Turner, who has been styled “the English Claude,” pursued a career of like laborious industry. He was destined by his father for his own trade of a barber, which he carried on in London, until one day the sketch which the boy had made of a coat of arms on a silver salver having attracted the notice of a customer whom his father was shaving, the latter was urged to allow his son to follow his bias, and he was eventually permitted to follow art as a profession. Like all young artists, Turner had many difficulties to encounter, and they were all the greater that his circumstances were so straitened. But he was always willing to work, and to take pains with his work, no matter how humble it might be. He was glad to hire himself out at half-a-crown a night to wash in skies in Indian ink upon other people’s drawings, getting his supper into the bargain. Thus he earned money and acquired expertness. Then he took to illustrating guide-books, almanacs, and any sort of books that wanted cheap frontispieces. “What could I have done better?” said he afterwards; “it was first-rate practice.” He did everything carefully and conscientiously, never slurring over his work because he was ill-remunerated for it. He aimed at learning as well as living; always doing his best, and never leaving a drawing without having made a step in advance upon his previous work. A man who thus laboured was sure to do much; and his growth in power and grasp of thought was, to use Ruskin’s words, “as steady as the increasing light of sunrise.” But Turner’s genius needs no panegyric; his best monument is the noble gallery of pictures bequeathed by him to the nation, which will ever be the most lasting memorial of his fame. To reach Rome, the capital of the fine arts, is usually the highest ambition of the art student. But the journey to Rome is costly, and the student is often poor. With a will resolute to overcome difficulties, Rome may however at last be reached. Thus François Perrier, an early French painter, in his eager desire to visit the Eternal City, consented to act as guide to a blind vagrant. After long wanderings he reached the Vatican, studied and became famous. Not less enthusiasm was displayed by Jacques Callot in his determination to visit Rome. Though opposed by his father in his wish to be an artist, the boy would not be baulked, but fled from home to make his way to Italy. Having set out without means, he was soon reduced to great straits; but falling in with a band of gipsies, he joined their company, and wandered about with them from one fair to another, sharing in their numerous adventures. During this remarkable journey Callot picked up much of that extraordinary knowledge of figure, feature, and character which he afterwards reproduced, sometimes in such exaggerated forms, in his wonderful engravings.