diff options
Diffstat (limited to '21591.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 21591.txt | 2531 |
1 files changed, 2531 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/21591.txt b/21591.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a84f13 --- /dev/null +++ b/21591.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2531 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Harbours of England, by John Ruskin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Harbours of England + +Author: John Ruskin + +Illustrator: J. M. W. Turner + +Release Date: May 23, 2007 [EBook #21591] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HARBOURS OF ENGLAND *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, LN Yaddanapudi and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +Library Edition + +THE COMPLETE WORKS +OF +JOHN RUSKIN + +STONES OF VENICE +VOLUME III + +GIOTTO +LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE +HARBOURS OF ENGLAND +A JOY FOREVER + +NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION +NEW YORK CHICAGO + + + + +THE COMPLETE WORKS +OF +JOHN RUSKIN + +VOLUME X + +GIOTTO AND HIS WORKS +LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE +THE HARBORS OF ENGLAND +POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART +(A JOY FOREVER) + + + + +THE HARBORS OF ENGLAND. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + PAGE + THE HARBORS OF ENGLAND 1 + I. DOVER 34 + II. RAMSGATE 36 + III. PLYMOUTH 38 + IV. CATWATER 40 + V. SHEERNESS 41 + VI. MARGATE 43 + VII. PORTSMOUTH 46 + VIII. FALMOUTH 49 + IX. SIDMOUTH 51 + X. WHITBY 52 + XI. DEAL 54 + XII. SCARBOROUGH 56 + + + + +EDITOR'S PREFACE. + + +"Turner's _Harbors of England_," as it is generally called, is a book +which, for various reasons, has never received from readers of Mr. +Ruskin's writings the attention it deserves. True, it has always been +sought after by connoisseurs, and collectors never fail with their +eleven or twelve guineas whenever a set of Artist's Proofs of the First +Edition of 1856 comes into the market. But to the General Reader the +book with its twelve exquisitely delicate mezzotints--four of which Mr. +Ruskin has declared to be among the very finest executed by Turner from +his marine subjects--is practically unknown. + +The primary reason for this neglect is not far to seek. Since 1877 no +new edition of the work has been published, and thus it has gradually +passed from public knowledge, though still regarded with lively interest +by those to whom Mr. Ruskin's words--particularly words written in +further unfolding of the subtleties of Turner's art--at all times appeal +so strongly. + +In his own preface Mr. Ruskin has told us all that in 1856 it was +necessary to know of the genesis of the _Harbors_. That account may now +be supplemented with the following additional facts. In 1826 Turner (in +conjunction with Lupton, the engraver) projected and commenced a serial +publication entitled _The Ports of England_. But both artist and +engraver lacked the opportunity required to carry the undertaking to a +successful conclusion, and three numbers only were completed. Each of +these contained two engravings. Part I., introducing _Scarborough_ and +_Whitby_, duly appeared in 1826; Part II., with _Dover_ and _Ramsgate_, +in 1827; and in 1828 Part III., containing _Sheerness_ and +_Portsmouth_, closed the series.[A] Twenty-eight years afterwards (that +is, in 1856, five years after Turner's death) these six plates, together +with six new ones, were published by Messrs. E. Gambart & Co., at whose +invitation Mr. Ruskin consented to write the essay on Turner's marine +painting which accompanied them. The book, a handsome folio, appears to +have been immediately successful, for in the following year a second +edition was called for. This was a precise reprint of the 1856 edition; +but, unhappily, the delicate plates already began to exhibit signs of +wear. The copyright (which had not been retained by Mr. Ruskin, but +remained the property of Messrs. E. Gambart & Co.) then passed to +Messrs. Day & Son, who, after producing the third edition of 1859, in +turn disposed of it to Mr. T. J. Allman. Allman issued a fourth edition +in 1872, and then parted with his rights to Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co., +who in 1877 brought out the fifth, and, until now, last edition. Since +that date the work has been out of print, and has remained practically +inaccessible to the ordinary reader. + + [A] To ornament the covers of these parts, Turner designed a + vignette, which was printed upon the center of the front wrapper of + each. As _The Ports of England_ is an exceptionally scarce book, and + as the vignette can be obtained in no other form, a facsimile of it + is here given. The original drawing was presented by Mr. Ruskin to + the Fitz-William Museum, at Cambridge, where it may now be seen. + +It is matter for congratulation that at length means have been found to +bring _The Harbors of England_ once more into currency, and to issue the +book through Mr. George Allen at a price which will place it within the +reach of the reading public at large. + +The last edition of 1877, with its worn and "retouched" plates,[B] was +published at twenty-five shillings; less than a third of that sum will +suffice to procure a copy of this new issue in which the prints (save +for their reduced size) more nearly approach the clearness and beauty of +the originals of 1856 than any of the three editions which have +immediately preceded it. + + [B] By this time (1877) the plates had become considerably worn, and + were accordingly "retouched" by Mr. Chas. A. Tomkins. But such + retouching proved worse than useless. The delicacy of the finer work + had entirely vanished, and the plates remained but a ghost of their + former selves, such as no one would recognize as doing justice to + Turner. The fifth is unquestionably the least satisfactory of the + five original editions containing Lupton's engravings. + +I have before me the following interesting letter addressed by Mr. +Ruskin's father to Mr. W. Smith Williams, for many years literary +adviser to Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co.:-- + + "CHAMOUNI, _August 4th, 1856._ + + "MY DEAR SIR,--I hear that in _The Athenaeum_ of 26th July there is + a good article on my son's _Harbors of England_, and I should be + greatly obliged by Mr. Gordon Smith sending me that number.... + + "The history of this book, I believe, I told you. Gambart, the + French publisher and picture dealer, said some 18 months ago that + he was going to put out 12 Turner plates, never published, of + English Harbors, and he would give my son two good Turner drawings + for a few pages of text to illustrate them.[C] John agreed, and + wrote the text, when poorly in the spring of 1855, at Tunbridge + Wells; and it seems the work has just come out. It was in my + opinion an extremely well done thing, and more likely, as far as it + went, if not to be extremely popular, at least to be received + without cavil than anything he had written. If there is a very + favorable review in _The Athenaeum_ ... it may tend to disarm the + critics, and partly influence opinion of his larger works....--With + our united kind regards, + + "Yours very truly, + "JOHN JAMES RUSKIN." + + [C] Mr. E. Gambart (who is still living) states that, to the best of + his recollection, he paid Mr. Ruskin 150 guineas for his work. + Probably this was the price originally agreed upon, the two Turner + drawings being ultimately accepted as a more welcome and appropriate + form of remuneration. + +In all save one particular the Text here given follows precisely that of +the previous issues. It has been the good fortune of the present Editor +to be able to restore a characteristic passage suppressed from motives +of prudence when the work was originally planned.[D] The proof-sheets of +the first edition, worked upon by Mr. Ruskin, were given by him to his +old nurse Anne.[E] She, fortunately, carefully preserved them, and in +turn gave them to Mr. Allen, some ten years before he became Mr. +Ruskin's publisher. These proofs had been submitted as they came from +the press to Mr. W. H. Harrison (well known to readers of _On the Old +Road_, etc., as "My First Editor"), who marked them freely with notes +and suggestions. To one passage he appears to have taken so decided an +objection that its author was prevailed upon to delete it. But, whilst +deferring thus to the judgment of others, and consenting to remove a +sentence which he doubtless regarded with particular satisfaction as +expressing a decided opinion upon a favorite picture, Mr. Ruskin +indulged in one of those pleasantries which now and again we observe in +his informal letters, though seldom, if ever, in his serious writings. +In the margin, below the canceled passage, he wrote boldly: "_Sacrificed +to the Muse of Prudence. J. R._"[F] + + [D] See _post_, p. 19. + + [E] See _Praeterita_. She died March 30th, 1871. + + [F] The accompanying illustration is a facsimile of the portion of + the proof-sheet described above--slightly reduced to fit the smaller + page. + +That Mr. Harrison was justified in raising objection to this "moderate +estimate" of Turner's picture will, I think, be readily allowed. In +those days Mr. Ruskin's influence was, comparatively speaking, small; +and the expression of an opinion which heaped praise upon the single +painting of a partially understood painter at the expense of a great and +popular institution would only have served to arouse opposition, and +possibly to attract ridicule. It is different to-day. We know the keen +enthusiasm of the author of _The Seven Lamps_, and have seen again and +again how he expresses himself in terms of somewhat exaggerated +admiration when writing of a painter whom he appreciates, or a picture +that he loves. To us this enthusiasm is an attractive characteristic. It +has never been permitted to distort the vision or cloud the critical +faculty; and we follow the teaching of the Master all the more closely +because we feel his fervor, and know how completely he becomes possessed +with a subject which appeals to his imagination or his heart. I have +therefore not scrupled to revive the words which he consented to +immolate at the shrine of Prudence. + +It is not my province here to enter into any criticism of the pages +which follow; but, for the benefit of those who are not versed in the +minutiae of Shelleyan topics, a word may be said regarding Mr. Ruskin's +reference[G] to the poet who met his death in the Bay of Spezzia. The +_Don Juan_ was no "traitorous" craft. Fuller and more authentic +information is to hand now than the meager facts at the disposal of a +writer in 1856; and we know that the greed of man, and not the lack of +sea-worthiness in his tiny vessel, caused Percy Shelley to + + "... Suffer a sea change + Into something rich and strange." + + [G] See _post_, p. 3. + +There is, unhappily, no longer any room for doubt that the _Don Juan_ +was willfully run down by a felucca whose crew coveted the considerable +sum of money they believed Byron to have placed on board, and cared +nothing for the sacrifice of human life in their eagerness to seize the +gold. + +The twelve engravings, to which reference has already been made, have +been reproduced by the photogravure process from a selected set of early +examples; and, in addition, the plates so prepared have been carefully +worked upon by Mr. Allen himself. It will thus be apparent that +everything possible has been done to produce a worthy edition of a +worthy book, and to place in the hands of the public what to the present +generation of readers is tantamount to a new work from a pen +which--alas!--has now for so long a time been still. + +THOMAS J. WISE. + + + + +AUTHOR'S ORIGINAL PREFACE. + + +Among the many peculiarities which distinguished the late J. M. W. +Turner from other landscape painters, not the least notable, in my +apprehension, were his earnest desire to arrange his works in connected +groups, and his evident intention, with respect to each drawing, that it +should be considered as expressing part of a continuous system of +thought. The practical result of this feeling was that he commenced many +series of drawings,--and, if any accident interfered with the +continuation of the work, hastily concluded them,--under titles +representing rather the relation which the executed designs bore to the +materials accumulated in his own mind, than the position which they +could justifiably claim when contemplated by others. The _River Scenery_ +was closed without a single drawing of a rapidly running stream; and the +prints of his annual tours were assembled, under the title of the +_Rivers of France_, without including a single illustration either of +the Rhone or the Garonne. + +The title under which the following plates are now presented to the +public, is retained merely out of respect to this habit of Turner's. +Under that title he commenced the publication, and executed the vignette +for its title-page, intending doubtless to make it worthy of taking rank +with, if not far above, the consistent and extensive series of the +_Southern Coast_, executed in his earlier years. But procrastination and +accident equally interfered with his purpose. The excellent engraver Mr. +Lupton, in co-operation with whom the work was undertaken, was +unfortunately also a man of genius, and seems to have been just as +capricious as Turner himself in the application of his powers to the +matter in hand. Had one of the parties in the arrangement been a mere +plodding man of business, the work would have proceeded; but between the +two men of talent it came very naturally to a stand. They petted each +other by reciprocal indulgence of delay; and at Turner's death, the +series, so magnificently announced under the title of the _Harbors of +England_, consisted only of twelve plates, all the less worthy of their +high-sounding title in that, while they included illustrations of some +of the least important of the watering-places, they did not include any +illustration whatever of such harbors of England as Liverpool, Shields, +Yarmouth, or Bristol. Such as they were, however, I was requested to +undertake their illustration. As the offer was made at a moment when +much nonsense, in various forms, was being written about Turner and his +works; and among the twelve plates there were four[H] which I considered +among the very finest that had been executed from his marine subjects, I +accepted the trust; partly to prevent the really valuable series of +engravings from being treated with injustice, and partly because there +were several features in them by which I could render more intelligible +some remarks I wished to make on Turner's marine painting in general. + + [H] Portsmouth, Sheerness, Scarborough, and Whitby. + +These remarks, therefore, I have thrown together, in a connected form; +less with a view to the illustration of these particular plates, than of +the general system of ship-painting which was characteristic of the +great artist. I have afterwards separately noted the points which seemed +to me most deserving of attention in the plates themselves. + +Of archaeological information the reader will find none. The designs +themselves are, in most instances, little more than spirited sea-pieces, +with such indistinct suggestion of local features in the distance as may +justify the name given to the subject; but even when, as in the case of +the Dover and Portsmouth, there is something approaching topographical +detail, I have not considered it necessary to lead the reader into +inquiries which certainly Turner himself never thought of; nor do I +suppose it would materially add to the interest of these cloud distances +or rolling seas, if I had the time--which I have not--to collect the +most complete information respecting the raising of Prospect Rows, and +the establishment of circulating libraries. + +DENMARK HILL. +[1856.] + + + + +THE HARBORS OF ENGLAND. + + +Of all things, living or lifeless, upon this strange earth, there is but +one which, having reached the mid-term of appointed human endurance on +it, I still regard with unmitigated amazement. I know, indeed, that all +around me is wonderful--but I cannot answer it with wonder:--a dark +veil, with the foolish words, NATURE OF THINGS, upon it, casts its +deadening folds between me and their dazzling strangeness. Flowers open, +and stars rise, and it seems to me they could have done no less. The +mystery of distant mountain-blue only makes me reflect that the earth is +of necessity mountainous;--the sea-wave breaks at my feet, and I do not +see how it should have remained unbroken. But one object there is still, +which I never pass without the renewed wonder of childhood, and that is +the bow of a Boat. Not of a racing-wherry, or revenue cutter, or clipper +yacht; but the blunt head of a common, bluff, undecked sea-boat, lying +aside in its furrow of beach sand. The sum of Navigation is in that. You +may magnify it or decorate as you will: you do not add to the wonder of +it. Lengthen it into hatchet-like edge of iron,--strengthen it with +complex tracery of ribs of oak,--carve it and gild it till a column of +light moves beneath it on the sea,--you have made no more of it than it +was at first. That rude simplicity of bent plank, that can breast its +way through the death that is in the deep sea, has in it the soul of +shipping. Beyond this, we may have more work, more men, more money; we +cannot have more miracle. + +For there is, first, an infinite strangeness in the perfection of the +thing, as work of human hands. I know nothing else that man does, which +is perfect, but that. All his other doings have some sign of weakness, +affectation, or ignorance in them. They are overfinished or +underfinished; they do not quite answer their end, or they show a mean +vanity in answering it too well. + +But the boat's bow is naively perfect: complete without an effort. The +man who made it knew not he was making anything beautiful, as he bent +its planks into those mysterious, ever-changing curves. It grows under +his hand into the image of a sea-shell; the seal, as it were, of the +flowing of the great tides and streams of ocean stamped on its delicate +rounding. He leaves it when all is done, without a boast. It is simple +work, but it will keep out water. And every plank thence-forward is a +Fate, and has men's lives wreathed in the knots of it, as the cloth-yard +shaft had their deaths in its plumes. + +Then, also, it is wonderful on account of the greatness of the thing +accomplished. No other work of human hands ever gained so much. +Steam-engines and telegraphs indeed help us to fetch, and carry, and +talk; they lift weights for us, and bring messages, with less trouble +than would have been needed otherwise; this saving of trouble, however, +does not constitute a new faculty, it only enhances the powers we +already possess. But in that bow of the boat is the gift of another +world. Without it, what prison wall would be so strong as that "white +and wailing fringe" of sea. What maimed creatures were we all, chained +to our rocks, Andromeda-like, or wandering by the endless shores; +wasting our incommunicable strength, and pining in hopeless watch of +unconquerable waves? The nails that fasten together the planks of the +boat's bow are the rivets of the fellowship of the world. Their iron +does more than draw lightning out of heaven, it leads love round the +earth. + +Then also, it is wonderful on account of the greatness of the enemy that +it does battle with. To lift dead weight; to overcome length of languid +space; to multiply or systematize a given force; this we may see done by +the bar, or beam, or wheel, without wonder. But to war with that living +fury of waters, to bare its breast, moment after moment, against the +unwearied enmity of ocean,--the subtle, fitful, implacable smiting of +the black waves, provoking each other on, endlessly, all the infinite +march of the Atlantic rolling on behind them to their help,--and still +to strike them back into a wreath of smoke and futile foam, and win its +way against them, and keep its charge of life from them;--does any other +soulless thing do as much as this? + +I should not have talked of this feeling of mine about a boat, if I had +thought it was mine only; but I believe it to be common to all of us who +are not seamen. With the seaman, wonder changes into fellowship and +close affection; but to all landsmen, from youth upwards, the boat +remains a piece of enchantment; at least unless we entangle our vanity +in it, and refine it away into mere lath, giving up all its protective +nobleness for pace. With those in whose eyes the perfection of a boat is +swift fragility, I have no sympathy. The glory of a boat is, first its +steadiness of poise--its assured standing on the clear softness of the +abyss; and, after that, so much capacity of progress by oar or sail as +shall be consistent with this defiance of the treachery of the sea. And, +this being understood, it is very notable how commonly the poets, +creating for themselves an ideal of motion, fasten upon the charm of a +boat. They do not usually express any desire for wings, or, if they do, +it is only in some vague and half-unintended phrase, such as "flit or +soar," involving wingedness. Seriously, they are evidently content to +let the wings belong to Horse, or Muse, or Angel, rather than to +themselves; but they all, somehow or other, express an honest wish for a +Spiritual Boat. I will not dwell on poor Shelley's paper navies, and +seas of quicksilver, lest we should begin to think evil of boats in +general because of that traitorous one in Spezzia Bay; but it is a +triumph to find the pastorally minded Wordsworth imagine no other way of +visiting the stars than in a boat "no bigger than the crescent moon";[I] +and to find Tennyson--although his boating, in an ordinary way, has a +very marshy and punt-like character--at last, in his highest +inspiration, enter in where the wind began "to sweep a music out of +sheet and shroud."[J] But the chief triumph of all is in Dante. He had +known all manner of traveling; had been borne through vacancy on the +shoulders of chimeras, and lifted through upper heaven in the grasp of +its spirits; but yet I do not remember that he ever expresses any +positive _wish_ on such matters, except for a boat. + + [I] Prologue to _Peter Bell_. + + [J] _In Memoriam_, ci. + + "Guido, I wish that Lapo, thou, and I, + Led by some strong enchantment, might ascend + A magic ship, whose charmed sails should fly + With winds at will where'er our thoughts might wend, + So that no change nor any evil chance + Should mar our joyous voyage; but it might be + That even satiety should still enhance + Between our souls their strict community: + And that the bounteous wizard then would place + Vanna and Bice, and our Lapo's love, + Companions of our wandering, and would grace + With passionate talk, wherever we might rove, + Our time, and each were as content and free + As I believe that thou and I should be." + +And of all the descriptions of motion in the _Divina Commedia_, I do not +think there is another quite so fine as that in which Dante has +glorified the old fable of Charon by giving a boat also to the bright +sea which surrounds the mountain of Purgatory, bearing the redeemed +souls to their place of trial; only an angel is now the pilot, and there +is no stroke of laboring oar, for his wings are the sails. + + "My preceptor silent yet + Stood, while the brightness that we first discerned + Opened the form of wings: then, when he knew + The pilot, cried aloud, 'Down, down; bend low + Thy knees; behold God's angel: fold thy hands: + Now shalt thou see true ministers indeed. + Lo! how all human means he sets at nought; + So that nor oar he needs, nor other sail + Except his wings, between such distant shores. + Lo! how straight up to heaven he holds them reared, + Winnowing the air with those eternal plumes, + That not like mortal hairs fall off or change.' + + "As more and more toward us came, more bright + Appeared the bird of God, nor could the eye + Endure his splendor near: I mine bent down. + He drove ashore in a small bark so swift + And light, that in its course no wave it drank. + The heavenly steersman at the prow was seen, + Visibly written blessed in his looks. + Within, a hundred spirits and more there sat." + +I have given this passage at length, because it seems to me that Dante's +most inventive adaptation of the fable of Charon to Heaven has not been +regarded with the interest that it really deserves; and because, also, +it is a description that should be remembered by every traveler when +first he sees the white fork of the felucca sail shining on the Southern +Sea. Not that Dante had ever seen such sails;[K] his thought was utterly +irrespective of the form of canvas in any ship of the period; but it is +well to be able to attach this happy image to those felucca sails, as +they now float white and soft above the blue glowing of the bays of +Adria. Nor are other images wanting in them. Seen far away on the +horizon, the Neapolitan felucca has all the aspect of some strange bird +stooping out of the air and just striking the water with its claws; +while the Venetian, when its painted sails are at full swell in +sunshine, is as beautiful as a butterfly with its wings half-closed.[L] +There is something also in them that might remind us of the variegated +and spotted angel wings of Orcagna, only the Venetian sail never looks +majestic; it is too quaint and strange, yet with no peacock's pride or +vulgar gayety,--nothing of Milton's Dalilah: + + "So bedecked, ornate and gay + Like a stately ship + Of Tarsus, bound for the Isles + Of Javan or Gadire + With all her bravery on and tackle trim, + Sails filled and streamers waving." + +That description could only have been written in a time of vulgar women +and vulgar vessels. The utmost vanity of dress in a woman of the +fourteenth century would have given no image of "sails filled or +streamers waving"; nor does the look or action of a really "stately" +ship ever suggest any image of the motion of a weak or vain woman. The +beauties of the Court of Charles II., and the gilded galleys of the +Thames, might fitly be compared; but the pomp of the Venetian +fisher-boat is like neither. The sail seems dyed in its fullness by the +sunshine, as the rainbow dyes a cloud; the rich stains upon it fade and +reappear, as its folds swell or fall; worn with the Adrian storms, its +rough woof has a kind of noble dimness upon it, and its colors seem as +grave, inherent, and free from vanity as the spots of the leopard, or +veins of the seashell. + + [K] I am not quite sure of this, not having studied with any care + the forms of mediaeval shipping; but in all the MSS. I have examined + the sails of the shipping represented are square. + + [L] It is not a little strange that in all the innumerable paintings + of Venice, old and modern, no notice whatever had been taken of + these sails, though they are _exactly_ the most striking features of + the marine scenery around the city, until Turner fastened upon them, + painting one important picture, "The Sun of Venice," entirely in + their illustration. + +Yet, in speaking of poets' love of boats, I ought to have limited the +love to _modern_ poets; Dante, in this respect, as in nearly every +other, being far in advance of his age. It is not often that I +congratulate myself upon the days in which I happen to live; but I do so +in this respect, that, compared with every other period of the world, +this nineteenth century (or rather, the period between 1750 and 1850) +may not improperly be called the Age of Boats; while the classic and +chivalric times, in which boats were partly dreaded, partly despised, +may respectively be characterized, with regard to their means of +locomotion, as the Age of Chariots, and the Age of Horses. + +For, whatever perfection and costliness there may be in the present +decorations, harnessing, and horsing of any English or Parisian wheel +equipage, I apprehend that we can from none of them form any high ideal +of wheel conveyance; and that unless we had seen an Egyptian king +bending his bow with his horses at the gallop, or a Greek knight leaning +with his poised lance over the shoulder of his charioteer, we have no +right to consider ourselves as thoroughly knowing what the word +"chariot," in its noblest acceptation, means. + +So, also, though much chivalry is yet left in us, and we English still +know several things about horses, I believe that if we had seen +Charlemagne and Roland ride out hunting from Aix, or Coeur de Lion trot +into camp on a sunny evening at Ascalon, or a Florentine lady canter +down the Val d'Arno in Dante's time, with her hawk on her wrist, we +should have had some other ideas even about horses than the best we can +have now. But most assuredly, nothing that ever swung at the quay sides +of Carthage, or glowed with crusaders' shields above the bays of Syria, +could give to any contemporary human creature such an idea of the +meaning of the word Boat, as may be now gained by any mortal happy +enough to behold as much as a Newcastle collier beating against the +wind. In the classical period, indeed, there was some importance given +to shipping as the means of locking a battle-field together on the +waves; but in the chivalric period, the whole mind of man is withdrawn +from the sea, regarding it merely as a treacherous impediment, over +which it was necessary sometimes to find conveyance, but from which the +thoughts were always turned impatiently, fixing themselves in green +fields, and pleasures that may be enjoyed by land--the very supremacy of +the horse necessitating the scorn of the sea, which would not be trodden +by hoofs. + +It is very interesting to note how repugnant every oceanic idea appears +to be to the whole nature of our principal English mediaeval poet, +Chaucer. Read first the Man of Lawe's Tale, in which the Lady Constance +is continually floated up and down the Mediterranean, and the German +Ocean, in a ship by herself; carried from Syria all the way to +Northumberland, and there wrecked upon the coast; thence yet again +driven up and down among the waves for five years, she and her child; +and yet, all this while, Chaucer does not let fall a single word +descriptive of the sea, or express any emotion whatever about it, or +about the ship. He simply tells us the lady sailed here and was wrecked +there; but neither he nor his audience appear to be capable of receiving +any sensation, but one of simple aversion, from waves, ships, or sands. +Compare with his absolutely apathetic recital, the description by a +modern poet of the sailing of a vessel, charged with the fate of another +Constance: + + "It curled not Tweed alone, that breeze-- + For far upon Northumbrian seas + It freshly blew, and strong; + Where from high Whitby's cloistered pile, + Bound to St. Cuthbert's holy isle, + It bore a bark along. + Upon the gale she stooped her side, + And bounded o'er the swelling tide + As she were dancing home. + The merry seamen laughed to see + Their gallant ship so lustily + Furrow the green sea foam." + +Now just as Scott enjoys this sea breeze, so does Chaucer the soft air +of the woods; the moment the older poet lands, he is himself again, his +poverty of language in speaking of the ship is not because he despises +description, but because he has nothing to describe. Hear him upon the +ground in Spring: + + "These woodes else recoveren greene, + That drie in winter ben to sene, + And the erth waxeth proud withall, + For sweet dewes that on it fall, + And the poore estate forget, + In which that winter had it set: + And then becomes the ground so proude, + That it wol have a newe shroude, + And maketh so queint his robe and faire, + That it had hewes an hundred paire, + Of grasse and floures, of Inde and Pers, + And many hewes full divers: + That is the robe I mean ywis + Through which the ground to praisen is." + +In like manner, wherever throughout his poems we find Chaucer +enthusiastic, it is on a sunny day in the "good green-wood," but the +slightest approach to the sea-shore makes him shiver; and his antipathy +finds at last positive expression, and becomes the principal foundation +of the Frankeleine's Tale, in which a lady, waiting for her husband's +return in a castle by the sea, behaves and expresses herself as +follows:-- + + "Another time wold she sit and thinke, + And cast her eyen dounward fro the brinke; + But whan she saw the grisly rockes blake, + For veray fere so wold hire herte quake + That on hire feet she might hire not sustene + Than wold she sit adoun upon the grene, + And pitously into the see behold, + And say right thus, with careful sighes cold. + 'Eterne God, that thurgh thy purveance + Ledest this world by certain governance, + In idel, as men sain, ye nothing make. + _But, lord, thise grisly fendly rockes blake, + That semen rather a foule confusion + Of werk, than any faire creation_ + Of swiche a parfit wise God and stable, + Why han ye wrought this werk unresonable?'" + +The desire to have the rocks out of her way is indeed severely punished +in the sequel of the tale; but it is not the less characteristic of the +age, and well worth meditating upon, in comparison with the feelings of +an unsophisticated modern French or English girl among the black rocks +of Dieppe or Ramsgate. + +On the other hand, much might be said about that peculiar love of _green +fields and birds_ in the Middle Ages; and of all with which it is +connected, purity and health in manners and heart, as opposed to the +too frequent condition of the modern mind-- + + "As for the birds in the thicket, + Thrush or ousel in leafy niche, + Linnet or finch--she was far too rich + To care for a morning concert to which + She was welcome, without a ticket."[M] + + [M] Thomas Hood. + +But this would lead us far afield, and the main fact I have to point out +to the reader is the transition of human grace and strength from the +exercises of the land to those of the sea in the course of the last +three centuries. + +Down to Elizabeth's time chivalry lasted; and grace of dress and mien, +and all else that was connected with chivalry. Then came the ages which, +when they have taken their due place in the depths of the past, will be, +by a wise and clear-sighted futurity, perhaps well comprehended under a +common name, as the ages of Starch; periods of general stiffening and +bluish-whitening, with a prevailing washerwoman's taste in everything; +involving a change of steel armor into cambric; of natural hair into +peruke; of natural walking into that which will disarrange no +wristbands; of plain language into quips and embroideries; and of human +life in general, from a green race-course, where to be defeated was at +worst only to fall behind and recover breath, into a slippery pole, to +be climbed with toil and contortion, and in clinging to which, each +man's foot is on his neighbor's head. + +But, meanwhile, the marine deities were incorruptible. It was not +possible to starch the sea; and precisely as the stiffness fastened upon +men, it vanished from ships. What had once been a mere raft, with rows +of formal benches, pushed along by laborious flap of oars, and with +infinite fluttering of flags and swelling of poops above, gradually +began to lean more heavily into the deep water, to sustain a gloomy +weight of guns, to draw back its spider-like feebleness of limb, and +open its bosom to the wind, and finally darkened down from all its +painted vanities into the long, low hull, familiar with the overflying +foam; that has no other pride but in its daily duty and victory; while, +through all these changes, it gained continually in grace, strength, +audacity, and beauty, until at last it has reached such a pitch of all +these, that there is not, except the very loveliest creatures of the +living world, anything in nature so absolutely notable, bewitching, and, +according to its means and measure, heart-occupying, as a well-handled +ship under sail in a stormy day. Any ship, from lowest to proudest, has +due place in that architecture of the sea; beautiful, not so much in +this or that piece of it, as in the unity of all, from cottage to +cathedral, into their great buoyant dynasty. Yet, among them, the +fisher-boat, corresponding to the cottage on the land (only far more +sublime than a cottage ever can be), is on the whole the thing most +venerable. I doubt if ever academic grove were half so fit for +profitable meditation as the little strip of shingle between two black, +steep, overhanging sides of stranded fishing-boats. The clear, heavy +water-edge of ocean rising and falling close to their bows, in that +unaccountable way which the sea has always in calm weather, turning the +pebbles over and over as if with a rake, to look for something, and then +stopping a moment down at the bottom of the bank, and coming up again +with a little run and clash, throwing a foot's depth of salt crystal in +an instant between you and the round stone you were going to take in +your hand; sighing, all the while, as if it would infinitely rather be +doing something else. And the dark flanks of the fishing-boats all +aslope above, in their shining quietness, hot in the morning sun, rusty +and seamed with square patches of plank nailed over their rents; just +rough enough to let the little flat-footed fisher-children haul or twist +themselves up to the gunwales, and drop back again along some stray +rope; just round enough to remind us, in their broad and gradual curves, +of the sweep of the green surges they know so well, and of the hours +when those old sides of seared timber, all ashine with the sea, plunge +and dip into the deep green purity of the mounded waves more joyfully +than a deer lies down among the grass of spring, the soft white cloud of +foam opening momentarily at the bows, and fading or flying high into the +breeze where the sea-gulls toss and shriek,--the joy and beauty of it, +all the while, so mingled with the sense of unfathomable danger, and the +human effort and sorrow going on perpetually from age to age, waves +rolling forever, and winds moaning forever, and faithful hearts trusting +and sickening forever, and brave lives dashed away about the rattling +beach like weeds forever; and still at the helm of every lonely boat, +through starless night and hopeless dawn, His hand, who spread the +fisher's net over the dust of the Sidonian palaces, and gave into the +fisher's hand the keys of the kingdom of heaven. + +Next after the fishing-boat--which, as I said, in the architecture of +the sea represents the cottage, more especially the pastoral or +agricultural cottage, watchful over some pathless domain of moorland or +arable, as the fishing-boat swims, humbly in the midst of the broad +green fields and hills of ocean, out of which it has to win such fruit +as they can give, and to compass with net or drag such flocks as it may +find,--next to this ocean-cottage ranks in interest, it seems to me, the +small, over-wrought, under-crewed, ill-caulked merchant brig or +schooner; the kind of ship which first shows its couple of thin masts +over the low fields or marshes as we near any third-rate sea-port; and +which is sure somewhere to stud the great space of glittering water, +seen from any sea-cliff, with its four or five square-set sails. Of the +larger and more polite tribes of merchant vessels, three-masted, and +passenger-carrying, I have nothing to say, feeling in general little +sympathy with people who want to _go_ anywhere; nor caring much about +anything, which in the essence of it expresses a desire to get to other +sides of the world; but only for homely and stay-at-home ships, that +live their life and die their death about English rocks. Neither have I +any interest in the higher branches of commerce, such as traffic with +spice islands, and porterage of painted tea-chests or carved ivory; for +all this seems to me to fall under the head of commerce of the +drawing-room; costly, but not venerable. I respect in the merchant +service only those ships that carry coals, herrings, salt, timber, iron, +and such other commodities, and that have disagreeable odor, and +unwashed decks. But there are few things more impressive to me than one +of these ships lying up against some lonely quay in a black sea-fog, +with the furrow traced under its tawny keel far in the harbor slime. The +noble misery that there is in it, the might of its rent and strained +unseemliness, its wave-worn melancholy, resting there for a little while +in the comfortless ebb, unpitied, and claiming no pity; still less +honored, least of all conscious of any claim to honor; casting and +craning by due balance whatever is in its hold up to the pier, in quiet +truth of time; spinning of wheel, and slackening of rope, and swinging +of spade, in as accurate cadence as a waltz music; one or two of its +crew, perhaps, away forward, and a hungry boy and yelping dog eagerly +interested in something from which a blue dull smoke rises out of pot or +pan; but dark-browed and silent, their limbs slack, like the ropes above +them, entangled as they are in those inextricable meshes about the +patched knots and heaps of ill-reefed sable sail. What a majestic sense +of service in all that languor! the rest of human limbs and hearts, at +utter need, not in sweet meadows or soft air, but in harbor slime and +biting fog; so drawing their breath once more, to go out again, without +lament, from between the two skeletons of pier-heads, vocal with wash of +under wave, into the gray troughs of tumbling brine; there, as they can, +with slacked rope, and patched sail, and leaky hull, again to roll and +stagger far away amidst the wind and salt sleet, from dawn to dusk and +dusk to dawn, winning day by day their daily bread; and for last reward, +when their old hands, on some winter night, lose feeling along the +frozen ropes, and their old eyes miss mark of the lighthouse quenched in +foam, the so-long impossible Rest, that shall hunger no more, neither +thirst any more,--their eyes and mouths filled with the brown sea-sand. + +After these most venerable, to my mind, of all ships, properly so +styled, I find nothing of comparable interest in any floating fabric +until we come to the great achievement of the 19th century. For one +thing this century will in after ages be considered to have done in a +superb manner, and one thing, I think, only. It has not distinguished +itself in political spheres; still less in artistical. It has produced +no golden age by its Reason; neither does it appear eminent for the +constancy of its Faith. Its telescopes and telegraphs would be +creditable to it, if it had not in their pursuit forgotten in great part +how to see clearly with its eyes, and to talk honestly with its tongue. +Its natural history might have been creditable to it also, if it could +have conquered its habit of considering natural history to be mainly the +art of writing Latin names on white tickets. But, as it is, none of +these things will be hereafter considered to have been got on with by us +as well as might be; whereas it will always be said of us, with unabated +reverence, + +"THEY BUILT SHIPS OF THE LINE." + +Take it all in all, a Ship of the Line is the most honorable thing that +man, as a gregarious animal, has ever produced. By himself, unhelped, he +can do better things than ships of the line; he can make poems and +pictures, and other such concentrations of what is best in him. But as a +being living in flocks, and hammering out, with alternate strokes and +mutual agreement, what is necessary for him in those flocks, to get or +produce, the ship of the line is his first work. Into that he has put as +much of his human patience, common sense, forethought, experimental +philosophy, self-control, habits of order and obedience, thoroughly +wrought handwork, defiance of brute elements, careless courage, careful +patriotism, and calm expectation of the judgment of God, as can well be +put into a space of 300 feet long by 80 broad. And I am thankful to have +lived in an age when I could see this thing so done. + +Considering, then, our shipping, under the three principal types of +fishing-boat, collier, and ship of the line, as the great glory of this +age; and the "New Forest" of mast and yard that follows the windings of +the Thames, to be, take it all in all, a more majestic scene, I don't +say merely than any of our streets or palaces as they now are, but even +than the best that streets and palaces can generally be; it has often +been a matter of serious thought to me how far this chiefly substantial +thing done by the nation ought to be represented by the art of the +nation; how far our great artists ought seriously to devote themselves +to such perfect painting of our ships as should reveal to later +generations--lost perhaps in clouds of steam and floating troughs of +ashes--the aspect of an ancient ship of battle under sail. + +To which, I fear, the answer must be sternly this: That no great art +ever was, or can be, employed in the careful imitation of the work of +man as its principal subject. That is to say, art will not bear to be +reduplicated. A ship is a noble thing, and a cathedral a noble thing, +but a painted ship or a painted cathedral is not a noble thing. Art +which reduplicates art is necessarily second-rate art. I know no +principle more irrefragably authoritative than that which I had long ago +occasion to express: "All noble art is the expression of man's delight +in God's work; not in his own." + +"How!" it will be asked, "Are Stanfield, Isabey, and Prout necessarily +artists of the second order because they paint ships and buildings +instead of trees and clouds?" Yes, necessarily of the second order; so +far as they paint ships rather than sea, and so far as they paint +buildings rather than the natural light, and color, and work of years +upon those buildings. For, in this respect, a ruined building is a noble +subject, just as far as man's work has therein been subdued by nature's; +and Stanfield's chief dignity is his being a painter less of shipping +than of the seal of time or decay upon shipping.[N] For a wrecked ship, +or shattered boat, is a noble subject, while a ship in full sail, or a +perfect boat, is an ignoble one; not merely because the one is by +reason of its ruin more picturesque than the other, but because it is a +nobler act in man to meditate upon Fate as it conquers his work, than +upon that work itself. + + [N] As in the very beautiful picture of this year's Academy, "The + Abandoned." + +Shipping, therefore, in its perfection, never can become the subject of +noble art; and that just because to represent it in its perfection would +tax the powers of art to the utmost. If a great painter could rest in +drawing a ship, as he can rest in drawing a piece of drapery, we might +sometimes see vessels introduced by the noblest workmen, and treated by +them with as much delight as they would show in scattering luster over +an embroidered dress, or knitting the links of a coat of mail. But ships +cannot be drawn at times of rest. More complicated in their anatomy than +the human frame itself, so far as that frame is outwardly discernible; +liable to all kinds of strange accidental variety in position and +movement, yet in each position subject to imperative laws which can only +be followed by unerring knowledge; and involving, in the roundings and +foldings of sail and hull, delicacies of drawing greater than exist in +any other inorganic object, except perhaps a snow wreath,[O]--they +present, irrespective of sea or sky, or anything else around them, +difficulties which could only be vanquished by draughtsmanship quite +accomplished enough to render even the subtlest lines of the human face +and form. But the artist who has once attained such skill as this will +not devote it to the drawing of ships. He who can paint the face of St. +Paul will not elaborate the parting timbers of the vessel in which he is +wrecked; and he who can represent the astonishment of the apostles at +the miraculous draught will not be solicitous about accurately showing +that their boat is overloaded. + + [O] The catenary and other curves of tension which a sail assumes + under the united influence of the wind, its own weight, and the + particular tensions of the various ropes by which it is attached, or + against which it presses, show at any moment complexities of + arrangement to which fidelity, except after the study of a lifetime, + is impossible. + +"What!" it will perhaps be replied, "have, then, ships never been +painted perfectly yet, even by the men who have devoted most attention +to them?" Assuredly not. A ship never yet has been painted at all, in +any other sense than men have been painted in "Landscapes with figures." +Things have been painted which have a general effect of ships, just as +things have been painted which have a general effect of shepherds or +banditti; but the best average ship-painting no more reaches the truth +of ships than the equestrian troops in one of Van der Meulen's +battle-pieces express the higher truths of humanity. + +[Illustration: FIG. 1.] + +Take a single instance. I do not know any work in which, on the whole, +there is a more unaffected love of ships for their own sake, and a +fresher feeling of sea breeze always blowing, than Stanfield's "Coast +Scenery." Now, let the reader take up that book, and look through all +the plates of it at the way in which the most important parts of a +ship's skeleton are drawn, those most wonderful junctions of mast with +mast, corresponding to the knee or hip in the human frame, technically +known as "Tops." Under its very simplest form, in one of those poor +collier brigs, which I have above endeavored to recommend to the readers +affection, the junction of the top-gallant-mast with the topmast, when +the sail is reefed, will present itself under no less complex and +mysterious form than this in Fig. 1, a horned knot of seven separate +pieces of timber, irrespective of the two masts and the yard; the whole +balanced and involved in an apparently inextricable web of chain and +rope, consisting of at least sixteen ropes about the top-gallant-mast, +and some twenty-five crossing each other in every imaginable degree of +slackness and slope about the topmast. Two-thirds of these ropes are +omitted in the cut, because I could not draw them without taking more +time and pains than the point to be illustrated was worth; the thing, as +it is, being drawn quite well enough to give some idea of the facts of +it. Well, take up Stanfield's "Coast Scenery," and look through it in +search of tops, and you will invariably find them represented as in Fig. +2, or even with fewer lines; the example Fig. 2 being one of the tops of +the frigate running into Portsmouth harbor, magnified to about twice its +size in the plate. + +[Illustration: FIG. 2.] + +"Well, but it was impossible to do more on so small a scale." By no +means: but take what scale you choose, of Stanfield's or any other +marine painter's most elaborate painting, and let me magnify the study +of the real top in proportion, and the deficiency of detail will always +be found equally great: I mean in the work of the higher artists, for +there are of course many efforts at greater accuracy of delineation by +those painters of ships who are to the higher marine painter what +botanical draughtsmen are to the landscapists; but just as in the +botanical engraving the spirit and life of the plant are always lost, so +in the technical ship-painting the life of the ship is always lost, +without, as far as I can see, attaining, even by this sacrifice, +anything like completeness of mechanical delineation. At least, I never +saw the ship drawn yet which gave me the slightest idea of the +entanglement of real rigging. + +Respecting this lower kind of ship-painting, it is always matter of +wonder to me that it satisfies sailors. Some years ago I happened +to stand longer than pleased my pensioner guide before Turner's +"Battle of Trafalgar," at Greenwich Hospital; a picture which, at +a moderate estimate, is simply worth all the rest of the +hospital--ground--walls--pictures and models put together. My guide, +supposing me to be detained by indignant wonder at seeing it in so good +a place, assented to my supposed, sentiments by muttering in a low +voice: "Well, sir, it _is_ a shame that that thing should be there. We +ought to 'a 'ad a Uggins; that's sartain." I was not surprised that my +sailor friend should be disgusted at seeing the _Victory_ lifted nearly +right out of the water, and all the sails of the fleet blowing about to +that extent that the crews might as well have tried to reef as many +thunder-clouds. But I was surprised at his perfect repose of respectful +faith in "Uggins," who appeared to me--unfortunate landsman as I was--to +give no more idea of the look of a ship of the line going through the +sea, than might be obtained from seeing one of the correct models at the +top of the hall floated in a fishpond. + +Leaving, however, the sailor to his enjoyment, on such grounds as it may +be, of this model drawing, and being prepared to find only a vague and +hasty shadowing forth of shipping in the works of artists proper, we +will glance briefly at the different stages of excellence which such +shadowing forth has reached, and note in their consecutive changes the +feelings with which shipping has been regarded at different periods of +art. + +1. _Mediaeval Period._ The vessel is regarded merely as a sort of +sea-carriage, and painted only so far as it is necessary for complete +display of the groups of soldiers or saints on the deck: a great deal of +quaint shipping, richly hung with shields, and gorgeous with banners, +is, however, thus incidently represented in 15th-century manuscripts, +embedded in curly green waves of sea full of long fish; and although +there is never the slightest expression of real sea character, of +motion, gloom, or spray, there is more real interest of marine detail +and incident than in many later compositions. + +2. _Early Venetian Period._ A great deal of tolerably careful +boat-drawing occurs in the pictures of Carpaccio and Gentile Bellini, +deserving separate mention among the marine schools, in confirmation of +what has been stated above, that the drawing of boats is more difficult +than that of the human form. For, long after all the perspectives and +fore-shortenings of the human body were completely understood, as well +as those of architecture, it remained utterly beyond the power of the +artists of the time to draw a boat with even tolerable truth. Boats are +always tilted up on end, or too long, or too short, or too high in the +water. Generally they appear to be regarded with no interest whatever, +and are painted merely where they are matters of necessity. This is +perfectly natural: we pronounce that there is romance in the Venetian +conveyance by oars, merely because we ourselves are in the habit of +being dragged by horses. A Venetian, on the other hand, sees vulgarity +in a gondola, and thinks the only true romance is in a hackney coach. +And thus, it was no more likely that a painter in the days of Venetian +power should pay much attention to the shipping in the Grand Canal than +that an English artist should at present concentrate the brightest rays +of his genius on a cab-stand. + +3. _Late Venetian Period._ Deserving mention only for its notably +negative character. None of the great Venetian painters, Tintoret, +Titian, Veronese, Bellini, Giorgione, Bonifazio, ever introduce a ship +if they can help it. They delight in ponderous architecture, in grass, +flowers, blue mountains, skies, clouds, and gay dresses; nothing comes +amiss to them but ships and the sea. When they are forced to introduce +these, they represent merely a dark-green plain, with reddish galleys +spotted about it here and there, looking much like small models of +shipping pinned on a green board. In their marine battles, there is +seldom anything discernible except long rows of scarlet oars, and men in +armor falling helplessly through them. + +4. _Late Roman Period._ That is to say, the time of the beginning of the +Renaissance landscape by the Caracci, Claude, and Salvator. First, in +their landscapes, shipping begins to assume something like independent +character, and to be introduced for the sake of its picturesque +interest; although what interest could be taken by any healthy human +creature in such vessels as were then painted has always remained a +mystery to me. The ships of Claude, having hulls of a shape something +between a cocoa-nut and a high-heeled shoe, balanced on their keels on +the top of the water, with some scaffolding and cross-sticks above, and +a flag at the top of every stick, form perhaps the _purest_ exhibition +of human inanity and fatuity which the arts have yet produced. The +harbors also, in which these model navies ride, are worthy of all +observation for the intensity of the false taste which, endeavoring to +unite in them the characters of pleasure-ground and port, destroys the +veracity of both. There are many inlets of the Italian seas where sweet +gardens and regular terraces descend to the water's edge; but these are +not the spots where merchant vessels anchor, or where bales are +disembarked. On the other hand, there are many busy quays and noisy +arsenals upon the shores of Italy; but Queen's palaces are not built +upon the quays, nor are the docks in any wise adorned with +conservatories or ruins. It was reserved for the genius of Claude to +combine the luxurious with the lucrative, and rise to a commercial +ideal, in which cables are fastened to temple pillars, and lighthouses +adorned with rows of beaupots. It seems strange also that any power +which Salvator showed in the treatment of other subjects utterly deserts +him when he approaches the sea. Though always coarse, false, and vulgar, +he has at least energy, and some degree of invention, as long as he +remains on land; his terrestrial atrocities are animated, and his +rock-born fancies formidable. But the sea air seems to dim his sight and +paralyze his hand. His love of darkness and destruction, far from +seeking sympathy in the rage of ocean, disappears as he approaches the +beach; after having tortured the innocence of trees into demoniac +convulsions, and shattered the loveliness of purple hills into colorless +dislocation, he approaches the real wrath and restlessness of ocean +without either admiration or dismay, and appears to feel nothing at its +shore except a meager interest in bathers, fishermen, and gentlemen in +court dress bargaining for state cabins. Of all the pictures by men who +bear the reputation of great masters which I have ever seen in my life +(except only some by Domenichino), the two large "Marines" in the Pitti +Palace, attributed to Salvator, are, on the whole, the most vapid and +vile examples of human want of understanding. In the folly of Claude +there is still a gleam of grace and innocence; there is refreshment in +his childishness, and tenderness in his inability. But the folly of +Salvator is disgusting in its very nothingness: it is like the vacuity +of a plague-room in an hospital, shut up in uncleansed silence, emptied +of pain and motion, but not of infection. + +5. _Dutch Period._ Although in artistical qualities lower than is easily +by language expressible, the Italian marine painting usually conveys an +idea of three facts about the sea,--that it is green, that it is deep, +and that the sun shines on it. The dark plain which stands for far away +Adriatic with the Venetians, and the glinting swells of tamed wave +which lap about the quays of Claude, agree in giving the general +impression that the ocean consists of pure water, and is open to the +pure sky. But the Dutch painters, while they attain considerably greater +dexterity than the Italian in mere delineation of nautical incident, +were by nature precluded from ever becoming aware of these common facts; +and having, in reality, never in all their lives seen the sea, but only +a shallow mixture of sea-water and sand; and also never in all their +lives seen the sky, but only a lower element between them and it, +composed of marsh exhalation and fog-bank; they are not to be with too +great severity reproached for the dullness of their records of the +nautical enterprise of Holland. _We_ only are to be reproached, who, +familiar with the Atlantic, are yet ready to accept with faith, as types +of sea, the small waves _en papillote_, and peruke-like puffs of +farinaceous foam, which were the delight of Backhuysen and his compeers. +If one could but arrest the connoisseurs in the fact of looking at them +with belief, and, magically introducing the image of a true sea-wave, +let it roll up to them through the room,--one massive fathom's height +and rood's breadth of brine, passing them by but once,--dividing, Red +Sea-like, on right hand and left,--but at least setting close before +their eyes, for once in inevitable truth, what a sea-wave really is; its +green mountainous giddiness of wrath, its overwhelming crest--heavy as +iron, fitful as flame, clashing against the sky in long cloven +edge,--its furrowed flanks, all ghastly clear, deep in transparent +death, but all laced across with lurid nets of spume, and tearing open +into meshed interstices their churned veil of silver fury, showing still +the calm gray abyss below; that has no fury and no voice, but is as a +grave always open, which the green sighing mounds do but hide for an +instant as they pass. Would they, shuddering back from this wave of the +true, implacable sea, turn forthwith to the papillotes? It might be so. +It is what we are all doing, more or less, continually. + +Well, let the waves go their way; it is not of them that we have here +to reason; but be it remembered, that men who cannot enter into the Mind +of the Sea, cannot for the same reason enter into the Mind of Ships, in +their contention with it; and the fluttering, tottering, high-pooped, +flag-beset fleets of these Dutch painters have only this much +superiority over the caricatures of the Italians, that they indeed +appear in some degree to have been studied from the high-pooped and +flag-beset nature which was in that age visible, while the Claude and +Salvator ships are ideals of the studio. But the effort is wholly +unsuccessful. Any one who has ever attempted to sketch a vessel in +motion knows that he might as easily attempt to sketch a bird on the +wing, or a trout on the dart. Ships can only be drawn, as animals must +be, by the high instinct of momentary perception, which rarely developed +itself in any Dutch painter, and least of all in their painters of +marine. And thus the awkward forms of shipping, the shallow impurity of +the sea, and the cold incapacity of the painter, joining in +disadvantageous influence over them, the Dutch marine paintings may be +simply, but circumstantially, described as the misrepresentation of +undeveloped shipping in a discolored sea by distempered painters. An +exception ought to be made in favor of the boats of Cuyp, which are +generally well floated in calm and sunny water; and, though rather punts +or tubs than boats, have in them some elements of a slow, warm, +square-sailed, sleepy grandeur--respectable always, when compared either +with the flickering follies of Backhuysen, or the monstrous, unmanly, +and _a fortiori_, unsailorly absurdities of metaphysical vessels, puffed +on their way by corpulent genii, or pushed by protuberant dolphins, +which Rubens and the other so-called historical painters of his time +were accustomed to introduce in the mythology of their court-adulation; +that marvelous Faith of the 18th century, which will one day, and that +not far off, be known for a thing more truly disgraceful to human nature +than the Polynesian's dance round his feather idol, or Egyptian's +worship of the food he fattened on. From Salvator and Domenichino it is +possible to turn in a proud indignation, knowing that theirs are no +fair examples of the human mind; but it is with humbled and woful anger +that we must trace the degradation of the intellect of Rubens in his +pictures of the life of Mary of Medicis.[P] + + [P] "The town of Lyons, seated upon a chariot drawn by two lions, + _lifts its eyes towards heaven_, and admires there--'les nouveaux + Epoux,'--represented in the character of Jupiter and Juno."--_Notice + des Tableaux du Musee Imperial_, 2nde partie, Paris, 1854, p. 235. + + "The Queen upon her throne holds with one hand the scepter, in the + other the balance. Minerva and Cupid are at her sides. Abundance and + Prosperity distribute metals, laurels, 'et d'autres recompenses,' to + the Genii of the Fine Arts. Time, crowned with the productions of + the seasons, leads France to the--Age of Gold!"--p. 239. + + So thought the Queen, and Rubens, and the Court. Time himself, + "crowned with the productions of the seasons," was, meanwhile, as + Thomas Carlyle would have told us, "quite of another opinion." + + With view of arrival at Golden Age all the sooner, the Court + determine to go by water; "and Marie de Medicis gives to her son the + government of the state, under the emblem of a vessel, of which he + holds the rudder." + + This piece of royal pilotage, being on the whole the most + characteristic example I remember of the Mythological marine above + alluded to, is accordingly recommended to the reader's serious + attention. + +6. _Modern Period._ The gradual appreciation of the true character both +of shipping and the ocean, in the works of the painters of the last half +century, is part of that successful study of other elements of +landscape, of which I have long labored at a consistent investigation, +now partly laid before the public; I shall not, therefore, here enter +into any general inquiry respecting modern sea-painting, but limit +myself to a notice of the particular feelings which influenced Turner in +his marine studies, so far as they are shown in the series of plates +which have now been trusted to me for illustration. + +Among the earliest sketches from nature which Turner appears to have +made, in pencil and Indian ink, when a boy of twelve or fourteen, it is +very singular how large a proportion consists of careful studies of +stranded boats. Now, after some fifteen years of conscientious labor, +with the single view of acquiring knowledge of the ends and powers of +art, I have come to one conclusion, which at the beginning of those +fifteen years would have been very astonishing to myself--that, of all +our modern school of landscape painters, next to Turner, and before the +rise of the Pre-Raphaelites, the man whose works are on the whole most +valuable, and show the highest intellect, is Samuel Prout. It is very +notable that also in Prout's early studies, shipping subjects took not +merely a prominent, but I think even a principal, place. + +The reason of this is very evident: both Turner and Prout had in them an +untaught, inherent perception of what was great and pictorial. They +could not find it in the buildings or in the scenes immediately around +them. But they saw some element of real power in the boats. Prout +afterwards found material suited to his genius in other directions, and +left his first love; but Turner retained the early affection to the +close of his life, and the last oil picture which he painted, before his +noble hand forgot its cunning, was the Wreck-buoy. The last thoroughly +perfect picture he ever painted, was the Old Temeraire. + +The studies which he was able to make from nature in his early years, +are chiefly of fishing-boats, barges, and other minor marine still life; +and his better acquaintance with this kind of shipping than with the +larger kind is very marked in the Liber Studiorum, in which there are +five careful studies of fishing-boats under various circumstances; +namely, Calais Harbor, Sir John Mildmay's Picture, Flint Castle, Marine +Dabblers, and the Calm; while of other shipping, there are only two +subjects, both exceedingly unsatisfactory. + +Turner, however, deemed it necessary to his reputation at that period +that he should paint pictures in the style of Vandevelde; and, in order +to render the resemblance more complete, he appears to have made careful +drawings of the different parts of old Dutch shipping. I found a large +number of such drawings among the contents of his neglected portfolios +at his death; some were clearly not by his own hand, others appeared to +be transcripts by him from prints or earlier drawings; the quantity +altogether was very great, and the evidence of his prolonged attention +to the subject more distinct than with respect to any other element of +landscape. Of plants, rocks, or architecture, there were very few +careful pieces of anatomical study. But several drawers were entirely +filled with these memoranda of shipping. + +In executing the series of drawings for the work known as the Southern +Coast, Turner appears to have gained many ideas about shipping, which, +once received, he laid up by him for use in after years. The evidence of +this laying by of thought in his mind, as it were in reserve, until he +had power to express it, is curious and complete throughout his life; +and although the Southern Coast drawings are for the most part quiet in +feeling, and remarkably simple in their mode of execution, I believe it +was in the watch over the Cornish and Dorsetshire coast, which the +making of those drawings involved, that he received all his noblest +ideas about sea and ships. + +Of one thing I am certain; Turner never drew anything that could be +_seen_, without having seen it. That is to say, though he would draw +Jerusalem from some one else's sketch, it would be, nevertheless, +entirely from his own experience of ruined walls: and though he would +draw ancient shipping (for an imitation of Vandevelde, or a vignette to +the voyage of Columbus) from such data as he could get about things +which he could no more see with his own eyes, yet when, of his own free +will, in the subject of Ilfracombe, he, in the year 1818, introduces a +shipwreck, I am perfectly certain that, before the year 1818, he had +_seen_ a shipwreck, and, moreover, one of that horrible kind--a ship +dashed to pieces in deep water, at the foot of an inaccessible cliff. +Having once seen this, I perceive, also, that the image of it could not +be effaced from his mind. It taught him two great facts, which he never +afterwards forgot; namely, that both ships and sea were things that +broke to pieces. _He never afterwards painted a ship quite in fair +order._ There is invariably a feeling about his vessels of strange awe +and danger; the sails are in some way loosening, or flapping as if in +fear; the swing of the hull, majestic as it may be, seems more at the +mercy of the sea than in triumph over it; the ship never looks gay, +never proud, only warlike and enduring. The motto he chose, in the +Catalogue of the Academy, for the most cheerful marine he ever painted, +the Sun of Venice going to Sea, marked the uppermost feeling in his +mind: + + "Nor heeds the Demon that in grim repose + Expects his evening prey." + +I notice above the subject of his last marine picture, the Wreck-buoy, +and I am well persuaded that from that year 1818, when first he saw a +ship rent asunder, he never beheld one at sea, without, in his mind's +eye, at the same instant, seeing her skeleton. + +But he had seen more than the death of the ship. He had seen the sea +feed her white flames on souls of men; and heard what a storm-gust +sounded like, that had taken up with it, in its swirl of a moment, the +last breaths of a ship's crew. He never forgot either the sight or the +sound. Among the last plates prepared by his own hand for the Liber +Studiorum, (all of them, as was likely from his advanced knowledge, +finer than any previous pieces of the series, and most of them +unfortunately never published, being retained beside him for some last +touch--forever delayed,) perhaps the most important is one of the body +of a drowned sailor, dashed against a vertical rock in the jaws of one +merciless, immeasurable wave. He repeated the same idea, though more +feebly expressed, later in life, in a small drawing of Grandville, on +the coast of France. The sailor clinging to the boat in the marvelous +drawing of Dunbar is another reminiscence of the same kind. He hardly +ever painted a steep rocky coast without some fragment of a devoured +ship, grinding in the blanched teeth of the surges,--just enough left to +be a token of utter destruction. Of his two most important paintings of +definite shipwreck I shall speak presently. + +I said that at this period he first was assured of another fact, +namely, that the _Sea_ also was a thing that broke to pieces. The sea up +to that time had been generally regarded by painters as a liquidly +composed, level-seeking consistent thing, with a smooth surface, rising +to a water-mark on sides of ships; in which ships were scientifically to +be embedded, and wetted, up to said water-mark, and to remain dry above +the same. But Turner found during his Southern Coast tour that the sea +was _not_ this: that it was, on the contrary, a very incalculable and +unhorizontal thing, setting its "water mark" sometimes on the highest +heavens, as well as on sides of ships;--very breakable into pieces; half +of a wave separable from the other half, and on the instant carriageable +miles inland;--not in any wise limiting itself to a state of apparent +liquidity, but now striking like a steel gauntlet, and now becoming a +cloud, and vanishing, no eye could tell whither; one moment a flint +cave, the next a marble pillar, the next a mere white fleece thickening +the thundery rain. He never forgot those facts; never afterwards was +able to recover the idea of positive distinction between sea and sky, or +sea and land. Steel gauntlet, black rock, white cloud, and men and masts +gnashed to pieces and disappearing in a few breaths and splinters among +them;--a little blood on the rock angle, like red sea-weed, sponged away +by the next splash of the foam, and the glistering granite and green +water all pure again in vacant wrath. So stayed by him, forever, the +Image of the Sea. + +One effect of this revelation of the nature of ocean to him was not a +little singular. It seemed that ever afterwards his appreciation of the +calmness of water was deepened by what he had witnessed of its frenzy, +and a certain class of entirely tame subjects were treated by him even +with increased affection after he had seen the full manifestation of +sublimity. He had always a great regard for canal boats, and instead of +sacrificing these old, and one would have thought unentertaining, +friends to the deities of Storm, he seems to have returned with a +lulling pleasure from the foam and danger of the beach to the sedgy bank +and stealthy barge of the lowland river. Thenceforward his work which +introduces shipping is divided into two classes; one embodying the +poetry of silence and calmness, the other of turbulence and wrath. Of +intermediate conditions he gives few examples; if he lets the wind down +upon the sea at all, it is nearly always violent, and though the waves +may not be running high, the foam is torn off them in a way which shows +they will soon run higher. On the other hand, nothing is so perfectly +calm as Turner's calmness. To the canal barges of England he soon added +other types of languid motion; the broad-ruddered barks of the Loire, +the drooping sails of Seine, the arcaded barks of the Italian lakes +slumbering on expanse of mountain-guarded wave, the dreamy prows of +pausing gondolas on lagoons at moon-rise; in each and all commanding an +intensity of calm, chiefly because he never admitted an instant's +rigidity. The surface of quiet water with other painters becomes FIXED. +With Turner it looks as if a fairy's breath would stir it, but the +fairy's breath is not there. So also his boats are intensely motionless, +because intensely capable of motion. No other painter ever floated a +boat quite rightly; all other boats stand on the water, or are fastened +in it; only his _float_ in it. It is very difficult to trace the reasons +of this, for the rightness of the placing on the water depends on such +subtle curves and shadows in the floating object and its reflection, +that in most cases the question of entirely right or entirely wrong +resolves itself into the "estimation of an hair": and what makes the +matter more difficult still, is, that sometimes we may see a boat drawn +with the most studied correctness in every part, which yet will not +swim; and sometimes we may find one drawn with many easily ascertainable +errors, which yet swims well enough; so that the drawing of boats is +something like the building of them, one may set off their lines by the +most authentic rules, and yet never be sure they will sail well. It is, +however, to be observed that Turner seemed, in those southern coast +storms, to have been somewhat too strongly impressed by the +disappearance of smaller crafts in surf, and was wont afterwards to give +an uncomfortable aspect even to his gentlest seas, by burying his boats +too deeply. When he erred, in this or other matters, it was not from +want of pains, for of all accessories to landscape, ships were +throughout his life those which he studied with the greatest care. His +figures, whatever their merit or demerit, are certainly never the +beloved part of his work; and though the architecture was in his early +drawings careful, and continued to be so down to the Hakewell's Italy +series, it soon became mannered and false whenever it was principal. He +would indeed draw a ruined tower, or a distant town, incomparably better +than any one else, and a staircase or a bit of balustrade very +carefully; but his temples and cathedrals showed great ignorance of +detail, and want of understanding of their character. But I am aware of +no painting from the beginning of his life to its close, containing +_modern_ shipping as its principal subject, in which he did not put +forth his full strength, and pour out his knowledge of detail with a joy +which renders those works, as a series, among the most valuable he ever +produced. Take for instance: + + 1. Lord Yarborough's Shipwreck. + 2. The Trafalgar, at Greenwich Hospital. + 3. The Trafalgar, in his own gallery. + 4. The Pas de Calais. + 5. The Large Cologne. + 6. The Havre. + 7. The Old Temeraire. + +I know no fourteen pictures by Turner for which these seven might be +wisely changed; and in all of these the shipping is thoroughly +principal, and studied from existing ships. A large number of inferior +works were, however, also produced by him in imitation of Vandevelde, +representing old Dutch shipping; in these the shipping is scattered, +scudding and distant, the sea gray and lightly broken. Such pictures +are, generally speaking, among those of least value which he has +produced. Two very important ones, however, belong to the imitative +school: Lord Ellesmere's, founded on Vandevelde; and the Dort, at +Farnley, on Cuyp. The latter, as founded on the better master, is the +better picture, but still possesses few of the true Turner qualities, +except his peculiar calmness, in which respect it is unrivaled; and if +joined with Lord Yarborough's Shipwreck, the two may be considered as +the principal symbols, in Turner's early oil paintings, of his two +strengths in Terror and Repose. Among his drawings, shipping, as the +principal subject, does not always constitute a work of the first class; +nor does it so often occur. For the difficulty, in a drawing, of getting +good color is so much less, and that of getting good form so much +greater, than in oil, that Turner naturally threw his elaborate studies +of ship form into oil, and made his noblest work in drawing rich in hues +of landscape. Yet the Cowes, Devonport, and Gosport, from the England +and Wales (the Saltash is an inferior work), united with two drawings of +this series, Portsmouth and Sheerness, and two from Farnley, one of the +wreck of an Indiaman, and the other of a ship of the line taking stores, +would form a series, not indeed as attractive at first sight as many +others, but embracing perhaps more of Turner's peculiar, unexampled, and +unapproachable gifts than any other group of drawings which could be +selected, the choice being confined to one class of subject. + +I have only to state, in conclusion, that these twelve drawings of the +Harbors of England are more representable by engraving than most of his +works. Few parts of them are brilliant in color; they were executed +chiefly in brown and blue, and with more direct reference to the future +engraving than was common with Turner. They are also small in size, +generally of the exact dimensions of the plate, and therefore the lines +of the compositions are not spoiled by contraction; while finally, the +touch of the painter's hand upon the wave-surface is far better imitated +by mezzotint engraving than by any of the ordinary expedients of line. +Take them all in all, they form the most valuable series of marine +studies which have as yet been published from his works; and I hope +that they may be of some use hereafter in recalling the ordinary aspect +of our English seas, at the exact period when the nation had done its +utmost in the wooden and woven strength of ships, and had most perfectly +fulfilled the old and noble prophecy-- + + "They shall ride + Over ocean wide, + With hempen bridle, and horse of tree." + _Thomas of Ercildoune._ + + + + +I.--DOVER. + +[Illustration: DOVER.] + + +This port has some right to take precedence of others, as being that +assuredly which first exercises the hospitality of England to the +majority of strangers who set foot on her shores. I place it first +therefore among our present subjects; though the drawing itself, and +chiefly on account of its manifestation of Turner's faulty habit of +local exaggeration, deserves no such pre-eminence. He always painted, +not the place itself, but his impression of it, and this on steady +principle; leaving to inferior artists the task of topographical detail; +and he was right in this principle, as I have shown elsewhere, when the +impression was a genuine one; but in the present case it is not so. He +has lost the real character of Dover Cliffs by making the town at their +feet three times lower in proportionate height than it really is; nor is +he to be justified in giving the barracks, which appear on the left +hand, more the air of a hospice on the top of an Alpine precipice, than +of an establishment which, out of Snargate street, can be reached, +without drawing breath, by a winding stair of some 170 steps; making the +slope beside them more like the side of Skiddaw than what it really is, +the earthwork of an unimportant battery. + +This design is also remarkable as an instance of that restlessness which +was above noticed even in Turner's least stormy seas. There is nothing +tremendous here in scale of wave, but the whole surface is fretted and +disquieted by torturing wind; an effect which was always increased +during the progress of the subjects, by Turner's habit of scratching out +small sparkling lights, in order to make the plate "bright," or +"lively."[Q] In a general way the engravers used to like this, and, +as far as they were able, would tempt Turner farther into the practice, +which was precisely equivalent to that of supplying the place of healthy +and heart-whole cheerfulness by dram-drinking. + + [Q] See the farther explanation of this practice in the notice of + the subject of "Portsmouth." + +The two sea-gulls in the front of the picture were additions of this +kind, and are very injurious, confusing the organization and concealing +the power of the sea. The merits of the drawing are, however, still +great as a piece of composition. The left-hand side is most interesting, +and characteristic of Turner: no other artist would have put the round +pier so exactly under the round cliff. It is under it so accurately, +that if the nearly vertical falling line of that cliff be continued, it +strikes the sea-base of the pier to a hair's breadth. But Turner knew +better than any man the value of echo, as well as of contrast,--of +repetition, as well as of opposition. The round pier repeats the line of +the main cliff, and then the sail repeats the diagonal shadow which +crosses it, and emerges above it just as the embankment does above the +cliff brow. Lower, come the opposing curves in the two boats, the whole +forming one group of sequent lines up the whole side of the picture. The +rest of the composition is more commonplace than is usual with the great +master; but there are beautiful transitions of light and shade between +the sails of the little fishing-boat, the brig behind her, and the +cliffs. Note how dexterously the two front sails[R] of the brig are +brought on the top of the white sail of the fishing-boat to help to +detach it from the white cliffs. + + [R] I think I shall be generally more intelligible by explaining + what I mean in this way, and run less chance of making myself + ridiculous in the eyes of sensible people, than by displaying the + very small nautical knowledge I possess. My sailor friends will + perhaps be gracious enough to believe that I _could_ call these + sails by their right names if I liked. + + + + +II.--RAMSGATE. + +[Illustration: RAMSGATE.] + + +This, though less attractive, at first sight, than the former plate, is +a better example of the master, and far truer and nobler as a piece of +thought. The lifting of the brig on the wave is very daring; just one of +the things which is seen in every gale, but which no other painter than +Turner ever represented; and the lurid transparency of the dark sky, and +wild expression of wind in the fluttering of the falling sails of the +vessel running into the harbor, are as fine as anything of the kind he +has done. There is great grace in the drawing of this latter vessel: +note the delicate switch forward of her upper mast. + +There is a very singular point connected with the composition of this +drawing, proving it (as from internal evidence was most likely) to be a +record of a thing actually seen. Three years before the date of this +engraving Turner had made a drawing of Ramsgate for the Southern Coast +series. That drawing represents the _same day_, the _same moment_, and +the _same ships_, from a different point of view. It supposes the +spectator placed in a boat some distance out at sea, beyond the +fishing-boats on the left in the present plate, and looking towards the +town, or into the harbor. The brig, which is near us here, is then, of +course, in the distance on the right; the schooner entering the harbor, +and, in both plates, lowering her fore-topsail, is, of course, seen +foreshortened; the fishing-boats only are a little different in position +and set of sail. The sky is precisely the same, only a dark piece of it, +which is too far to the right to be included in _this_ view, enters into +the wider distance of the other, and the town, of course, becomes a more +important object. + +The persistence in one conception furnishes evidence of the very +highest imaginative power. On a common mind, what it has seen is so +feebly impressed, that it mixes other ideas with it immediately; forgets +it--modifies it--adorns it,--does anything but keep _hold_ of it. But +when Turner had once seen that stormy hour at Ramsgate harbor-mouth, he +never quitted his grasp of it. He had _seen_ the two vessels; one go in, +the other out. He could have only seen them at that one moment--from one +point; but the impression on his imagination is so strong, that he is +able to handle it three years afterwards, as if it were a real thing, +and turn it round on the table of his brain, and look at it from the +other corner. He will see the brig near, instead of far off: set the +whole sea and sky so many points round to the south, and see how they +look, so. I never traced power of this kind in any other man. + + + + +III.--PLYMOUTH. + +[Illustration: PLYMOUTH.] + + +The drawing for this plate is one of Turner's most remarkable, though +not most meritorious, works: it contains the brightest rainbow he ever +painted, to my knowledge; not the best, but the most dazzling. It has +been much modified in the plate. It is very like one of Turner's pieces +of caprice to introduce a rainbow at all as a principal feature in such +a scene; for it is not through the colors of the iris that we generally +expect to be shown eighteen-pounder batteries and ninety-gun ships. + +Whether he meant the dark cloud (intensely dark blue in the original +drawing), with the sunshine pursuing it back into distance; and the +rainbow, with its base set on a ship of battle, to be together types of +war and peace, and of the one as the foundation of the other, I leave it +to the reader to decide. My own impression is, that although Turner +might have some askance symbolism in his mind, the present design is, +like the former one, in many points a simple reminiscence of a seen +fact.[S] + + [S] I have discovered, since this was written, that the design was + made from a vigorous and interesting sketch by Mr. S. Cousins, in + which the rainbow and most of the ships are already in their places. + Turner was, therefore, in this case, as I have found him in several + other instances, realizing, not a fact seen by himself, but a fact + as he supposed it to have been seen by another. + +However, whether reminiscent or symbolic, the design is, to my mind, an +exceedingly unsatisfactory one, owing to its total want of principal +subject. The fort ceases to be of importance because of the bank and +tower in front of it; the ships, necessarily for the effect, but fatally +for themselves, are confused, and incompletely drawn, except the little +sloop, which looks paltry and like a toy; and the foreground objects +are, for work of Turner, curiously ungraceful and uninteresting. + +It is possible, however, that to some minds the fresh and dewy space of +darkness, so animated with latent human power, may give a sensation of +great pleasure, and at all events the design is worth study on account +of its very strangeness. + + + + +IV.--CATWATER. + +[Illustration: CATWATER.] + + +I have placed in the middle of the series those pictures which I think +least interesting, though the want of interest is owing more to the +monotony of their character than to any real deficiency in their +subjects. If, after contemplating paintings of arid deserts or glowing +sunsets, we had come suddenly upon this breezy entrance to the crowded +cove of Plymouth, it would have gladdened our hearts to purpose; but +having already been at sea for some time, there is little in this +drawing to produce renewal of pleasurable impression: only one useful +thought may be gathered from the very feeling of monotony. At the time +when Turner executed these drawings, his portfolios were full of the +most magnificent subjects--coast and inland,--gathered from all the +noblest scenery of France and Italy. He was ready to realize these +sketches for any one who would have asked it of him, but no consistent +effort was ever made to call forth his powers; and the only means by +which it was thought that the public patronage could be secured for a +work of this kind, was by keeping familiar names before the eye, and +awakening the so-called "patriotic," but in reality narrow and selfish, +associations belonging to well-known towns or watering-places. It is to +be hoped, that when a great landscape painter appears among us again, we +may know better how to employ him, and set him to paint for us things +which are less easily seen, and which are somewhat better worth seeing, +than the mists of the Catwater, or terraces of Margate. + + + + +V.--SHEERNESS. + +[Illustration: SHEERNESS.] + + +I look upon this as one of the noblest sea-pieces which Turner ever +produced. It has not his usual fault of over-crowding or over-glitter; +the objects in it are few and noble, and the space infinite. The sky is +quite one of his best: not violently black, but full of gloom and power; +the complicated roundings of its volumes behind the sloop's mast, and +downwards to the left, have been rendered by the engraver with notable +success; and the dim light entering along the horizon, full of rain, +behind the ship of war, is true and grand in the highest degree. By +comparing it with the extreme darkness of the skies in the Plymouth, +Dover, and Ramsgate, the reader will see how much more majesty there is +in moderation than in extravagance, and how much more darkness, as far +as sky is concerned, there is in gray than in black. It is not that the +Plymouth and Dover skies are false,--such impenetrable forms of +thunder-cloud are amongst the commonest phenomena of storm; but they +have more of spent flash and past shower in them than the less +passionate, but more truly stormy and threatening, volumes of the sky +here. The Plymouth storm will very thoroughly wet the sails, and wash +the decks, of the ships at anchor, but will send nothing to the bottom. +For these pale and lurid masses, there is no saying what evil they may +have in their thoughts, or what they may have to answer for before +night. The ship of war in the distance is one of many instances of +Turner's dislike to draw _complete_ rigging; and this not only because +he chose to give an idea of his ships having seen rough service, and +being crippled; but also because in men-of-war he liked the mass of the +hull to be increased in apparent weight and size by want of upper spars. +All artists of any rank share this last feeling. Stanfield never makes +a careful study of a hull without shaking some or all of its masts out +of it first, if possible. See, in the Coast Scenery, Portsmouth harbor, +Falmouth, Hamoaze, and Rye old harbors; and compare, among Turner's +works, the near hulls in the Devonport, Saltash, and Castle Upnor, and +distance of Gosport. The fact is, partly that the precision of line in +the complete spars of a man-of-war is too formal to come well into +pictorial arrangements, and partly that the chief glory of a ship of the +line is in its aspect of being "one that hath had losses." + +The subtle varieties of curve in the drawing of the sails of the near +sloop are altogether exquisite; as well as the contrast of her black and +glistering side with those sails, and with the sea. Examine the wayward +and delicate play of the dancing waves along her flank, and between her +and the brig in ballast, plunging slowly before the wind; I have not +often seen anything so perfect in fancy, or in execution of engraving. + +The heaving and black buoy in the near sea is one of Turner's "echoes," +repeating, with slight change, the head of the sloop with its flash of +luster. The chief aim of this buoy is, however, to give comparative +lightness to the shadowed part of the sea, which is, indeed, somewhat +overcharged in darkness, and would have been felt to be so, but for this +contrasting mass. Hide it with the hand, and this will be immediately +felt. There is only one other of Turner's works which, in its way, can +be matched with this drawing, namely, the Mouth of the Humber in the +River Scenery. The latter is, on the whole, the finer picture; but this +by much the more interesting in the shipping. + + + + +VI.--MARGATE. + +[Illustration: MARGATE.] + + +This plate is not, at first sight, one of the most striking of the +series; but it is very beautiful, and highly characteristic of +Turner.[T] First, in its choice of subjects: for it seems very notably +capricious in a painter eminently capable of rendering scenes of +sublimity and mystery, to devote himself to the delineation of one of +the most prosaic of English watering-places--not once or twice, but in a +series of elaborate drawings, of which this is the fourth. The first +appeared in the Southern Coast series, and was followed by an elaborate +drawing on a large scale, with a beautiful sunrise; then came another +careful and very beautiful drawing in the England and Wales series; and +finally this, which is a sort of poetical abstract of the first. Now, if +we enumerate the English ports one by one, from Berwick to Whitehaven, +round the island, there will hardly be found another so utterly devoid +of all picturesque or romantic interest as Margate. Nearly all have some +steep eminence of down or cliff, some pretty retiring dingle, some +roughness of old harbor or straggling fisher-hamlet, some fragment of +castle or abbey on the heights above, capable of becoming a leading +point in a picture; but Margate is simply a mass of modern parades and +streets, with a little bit of chalk cliff, an orderly pier, and some +bathing-machines. Turner never conceives it as anything else; and yet +for the sake of this simple vision, again and again he quits all higher +thoughts. The beautiful bays of Northern Devon and Cornwall he never +painted but once, and that very imperfectly. The finest subjects of the +Southern Coast series--the Minehead, Clovelly, Ilfracombe, Watchet, +East and West Looe, Tintagel, Boscastle--he never touched again; but he +repeated Ramsgate, Deal, Dover, and Margate, I know not how often. + + [T] It was left unfinished at his death, and I would not allow it to + be touched afterwards, desiring that the series should remain as far + as possible in an authentic state. + +Whether his desire for popularity, which, in spite of his occasional +rough defiances of public opinion, was always great, led him to the +selection of those subjects which he thought might meet with most +acceptance from a large class of the London public, or whether he had +himself more pleasurable associations connected with these places than +with others, I know not; but the fact of the choice itself is a very +mournful one, considered with respect to the future interests of art. +There is only this one point to be remembered, as tending to lessen our +regret, that it is possible Turner might have felt the necessity of +compelling himself sometimes to dwell on the most familiar and prosaic +scenery, in order to prevent his becoming so much accustomed to that of +a higher class as to diminish his enthusiasm in its presence. Into this +probability I shall have occasion to examine at greater length +hereafter. + +The plate of Margate now before us is nearly as complete a duplicate of +the Southern Coast view as the previous plate is of that of Ramsgate; +with this difference, that the position of the spectator is here the +same, but the class of ship is altered, though the ship remains +precisely in the same spot. A piece of old wreck, which was rather an +important object to the left of the other drawing, is here removed. The +figures are employed in the same manner in both designs. + +The details of the houses of the town are executed in the original +drawing with a precision which adds almost painfully to their natural +formality. It is certainly provoking to find the great painter, who +often only deigns to bestow on some Rhenish fortress or French city, +crested with Gothic towers, a few misty and indistinguishable touches of +his brush, setting himself to indicate, with unerring toil, every +separate square window in the parades, hotels, and circulating libraries +of an English bathing-place. + +The whole of the drawing is well executed, and free from fault or +affectation, except perhaps in the somewhat confused curlings of the +near sea. I had much rather have seen it breaking in the usual +straightforward way. The brilliant white of the piece of chalk cliff is +evidently one of the principal aims of the composition. In the drawing +the sea is throughout of a dark fresh blue, the sky grayish blue, and +the grass on the top of the cliffs a little sunburnt, the cliffs +themselves being left in the almost untouched white of the paper. + + + + +VII.--PORTSMOUTH. + +[Illustration: PORTSMOUTH.] + + +This beautiful drawing is a _third_ recurrence by Turner to his earliest +impression of Portsmouth, given in the Southern Coast series. The +buildings introduced differ only by a slight turn of the spectator +towards the right; the buoy is in the same spot; the man-of-war's boat +nearly so; the sloop exactly so, but on a different tack; and the +man-of-war, which is far off to the left at anchor in the Southern Coast +view, is here nearer, and getting up her anchor. + +The idea had previously passed through one phase of greater change, in +his drawing of "Gosport" for the England, in which, while the sky of the +Southern Coast view was almost cloud for cloud retained, the interest of +the distant ships of the line had been divided with a collier brig and a +fast-sailing boat. In the present view he returns to his early thought, +dwelling, however, now with chief insistence on the ship of the line, +which is certainly the most majestic of all that he has introduced in +his drawings. + +It is also a very curious instance of that habit of Turner's before +referred to (p. 27), of never painting a ship quite in good order. On +showing this plate the other day to a naval officer, he complained of +it, first that "the jib[U] would not be wanted with the wind blowing out +of harbor," and, secondly, that "a man-of-war would never have her +foretop-gallant sail set, and her main and mizzen top-gallants +furled:--all the men would be on the yards at once." + + [U] The sail seen, edge on, like a white sword, at the head of the + ship. + +I believe this criticism to be perfectly just, though it has happened to +me, very singularly, whenever I have had the opportunity of making +complete inquiry into any technical matter of this kind, respecting +which some professional person had blamed Turner, that I have always +found, in the end, Turner was right, and the professional critic wrong, +owing to some want of allowance for possible accidents, and for +necessary modes of pictorial representation. Still, this cannot be the +case in every instance; and supposing my sailor informant to be +perfectly right in the present one, the disorderliness of the way in +which this ship is represented as setting her sails, gives us farther +proof of the imperative instinct in the artist's mind, refusing to +contemplate a ship, even in her proudest moments, but as in some way +over-mastered by the strengths of chance and storm. + +The wave on the left hand beneath the buoy, presents a most interesting +example of the way in which Turner used to spoil his work by retouching. +All his truly fine drawings are either done quickly, or at all events +straight forward, without alteration: he never, as far as I have +examined his works hitherto, altered but to destroy. When he saw a plate +look somewhat dead or heavy, as, compared with the drawing, it was +almost sure at first to do, he used to scratch out little lights all +over it, and make it "sparkling"; a process in which the engravers +almost unanimously delighted,[V] and over the impossibility of which +they now mourn, declaring it to be hopeless to engrave after Turner, +since he cannot now scratch their plates for them. It is quite true that +these small lights were always placed beautifully; and though the plate, +after its "touching," generally looked as if ingeniously salted out of +her dredging-box by an artistical cook, the salting was done with a +spirit which no one else can now imitate. But the original power of the +work was forever destroyed. If the reader will look carefully beneath +the white touches on the left in this sea, he will discern dimly the +form of a round nodding hollow breaker. This in the early state of the +plate is a gaunt, dark, angry wave, rising at the shoal indicated by the +buoy;--Mr. Lupton has fac-similed with so singular skill the scratches +of the penknife by which Turner afterwards disguised this breaker, and +spoiled his picture, that the plate in its present state is almost as +interesting as the touched proof itself; interesting, however, only as a +warning to all artists never to lose hold of their first conception. +They may tire even of what is exquisitely right, as they work it out, +and their only safety is in the self-denial of calm completion. + + [V] Not, let me say with all due honor to him, the careful and + skillful engraver of these plates, who has been much more tormented + than helped by Turner's alterations. + + + + +VIII.--FALMOUTH. + +[Illustration: FALMOUTH.] + + +This is one of the most beautiful and best-finished plates of the +series, and Turner has taken great pains with the drawing; but it is +sadly open to the same charges which were brought against the Dover, of +an attempt to reach a false sublimity by magnifying things in themselves +insignificant. The fact is that Turner, when he prepared these drawings, +had been newly inspired by the scenery of the Continent; and with his +mind entirely occupied by the ruined towers of the Rhine, he found +himself called upon to return to the formal embrasures and unappalling +elevations of English forts and hills. But it was impossible for him to +recover the simplicity and narrowness of conception in which he had +executed the drawing of the Southern Coast, or to regain the innocence +of delight with which he had once assisted gravely at the drying of +clothes over the limekiln at Comb Martin, or penciled the woodland +outlines of the banks of Dartmouth Cove. In certain fits of prosaic +humorism, he would, as we have seen, condemn himself to delineation of +the parades of a watering-place; but the moment he permitted himself to +be enthusiastic, vaster imaginations crowded in upon him: to modify his +old conception in the least, was to exaggerate it; the mount of +Pendennis is lifted into rivalship with Ehrenbreitstein, and hardworked +Falmouth glitters along the distant bay, like the gay magnificence of +Resina or Sorrento. + +This effort at sublimity is all the more to be regretted, because it +never succeeds completely. Shade, or magnify, or mystify as he may, even +Turner cannot make the minute neatness of the English fort appeal to us +as forcibly as the remnants of Gothic wall and tower that crown the +Continental crags; and invest them as he may with smoke or sunbeam, the +details of our little mounded hills will not take the rank of cliffs of +Alp, or promontories of Apennine; and we lose the English simplicity, +without gaining the Continental nobleness. + +I have also a prejudice against this picture for being disagreeably +noisy. Wherever there is something serious to be done, as in a battle +piece, the noise becomes an element of the sublimity; but to have great +guns going off in every direction beneath one's feet on the right, and +all round the other side of the castle, and from the deck of the ship of +the line, and from the battery far down the cove, and from the fort on +the top of the hill, and all for nothing, is to my mind eminently +troublesome. + +The drawing of the different wreaths and depths of smoke, and the +explosive look of the flash on the right, are, however, very wonderful +and peculiarly Turneresque; the sky is also beautiful in form, and the +foreground, in which we find his old regard for washerwomen has not +quite deserted him, singularly skillful. It is curious how formal the +whole picture becomes if this figure and the gray stones beside it are +hidden with the hand. + + + + +IX.--SIDMOUTH. + +[Illustration: SIDMOUTH.] + + +This drawing has always been interesting to me among Turner's sea +pieces, on account of the noble gathering together of the great wave on +the left,--the back of a breaker, just heaving itself up, and provoking +itself into passion, before its leap and roar against the beach. But the +enjoyment of these designs is much interfered with by their monotony: it +is seriously to be regretted that in all but one the view is taken from +the sea; for the spectator is necessarily tired by the perpetual rush +and sparkle of water, and ceases to be impressed by it. It would be +felt, if this plate were seen alone, that there are few marine paintings +in which the weight and heaping of the sea are given so faithfully. + +For the rest it is perhaps more to be regretted that we are kept to our +sea-level at Sidmouth than at any other of the localities illustrated. +What claim the pretty little village has to be considered as a port of +England, I know not; but if it was to be so ranked, a far more +interesting study of it might have been made from the heights above the +town, whence the ranges of dark-red sandstone cliffs stretching to the +southwest are singularly bold and varied. The detached fragment of +sandstone which forms the principal object in Turner's view has long ago +fallen, and even while it stood could hardly have been worth the honor +of so careful illustration. + + + + +X.--WHITBY. + +[Illustration: WHITBY.] + + +As an expression of the general spirit of English coast scenery, this +plate must be considered the principal one of the series. Like all the +rest, it is a little too grand for its subject; but the exaggerations of +space and size are more allowable here than in the others, as partly +necessary to convey the feeling of danger conquered by activity and +commerce, which characterizes all our northerly Eastern coast. There are +cliffs more terrible, and winds more wild, on other shores; but nowhere +else do so many white sails lean against the bleak wind, and glide +across the cliff shadows. Nor do I know many other memorials of monastic +life so striking as the abbey on that dark headland. We are apt in our +journeys through lowland England, to watch with some secret contempt the +general pleasantness of the vales in which our abbeys were founded, +without taking any pains to inquire into the particular circumstances +which directed or compelled the choice of the monks, and without +reflecting that, if the choice were a selfish one, the selfishness is +that of the English lowlander turning monk, not that of monachism; +since, if we examine the sites of the Swiss monasteries and convents, we +shall always find the snow lying round them in July; and it must have +been cold meditating in these cloisters of St. Hilda's when the winter +wind set from the east. It is long since I was at Whitby, and I am not +sure whether Turner is right in giving so monotonous and severe +verticality to the cliff above which the abbey stands; but I believe it +must have some steep places about it, since the tradition which, in +nearly all parts of the island where fossil ammonites are found, is sure +to be current respecting them, takes quite an original form at Whitby, +owing to the steepness of this rock. In general, the saint of the +locality has simply turned all the serpents to stone; but at Whitby, St. +Hilda drove them over the cliff, and the serpents, before being +petrified, had all their heads broken off by the fall! + + + + +XI.--DEAL. + +[Illustration: DEAL.] + + +I have had occasion,[W] elsewhere, to consider at some length, the +peculiar love of the English for neatness and minuteness: but I have +only considered, without accounting for, or coming to any conclusion +about it; and, the more I think of it, the more it puzzles me to +understand what there can be in our great national mind which delights +to such an extent in brass plates, red bricks, square curbstones, and +fresh green paint, all on the tiniest possible scale. The other day I +was dining in a respectable English "Inn and Posting-house," not ten +miles from London, and, measuring the room after dinner, I found it +exactly twice and a quarter the height of my umbrella. It was a highly +comfortable room, and associated, in the proper English manner, with +outdoor sports and pastimes, by a portrait of Jack Hall, fisherman of +Eton, and of Mr. C. Davis on his favorite mare; but why all this hunting +and fishing enthusiasm should like to reduce itself, at home, into twice +and a quarter the height of an umbrella, I could not in any wise then, +nor have I at any other time been able to ascertain. + + [W] _Modern Painters_, vol. iv. chap. 1. + +Perhaps the town of Deal involves as much of this question in its aspect +and reputation, as any other place in Her Majesty's dominions: or at +least it seemed so to me, coming to it as I did, after having been +accustomed to the boat-life at Venice, where the heavy craft, massy in +build and massy in sail, and disorderly in aquatic economy, reach with +their mast-vanes only to the first stories of the huge marble palaces +they anchor among. It was very strange to me, after this, knowing that +whatever was brave and strong in the English sailor was concentrated in +our Deal boatmen, to walk along that trim strip of conventional +beach, which the sea itself seems to wash in a methodical manner, one +shingle-step at a time; and by its thin toy-like boats, each with its +head to sea, at regular intervals, looking like things that one would +give a clever boy to play with in a pond, when first he got past +petticoats; and the row of lath cots behind, all tidiness and telegraph, +looking as if the whole business of the human race on earth was to know +what o'clock it was, and when it would be high water,--only some slight +weakness in favor of grog being indicated here and there by a +hospitable-looking open door, a gay bow-window, and a sign intimating +that it is a sailor's duty to be not only accurate, but "jolly." + +Turner was always fond of this neat, courageous, benevolent, merry, +methodical Deal. He painted it very early, in the Southern Coast series, +insisting on one of the tavern windows as the principal subject, with a +flash of forked lightning streaming beyond it out at sea like a narrow +flag. He has the same association in his mind in the present plate; +disorder and distress among the ships on the left, with the boat going +out to help them; and the precision of the little town stretching in +sunshine along the beach. + + + + +XII.--SCARBOROUGH. + +[Illustration: SCARBOROUGH.] + + +I have put this plate last in the series, thinking that the reader will +be glad to rest in its morning quietness, after so much tossing among +the troubled foam. I said in the course of the introduction, that +nothing is so perfectly calm as Turner's calmness; and I know very few +better examples of this calmness than the plate before us, uniting, as +it does, the glittering of the morning clouds, and trembling of the sea, +with an infinitude of peace in both. There are one or two points of +interest in the artifices by which the intense effect of calm is +produced. Much is owing, in the first place, to the amount of absolute +gloom obtained by the local blackness of the boats on the beach; like a +piece of the midnight left unbroken by the dawn. But more is owing to +the treatment of the distant harbor mouth. In general, throughout +nature, Reflection and Repetition are _peaceful_ things; that is to say, +the image of any object, seen in calm water, gives us an impression of +quietness, not merely because we know the water must be quiet in order +to be reflective; but because the fact of the repetition of this form is +lulling to us in its monotony, and associated more or less with an idea +of quiet succession, or reproduction, in events or things throughout +nature:--that one day should be like another day, one town the image of +another town, or one history the repetition of another history, being +more or less results of quietness, while dissimilarity and +non-succession are also, more or less, results of interference and +disquietude. And thus, though an echo actually increases the quantity of +sound heard, its repetition of the notes or syllables of sound, gives an +idea of calmness attainable in no other way; hence the feeling of +calm given to a landscape by the notes of the cuckoo. Understanding +this, observe the anxious _doubling_ of every object by a visible echo +or shadow throughout this picture. The grandest feature of it is the +steep distant cliff; and therefore the dualism is more marked here than +elsewhere; the two promontories or cliffs, and two piers below them, +being arranged so that the one looks almost like the shadow of the +other, cast irregularly on mist. In all probability, the more distant +pier would in reality, unless it is very greatly higher than the near +one, have been lowered by perspective so as not to continue in the same +longitudinal line at the top,--but Turner will not have it so; he +reduces them to exactly the same level, so that the one looks like the +phantom of the other; and so of the cliffs above. + +Then observe, each pier has, just below the head of it, in a vertical +line, another important object, one a buoy, and the other a stooping +figure. These carry on the double group in the calmest way, obeying the +general law of vertical reflection, and throw down two long shadows on +the near beach. The intenseness of the parallelism would catch the eye +in a moment, but for the lighthouse, which breaks the group and prevents +the artifice from being too open. Next come the two heads of boats, with +their two bowsprits, and the two masts of the one farthest off, all +monotonously double, but for the diagonal mast of the nearer one, which +again hides the artifice. Next, put your finger over the white central +figure, and follow the minor incidents round the beach; first, under the +lighthouse, a stick, with its echo below a little to the right; above, a +black stone, and its echo to the right; under the white figure, another +stick, with its echo to the left; then a starfish,[X] and a white spot +its echo to the left; then a dog, and a basket to double its light; +above, a fisherman, and his wife for an echo; above them, two lines of +curved shingle; above them, two small black figures; above them, two +unfinished ships, and two forked masts; above the forked masts, a house +with two gables, and its echo exactly over it in two gables more; next +to the right, two fishing-boats with sails down; farther on, two +fishing-boats with sails up, each with its little white reflection +below; then two larger ships, which, lest his trick should be found out, +Turner puts a dim third between; then below, two fat colliers, leaning +away from each other, and two thinner colliers, leaning towards each +other; and now at last, having doubled everything all round the beach, +he gives one strong single stroke to gather all together, places his +solitary central white figure, and the Calm is complete. + + [X] I have mentioned elsewhere that Turner was fond of this subject + of Scarborough, and that there are four drawings of it by him, if + not more, under different effects, having this much common to the + four, that there is always a starfish on the beach. + +It is also to be noticed, that not only the definite repetition has a +power of expressing serenity, but even the slight sense of _confusion_ +induced by the continual doubling is useful; it makes us feel not well +awake, drowsy, and as if we were out too early, and had to rub our eyes +yet a little, before we could make out whether there were really two +boats or one. + +I do not mean that every means which we may possibly take to enable +ourselves to see things double, will be always the most likely to insure +the ultimate tranquillity of the scene, neither that any such artifice +as this would be of avail, without the tender and loving drawing of the +things themselves, and of the light that bathes them; nevertheless the +highest art is full of these little cunnings, and it is only by the help +of them that it can succeed in at all equaling the force of the natural +impression. + +One great monotony, that of the successive sigh and vanishing of the +slow waves upon the sand, no art can render to us. Perhaps the silence +of early light, even on the "field dew consecrate" of the grass itself, +is not so tender as the lisp of the sweet belled lips of the clear waves +in their following patience. We will leave the shore as their silver +fringes fade upon it, desiring thus, as far as may be, to remember the +sea. We have regarded it perhaps too often as an enemy to be subdued; +let us, at least this once, accept from it, and from the soft light +beyond the cliffs above, the image of the state of a perfect Human +Spirit,-- + + "The memory, like a cloudless air, + The conscience, like a sea at rest." + + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note | + | | + | There was one instance each of 'sea-shell' and 'seashell'. | + | These have not been changed. | + | | + | One instance of the 'oe' ligature has been transcribed as | + | oe. | + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Harbours of England, by John Ruskin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HARBOURS OF ENGLAND *** + +***** This file should be named 21591.txt or 21591.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/5/9/21591/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, LN Yaddanapudi and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |