shop-window I have passed two or three hours very agreeably in ascertaining the sums at which every variety of second-hand goods are ‘remarkably cheap,’ from a large folio Bible as divinity, flutes and flageolets as music, pictures and china as taste, gold and silver articles as luxury, wedding rings as happiness, and duelling pistols as death.  I could not of course indulge in these peripatetic fancies during the season without losing caste, but there is a season for all things.”

* * * * *

“Talking of pictures, by the way, what a marvellous falling off is there in Wilkie!—­a misfortune arising, as I take it, from a struggle after novelty of style.  There is a portrait of the King by him in Somerset House Exhibition, like nothing on earth but a White Lion on its hinder legs, and there was one a year or two since of George the Fourth in a Highland dress—­a powerful representation of Lady Charlotte Bury, dressed for Norval.  Look at that gem of art, his Blind Fiddler, now in the National Gallery, or at his Waterloo Gazette, or at the Rent Day, and compare any one of them with the senseless stuff he now produces, and grieve.  His John Knox—­ill placed for effect, as relates to its height from the ground, I admit; but look at that—­flat as a teaboard—­neither depth nor brilliancy.  Knox himself strongly resembling in attitude the dragon weathercock on Bow steeple painted black.  Has Wilkie become thus demented in compliment to Turner, the Prince of Orange (colour) of artists?  Never did man suffer so severely under a yellow fever, and yet live so long.  I dare say it is extremely bad taste to object to his efforts; but I am foolish enough to think that one of the chief ends of art is to imitate nature as closely as possible.  Look, for instance, at Copley Fielding’s splendid drawing in the Water Colour Exhibition, of vessels in a gale off Calshot; and certainly I have never yet seen any thing either animal or vegetable at all like the men, women, trees, grass, mountains, which appear in Mr. Turner’s works.

“This is of course an individual opinion, but I think it may be expressed without any fear of incurring a charge of ill-nature, when one thing is recollected.  Copley Fielding cannot be a bad artist; Prout cannot be a bad artist; Nash cannot be a bad artist; De Vint, Stanfield, Reinagle, Calcott, none of these can be called bad artists; yet not one of these gentlemen, eminent as they are, produce any thing like Turner’s drawings.  Now if they are all wrong, Mr. Turner is quite right; but it is utterly impossible he should be so, if they are.