ension; from the spots where
Constable chiefly studied, even the prospect of old ocean was shut out;
the country presented, as he himself describes it, only gentle
declivities, luxuriant meadow flats, sprinkled with flocks and herds,
quiet but clear streams, villages, farms, woodlands--

"The slow canal, the yellow-blossom'd vale,
The willow-tufted bank and gliding sail."

What influence scenery of a higher class might have had on Constable's
mind, it is not easy to decide; as it was, the narrow circuit of a few
miles round Bergholt, within which the materials of his pictures are
chiefly found, became for him the epitome of English nature; and he
associated the very ideal of beauty with those quiet nooks and scenes of
tranquillity and amenity, where he had first exercised his pencil, and
amidst which in after life he loved to linger.

And in truth, to a creative mind--for "it is the soul that sees," and
renders back its vision--how much of beauty, picturesque variety, nay,
under certain aspects and conditions of the atmosphere, how much of
grandeur existed within this narrow circle! A friend of ours has
maintained an ingenious thesis, that there is no such thing as a bad day
in nature; though whether, after the aspect of the present summer, he
retains his opinion, we think may be questioned. Constable certainly held
a similar theory with regard to beauty in landscape. "Madam," said he to a
lady who had denounced some object as ugly--"there is nothing ugly. I
never saw an ugly thing in my life; for let the form of an object be what
it may, light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful."
This, indeed, was the talisman with which he worked; _light and
shade_--the magic of _chiaro-scuro_ applied to the simple elements of
form which the rich pastures and woods of Suffolk afforded, and a power
of exhibiting the varied influences and character of the skies, which, if
it has been equalled by Turner, Calcott, and Fielding, has certainly never
been surpassed by any British landscape-painter.

Let us glance at some of those pictures of tranquil English nature which
Constable's landscapes afford;--not professing to follow the details of
any particular picture, but embodying from recollection a few of their
leading features, as exhibited under those lights or atmospheric effects,
which he generally selected as in harmony with the sentiment of his
scenes.

We are standing, for instance, on a broken foreground,