“God, God—­what do I know of God, what does any one!  He is our life—­He is the All, but we need not fear Him—­all we can do is to speak the truth and do our work.  Tomorrow we go—­where?  I know not, but I am not afraid.”

Of art, to these strangers he would never speak.  Once they urged him to go with them to an exhibition at Kensington, but he smiled feebly as he lit his pipe and said, “An Art Exhibition?  No, no; a man can show on a canvas so little of what he feels, it is not worth the while.”

At last he died—­passed peacefully away—­and his attorney came and took charge of his remains.

Many are the hard words that have been flung off by heedless tongues about Turner’s taking an assumed name and living in obscurity, but “what you call fault I call accent.”  Surely, if a great man and world-famous desires to escape the flatterers and the silken mesh of so-called society and live the life of simplicity, he has a right to do so.  Again, Turner was a very rich man in his old age; he did much for struggling artists and assisted aspiring merit in many ways.  So it came about that his mail was burdened with begging letters, and his life made miserable by appeals from impecunious persons, good and bad, and from churches, societies and associations without number.  He decided to flee them all; and he did.

The “Carthage” already mentioned is one of his finest works, and he esteemed it so highly that he requested that when death came, his body should be buried, wrapped in its magnificent folds.  But the wish was disregarded.

His remains rest in the crypt of Saint Paul’s, beside the dust of Reynolds.  His statue, in marble, adorns a niche in the great cathedral, and his name is secure high on the roll of honor.

And if for no other reason, the name and fame of Chelsea should be deathless as the home of Turner.

JONATHAN SWIFT

    They are but few and meanspirited that live in peace with all
    men.

    —­Tale of a Tub

[Illustration:  Jonathan swift]

Birrell, the great English essayist, remarks that, “Of writing books about Dean Swift there is no end.”  The reason is plain:  of no other prominent writer who has lived during the past two hundred years do we know so much.  His life lies open to us in many books.  Boswell did not write his biography, but Johnson did.  Then followed whole schools of little fishes, some of whom wrote like whales.  But among the works of genuine worth and merit, with Swift for a subject, we have Sir Walter Scott’s nineteen volumes, and lives by Craik, Mitford, Forster, Collins and Leslie Stephen.

The positive elements in Swift’s character make him a most interesting subject to men and women who are yet on earth, for he was essentially of the earth, earthy.  And until we are shown that the earth is wholly bad, we shall find much to amuse, much to instruct, much to admire—­aye, much to pity—­in the life of Jonathan Swift.