Amongst the Turner prints that I have bought, I have always been guided rather by fineness of impression than by priority of ‘state.’ Thus, side by side with a First State of the ‘London from Greenwich’ I do not fear to place a late one of ‘The Frontispiece, with the Rape of Europa.’ The impression must have been printed the moment the plate had profited by Turner’s retouch. As for the costly curiosities known as ‘engraver’s proofs’--working proofs, in fine, struck off to see how the plate was progressing--speaking broadly and roughly, I do not believe in them. They have their own interest, of course, as illustrating the means by which the effect was obtained; but, in quality, they yield to an impression taken when the effect had just been got, or, in the case of a fine Second or later State, to an impression taken when the effect, lost in the interval by wear, had just been regained. No one who appreciates Turner can quite confine himself to the ‘Liber,’ though the ‘Liber’ is the most comprehensive expression of that infinite genius. Accordingly, in my drawers there may be found, no doubt, pieces from one or other of his engraved publications: something, it may be, from the ‘Rivers of England’--amongst them the ‘York’ and the ‘Ripon,’ which are not his indeed, but his friend Girtin’s--something from the ‘Southern Coast’; and, from the ‘England and Wales,’ that exquisite ‘Yarmouth,’ which, like the ‘Clovelly’ and the ‘Portsmouth’ (both of them in the ‘Southern Coast’) exemplifies old William Miller’s marvellous faculty of rendering the sky effects, the aerial perspective, of Turner’s maturest art. One has heard of Turner’s compliments to John Pye, over ‘Pope’s Villa,’ and they were not undeserved; but how great should his recognition have been of the Scottish Quaker, simple of nature, subtle of gift, for whom no passage of Turner’s brush-work was too intricate or too baffling! But let us turn to earlier Masters.