent veils, along the earth and upon the air, till the whole
picture palpitates with them, and yet the darkest of them will be a
faint gray, imbued and penetrated with light. The pavement on the left
of the Hero and Leander, is about the most thorough piece of this kind
of sorcery that I remember in art; but of the general principle, not one
of his works is without constant evidence. Take the vignette of the
garden opposite the title-page of Rogers's Poems, and note the drawing
of the nearest balustrade on the right. The balusters themselves are
faint and misty, and the light through them feeble; but the shadows of
them are sharp and dark, and the intervening light as intense as it can
be left. And see how much more distinct the shadow of the running figure
is on the pavement, than the checkers of the pavement itself. Observe
the shadows on the trunk of the tree at page 91, how they conquer all
the details of the trunk itself, and become darker and more conspicuous
than any part of the boughs or limbs, and so in the vignette to
Campbell's Beechtree's Petition. Take the beautiful concentration of all
that is most characteristic of Italy as she is, at page 168 of Rogers's
Italy, where we have the long shadows of the trunks made by far the most
conspicuous thing in the whole foreground, and hear how Wordsworth, the
keenest-eyed of all modern poets for what is deep and essential in
nature, illustrates Turner here, as we shall find him doing in all other
points.

"At the root
Of that tall pine, the shadow of whose bare
And slender stem, while here I sit at eve,
Oft stretches tow'rds me, like a long straight path,
Traced faintly in the greensward."

EXCURSION, Book VI

Sec. 6. The effect of his shadows upon the light.

So again in the Rhymer's Glen, (Illustrations to Scott,) note