subject, would know his own worth, and rate himself at his due value. To
his friend Fisher he does not hesitate to praise his own pictures with a
_naivete_ that is amusing, but which was in harmony with his general
severity and dislike of affectation. He would not even affect a false
modesty, but spoke of his own performances as he would have done of those
of others. "My Lock," he says in one of his letters, "is now on the easel:
it is silvery, windy, and delicious--all health, and the absence of any
thing stagnant, and is wonderfully got together. The print will be very
fine." "My new picture of Salisbury," he writes in another, "is very
beautiful; but when I thus speak of my pictures, remember it is _to you_,
and only in comparison with myself." Mr Leslie mentions that he had
retained these and similar effusions contrary to the advice of one with
whose opinion on other points he generally coincided. He has guessed
rightly; for, without such revelations, we should be but imperfectly
acquainted with the man. He adds with truth, "The utterance of a man's
real feelings is more interesting, though it may have less of dignity than
belongs to a uniform silence on the subject of self; while the vanity is
often no greater in the one case than in the other."

Of his tender, domestic, affectionate disposition, almost every letter in
this volume exhibits proofs. We cannot better illustrate this than by
quoting some passages from his letters to his wife while on a visit to Sir
George Beaumont at Cole-Orton: while these letters exhibit one of the most
delightful pictures of the country life of an accomplished gentleman, an
excellent artist, and a kind patron. It is true, that between Sir George
and Constable not a few differences in point of taste existed; the
baronet was rather an ingenious eclectic than an original painter; his
natural belief was, that beyond the pale of Claude and Wilson, an artist's
salvation was at least doubtful; but he was too accomplished, too
keen-sighted an observer not to be shaken in his theories by the sight of
high and original art, and too liberal not to admit at last--as Toby did
in the case of the fly--that the world was wide enough for both.

"_To_ MRS CONSTABLE.

"_November 2d._--The weather has been bad; but I do not at all regret
being confined to this house. The mail did not arrive yesterday till
many hours after the time, owing to some trees being blown down, and
th