or golden with furze;
but it will be drawn, nevertheless, of a cool gray, because it is in the
distance.

197. This at least was the general theory,--carried out with great
severity in many, both of the drawings and pictures executed by him
during the period: in others more or less modified by the cautious
introduction of color, as the painter felt his liberty increasing; for
the system was evidently never considered as final, or as anything more
than a means of progress: the conventional, easily manageable color,
was visibly adopted, only that his mind might be at perfect liberty to
address itself to the acquirement of the first and most necessary
knowledge in all art--that of form. But as form, in landscape, implies
vast bulk and space, the use of the tints which enabled him best to
express them, was actually auxiliary to the mere drawing; and,
therefore, not only permissible, but even necessary, while more
brilliant or varied tints were never indulged in, except when they might
be introduced without the slightest danger of diverting his mind for an
instant from his principal object. And, therefore, it will be generally
found in the works of this period, that exactly in proportion to the
importance and general toil of the composition, is the severity of the
tint; and that the play of color begins to show itself first in slight
and small drawings, where he felt that he could easily secure all that
he wanted in form.

198. Thus the "Crossing the Brook," and such other elaborate and large
compositions, are actually painted in nothing but gray, brown, and blue,
with a point or two of severe local color in the figures; but in the
minor drawings, tender passages of complicated color occur not
unfrequently in easy places; and even before the year 1800 he begins to
introduce it with evident joyfulness and longing in his rude and simple
studies, just as a child, if it could be supposed to govern itself by a
fully developed intellect, would cautiously, but with infinite pleasure,
add now and then a tiny dish of fruit or other dangerous luxury to the
simple order of its daily fare. Thus, in the foregrounds of his most
severe drawings, we not unfrequently find him indulging in the luxury of
a peacock; and it is impossible to express the joyfulness with which he
seems to design its graceful form, and deepen with soft penciling the
bloom of its blue, after he has worked through the stern detail of his
almost colorless drawing. A