The 'Studies near Brighton' Sketch-Book (1796) contains a drawing of pigs and a donkey with this note by Ruskin:—
'Both wonderful, quite beyond telling. There is an etching of Rembrandt's which approaches the upper study, but by no means equals it. Examine it for a quarter of an hour through a magnifying-glass, and you will see something of what it is.'
When Ruskin praised, he—praised.
In another Sketch-Book of this period there is a copy by Turner of Wilson's 'Landscape with Figures'; and in 1797 we find a book full of Wilson copies, and labelled on the back by Turner himself, 'Studies for Pictures. Copies of Wilson.' In the 'Swans' Sketch-Book (1798) Turner has noted on the inside cover in ink a
'Receipt for making an Efficable (?) ointment for Cut ...'
The details of the recipe are confusedly given. On the flyleaf are several scraps of verse, probably his own. One of them runs:—
'Tell me Babbling Echo why,
Babbling Echo tell me why,
You return me sigh for sigh;
When I of slighted love complain
You delight to Mock my Pain.'
On the back of a drawing of 'Somerset House' (?) is this (I copy the words just as he wrote them):—
Learn. Substantives
No Comparison but by
Adjectives, as, good bonne
bad, Beau, fine Positive
Plus Beau finer Comparative
le Plus Beau Superlitive of
Finer.
Masculine Le
White Blanc Positive
Whiter Plus Blanc Comparative
Whitest Le Plus Blanc Superlitive.'
Later, in the 'Dolbadern' Sketch-Book, he has copied out a list of French pronouns and their translations. There is something pathetic in these attempts of Turner to make up for his lack of education.