§ 1. The work of Turner, in its first period, is said in my account of his drawings at the National Gallery to be distinguished by "boldness of handling, generally gloomy tendency of mind, subdued color, and perpetual reference to precedent in composition." I must refer the reader to those two catalogues[1] for a more special account of his early modes of technical study. Here we are concerned only with the expression of that gloomy tendency of mind, whose causes we are now better able to understand. § 2. It was prevented from overpowering him by his labor. This, continual, and as tranquil in its course as a ploughman's in the field, by demanding an admirable humility and patience, averted the tragic passion of youth. Full of stern sorrow and fixed purpose, the boy set himself to his labor silently and meekly, like a workman's child on its first day at the cotton-mill. Without haste, but without relaxation,--accepting all modes and means of progress, however painful or humiliating, he took the burden on his shoulder and began his march. There was nothing so little, but that he noticed it; nothing so great but he began preparations to cope with it. For some time his work is, apparently, feelingless, so patient and mechanical are the first essays. It gains gradually in power and grasp; there is no perceptible _aim_ at freedom, or at fineness, but the force insensibly becomes swifter, and the touch finer. The color is always dark or subdued. [Illustration: 78. Quivi Trovammo.] § 3. Of the first forty subjects which he exhibited at the Royal Academy, thirty-one are architectural, and of these twenty-one are of elaborate Gothic architecture (Peterborough cathedral, Lincoln cathedral, Malmesbury abbey, Tintern abbey, &c.). I look upon the discipline given to his hand by these formal drawings as of the highest importance. His mind was also gradually led by them into a calmer pensiveness.[2] Education amidst country possessing architectural remains of some noble kind, I believe to be wholly essential to the progress of a landscape artist. The first verses he ever attached to a picture were in 1798. They are from Paradise Lost, and refer to a picture of Morning, on the Coniston Fells:-- "Ye mists and exhalations, that now rise From hill or streaming lake, dusky or gray, Till the sun paints your fleecy skirts with gold, In honor to the world's great Author rise." By glancing over the verses, which in following years[3] he quotes from Milton, Thompson, and Mallet, it may be seen at once how his mind was set, so far as natural scenes were concerned, on rendering atmospheric effect;--and so far as emotion was to be expressed, how consistently it was melancholy.