VIII. THE STATE OF DENMARK 393

year, to 1845, when I was beginning to prepare for my first adventurous journey.

47, QUEEN ANN (no street!) WEST,

Thursday, 27 Fe^y.

“My dear Sir,

“Have the goodness to offer my respectful thanks to Mrs. Ruskin for the kind present of a part of the little fat friends, & its _______________* Portugal onions for stuffing them included, &c., &c. Hoping you are all well,

“Believe me,

“Most truly obliged,

“J. M. W. TURNER.”

J. RUSKIN, ESQ.

In the Times, sad news from Switzerland.

Neither do I think it irrelevant, in this place, to foretell that, after twenty years’ various study of the piglet character, (see, for instance, the account of the comfort given me by the monastic piglet at Assisi,†) I became so resigned to the adoption of my paternally chosen crest as to write my rhymed travelling letters to Joan‡ most

* Turner always indicates by these long lines the places in his letters where his feelings become inexpressible.

† “In one of my saddest moods, I got some wholesome peace and refreshment by mere sympathy with a Bewickian little pig, in the roundest and conceitedest burst of pig-blossom.”-Fors, Letter 48.¹

‡ Now Mrs. Arthur Severn.

¹ [See Vol. XXVIII. p. 208.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]