the
intertwining of the shadows across the path, and the checkering of the
trunks by them; and again on the bridge in the Armstrong's Tower; and
yet more in the long avenue of Brienne, where we have a length of two or
three miles expressed by the playing shadows alone, and the whole
picture filled with sunshine by the long lines of darkness cast by the
figures on the snow. The Hampton Court in the England series, is another
very striking instance. In fact, the general system of execution
observable in all Turner's drawings, is to work his grounds richly and
fully, sometimes stippling, and giving infinity of delicate, mysterious,
and ceaseless detail; and on the ground so prepared to cast his shadows
with one dash of the brush, leaving an excessively sharp edge of watery
color. Such at least is commonly the case in such coarse and broad
instances as those I have above given. Words are not accurate enough,
nor delicate enough to express or trace the constant, all-pervading
influence of the finer and vaguer shadows throughout his works, that
thrilling influence which gives to the light they leave, its passion and
its power. There is not a stone, not a leaf, not a cloud, over which
light is not felt to be actually passing and palpitating before our
eyes. There is the motion, the actual wave and radiation of the darted
beam--not the dull universal daylight, which falls on the landscape
without life, or direction, or speculation, equal on all things and dead
on all things; but the breathing, animated, exulting light, which feels,
and receives, and rejoices, and acts--which chooses one thing and
rejects another--which seeks, and finds, and loses again--leaping from
rock to rock, from leaf to leaf, from wave to wave,--glowing, or
flashing, or scintillating, according to what it strikes, or in its
holier moods, absorbing and enfolding all things in the deep fulness of
its repose, and then again losing itself in bewilderment, and doubt, and
dimness; or perishing and passing away, entangled in drifting mist, or
melted into melancholy air, but still,--kindling, or declining,
sparkling or still, it is the living light, which breathes in its
deepest, most entranced rest, which sleeps, but never dies.

Sec. 7. The distinction holds good between almost all the works of the
ancient and modern schools.

I need scarcely insist farther on the marked distinction between the works
of the old masters and those of the great modern l