Turner was instructed daily, while painting 'The Death of Nelson,' by the naval men about the court, and it is said that on eleven successive occasions he altered the rigging to suit the fancy of eleven successive naval visitors. Turner treated their criticisms as jokes: they amused him. He knew precisely what he meant to do. 'The Death of Nelson' was shown at the British Institution; later he painted another version, which is now at Greenwich Hospital.
To the Royal Academy he sent 'The Unpaid Bill, or the Doctor reproving his Son's Prodigality.' I have not seen this picture, which suggests Wilkie, and is probably not worth a journey of discovery.
In the Royal Academy catalogue of this year, 1808, we find for the first time the words, Professor of Perspective, after Turner's name, and in addition to the address 64 Harley Street, that of West End, Upper Mall, Hammersmith.
Turner was proud of his Professorship; this he showed by often affixing, in his correspondence, the letters P.P. to his name.
As might be expected, his lectures on Perspective were unlike the lectures of any other professor. Thornbury remarks: 'When Turner lectured on perspective he was often at a loss to find words to express the views he wished to communicate, but when the spirit did stir within him, and he could find utterance to his thoughts, he soared as high above the common order of lecturers as he did in the regions of art.'
Thornbury, whose stories and comments one always quotes with trepidation, his inaccuracies being so consistent, continues with the following humorous paragraph:—
'Turner's want of expression rendered him almost useless as a Professor of Perspective, though he took great pains to prepare the most learned diagrams. He confessed that he knew much more of the art than he could explain. His sketch-books contain many drawings evidently made in preparation for these lectures. On one memorable occasion the hour had come for his lecture. The Professor arrived—the buzz of the students subsided. The Professor mounts his desk—every eye is fixed on him and on his blackboard. But the Professor is uneasy—he is perturbed. He dives now into one pocket—now into the other —no! Now he begins, but what he says is 'Gentlemen, I've been and left my lecture in the hackney-coach.' I have no doubt the Professor would rather have painted five epical pictures than have had to deliver one lecture on Perspective.'
Among the Turner relics lent by Mr. C. Mallord Turner to the Tate Gallery are the manuscripts of the Lectures on Perspective. Mr. D. C. MCColl, in an article on 'Turner's Lectures at the Academy' which he contributed to the Burlington Magazine, said:—
'I am not yet in a position to say whether the labour of disentangling that part of the text which deals with the ordinary problems of perspective, would be repaid by its result; but the series concludes with a review of landscape painting by Turner, which certainly deserved to be printed. However halting in expression, Turner's word upon Dürer, Holbein, Titian, Rubens, Claude, Wilson and Gainsborough should not be lost. The lecture also on 'Reflexes'—i.e. reflections of light and colour—and incidental passages in the other lectures should be put on record.'
Turner's word, halting in expression, upon many great painters, together with his own aesthetic searchings, may be found, as the reader knows, in the Inventory. In the 'Tabley' Sketch-Book, dated 1808, there is a long involved passage on reflections, beginning 'Reflections not only appear darker but longer than the object which occasions them, and if the ripple or hollow of the wave is long enough to make an angle with the eye, it is on these undulating lines that the object reflects, and transmits all perpendicular objects lower towards the spectator....'