The magnificent "Opening of Waterloo Bridge" which, to those who had not seen it in Sir Charles Tennant's collection, came as a revelation when shown at the Old Masters' Exhibition, gave Constable continuous trouble and anxiety. He was years over it, and "he indulged in the vagaries of the palette-knife to an excess." It was not understood: it was not liked. "Very unfinished, sir," was the comment of his friend, Thomas Stothard, R.A.; and, says Leslie, "the picture was generally pronounced a failure." This brilliant presentation of the King embarking at Whitehall stairs, the water dancing, the air fluttering with gay banners and the sails of bright and sumptuous barges, was hung next to a grey sea-piece by Turner, who promptly placed a bright spot of red lead in the foreground of his own grey picture. The vivacity of Constable's river fete lost something by that spot of vivid red. "Turner has been here and fired a gun," said Constable. The flash remained, although "in the last moments allowed for painting, Turner glazed the scarlet seal he had put upon his picture, and shaped it into a buoy." Considerable doubt has been thrown on Leslie's statement "that soon after Constable's death the picture was toned to the aristocratic taste of the period by a coat of blacking." The picture bears no trace of a coat of mourning. In the somewhat solemn and simple "Valley Farm," painted in 1835, two years before his death, Constable returned to the scenes of his boyhood, to Willy Lett's house on the bank of the Stour. His hand and eye have lost something of their grip and freshness, but his purpose is as firm as ever. "I have preserved God Almighty's daylight," he wrote, "which is enjoyed by all mankind, excepting only the lovers of old dirty canvas, perished pictures at a thousand guineas each, cart grease, tar, and snuff of candle." The old Adam, you perceive, was still strong in him. "The Cenotaph," now in the National Gallery, was exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1836--the subject being the cenotaph erected by Sir George Beaumont in memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds, a tribute of affection and respect. It is somewhat heavy in treatment. Did Constable, I wonder, realise that his work was nearly done? Was the uninspiriting "Cenotaph" in his mind when, in the autumn of this year, he wrote so generously about the pictures that his great contemporary was exhibiting:--"Turner has outdone himself; he seems to paint with tinted steam, so evanescent and so airy." Constable's last work was "Arundel Mill and Castle," upon which he was engaged on the day of his death, 31st March 1837.