§ 20. By comparing the etching in Plate 61 with the published engraving,
it will be seen how much yet remains to be done before any approximately
just representation of Turner foreground can be put within the reach of
the public. This Plate has been reduced by Mr. Armytage from a
pen-drawing of mine, as large as the original of Turner's (18 inches by
11 inches). It will look a little better under a magnifying glass; but
only a most costly engraving, of the real size, could give any idea of
the richness of mossy and ferny leafage included in the real design. And
if this be so on one of the ordinary England drawings of a barren
Yorkshire moor, it may be imagined what the task would be of engraving
truly such a foreground as that of the "Bay of Baiæ" or "Daphne and
Leucippus," in which Turner's aim has been luxuriance.
[Illustration: 61. Richmond from the Moors.]
[Illustration: 62. By the Brookside.]
§ 21. His mind recurred, in all these classical foregrounds, to strong
impressions made upon him during his studies at Rome, by the masses of
vegetation which enrich its heaps of ruin with their embroidery and
bloom. I have always partly regretted these Roman studies, thinking that
they led him into too great fondness of pandering luxuriance in
vegetation, associated with decay; and prevented his giving
affection enough to the more solemn and more sacred infinity with which,
among the mightier ruins of the Alpine Rome, glow the pure and
motionless splendors of the gentian and the rose.
§ 22. Leaves motionless. The strong pines wave above them, and the weak
grasses tremble beside them; but the blue stars rest upon the earth with
a peace as of heaven; and far along the ridges of iron rock, moveless as
they, the rubied crests of Alpine rose flush in the low rays of morning.
Nor these yet the stillest leaves. Others there are subdued to a deeper
quietness, the mute slaves of the earth, to whom we owe, perhaps,
thanks, and tenderness, the most profound of all we have to render for
the leaf ministries.
§ 23. It is strange to think of the gradually diminished power and
withdrawn freedom among the orders of leaves--from the sweep of the
chestnut and gadding of the vine, down to the close shrinking trefoil,
and contented daisy, pressed on earth; and, at last, to the leaves that
are not merely close to earth, but themselves a part of it; fastened
down to it by their sides, here and there only a wrinkled edge rising
from the granite crystals. We have found beauty in the tree yielding
fruit, and in the herb yielding seed. How of the herb yielding _no_
seed,[4] the fruitless, flowerless lichen of the rock?
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