These pictures, I think, are quite
the most comprehensible of Turner's productions; but I must say I prefer
the Claudes. The latter catches "the light that never was on sea or
land" without taking you quite away from nature for it. Nevertheless, I
will not be quite certain that I care for any painter except Murillo,
whose St. John I should like to own. As far as my own pleasure is
concerned, I could not say as much for any other picture; for I have
always found an infinite weariness and disgust resulting from a picture
being too frequently before my eyes. I had rather see a basilisk, for
instance, than the very best of those old, familiar pictures in the
Boston Athenaeum; and most of those in the National Gallery might soon
affect me in the same way.
From the Gallery I almost groped my way towards the city, for the fog
seemed to grow denser and denser as I advanced; and when I reached St.
Paul's, the sunny intermixture above spoken of was at its minimum, so
that, the smoke-cloud grew really black about the dome and pinnacles, and
the statues of saints looked down dimly from their standpoints on high.
It was very grand, however, to see the pillars and porticos, and the huge
bulk of the edifice, heaving up its dome from an obscure foundation into
yet more shadowy obscurity; and by the time I reached the corner of the
churchyard nearest Cheapside, the whole vast cathedral had utterly
vanished, leaving "not a wrack behind," unless those thick, dark vapors
were the elements of which it had been composed, and into which it had
again dissolved.
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