“Of all his [Turner’s] drawings, I think those of the Yorkshire series have the most heart in them, the most affectionate, simple, unwearied serious finishings of truth. There is in them little seeking after effect, but a strong love of place; little exhibition of the artist’s own powers or peculiarities, but intense appreciation of the smallest local minutiæ. These drawings have, unfortunately, changed hands frequently, and have been abused and ill-treated by picture-dealers and cleaners; the greater number are now mere wrecks. I name them not as instances, but proofs of the artist’s study in this district; for the affection to which they owe their origin must have been grounded long years before.... “It is, I believe, to these broad, wooded steeps and swells of the Yorkshire downs that we, in part, owe the singular massiveness that prevails in Turner’s mountain drawing, and gives it one of its chief elements of grandeur.... I am in the habit of looking to the Yorkshire drawings as indicating one of the culminating points of Turner’s career. In these he attained the highest degree of what he had up to that time attempted, namely, finish and quantity of form, united with expression of atmosphere, and light without colour. His early drawings are singularly instructive in this definiteness and simplicity of aim.” ... “Turner evidently felt that the claims upon his regard possessed by those places which first had opened to him the joy and the labour of his life could never be superseded. No alpine cloud could efface, no Italian sunshine outshine the memories of the pleasant days of Rokeby and Bolton; and many a simple promontory dim with southern olive, many a lone cliff that stooped unnoticed over some alien wave, was recorded by him with a love and delicate care that were the shadows of old thoughts and long-lost delights, whose charm yet hung like morning mist above the chanting waves of Wharfe and Greta.”