London to John O 1 Groat's. 279 



price current of it when Elizabeth was queen. One of 

 Turner's landscapes would pay for a whole Highland 

 county at its valuation when Mary held her first court 

 in Holyrood. 



I sit here and look off upon this largest, loveliest 

 picture the Blind Painter has given to England. I 

 note his grouping of the ivy-framed fields, of every 

 size and form, panelling the gently-rounded hills, and 

 all the soft slopes down to the foot of the valley ; the 

 silvery, ripe barley against the dark-green beans ; the 

 rich gold of the wheat against the smooth, blue-dashed 

 leaves of the mangel wurzel or ruta baga ; the ripening 

 oats overlooking a foreground of vividly green turnips, 

 with alternations of pasture and meadow land, hedges 

 running in every direction, plantations, groves, copses 

 sprinkled over the whole vista, as if the whole little 

 world, clear up to the soft, blue fringe of the horizon, 

 were the design and work of a single artist. And this, 

 and ten thousand pictures of the same genius, was the 

 work of the Briarean-handed BLIND PAINTER, who 

 still wears a smock-frock and hobnailed shoes, and 

 lives in a low, damp cottage, and dines on bread and 

 cheese among the golden sheaves of harvest ! 



0, Mother England ! thou that knightest the artists 

 while living, and buildest their sepulchres when dead ; 

 thou that honorest to such stature of praise the 



