In this drawing a lady dressed in blue is seated in the foreground at a spinnet; on the left, there is another lady in white on a couch, and on the right, in the middle distance, a group of figures are seated round a table apparently playing cards, while a figure in a light-coloured dress stands behind the chair of one of the players. The objects on the wall of the room, the near furniture and figures are all considerably more defined than any of the objects in ‘Waiting for Dinner,’ but the definition of these parts sets up a standard which condemns the drawing as a whole. We feel disappointed, after getting so much definition, that we do not get more. The middle-distance figures are so well drawn, or rather are so vivaciously observed and full of individuality, that we cannot help complaining that the foreground lady’s neck and shoulders are impossible, and that the lady on the couch is so much like a wooden doll. These observations suggest that each drawing sets up its own standard of definition. The comparative failure of such a drawing could not but help to impress on Turner the immense value for his purposes of a wise and consistent vagueness of statement. In the vignettes made to illustrate the works of Rogers, Scott, Byron and Campbell we see the lesson of the Petworth experiments driven home. Though these drawings were made expressly with the object of being engraved in black and white, they are conceived entirely upon a colour basis, while their lack of definition must have made quite unwarrantable demands upon the skill and resources of the engravers. But it is evident that Turner had now firmly grasped the fact that the glamour and [Illustration: _PLATE LXXVII_ SHEEP IN THE TRENCH BODY COLOUR ON BLUE. ABOUT 1830] [Illustration: _PLATE LXXVIII_ SHIPPING ON THE RIVA DEGLI SCHIAVONI. VENICE WATER COLOUR. ABOUT 1839] intoxication of colour had become the dominant and essential factor in his art, and that the vagueness of his ideas could only be adequately expressed by allusion and suggestion. These vignettes and the engravings made from them vary widely in value. One or two of them are worthy of the artist, for example the ‘Datur hora quieti,’ ‘The Alps at Daybreak’ and the ‘Melrose,’ but for the most part they owe the very great popular success they have enjoyed to the skill with which the artist has entered into the spirit of the second-and third-rate poetry he was called upon to illustrate, and to the admirable way in which his suggestions were engraved.