tug--these pathetic
contrasts are repeated and enforced by a technical _tour de force_ in
the treatment of the colours which is without a parallel in art. And the
picture itself thus combines the evidences of Turner's supremacy alike
in imagination and in skill. The old masters, content with one simple
tone, sacrificed to its unity all the exquisite gradations and varied
touches of relief and change by which nature unites her hours with each
other. They gave the warmth of the sinking sun, overwhelming all things
in its gold, but they did not give those gray passages about the
horizon, where, seen through its dying light, the cool and the gloom of
night gather themselves for their victory.... But in this picture,
under the blazing veil of vaulted fire, which lights the vessel on her
last path, there is a blue, deep, desolate hollow of darkness out of
which you can hear the voice of the night wind, and the dull boom of the
disturbed sea; the cold deadly shadows of the twilight are gathering
through every sunbeam, and moment by moment, as you look, you will fancy
some new film and faintness of the night has risen over the vastness of
the departing form. (Compiled from _Modern Painters_, Vol. I. pt. ii.
Sec. I. ch. vii. sec. 46 _n._, Sec. II. ch i. sec. 21; _Harbours of
England_, p. 12; and _Notes on the Turner Gallery_, pp. 75-80.)

[Illustration: THE FIGHTING TEMERAIRE.
_Turner._]

Finally a few words about the history of the picture itself may be
interesting. The subject of it was suggested to Turner by Clarkson
Stanfield (who himself, it will be remembered, had painted a _Battle of
Trafalgar_). They were going down the river by boat, to dine, perhaps,
at Greenwich, when the old ship, being tugged to her last berth at
Deptford, came in sight. "There's a fine subject, Turner," said
Stanfield. This was in 1838. Next year the picture was exhibited at the
Academy, but no price was put upon it. A would-be purchaser offered
Turner 300 guineas for it. He replied that it was his "200 guinea size"
only, and offered to take a commission at that price for any subject of
the same size, but with the _Temeraire_ itself he would not part.
Another offer was subsequently made from America, which again Turner
declined. He had already mentally included the picture, it would seem,
amongst those to be bequeathed to the nation; and in one of the codicils
to his will, in which he left each of his executors a picture to be
chosen by t