And where are now Jem Roper and Jack Hall?_
Who cares now for Parr's praise or Soame Jenyns' censure? Yet in our
Diarist's pages these take equal rank with names that time has spared,
with Robertson and Gibbon, Burke and Reynolds.
Thomas Green was more ready for experiment in art than in literature.
He was "particularly struck" at the Royal Academy of 1797 with a sea
view by a painter called Turner:
"Fishing vessels coming in with a heavy swell in apprehension of a
tempest, gathering in the distance, and casting as it advances a night
of shade, while a parting glow is spread with fine effect upon the
shore; the whole composition bold in design and masterly in execution.
I am entirely unacquainted with the artist, but if he proceeds as he
has begun, he cannot fail to become the first in his department."
A remarkable prophecy, and one of the earliest notices we possess of
the effect which the youthful Turner, then but twenty-two years of
age, made on his contemporaries.
As a rule, except when he is travelling, our Diarist almost entirely
occupies himself with a discussion of the books he happens to be
reading. His opinions are not always in concert with the current
judgment of to-day; he admires Warburton much more than we do, and
Fielding much less.
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