The object of Thornbury’s statements about Turner being away only for a fortnight, and going straight to Farnley after landing at Hull, is evidently to corroborate his assertion that the fifty drawings were done “at the prodigious rate of three a day.” No one who has studied these beautiful drawings at all carefully could believe such a statement. But the evidence of Turner’s own memoranda proves that he only spent twelve days visiting the places on the Rhine which he has represented. He occupied from the 18th of August to the 30th sketching between Cologne and Mayence. So if we look at the matter from Thornbury’s point of view we are entitled to say that the fifty water-colours were done, not at the prodigious rate of three a day, but at the prodigious rate of more than four a day. But such a conclusion clearly overlooks the important difference between a sketch from nature and a finished drawing. In the twelve days Turner spent on the Rhine he certainly made the sketches for the fifty drawings Mr. Fawkes bought; and, in addition, he also made the sketches--numbering something between a hundred and fifty and two hundred--which we find in the three sketch-books, “Itinerary Rhine Tour,” “Waterloo and Rhine,” and “The Rhine” (CLIX, CLX, CLXI, Turner Bequest), preserved in the National Gallery. But it is evident the Farnley water-colours were not painted from nature. They were elaborated from pencil sketches somewhere between the end of August and the 13th November, possibly at inns--for Turner could work anywhere and under any conditions--or possibly when staying with Lord Darlington at Raby Castle, or with Lord Strathmore at Hylton Castle or Gibside. Such drawings as _Johannesberg_, _Sonneck and Baccharach_, _Mayence and Cassel_, and the rest, are not hurried sketches from nature, but carefully pondered and perfectly elaborated works of art. In some few cases parts of the sky or distance may have been painted from nature, but they all owe much of their charm and beauty to the consummately skilful labour which the artist lavished upon them in the intervals of travel, during the two months which elapsed between his departure from Cologne and his arrival at Farnley Hall near the beginning of November.