Chapter XIX

1812: AGED THIRTY-SEVEN

HE EXHIBITS 'HANNIBAL CROSSING THE ALPS,' SUGGESTED BY A SNOWSTORM HE HAD SEEN AT FARNLEY

In one of the Sketch-Books for this year labelled 'Sandycombe and Yorkshire' are the following, on the same page, in Turner's handwriting. We can imagine the reasons why he composed the tortuous passage on Salvator's 'powers of rapidity.' Did he, I wonder, buy the mattress?

'Salvator Rosa painted a picture for the Constable of France in a day, and carried it home, which rapidity so captivated the Constable that he ordered another large one, which he likewise began, finished and sent home, that (?) well paid for by purses of gold and as Constable commented which would be first weary, but upon the production of the fifth the employer sent two purses and declined rivalship with the artist's powers of rapidity.

Candles1

Trout2

Pillow16

Mattress 1. 11. 6.

The next Sketch-Book is short, and devoted to Farnley. The idea of the 'Snowstorm, Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps,' came to Turner through a storm he saw at Farnley.

One wild day Turner called loudly from the doorway:—

'Hawkey! Hawkey! come here! Look at this thunderstorm—isn't it wonderful? Isn't it sublime?'

And while he talked he was making notes of its form and colour on the back of a letter. Young Mr. Hawkes proposed a drawing block but Turner said the letter did very well. He was absorbed, entranced, while the storm rolled and swept, and the lightning flashed over the Yorkshire hills. When the storm had passed Turner returned to the room and said:—

'There, Hawkey. In two years you will see this again, and call it "Hannibal Crossing the Alps."'

We look at this tumultuous picture to-day and think of that thunderstorm at Farnley as we watch the lurid sun through the storm of snow that threatens to overwhelm the muddled, huddled, Carthaginian army. Yes: it is wonderful as was the thunderstorm to Turner. This picture, in a category between his classical works and his sunlight visions, was accompanied by nine halting, unpoetical lines from the Fallacies of Hope, this being the first time that a quotation from that poem was attached to the R. A. catalogues. The title was modified, probably, from Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.

'Craft, treachery, and fraud—Salassian force— Hung on the fainting rear; then plunder seized The victor and the captive,—Saguntum's spoil Alike became their prey; still the chief advanc'd, Looked on the sun with hope; low, broad, and wan While the fierce archer of the downward year Stains Italy's blanched barrier with storms. In vain each pass, ensanguined deep with dead Or rocky fragments, wide destruction roll'd.'

And the eyes fall upon two lines that mean something, that aptly express the thought of the dumb poet, the lines which I quoted in Chapter III.,—'Still the chief advanced, Looked on the sun with hope'—Turner's fitting epitaph, and life-long aspiration. He added to the Fallacies of Hope off and on for forty years, and it dealt with almost every conceivable subject from the Deluge to Napoleon.

This year his town address is given as Queen Anne Street West, but, as I have already explained, this did not mean a change of domicile, as the three houses, two in Harley Street and one in Queen Anne Street, were the same dwelling with a communication at the back.

Turner, Thornbury tells us, almost entirely rebuilt his house in Queen Anne Street, and while all the houses round it from time to time smartened themselves up, this alone remained unchanged. The Gallery in later years, as we know, became most dilapidated:—

The oiled paper of the skylight hung down in black, sooty, furred slips. The damp here and there had free access; and it is certain that while many of the pictures ripened and improved, others were cracked, warped, chilled, and seriously injured. Both the "Hero and Leander," and "The Building of Carthage," suffered. Mr. E. Godall tells me that in one picture particularly, a great white button of paint that had stood for the sun had dropped off.

'"I think some one has picked it off intentionally," he could not help saying.

'"I think he has," replied Turner, quite unmoved.'

Turner was 'quite unmoved.' As he grew older he cared less and less for the things that most people deem so important. His golden visions did not depend upon material accessories. May we not find a hint of his almost inarticulate inner life in that little red book unearthed by Thornbury from his studio, where, amid notes about chemistry, memoranda as to colours, and prophylactics against the Maltese plague, are certain scraps of verse, something about 'Anna's Kiss,' 'A Look Back,' 'A Toilsome Dream,' 'Human Joy, Ecstasy, and Hope'?

But I am anticipating. We are still in the year 1812 and Turner is preparing 'A Frosty Morning' for exhibition, and considering one of his earliest series of book illustrations,—The Southern Coast of England, which was probably begun about 1812, although the first seven plates, including 'St. Michael's Mount,' 'Poole,' and 'Land's End,' were not published until 1814. The last issue was in 1826. De Wint, Clennell and Prout were also contributors to The Southern Coast. Turner was to receive seven and a half guineas apiece for the drawings, which was increased later to ten and twelve guineas. But in spite of that advance he became dissatisfied and broke with W. B. Cooke, the line engraver and publisher of The Southern Coast. Business relations with Turner were not easy.