One of the most celebrated of Turner's pictures was that of the "Old Temeraire," an old and famous line-of-battle ship, which in the battle of Trafalgar ran in between and captured the French frigates Redoubtable and Fougueux. Turner saw the Temeraire in the Thames after she had become old, and was condemned to be dismantled. The scene is laid at sunset, when the smouldering, red light is vividly reflected on the river, and contrasts with the quiet, gray and pearly tints about the low-hung moon. The majestic old ship looms up through these changing lights, bathed in splendor. The artist refused a large price for this picture by Mr. Lennox, of New York, and finally bequeathed it to the nation. In 1840 Turner exhibited the "Bacchus and Ariadne," two marine scenes, and two views in Venice; also the well-known "Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, a Typhoon Coming On" (Fig. 76), which is now in the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston. Of this picture Thackeray says: "I don't know whether it is sublime or ridiculous." But Ruskin, in "Modern Painters," says: "I believe if I were reduced to test Turner's immortality upon any single work, I should choose the 'Slave Ship.' Its daring conception, ideal in the highest sense of the word, is based on the purest truth, and wrought out with the concentrated knowledge of a life. Its color is absolutely perfect, not one false or morbid hue in any part or line, and so modulated that every square inch of canvas is a perfect composition; its drawing as accurate as fearless; the ship buoyant, bending, and full of motion; its tones as true as they are wonderful; and the whole picture dedicated to the most sublime of subjects and impressions (completing thus the perfect system of all truth which we have shown to be formed by Turner's works), the power, majesty, and deathfulness of the open, deep, illimitable sea." [Illustration: FIG. 76.--THE SLAVE SHIP. _By Turner._] No painter of modern times, or perhaps of any time, has ever provoked the discussion of his merits which Turner did. When he was at his best his great merits and his originality procured for him the strongest defenders, and finally brought his pictures into favor with the wealthy middle class of England, so that he obtained high prices, and since his death these prices have doubled, and even quadrupled. At a sale of Mr. Bicknell's collection in 1836, ten of Turner's pictures, which had been bought for three thousand seven hundred and forty-nine pounds, were sold for seventeen thousand and ninety-four pounds. As Turner grew older and his manner deteriorated he was assailed by the wits, the art critics, and the amateurs with cruel badinage, and to these censures Turner was morbidly sensitive. But even Ruskin admits that the pictures of his last five years are of "wholly inferior value," with unsatisfactory foliage, chalky faces, and general indications of feebleness of hand.