A silver salver, engraved with heraldic devices, seen at the house of Mr. Tomkisson, the famous piano-forte-maker, is said to have first inspired the boy Turner with a love for art. He commenced to imitate the drawing of a certain rampant lion that especially took his fancy. Very soon after this the father announced that his son William was going to be a painter. The reader will note that the early ambitions of the boy were at once humoured. There would seem to have been no attempt usual with poor parents anxious for the commercial success of a child, to thrust the boy into a trade or employment which, though distasteful, would have been profitable to him. Old Mr. Turner probably knew little enough of art, and could have had but a poor opinion, in a pecuniary sense, of the profession to which his son was desirous of attaching himself. But no obstacles were thrown in his path; he was soon placed with Mr. Thomas Malton, a perspective draughtsman, who kept a school in Longacre, and was the son of the author of a practical book on _Geometry and Perspective_. Certainly his poverty and low birth in no way hindered the painter; had he been born to rank and wealth, he could only have had his will: and he had it without these. The little education he ever received was obtained at a school at Brentford; but he could never write or spell correctly. It is probable that his passion for art absorbed his every thought. Not that he succeeded with his perspective studies, however, for Mr. Malton brought the boy back to his father as a pupil quite beyond all hope. Yet the real talent of the young painter was already developing itself. Some of his drawings exhibited in the Maiden Lane shop found purchasers among his father's customers. An engraver employed him to colour prints. Two or three architects engaged him to fill in skies and backgrounds to their plans. Soon he had entered the office of Mr. Hardwick, the architect, who regularly employed him. It is curious to learn that, later in life, Turner, pointing admiringly to a green mezzotinto of a Vandevelde--a large vessel bearing up against the waves--would exclaim, '_That_ made me a painter!' Yet he stood before the work of one of those 'Van-somethings and Back-somethings,' who, Mr. Ruskin tells us, have 'more especially and malignantly libelled the sea.' 'I feel utterly hopeless in addressing the admirers of these men, because I do not know what it is in their works which is supposed to be like nature.' It seems that Turner was more catholic in his tastes than his panegyrist.