led with, and passing into
the blue of the sky, which in places you will not be able to distinguish
from the cool gray of the darker clouds, and which will be itself full
of gradation, now pure and deep, now faint and feeble; and all this is
done, not in large pieces, nor on a large scale, but over and over again
in every square yard, so that there is no single part nor portion of the
whole sky which has not in itself variety of color enough for a separate
picture, and yet no single part which is like another, or which has not
some peculiar source of beauty, and some peculiar arrangement of color
of its own. Now, instead of this, you get in the old masters--Cuyp, or
Claude, or whoever they may be--a field of blue, delicately,
beautifully, and uniformly shaded down to the yellow sun, with a certain
number of similar clouds, each with a dark side of the same gray, and an
edge of the same yellow. I do not say that nature never does anything
like this, but I say that her _principle_ is to do a great deal more,
and that what she does more than this,--what I have above described, and
what you may see in nine sunsets out of ten,--has been observed,
attempted, and rendered by Turner only, and by him with a fidelity and
force which presents us with more essential truth, and more clear
expression and illustration of natural laws, in every wreath of vapor,
than composed the whole stock of heavenly information, which lasted Cuyp
and Claude their lives.

Sec. 15. Recapitulation.

We close then our present consideration of the upper clouds, to return
to them when we know what is beautiful; we have at present only to
remember that of these clouds, and the truths connected with them, none
before Turner had taken any notice whatsoever; that had they therefore
been even feebly and imperfectly represented by him, they would yet have
given him a claim to be considered more extended and universal in his
statement of truths than any of his predecessors; how much more when we
find that deep fidelity in his studied and perfect skies which opens new
sources of delight to every advancement of our knowledge, and to every
added moment of our contemplation.

FOOTNOTES

[31] I use this work frequently for illustration, because it is the
only one I know in which the engraver has worked with delicacy
enough to give the real forms and touches of Turner. I can reason
from these plates, (in questions of form only,) nearly as well as