ought to be capable of rendering. It is disgraceful to omit them; but it is no very great credit to observe them. I have indeed proved that they have been neglected, and disgracefully so, by those men who are commonly considered the fathers of art; but, in showing that they have been observed by Turner, I have only proved him to be above other men in knowledge of truth, I have not given any conception of his own positive rank as a painter of nature. but it stands to reason, that the men who, in broad, simple, and demonstrable matters are perpetually violating the truth, will not be particularly accurate or careful in carrying out delicate and refined undemonstrable matters; and it stands equally to reason, that the man who, as far as argument or demonstration can go, is found invariably truthful, will, in all probability, be truthful to the last line, and shadow of a line. And such is, indeed, the case with every touch of this consummate artist; the essential excellence - all that constitutes the real and exceeding value of his works, is beyond and above expression: it is a truth inherent in every line, and breathing in every hue, to delicate and exquisite to admit of any kind of proof, nor to be ascertained except by the highest of tests - the keen feeling attained by extended knowledge and long study. Two lines are laid on canvass; one is right and another wrong. There is no difference between them appreciable by the ordinary eye - one which can be pointed out, if it is not seen. One person feels it; another does not; but the feeling or sight of the one can by no words be communicated to the other: it would be unjust if it could, for that feeling and sight have been the reward of years of labour. And there is, indeed, nothing in Turner - not one dot nor line - whose meaning can be understood without knowledge; becasue he never aims at sensual impressions, but at the deep final truth, which only meditation can discover, and only experience recognize. There is nothing done or omitted by him, which does not imply such a comparison of ends, such rejection of the least worthy, (as far as they are incompatible with the rest,) such careful selection and arrangement of all that can be united, as can only be enjoyed by minds capable of going through the same process, and discovering the reasons for the choice. And, as there is nothing in his works which can be enjoyed without knowledge, so there is nothing in them which knowledge will not enable us to enjoy. There is no test of our acquaintance with Nature so absolute and unfailing as the degree of admiration we feel for Turner's painting. Precisely as we are shallow in our knowledge, vulgar in our feelings, and contracted in our views or principles, will the works of this artist be stumbling blocks or foolishness to us; precisely in the degree in which we are familiar with Nature, constant in our understanding of her, will they expand before our eyes into glory and beauty. In every new insight which we obtain into the works of God, in every new idea which we receive from his creation, we shall find ourselves possessed of an interpretation and a guide to something in Turner's works which we had not before understood. We may range over Europe from shore to shore; and from every rock that we tread upon, every sky that passes over our heads, every form of local vegetation or of soil, we shall receive fresh illustration of his principles - fresh confirmation of his facts. We shall feel, wherever we go, that he has been there before us - whatever we see, that he has seen and seized before us; and we shall at last cease the investigation, with a well-grounded trust, that whatever we have been unable to account for, and what we still dislike in his works, has reason for it, and foundation like the rest; and that, even where he has failed or erred, there is a beauty in the failure which none are able to equal, and a dignity in error which none are worthy to reprove. There has been a marked and constant progress in his mind; he has not, like some few artists, been without childhood; his course of study has been as evident as it has been swiftly progressive, and in different stages of the struggle, sometimes one order of truth, sometimes another, has been aimed at or omitted. But from the beginning to the present height of his career he has never sacrificed a greater truth to a less. As he advanced, the previous knowledge or attainment was absorbed in what succeeded, or abandoned without a gain; and his present works present the sum and perfection of his accumulated knowledge, delivered with the impatience and passion of one who feels too much, and has too little time to say it in, to pause for expression or ponder over his syllables. There is in them the obscurity, but the truth of prophecy; the instinctive and burning language, which would express less if it uttered more, which is indistinct only by its fulness, and dark with its abundant meaning. He feels now, with long-trained vividness and keenness of