CHAPTER XIX

1812: AGED THIRTY-SEVEN

HE EXHIBITS 'HANNIBAL CROSSING THE ALPS,' SUGGESTED BY A SNOWSTORM HE HAD SEEN AT FARNLEY

In one of the Sketch-Books for this year labelled 'Sandycombe and Yorkshire' are the following, on the same page, in Turner's handwriting. We can imagine the reasons why he composed the tortuous passage on Salvator's 'powers of rapidity.' Did he, I wonder, buy the mattress?

'Salvator Rosa painted a picture for the Constable of France in a day, and carried it home, which rapidity so captivated the Constable that he ordered another large one, which he likewise began, finished and sent home, that (?) well paid for by purses of gold and as Constable commented which would be first weary, but upon the production of the fifth the employer sent two purses and declined rivalship with the artist's powers of rapidity.

Candles 1 Trout 2 Pillow 16 Mattress 1. 11. 6.

The next Sketch-Book is short, and devoted to Farnley. The idea of the 'Snowstorm, Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps,' came to Turner through a storm he saw at Farnley.

One wild day Turner called loudly from the doorway:--

'Hawkey! Hawkey! come here! Look at this thunderstorm--isn't it wonderful? Isn't it sublime?'

And while he talked he was making notes of its form and colour on the back of a letter. Young Mr. Hawkes proposed a drawing block but Turner said the letter did very well. He was absorbed, entranced, while the storm rolled and swept, and the lightning flashed over the Yorkshire hills. When the storm had passed Turner returned to the room and said:--

'There, Hawkey. In two years you will see this again, and call it "Hannibal Crossing the Alps."'

We look at this tumultuous picture to-day and think of that thunderstorm at Farnley as we watch the lurid sun through the storm of snow that threatens to overwhelm the muddled, huddled, Carthaginian army. Yes: it is wonderful as was the thunderstorm to Turner. This picture, in a category between his classical works and his sunlight visions, was accompanied by nine halting, unpoetical lines from the _Fallacies of Hope_, this being the first time that a quotation from that poem was attached to the R. A. catalogues. The title was modified, probably, from Campbell's _Pleasures of Hope._

'Craft, treachery, and fraud--Salassian force-- Hung on the fainting rear; then plunder seized The victor and the captive,--Saguntum's spoil Alike became their prey; still the chief advanc'd, Looked on the sun with hope; low, broad, and wan While the fierce archer of the downward year Stains Italy's blanched barrier with storms. In vain each pass, ensanguined deep with dead Or rocky fragments, wide destruction roll'd.'

And the eyes fall upon two lines that mean something, that aptly express the thought of the dumb poet, the lines which I quoted in