"What do you mean by that," Sir Thomas inquired.
"Why when I got off the coach t' other day at Hastings, a woman came up with a basket of your 'Mrs. Peel,' and offered to sell me one for a sixpence."
Turner dearly loved his friends, and the story of Chantry's death, illustrates it. He was in his room when the sculptor breathed his last, and just as he died, the artist turned to another friend, George Jones, and with tears streaming down his face, wrung Jones's hand and rushed from the room, unable to speak.
Again, when William Frederick Wells, another friend, died, Turner rushed to the house of Clara Wells, his daughter, and cried: "Oh Clara, Clara! these are iron tears. I have lost the best friend I ever had in my life."
In his old age Turner suddenly disappeared from all his haunts, and his friends could not find him. They were much troubled, but one day his old housekeeper found a note in a pocket of an old coat, which made her think he had gone to Chelsea. She looked there for him, and found him very ill, in a little cottage on the Thames River. Everybody about called him Admiral Booth, believing him to be a retired admiral. He had felt his death near and had tried to meet it quite alone. He died the very day after his friends found him, as he was being wheeled by them to the window to look out upon the river for the last time. He was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral between Sir Joshua Reynolds and James Barry. He left his drawings and pictures to a "Turner Gallery," and $100,000 to the Royal Academy, to be used for a medal to be struck every two years for the best exhibitor. The rest of his fortune went to care for "poor and decayed male artists born in England and of English parents only." This was to be known as Turner's Gift, and that is why he had saved money all his life.
A few more of the numberless stories of his generosity should be told. A picture had been sent to the Academy by a painter named Bird It was very fine, and Turner was full of its praise, but when they came to hang it no place could be found.
"It can't be hung," the others of the committee said.
"It must be hung," returned Turner, but nothing could be done about it, for there was absolutely no place. Then Turner went aside with the picture and sat studying it a long time. Finally he got up, took down a picture of his own and hung Bird's in its place. "There!" he said. "It is hung!"
Again, an old drawing-master died and Turner who had known the family for a long time, was aware that they were destitute, so he gave the widow a good sum of money with which to bury her husband and to meet general expenses. After some time she came to him with the money; but Turner put his hands in his pockets. "No," he said; "keep it. Use it to send the children to school and to church."
On one occasion when he had irritably sent a beggar from his house, he ran out and called her back, thrusting a £5 note into her hand before letting her go.