some of them being hasty, wild, or experimental, and others little
more than magnificent expressions of defiance of public opinion.

But all have this noble virtue--they are in everything his own: there
are no more reminiscences of dead masters, no more trials of skill in
the manner of Claude or Poussin; every faculty of his soul is fixed upon
nature only, as he saw her, or as he remembered her.

I have spoken above of his gigantic memory: it is especially necessary
to notice this, in order that we may understand the kind of grasp which
a man of real imagination takes of all things that are once brought
within his reach--grasp thenceforth not to be relaxed for ever.

On looking over any catalogues of his works, or of particular series of
them, we shall notice the recurrence of the same subject two, three, or
even many times. In any other artist this would be nothing remarkable.
Probably most modern landscape painters multiply a favorite subject
twenty, thirty, or sixty fold, putting the shadows and the clouds in
different places, and "inventing," as they are pleased to call it, a new
"effect" every time. But if we examine the successions of Turner's
subjects, we shall find them either the records of a succession of
impressions actually perceived by him at some favorite locality, or else
repetitions of one impression received in early youth, and again and
again realised as his increasing powers enabled him to do better justice
to it. In either case we shall find them records of _seen facts_;
_never_ compositions in his room to fill up a favorite outline.

For instance, every traveller, at least every traveller of thirty years'
standing, must love Calais, the place where he first felt himself in a
strange world. Turner evidently loved it excessively. I have never
catalogued his studies of Calais, but I remember, at this moment, five:
there is first the "Pas de Calais," a very large oil painting, which is
what he saw in broad daylight as he crossed over, when he got near the
French side. It is a careful study of French fishing boats running for
the shore before the wind, with the picturesque old city in the
distance. Then there is the "Calais Harbor" in the Liber Studiorum: that
is what he saw just as he was going into the harbor,--a heavy brig
warping out, and very likely to get in his way, or run against the pier,
and bad weather coming on. Then there is the "Calais Pier," a large
painting, engraved some years ago by M