1815 there is a marked change in the aims and character of Turner’s art, and it is convenient to date this change from the year that saw the end of the Napoleonic wars, and inaugurated a new era in the social and political condition of this country. From this date, too, the conditions of artistic production changed. The rapid development of industrial concerns brought a new class of patrons upon the scene. Before 1815, Turner’s patrons had been mainly the landed aristocracy; after 1815, his chief patrons were the successful merchants of the great towns. From that time the men of commerce and the manufacturers ousted the aristocracy from the leading position which they had held in the councils of the country. With the change of men a change took place in the ideals, manners and taste of the country; and Turner, with his extraordinary sensibility, his ready powers of intuition and rapid assimilation, seemed bound to reflect the change in his work. Yet if we look closer into Turner’s career, we find that 1815 was rather the year that saw the brilliant public inauguration of the new era, than the actual beginning of the change. The ‘Crossing the Brook,’ exhibited in 1815, is often regarded as the impressive close of Turner’s early manner, yet this beautiful picture already bears the impress of that _folie des grandeurs_ to which we owe most of the excesses of the new manner. The ‘Frosty Morning’ of 1813 is really the last work in which the inspiration rings true throughout, in which the form and content are absolutely indissoluble. ‘Dido and Æneas,’ the only picture exhibited in 1814, is a frigid pseudo-classical pomposity, the due development of the strain of baser metal in Turner’s genius, which had already betrayed itself in the ‘Macon’ of 1803, the ‘Narcissus and Echo’ of 1804, and the ‘Schaffhausen’ of 1806. In glancing rapidly over Turner’s career we have been able to ignore these works; in the rush and splendour of his general development such pictures fall into insignificance, as casual indications that a busy professional man’s industry may outrun his inspiration.