I
could from the drawings.

CHAPTER III.

OF TRUTH OF CLOUDS:--SECONDLY, OF THE CENTRAL CLOUD REGION.

Sec. 1. Extent and typical character of the central cloud region.

We have next to investigate the character of the Central Cloud Region,
which I consider as including all clouds which are the usual
characteristic of ordinary serene weather, and which touch and envelop
the mountains of Switzerland, but never affect those of our own island;
they may therefore be considered as occupying a space of air ten
thousand feet in height, extending from five to fifteen thousand feet
above the sea.

Sec. 2. Its characteristic clouds, requiring no attention nor thought for
their representation, are therefore favorite subjects with the
old masters.

These clouds, according to their elevation, appear with great variety of
form, often partaking of the streaked or mottled character of the higher
region, and as often, when the precursors of storm, manifesting forms
closely connected with the lowest rain clouds; but the species
especially characteristic of the central region is a white, ragged,
irregular, and scattered vapor, which has little form and less color,
and of which a good example may be seen in the largest landscape of
Cuyp, in the Dulwich Gallery. When this vapor collects into masses, it
is partially rounded, clumsy, and ponderous, as if it would tumble out
of the sky, shaded with a dull gray, and totally devoid of any
appearance of energy or motion. Even in nature, these clouds are
comparatively uninteresting, scarcely worth raising our heads to look
at; and on canvas, valuable only as a means of introducing light, and
breaking the monotony of blue; yet they are, perhaps, beyond all others
the favorite clouds of the Dutch masters. Whether they had any motive
for the adoption of such materials, beyond the extreme facility with
which acres of canvas might thus be covered without any troublesome
exertion of thought; or any temptation to such selections beyond the
impossibility of error where nature shows no form, and the
impossibility of deficiency where she shows no beauty, it is not here
the place to determine. Such skies are happily beyond the reach of
criticism, for he who tells you nothing cannot tell you a falsehood. A
little flake-white, glazed with a light brush over the carefully toned
blue, permitted to fall into whatever forms chance might