When he came to Rome, the Campagnian sunsets were found to be representative of the peculiar class of effects which he regarded as the manifestation of his feeling; and so he forthwith took possession of that part of the day which was passing while the sun performed the last twelve degrees of his daily journey.  Other portions of the twenty-four hours did not appear to excite even ordinary interest; and whenever conversation involved consideration of scenery under other than the favorite character, he was prone to silence, or to attempts to change the subject.  Yet he has been known to speak in terms of commendation of certain sunrises, and once was actually caught by a friend making a sketch of Pilatus at sunrise across the Lake of Lucerne.

The objects in the immediate foreground shared in the neglect which attached to certain seasons.  They were ignored as organized members of what should be a living foreground, and their places were concealed by unintelligible pigment.  As to life there, he wanted none:  light,—­light that gleams, and color to reflect it, were his aim.  As an inevitable attending result of these principles, or practices, the structure of the whole landscape was ambiguous.  The essential line and point were evaded, and one perceived that the artist had watched far more attentively than he had studied Nature.

At the same time the pictures produced in this studio were marked by qualities of great beauty.  The peculiarly ethereal character of the vast bands of thin vapors made visible by the slant rays of the sun, and illuminated with tints which are exquisitely pure and prismatic, was rendered with surprising success.  On examination, the tints which were used to represent the prismatic character of those of Nature were found to present surfaces of such excessive delicacy, that the evanescence of the natural phenomena was suggested, and apprehensions were indulged as to the permanency of the effects.  That noble north light of a cloudless Roman sky did not extend far, hardly to Civita Vecchia, certainly not to England, Old or New; and with a less friendly hand than his own to expose his work, under sight still less kind, there might be presented a picture bereft of all but its faults.  Such has been the case.

We here dismiss willingly further recollection of the works to which we have called attention.  They are marked by error in theory, inasmuch as they show neglect of the specific and essential, and by feebleness of system, inasmuch as under no other light than that in which they were painted could their finer qualities be perceived.  Yet it is but just to add that these were produced during a state of transition from one method of applying pigments to another of totally different character.