[47] The following is the text of this portion of Turner's will: "I give and bequeath unto the Trustees and Directors for the time being of a certain Society or Institution, called the 'National Gallery' or Society, the following pictures or paintings by myself, namely Dido Building Carthage, and the picture formerly in the De Tabley collection. To hold the said pictures or paintings unto the said Trustees and Directors of this said Society for the time being, in trust for the said Institution or Society for ever, subject, nevertheless, to, for, and upon the following reservations and restrictions only; that is to say, I direct that the said pictures or paintings shall be hung, kept, and placed, that is to say, always between the two pictures painted by Claude, The Seaport and Mill." The "picture formerly in the De Tabley collection" is the "Sun rising in a Mist," 479. Turner bought it back at Lord de Tabley's sale at Christie's in 1827 for £514: 10s., and ever afterwards refused to part with it. The other picture, the Carthage (498), was returned unsold from the Academy, and Turner always kept it in his gallery. His friend Chantrey used to make him offers for it, but each time its price rose higher. "Why, what in the world, Turner, are you going to do with the picture?" he asked. "Be buried in it," Turner replied—a remark he often made to other friends.
[48] "So in N. Poussin's 'Phocion' (40) the shadow of the stick on the stone in the right-hand corner, is shaded off and lost, while you see the stick plainly all the way. In nature's sunlight it would have been the direct reverse: you would have seen the shadow black and sharp all the way down; but you would have had to look for the stick, which in all probability would in several places have been confused with the stone behind it" (ibid.).
[49] Compare on this point G. Poussin's "Abraham and Isaac" (31).
[50] One may compare with Ruskin's description the similar one by Tennyson of a distant view of Monte Rosa—
How faintly-flush'd, how phantom-fair,
Was Monte Rosa, hanging there
A thousand shadowy-pencill'd valleys
And snowy dells in a golden air.
The Daisy.
[51] "In some of the convents (in Mexico) there still exist, buried alive like the inmates, various fine old paintings ... brought there by the monks" (Dublin National Gallery Catalogue). The Spanish influence gave birth, moreover, to a native Mexican School of painting, said to be of considerable merit.
[52] "Murillo, of all true painters the narrowest, feeblest, and most superficial, for those reasons the most popular" (Two Paths, § 57 n.)—"The delight of vulgar painters (as Murillo) in coarse and slurred painting merely for the sake of its coarseness, opposed to the divine finish which the greatest and mightiest of men disdained not" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. x. § 3).
[53] The French partiality for Murillo is traditional, dating back to Marshal Soult's time, from whose collection the "Immaculate Conception" was bought. Murillos were his favourite spoils from the Peninsular War. "One day, showing General G—— his gallery in Paris, Soult stopped opposite a Murillo, and said, 'I very much value that, as it saved the lives of two estimable persons.' An Aide-de-camp whispered, 'He threatened to have both shot on the spot unless they gave up the picture'" (Ford's Handbook).
[54] "He was not a bad painter," continued Ruskin, "but he exercises a most fatal influence on the English School, and therefore I owe him an especial grudge. I have never entered the Dulwich Gallery for fourteen years without seeing at least three copyists before the Murillos. I never have seen one before the Paul Veronese.... I intend some time in my life to have a general conflagration of Murillos." Ruskin would have been relieved to know that of late years at the National Gallery Paul Veronese—and especially his St. Helena—has been very frequently copied.