early studies at Brentford and Margate, at both or which places he was at school. Very few, however, of his quite boyish drawings--I refer to those before 1790--have survived, and those few are mostly copies of prints or of works of other artists. One, _Folly Bridge and Bacon’s Tower, Oxford_ (taken from the heading of an Oxford Almanack), may be seen in the National Gallery (No. 613 N.G.); another in my possession, _A Roadside Inn_--the earliest dated work by him (1786) known to me--is possibly original, but more probably copied from a drawing by M. A. Rooker, A.R.A. From the architect’s office, at the instigation it is believed of Mr. Hardwick himself, Turner in 1789 became a student at the Royal Academy, and may be said to have definitely taken up an artist’s career. In the following year, 1790, he sent his first drawing to the Royal Academy Exhibition, then held in Somerset House. This was the _View of the Archbishop’s Palace, Lambeth_, reproduced here (Plate I.). For the work of a boy of fifteen, the good architectural drawing, the admirable rendering of reflected light on the houses, the careful treatment of the figures (the costumes are quite correct for 1790), and still more, the effectiveness of the composition are remarkable. There is, however, nothing original in the style, which is simply that of Malton and Sandby. To the next year’s exhibition (1791) he sent two drawings, one of which, _The Interior of King John’s Palace, Eltham_, is a striking work, of great originality. Not only has it the sound architectural draughtsmanship before alluded to, but in its strong _chiaroscuro_, its rendering of sunlight breaking through the ruined windows and lighting the gloom, its sense of poetry and mystery, it would be creditable to any artist of mature age. A curious phase in Turner’s work of the next year--1792--merits notice. Influenced probably by the pictures of De Loutherbourg, a French painter, who had settled in England and had been made an R.A., Turner, for a few months entirely changed his scheme of colour, adopting a curious range of greyish and purplish browns as his prevailing tone, in place of the pale greys, blues, and neutral tints, which, in common with the other water-colour painters of the period, he had hitherto employed. In this style are several drawings of Richmond Park, one or two of a fire at the Pantheon, and many of the beautiful scenery on the downs beyond Bristol, where, during his early life, he often stayed with relatives. One, _The Mouth of the Avon_, is reproduced here (Plate II.). In nearly all the Bristol drawings one special feature is noticeable. Turner had evidently been struck by the unusual spectacle of the masts and sails of the tall East-Indiamen, which were daily to be seen in full sail under the thick woods of the Clifton downs, beating their way up the narrow gorge of the Avon to the port of Bristol.