TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM.*

From The Saturday Review. It is the most poetical and has the deepest tragic interest of them all. A terAs we turn over the portfolio of these ex-rific gale is bursting on the rocky shore of quisite photographic prints, which seem really a bay, and a wrecked hull is tossing in the to be in all respects equal to the original surf in the foreground. In the distance is a handiworks of the great master, it is impos- stern headland, scarcely distinguishable from sible not to remember the prediction of a high the inky sky, with its outline obscured by the authority that a hundred years hence all the rain and the spray. A white lighthouse sun-drawings in which our generation takes gleams fitfully on its summit; and the flashsuch delight will be either altogether effaced, ing wings of a flight of sea-gulls driven inor will have become indistinguishable blots land by the storm are made, by the highest and smears of a brownish monochrome. cunning of art, to intensify the gloomy murkiWhether this prophecy will be verified or not ness of the sky, and to throw the foreland is as yet unknown. Many a collector of pho- into the extreme distance. At the foot of the tographs looks wistfully at his treasures, and rocky point the surf is boiling and drifting as observes from time to time the indisputable no one but Turner has ever drawn it. In the paling and fading away of the earlier speci- immediate foreground there are nearer and mens of the art. It is possible that the better blacker rocks, with a few figures trying to qualities of the "chemicals" which are now rescue the perishing wretches who are seen, procurable may postpone or avert the catas- in strong relief against the surf behind, clingtrophe; but we confess that we are disposed ing to the helpless wreck. This is a picture to rest our best hopes for the future on Sir which grows in force and truth the more it is Henry James's newly discovered zinco-photo- looked at, until it becomes scarcely a stretch graphic process. By this admirable inven- of the imagination to fancy one's self present tion, the inimitable delicacy and fidelity of a at the very scene. The next plate, called sun-drawn picture are transferred to a metal" Cephalus and Procris," is of course a woodplate or a surface of stone, from which again land view with two ill-drawn figures, which imperishable copies may be multiplied, almost were better away, in the foreground. The without limit, by the ordinary printing-press. marvel of the drawing is its slightness. It is Meanwhile, however, until the noble process nothing but a short wild avenue of trees seen is perfected, we must be grateful for this sec- obliquely, in which the trunks and leafage are ond fasiculus of photographic copies of the scarcely more than indicated by a few hasty Liber Studiorum plates, and must not allow touches. The most beautiful part of the picour fears for their permanency to interfere ture is a sunlit copse, seen in the distance on with the pleasure and profit which these re- the right through the stems of the nearest productions afford to us. As we said in no- trees. "Pastoral with Cattle" is the name ticing the former series, the usefulness of of the next plate. It seems to be a sort of these photographic copies to a student of art reminiscence of Claude-like landscape-a cannot possibly be exaggerated. No more broad open valley with near trees on each valuable present to a landscape painter can side, cattle in the foreground, scattered trees be imagined than these reproductions of Tur- in the mid-distance, and a massive rock, casner's matchless masterpieces. They will tle-crowned, filling up the vista on the horiguide, reform, and improve the taste of thou-zon. The foliage here is inimitable; and the sands of amateur artists, and will often implant a love of landscape-drawing where it never existed before.

We proceed to point out some of the special excellences of these photographs in the order in which they here appear. First of all, we have the coast of Yorkshire. *Liber Studiorum. Second Series. Photographs from Twenty-one Original Drawings by J. M. W. Turner, R.A., in the South Kensington Museum. Published under the Authority of the Department

of Science and Art. London: Cundall, Downes, & Co. 1862.

long sloping shadows athwart the valley are managed with infinite skill. We may add that outline, leafage, and general character in this landscape are clearly intended to represent a scene in some upland of the mountain limestone. The plate of the "Wye and the Severn" is of course a study of far distance. Here, as is often the case in art, the hand of the master is evident by its reticence -so to call it. In this exquisite landscape there is positively no outline at all in the further distance; and the spectator's eye pores

into the vanishing horizon for some more defi- spared. What are given indeed are little nite forms of the sinuous Wye and the stately more than barely suggested; and yet to the stream into which it is falling, just as it imagination the idea intended to be conveyed would do in nature itself. The great lesson is perfectly rendered. This is the true provwhich nature teaches in vain to the præ-Raf- inçe, and the highest success, of art. One faellite landscapist-viz., that art must repre- could wish the figures away from the "Young sent objects as the human eye sees them-may Anglers," which is the next plate in succesperhaps be brought home to him by the care- sion. As always in Turner's landscapes, they ful study of this masterpiece. The next plate are ill-drawn and inexpressive. Apart from is inscribed, "Laufenburg on the Rhine." them, the scene here depicted, though unpreAs usual, it is a study, and not a transcript, tending, is full of pictorial interest. The from nature. The river, dark, narrow, and sluggish stream, the reeds and flags on its foaming, is spanned by an irregular, pictur- bank, the osiers on one side, and the rustic esque bridge. Both banks are lofty and villa on the opposite bank, are all marvels of crowded with houses and towers, rising in consummate rendering. Still more cynical in stages one above the other. This view em- its disregard of the proprieties of figure drawbodies, no doubt, the painter's recollection of ing is the group of boys, engaged in putting the general characteristics and effects of the a companion into a trough, which gives the Rhine scenery of this type. In " Dumblane inappropriate name of " Juvenile Tricks" to Abbey" we have a steep bank, clothed with the next plate. The whole scene indeed is wood, sunk in the deepest shadow, sur- much below the average merit of the series; mounted by the ruined eastern gable and and none but the most enthusiastic of Turroofless side-walls of the ancient church. At ner-worshippers can be expected to admire the the foot winds a narrow river, with a low distant row of suburban houses which is disbank on the other side, a hamlet in the dis- cerned through the gnarled trunks of the tance, and a group of women washing clothes scanty and aged wood of the foreground. in the foreground. The elements of the pic- Almost equally sketchy, but far cleverer in ture are simple enough. The leading idea the handling of the foliage, is the Bridge seems to be the intense blackness of the and Cows," which follows in the series. wooded steep above which the ruin stands. This plate, by the way, in the copy before us, The architectural truth of the delineation of is an exception to the general uniform excelthe lancets in the gaunt gable of the choir de-lence of the photographic impressions of this serves to be noticed. The next plate is series. The exposure has been insufficient. "East-Gate, Winchelsea "—a less interesting In " Pembury Mill, Kent," Turner has given scene of ruin. This view again is by no a weird picturesqueness to a homely enough means truthful as to its bare facts; but it scene of rustic life. He must have seen the manages to convey, in a most masterly man- mill at Pembury under some such accidental ner, the peculiar general effect of that de- combination of light and shade, and his faithcayed town. Tall trees are growing on the ful memory has here reproduced it with the walls, and the old road is shown as a mere necessary modifications and exaggerations. sheep-walk. Turner was never more at home We like infinitely better his next plate, called than on the sea. His "Sketch for a Sea- the "Water-mill; "—not so much, however, Piece" is truly admirable. Here we have a for the picturesque half-ruined mill in the man-of-war riding at anchor in the distance, centre as for the exquisitely drawn trees bewhile a cutter almost on her beam end as she yond the stream, and the tender distance. heels over under a very stiff breeze is making Mr. Ruskin has discovered unfathomable for her. It is wild dirty weather, and the depths of meaning in Turner's "Hedging pitch black waves are only relieved by the and Ditching.' To us it seems merely a white of the flying scud. The sky too is won-powerful sketch of a scene of familiar and derfully truthful and unexaggerated. The disagreeable rustic toil. The skill with which big ship, gleaming in the offing, will be to an intelligent student a perfect model of the proper conventional method of indicating a distant object. Not a spar nor a rope of the rigging is delineated which could possibly be

the wild common beyond the hedge is delineated in this plate is above all praise. A far more pleasant picture is the next, the "Stackyard; "but its chief interest arises from its consummate delincation of the leafage of the

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few trees which make their appearance in the roof, with distant peeps of daylight. The view. Almost the same may be said of the " Bridge with Goats" seems to us unequal Farmyard with Pigs; " where indeed, all to the rest, though we may except from the the animals-both pigs and poultry - censure the trees on the left hand. Finally, badly drawn, and the rest of the accessories the concluding plate, entitled "Sketch of are poor and out of proportion. But the Shipping," is a picture which no one but docks in the foreground and the leafage are Turner could have attempted. Some five or excellent. "Marine Dabblers" is an absurd six large ships in immediate proximity to each title for a most vigorous sketch of a fishing other, and sailing in all directions, are dashboat hauled up dry on the beach, with a ing about in a stormy sea close to a harborrough sea and a stormy sky behind. Mark mouth, in most imminent danger of collision. here the contrast between the black hull, with But no one can examine this plate carefully the dark flapping sail hanging over it, and without the deepest admiration for the paintthe gleaming sea, with its single white sail er's skill. For here we have real sea and real against the leaden horizon, and the sea-gulls, sky, each terrible in its wildness. The waves which are put in just where they are wanted, are running mountain-high, and the stormto light the picture with an infallible skill. clouds brooding to the left-hand of the picWe have quite another kind of landscape in ture is positively awful in its threatening in"Hindoo Ablutions." There is nothing Ori- tensity. Nothing more powerful than the ental about it, but the single tree in the fore- drawing of the actual shipping of the piece ground, and the far distance, and the hot but can well be imagined. We conclude with recloudy sky, are in their way miracles of draw-peating our congratulations to all who are ing. By the " Crypt, Kirkwall," Turner concerned in this invaluable work, by which means one of the ruined chapels of that ab- Turner's best landscapes have been brought bey. This is a fine study of the lights and literally within the reach of "the million." shadows of the receding vaults of a groined |

" sugar instead of it" (p. 319), though a decoction of wood-ashes used to take off the insipidity of the maize cakes, "is a sort of use of salt."Kitchi-Gami, 8vo, 1860, p. 322.

SALT.-What proof is there of the "fact" (of | European traders among them came to employ the Encyclopædias) that when some criminals formerly, in Holland, were deprived of the use of salt, they perished miserably, infested with worms? Multitudes of savages in different parts of the world do not use salt with their food, which would indicate that its use is not imperatively necessary, as is commonly held. Dr. Livingstone found "When I procured a meal of flesh [after a long use of vegetable diet], though boiled in perfectly fresh rain-water, it tasted as pleasantly saltish as if slightly impregnated with that condiment."-Travels in South Africa in 1857, p. 27.

Mr. Galton says, "The Damaras never take any salt. We never found it a necessary of life."-P. 182. "The game in the Swadop do not frequent the salt licks as they do in America." And he adds: "I am informed that certain New Zealand tribes not only eat without salt, but actually look upon it with distaste and aversion."

-P. 183.

Admiral F. Von Wrangell mentions that the natives about the Kolyma River, Siberia, "never use salt, and even dislike it."-Expedition to the Polar Sea in 1840, pp. 76, 377.

Mr. J. G. Kohl observes, "The Ojibbeways have a perfect aversion for salt," and that even

Mr Catlin says: "None of these tribes of Indians (on the Upper Missouri) use salt in any way, though their country abounds in saltsprings and incrustations of salt. . . The Indians cook [boil] their meat more than we do." (Vol. i. p. 124.) He says however, that Indians along the frontier who use vegetable food, take salt (vol. i. p. 125); but this may be from imitation of the whites. Mr. Catlin also says:

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During the ravages of the cholera. . . I was in these regions, and I learned from what I that it carried death among saw and heard the tribes on the borders in many cases, as far as they had adopted the civilized modes of life, with its dissipations, using vegetable food and salt; but wherever it came to tribes living exclusively on meat, and that without the use of salt, its progress was suddenly stopped."—Letters and Notes on the N. American Indians, vol. ii. p.

258. 2 vols. 1841.

-Notes and Queries.

J. P.

From Chambers's Journal.
LOVE IN A DIVING-BELL.

SEVENTEEN was just the age at which I first met Charlotte Elizabeth-under water. What think you of that, Mr. Editor? Are not such circumstances of first-love new? Permit me also to add, with my hand upon my heart, that they are moreover true.

amphibious pursuit of his; I felt as though I too should like to explore those airless depths, and make my business in those mighty. waters. When he came out at last, like a two-trunked sea-elephant, and bowed in his repulsive manner to the spectators, I was almost afraid that he was going to offer " any lady or gent" the loan of his apparatus. I was infinitely relieved when I saw it put away in a cupboard, for now no unnatural temptation

It was on a Saturday afternoon, which was a holiday at our office in the city (although the Early-closing Movement was not so much as heard of at that time), and I was spending Any lady or gent for the diving-bell ? ” it in the improvement of my mind at the Poly-exclaimed the sonorous voice. "The machine technic. I had sat in that stately hall, which is now about to descend.”

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My heart came into my mouth and then retired about half-way down my throat, as I should judge. My extremities became cold as ice, as I gasped out: "Stop a minute: take me in, please do." The crowd that already surrounded the machine parted to left and right, to let me pass. There was not the least hurry, of course; but if I had not spoken at once, I should not have done so at all. I was the first volunteer for this tremendous enter

is something between a theatre and a dissecting-room, to behold the wonders of science; I had gazed upon that wondrous apparatus for learning to swim upon dry land until my limbs were on the point of involuntarily "striking out" for an imaginary shore; and I had gazed upon the electrical eel to repletion, when a great bell was rung, and a sonorous voice exclaimed: "6 Experiments connected with the diving-bell." Upon this, a great rush was made from all parts of the prise, and an object of great public interbuilding to that circular pond of clear green | est. water, the excessive depth of which has al

"I wouldn't do it myself for a 'underd ways been a marvel to me. Into whose cel-pound," observed one gentleman, for the purlars does it descend? What sewers does it pose of re-assuring me, I conclude; and a forever threaten with untimely flushing? friend of his replied, "No, nor yet for two; From what fountains do its pellucid waves it's what I call fool'ardy." arise? Then the intrepid diver made his I passed the little barrier; I gave the mantoilet in the presence of the company, being ager the requisite shilling for the submarine loaded with heavy weights, as though he were passage; and I crept under the great gogglesome desperate criminal, and having on his eyed bell amid quite a popular ovation. A face a helmet fixed, to be presently screwed narrow seat ran round the interior of the maround by the assistants, a proceeding which chine; the atmosphere seemed close, even as appeared to the unscientific eye like wring- it was, and the light was dim, although we ing his neck. Covered with polypi in the were as yet in the land of the living. I shape of india-rubber tubing, this monster perceived, however, a shining substance imtadpole clumsily descended by an iron ladder mediately opposite to me, which turned out into the pond, the bottom of which was al- to be a boy covered with buttons-the page ready strewd with halfpence; after these, we of the establishment, whose dreadful trade it could dimly see him waddle and stoop, made was to descend, I don't know how many times more hideous even than before by the watery a day, in company with subaqueous amateurs. medium-foreshortened at right angles to | He had a rope in his hand that hung down himself, exaggerated, disproportioned, slow from the top of the bell, and which I fondly -the most horrible picture of cupidity that imagined communicated with the scientific the mind is capable of conceiving. Above authorities, so that we could be hoisted up him arose large and noisy bubbles; and now again at a moment's notice, by signal; but and then he would emerge as to his head and this confidence was entirely misplaced. A shoulders, and tap his metal helmet with the certain round spot with a number of little halfpence, to let us know—as though we had holes-like the top of a sink-was the sole not watched his horrid movements all along ornament of the apartment in which we were ; -that he had picked them up. Incredible and through this was to come the air we as it may appear, I was attracted towards this breathed. To say that I would gladly have

left hand. It was before the days of crinoline, but she wore some expansive gauzy garment, which, as she took her seat, flowed over all the others, and seemed to leave her alone with me and the page-who, except as a scientific assistant, I considered as nobody.

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"Is there any danger?" asked she, in soft, low tones, and putting her hand upon mine in order to steady herself-for she had very little to sit upon. "I almost regret that I ventured to come. "Oh, say not so," returned I. "Hold on to me. You may squeeze my hand as tight as you please; that is the only way to keep yourself from falling."

got out again, and sacrificed my shilling, is to give a very feeble idea of my state of repentance. I would have given forty shillings to be once more gazing-under the light of heaven-at the least remarkable object of interest in the institution. All the crimes I had ever committed during a checkered life seemed to crowd in upon my recollection. I made the most ardent resolutions for conducting myself for the future after a different fashion if I should only be permitted to emerge alive out of that bell. It is true that there was yet time for me to do so, for the director was still touting for passengers, but I had not the moral courage for such a step as this. I could not have descended amid the same crowd which had applauded my intrepidity, to experience its scornful jeers. I perceived the same feelings were actuating two other individuals who now joined us; they, too, cast wistful glances at the mouth head," observed she; "my brain seems on of the bell, and were evidently contemplating in their minds the most salient points in their past wicked lives.

Even in that dim bottle-green light, I saw a lovely blush steal over her damask cheek; but she did take hold of my hand, and held it pretty tight, too.

"What an oppression I feel about my fore

fire."

"So does mine, my dear young lady," replied I; "and my heart goes pit-a-pat, pit

"You had better put your legs up, gen-a-pat." tlemen," observed the page; "there will "So does mine," said she. "I am told then be less chance of falling out at the bot- the phenomenon happens in all these submatom, when we get under water."

"Less chance!" gasped I, as I hastened to obey this suggestion. "Do you mean to say there is any chance?"

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Well, you must sit quite still, of course, or there's no knowing what may happen. You will be safe enough, however, like this." We had all got our feet in each other's laps, forming quite a reticulation of legs beneath us, so that, if we fell at all, it must needs have been all together, when the director suddenly exclaimed: "By your leave, gentlemen, there's a lady coming."

"A lady coming! Where on earth is she to come to?" inquired I. There was not room for a pin's head to make its way among and far less a lady's.

us,

rine excursions."

"Why, we aint off, yet," observed the page contemptuously, who had been (most unjustifiably) listening to our conversation. I should perhaps have rebuked him, but at that moment the awful bell swung out from terra firma, and we beheld beneath us the cold and treacherous wave.

"What a terrible situation! " ejaculated my fair companion.

"Not altogether," returned I, with a pressure of the fingers.

"We are leaving all behind us-or at least above us," added she, for even in that awful moment her native correctness did not desert her. "Heaven preserve us, what was that!"

A cannon appeared to have gone off immediately outside my ear, and then it went on firing a royal salute-and didn't stop then.

I trembled like an aspen-leaf, but not so much as the beautiful being who relied upon me for succor. We leaned up against one another for mutual support. With my left arm, I mechanically encircled her waist; with my right hand, I grasped half a dozen of the page's buttons. On one side of me was Poetry; on the other, Science.