This picture (No. 141 in the Edinburgh Exhibition of 1858) was first exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1856. In the postscript to his Academy Notes of that year, Mr. Ruskin, after commenting on the “crying error of putting it nearly out of sight,” so that he had at first hardly noticed it, estimates this picture as second only to the “Autumn Leaves” of Mr. Millais in that exhibition. The following is a portion of his comment on it: “I see just enough of the figures to make me sure that the work is thoughtful and intense in the highest degree. The pressure of the girl’s hand on her side; her wild, firm, desolate look at the stream—she not raising her eyes as she makes her appeal, for fear of the greater mercilessness in the human look than in the glaze of the gliding water—the just choice of the type of the rider’s cruel face, and of the scene itself—so terrible in haggardness of rattling stones and ragged heath,—are all marks of the action of the very grandest imaginative power, shortened only of hold upon our feelings, because dealing with a subject too fearful to be for a moment believed true.”
The picture was originally purchased by Mr. John Miller, of Liverpool; at the sale of whose collection by Christie and Manson, two years later, in 1858, it fetched the price of two hundred guineas. At the same sale the “Blind Girl,” alluded to in the previous letter, was sold for three hundred.
For the poem illustrated by the picture, see Aytoun’s “Ballads of Scotland,” i. 219, where a slightly different version of it is given: it may also be found in “Percy’s Reliques” (vol. iii. p. 59), under the title of “Child Waters.” Other versions of this ballad, and other ballads of the same name, and probably origin, may be found in Jameson’s collection, vol. i. p. 117, vol. ii. p. 376, in Buchan’s “Ancient Ballads of the North,” ii. 29 (1879 ed.) and in “Four Books of Scottish Ballads,” Edin., 1868, Bk. ii. p. 21, where it is well noted that “Burd Helen” corresponds to the “Proud Elise” of northern minstrels, “La Prude Dame Elise” of the French, and the “Gentle Lady Elise” of the English—(Burd, Prud, Preux). It is also possible that it is a corruption of Burdalayn, or Burdalane, meaning an only child, a maiden, etc.
[80] The Witness had objected to the “astonishing fondness” of the pre-Raphaelite school for “conceits,” instancing as typically far-fetched that in the picture of “Burd Helen,” where Lord John was represented “pulling to pieces a heart’s-ease,” as he crosses the stream.
[81] The first exhibition of Turner’s pictures after his death was opened at Marlborough House early in November, 1856, seven months subsequent to the final decision as to the proper distribution of the property, which was the subject of Turner’s will.
[82] See Rogers’ “Italy,” p. 29.
[83] William Hookham Carpenter, for many years Keeper of the prints and drawings at the British Museum. He died in 1866.
[84] Mr. Ruskin’s offer was accepted, and he eventually arranged the drawings, and, in particular, the four hundred now exhibited in one of the lower rooms of the National Gallery, and contained in the kind of cases above proposed, presented by Mr. Ruskin to the Gallery. Mr. Ruskin also printed, as promised, a descriptive and explanatory catalogue of a hundred of these four hundred drawings. (Catalogue of the Turner Sketches in the National Gallery. For private circulation. Part 1.1857.—Only one hundred copies printed, and no further parts issued.)
Writing (1858) to Mr. Norton of his whole work in arranging the Turner drawings, Mr. Ruskin said: “To show you a little what my work has been, I have facsimiled for you, as nearly as I could, one of the nineteen thousand sketches (comprised in the Turner bequest). It, like most of them, is not a sketch, but a group of sketches, made on both sides of the leaf of the note-book. The note-books vary in contents from sixty to ninety leaves: there are about two hundred books of the kind—three hundred and odd note-books in all; and each leaf has on an average this quantity of work, a great many leaves being slighter, some blank, but a great many also elaborate in the highest degree, some containing ten exquisite compositions on each side of the leaf, thus (see facsimile), each no bigger than this—and with about that quantity of work in each, but every touch of it inestimable, done with his whole soul in it. Generally the slighter sketches are written over it everywhere, as in the example inclosed, every incident being noted that was going on at the moment of the sketch.”—“List of Turner’s Drawings shown in connection with Mr. Norton’s Lectures.” Boston: 1874. p. 11. The facsimile alluded to by Mr. Norton is reproduced here.
[85] July 3, 1857, upon the vote of £23,165 for the National Gallery.