Anglians even are aware of the wealth of beauty in that quiet corner. ‘The beauty of the surrounding scenery,’ writes Constable’s biographer, ‘its gentle declivities, its luxuriant meadows, flats sprinkled with flocks and herds, its well-cultivated Uplands, its woods and rivers, with mansions scattered, and churches, farms, and picturesque cottages—all impart to this spot an amenity and elegance hardly anywhere else to be found.’ The Constables have been long in the district. The grandfather was a farmer at a village close by. The father, who was well-to-do, purchased a water-mill at Dedham and two windmills at East Bergholt, where he lived. The great artist, his son John, was born in the last century, and was educated at Lavenham and the Dedham Grammar School, and when the lad had reached sixteen or seventeen became addicted to painting, his studio being in the house of a Mr. John Dunthorne, a painter and glazier, with whom he remained on terms of the greatest intimacy for many years. The father would fain have made the son a farmer. He preferred to be a miller, and in his young days was known in the district as the handsome miller. His windmills, when he took to painting, were wonderful, and well deserved the criticism of his brother, who used to say, ‘When I look at a windmill painted by John, I see that it will go round, which is not always the case with those of other artists,’ for the simple reason that John knew what he was about, which the others did not. Again, his industrial career helped him in another way. A miller learns to study the clouds, and Constable’s clouds were exceptionally life-like and real. The handsome young miller soon acquired artistic friends, one of them being Sir George Beaumont, the guide, philosopher, and friend of most of the geniuses of that time. Said another to him, ‘Do not trouble yourself about inventing figures for a landscape; you cannot remain an hour in a spot without the appearance of some living thing, that will in all probability better accord with the scene and the time of day than any invention of your own.’ After a visit to his artist friends in London, he resumed his mill life, and in 1779 he finally commenced his artistic career, and painted all the country round. His studies were chiefly Dedham, East Bergholt, the Valley of the Stour, and the neighbouring village of Stratford. At Stoke Nayland he painted an altar-piece for the church. There is also another altar-piece in a neighbouring church, but his altar-pieces are not known or treasured like his other works. Cooper tells a good story of Constable. One day Stodart, the sculptor, met Fuseli starting forth with an old umbrella. ‘Why do you carry the umbrella?’ asked the sculptor. ‘I am going to see Constable,’ was the reply, ‘and he is always painting rain.’ One can only remark that, if Constable was always painting rain, he always did it well.