There was a man who in Turner's youth, while the little fellow was making pictures in the cheerless barber shop bought all of these drawings he could find. He often raised the price and in every way tried to help Turner. In after years that old patron went bankrupt. Turner heard that his steward had been instructed to cut down some fine old trees on this man's estate, and sell them. Turner, without letting himself be known in the matter, at once stopped the cutting and put into his old patron's hands about £20,000. The rescued man, afterward, through the same channels that he had received the money, paid it all back. Years passed, and the son of that same man got into the same difficulties, and again, without being known in the matter, Turner restored his fortune. That son, in his turn, honestly paid back the full amount. This was the miser who saved all his money--to do good deeds to his friends. Ruskin wrote that in all his life he had never heard from Turner one unkind or blameful word for others.
PLATE--THE FIGHTING TÉMÉRAIRE
This was the picture which Turner loved best of all, the one he would never sell; but at his death ho gave it to the English nation.
"Many years before he painted it, he had gone down to Portsmouth one day to see Nelson's fleet come in after the glorious victory of Trafalgar. The Téméraire was pointed out to him--a battle ship that had very proudly borne the English flag, for during the battle it had run in between two French frigates and captured them both.
"And now between thirty and forty years later, he lingered one afternoon on the banks of the Thames. As he looked over the water he saw the grand old hulk being towed down the river by a noisy little tug to be broken up at Deptford. 'There's a fine subject!' he exclaimed as he looked at the heroic ship that had known many glorious years; and in his thought he compared it to 'a battle-scarred warrior borne to the grave.'
"Then he painted the picture. The glow of the setting sun irradiates the scene and bids farewell to the old ship. Twilight is coming on, and the new moon has just risen in its pearly light. It is a pathetic picture," and well illustrates how truly a "master of sunsets and waves" the artist was.
Among his other paintings are several of Venice; "The Slave Ship" and many other sea pieces.