PEACE—BURIAL AT SEA OF THE BODY OF SIR DAVID WILKIE. FROM A PAINTING BY J.M.W. TURNER IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY.
"The midnight torch gleamed o'er the steamer's side,
And merit's corse was yielded to the tide."
—Fallacies of Hope.
The "Fallacies of Hope" was an imaginary poem from which Turner professed to quote whenever he wanted a line or a couplet to explain his pictures, the avowed quotation being really of his own composition. Sir David Wilkie, the distinguished painter, died at sea on his way home from the Orient, June 1, 1841. His body was consigned to the sea at midnight of that day. The picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1842.
The stone-pines of Italy are seen through the distortion of convention, the palaces of Venice were never builded by the hand of man; and we lose by this the contrast which nature provides between solid earth and filmy cloud. The onlooker must indeed be devoid of imagination, however, if he can stand before those pictures of Turner where the limitless sky is reflected in the waters, without profound emotion. They may not seem natural in such sense as one finds works of more realistic aim; but one must at least agree with Turner, in the time-worn story of the lady who taxed him with violation of natural law, saying that she had never seen a sky like one in the picture before them. "Possibly," growled the unruffled painter; "but don't you wish you could?"
