Turner's father was buried in the parish church of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, where the painter had been baptized. The plain epitaph was written by Turner; it bears no scriptural text.
[CHAPTER XXXVII]
1831: AGED FIFTY-SIX
HE TURNS HIS 'MAGIC LIMELIGHT' ON 'CALIGULA'S PALACE AND BRIDGE'; VISITS SIR WALTER SCOTT, AND MAKES HIS WILL
The Wizard makes a great effort this year, sending no fewer than six pictures to the Royal Academy, and among them was the famous 'Caligula's Palace and Bridge, Bay of Baiæ,' with this quotation from the Fallacies of Hope:—
'What now remains of all the mighty bridge
Which made the Lucrine lake an inner pool,
Caligula, but massy fragments left
As monuments of doubt and ruined hopes
Yet gleaming in the morning's ray, that tell
How Baiæ's shore was loved in times gone by.'
In this return to classicism Turner is even more wilful than usual with nature. Undoubtedly there are two suns present, as Mr. Wyllie points out, one of them shining straight through the rents in the palace wall, the other illuminating the boy and girl sitting on an unsubstantial yellow rock. In fact, 'Turner has turned his magic limelight on where his fancy prompted him, and has given us only as much nature as he thought good for us.'