Thomas Gainsborough was not a thwarted genius. He was sent to London at fourteen to study under Hayman, an indifferent artist and a hard liver. From fourteen to eighteen he was loose about London, under a bad influence to start with, and that he sowed a fine lot of wild oats was no wonder. But at eighteen he returned to Sudbury and to landscape, and worked very hard at it. Here again let Mr. Armstrong be quoted, because his authority is real: "In his early years Gainsborough painted landscape with the minutest care. I know pictures dating probably from about 1748 which excel any Dutchman in the elaboration with which such things as the ruts in a country road, and the grasses beside it, or the gnarled trunk and rough bark of some ancient willow, are made out. In the National Gallery of Ireland we have one such picture. It represents just such a characteristic bit of Suffolk scenery as Wynants would have chosen had he carried his Batavian patience over the North Sea. Across a sand-pit in the foreground a deep country road winds away into the distance, where the roofs of a village suggest its objective. An old horse, a silvery sky with a fine _arabesque_ of windy clouds, and a few old weather-stunted trees complete the picture. The execution is so elaborate that the surface is fused into one unbroken breadth of enamel. The _Great Cornard Wood_," (Suffolk of course) "in the National Gallery, cannot have been painted very much later than this. Its colour has the same gray coolness, its tone is as high, and its execution almost as elaborate." Gainsborough may or may not have been, as Reynolds said, the greatest living landscape painter. Reynolds probably said it to annoy Wilson, who was present. But Horace Walpole pronounced one of his pictures to be "in the style of Rubens, and by far the best landscape ever painted in England, and equal to the great masters." For us the truly interesting point is that this was said of Sudbury's greatest man, and that the valley of the Stour gave to this man, Thomas Gainsborough, all his early inspiration, all his early subjects in landscape. By the way, in stating that Thomas Gainsborough was Sudbury's greatest man I had forgotten Simon of Sudbury, who probably never uttered a coarse oath, nor drank too much wine, nor was, to quote Gainsborough of himself, "deeply read in petticoats." But let any reader who has persevered thus far lay his hand on his heart and reflect honestly whether he can say offhand who Simon of Sudbury was. Well, he was an archbishop of Canterbury who was hanged during Wat Tyler's rebellion. His fate leaves me, and probably the reader also, quite unmoved. Now let us hie, climbing a hill of 1 in 14, to Long Melford, and tea, and really fine architecture, for Long Melford is grand and, when one halts for any long time a-motoring, a good cause must needs be offered.