382 REVIEWS AND PAMPHLETS ON ART

a kind of private mark running through all the subjects. Thus, I know three drawings of Scarborough, and all of them have a starfish in the foreground: I do not remember any others of his marine subjects which have a starfish.¹

The other kind of repetition-the recurrence to one early impression-is, however, still more remarkable. In the collection of F. H. Bale, Esq., there is a small drawing of Llanthony Abbey.² It is in his boyish manner, its date probably about 1795; evidently a sketch from nature, finished at home. It had been a showery day; the hills were partially concealed by the rain, and gleams of sunshine breaking out at intervals. A man was fishing in the mountain stream. The young Turner sought a place of some shelter under the bushes; made his sketch; took great pains when he got home to imitate the rain, as he best could; added his child’s luxury of a rainbow; put in the very bush under which he had taken shelter, and the fisherman, a somewhat ill-jointed and long-legged fisherman, in the courtly short breeches which were the fashion of the time.

50. Some thirty years afterwards, with all his powers in their strongest training, and after the total change in his

¹ [In Ruskin’s diary at Farnley he notes this observation:-

“‘Scarborough.’ I now know three of this subject: Mr. Fawkes’s large water-colour, where the principal object on the left is a great pile of common beach posts, with a pool of dark green water in front, beautifully painted, and a starfish large, and a dark ship ashore. The wet sand in distance quite unrivalled.

“The second is the one engraved by Lupton. It is founded on the first, only the pile of posts is gone, and all depends on the dark ship, distant cliffs, white figure, and starfish.

“The third, rough seas (Lady Barnes’), where a large cliff has taken the place of the posts, and the dark ship is gone, and we have rough sea. But the starfish still.”

The Farnley “Scarborough” is engraved in Ruskin and Turner, vol. ii. p. 216. Lupton’s engraving is in the Harbours of England; Ruskin notes the starfish in his description of the Plate (XII.) in that work; the original drawing is No. 169 in the National Gallery. Lady Barnes’ “Scarborough” sketch is probably one of those which afterwards passed into Ruskin’s collection-perhaps the sketch (with a starfish conspicuous on the sand) which he sold in 1869 (see Vol. XIII.); two others remained in his collection (Notes on his Drawings by Turner, Nos. 81 and 82).]

² [The drawing of 1795, formerly in the Bale collection, afterwards passed into that of Mr. John Edward Taylor. The “Llanthony” for the England and Wales Series (circa 1834) is described, and a photogravure of it is given, in Modern Painters, vol. i. (Vol. III. p. 402); there is another very early drawing of Llanthony Abbey in the National Gallery (No. 638).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]