He knew, in good and evil, what both classes thought of, and how
they dwelt with, each other.
Reynolds and Gainsborough, bred in country villages, learned there the
country boy's reverential theory of "the squire," and kept it. They
painted the squire and the squire's lady as centres of the movements of
the universe, to the end of their lives. But Turner perceived the
younger squire in other aspects about his lane, occurring prominently
in its night scenery, as a dark figure, or one of two, against the
moonlight. He saw also the working of city commerce, from endless
warehouse, towering over Thames, to the back shop in the lane, with its
stale herrings--highly interesting these last; one of his father's best
friends, whom he often afterwards visited affectionately at Bristol,
being a fishmonger and glue-boiler; which gives us a friendly turn of
mind towards herring-fishing, whaling, Calais poissardes, and many
other of our choicest subjects in after life; all this being connected
with that mysterious forest below London Bridge on one side;--and, on
the other, with these masses of human power and national wealth which
weigh upon us, at Covent Garden here, with strange compression, and
crush us into narrow Hand Court.
"That mysterious forest below London Bridge"--better for the boy than
wood of pine, or grove of myrtle.
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