y spot, however solitary, without the appearance
of some living thing, that will, in all probability, accord better with the
scene and time of day than will any invention of your own."

With Constable's strong natural tastes, and his long-considered views of
landscape--at least that landscape for which he felt a vocation--it may be
doubted whether he would have gained any thing by an acquaintance with
continental scenery, leading, as it generally does, to the adoption of a
certain fixed mode of treatment, or even by a more familiar intercourse
with the grander features of our own country. He seems to have felt that
his originality was, in some degree, connected with the _intimacy_ of his
acquaintance with that domestic nature, the study of which he chiefly
cultivated, and which was matured by constant repetition and comparison of
impressions. A circuit of a few miles, in fact, bounds his bosky bourne
from side to side; a circuit of a few hundred yards embraces the subject
of nearly half his favourite studies. "The Dutch," he says in one of his
journals, "were _stay-at-home_ people; _hence_ the source of their
originality."

"In the education of an artist," says Mr Leslie with great good sense, "it
is scarcely possible to foresee what circumstances will prove advantageous
or the reverse; it is on looking back only that we can judge of these
things. Travelling is now the order of the day--and it may sometimes prove
beneficial; but to Constable's art, there can be little doubt that the
confinement of his studies with the narrowest bounds in which, perhaps,
the studies of an artist ever were confined, was in the highest degree
favourable; for a knowledge of atmospheric effects will be best attained
by _a constant study_ of the same objects, under every change of seasons
and of the times of day. His ambition, it will be borne in mind, was not
to paint many things imperfectly, but to paint a few well."

A motto, in truth, worthy of any of the seven sages--applicable to many
things besides painting--and which can scarcely be applied in vain to any.
_Not many things imperfectly, but a few well!_

* * * * *

With these imperfect remarks on the general character of Constable's
pictures, we pass at once to a few extracts from the correspondence,
which, as we have already said, makes up the substance of the present
volume. Among the letters, by much the most striking and amusing are those
of Const