bequeathed to the nation, on condition that they were exhibited in rooms of their own, and that these rooms were to be called “Turner's Gallery.” The will and its codicils were so confused that after years of litigation, during which a large part of the money was wasted in legal expenses, it was found impossible to decide what Turner really wanted. A compromise was effected in which the wishes of everybody, save those of the testator, were consulted, his next-of-kin, whom he did not mean to get a single farthing, inheriting the bulk of his property. The nation got all the pictures and drawings, and the Royal Academy £20,000.
If Turner had died early his reputation as an artist would have been very different from what it ultimately became. He would not have been recognized as a colourist. It was only after the year 1820 that colour began to assert itself strongly in his work. He painted for many a year in greys and greens and browns, went steadily through “the subdued golden chord,” and painted yellow mists and suns rising through vapour; but as time went on that was no longer enough, and he tried to paint the sun in his strength and the full glories of sunshine. The means at the painter's disposal are, however, limited, and Turner, in his efforts after brilliancy, began to indulge in reckless experiments in colour. He could not endure even the slightest restraints which technical limitations impose, but went on trying to paint the unpaintable. As a water-colour painter Turner stands pre-eminent; he is unquestionably the greatest master in that branch of art that ever lived. If his work is compared with that of Barrett, or Varley, or Cozens, or Sandby, or any of the earlier masters, so great is Turner's superiority that the art in his hands seems to be lifted altogether into a higher region.
In 1843 a champion, in the person of John Ruskin, arose to defend Turner against the unjust and ignorant attacks of the press, and what at first was intended as a “short pamphlet, reprobating the manner and style of these critics,” grew into the five volumes of Modern Painters. Ruskin employed all his eloquence and his great critical faculty to prove how immeasurably superior Turner was to all who had ever gone before, hardly restricting his supremacy to landscape art, and placing him among the “seven supreme colourists of the world.”
Like most men of note, Turner had his enemies and detractors, and it is to be regretted that so many of the stories they set in circulation against his moral character should have been repeated by one of his biographers, who candidly admits having “spared none of his faults,” and excuses himself for so doing by “what he hopes” is his “undeviating love of truth.” The immense quantity of work accomplished by Turner during his lifetime, work full of the utmost delicacy and refinement, proves the singularly fine condition of his nervous system, and is perhaps the best answer that can be given to the charge of being excessively addicted to sensual gratification. In his declining years he possibly had recourse to stimulants to help his failing powers, but it by no means follows that he went habitually to excess in their use. He never lost an opportunity of doing a kindness, and under a rough and cold exterior there was more good and worth hidden than the world imagined. “During the ten years I knew him,” says Ruskin, “years in which he was suffering most from the evil-speaking of the world, I never heard him say one depreciating word of any living man or man's work; I never saw him look an unkind or blameful look; I never knew him let pass, without sorrowful remonstrance, or endeavour at mitigation, a blameful word spoken by another. Of no man, but Turner, whom I have ever known could I say this.” Twice during his earlier days there are circumstances leading to the belief that he had the hope of marriage, but on both occasions it ended in disappointment, and his home after his father died was cheerless and solitary.
Two biographies of Turner have been written, one by Thornbury, the other by P. G. Hamerton. The work of the latter deserves the highest commendation; it gives a clear and consistent history of the great artist, and is characterized by refined thought and critical insight. An excellent little book by W. Cosmo Monkhouse may also be noticed. Books upon Turner continue to appear, although it is scarcely to be expected that they can add to the facts already known about him. Turner and Ruskin, an exposition of the work of Turner from the writings of Ruskin, edited with a biographical note on Turner by Frederick Wedmore, in two volumes, with ninety-one illustrations, was published by George Allen in 1900. Perhaps the most important recent work upon his art is Sir Walter Armstrong's Turner (1901), which deals at considerable length with the events of his life, and with his pictures in oil and his drawings in water-colour. It also gives so far as possible a list of his oil pictures, and for the first time a pretty full list of his water colours, although the great painter's works in both media are so numerous that it would be impossible to say that either is complete. See also J. M. W. Turner, by W. L. Wyllie, A.R.A. (1905). The great authority on the Liber Studiorum is W. G. Rawlinson (Turner's Liber Studiorum, 2nd ed., 1906).
(G. Re.)
TURNER, NAT (1800-1831), the negro leader of a slave
insurrection in Virginia, known as the “Southampton
Insurrection,” was born in Southampton county, Virginia, in 1800.
From his childhood he claimed to see visions and hear voices,
and he became a Baptist preacher of great influence among the
negroes. In 1828 he confided to a few companions that a
voice from heaven had announced that “the last shall be first,”
which was interpreted to mean that the slaves should control.
An insurrection was planned, and a solar eclipse in February 1831
and peculiar atmospheric conditions on the 13th of August were
accepted as the signal for beginning the work. On the night of
the 21st of August 1831, with seven companions, he entered the
home of his master, Joseph Travis, and murdered the inmates.
After securing guns, horses and liquor they visited other houses,
sparing no one. Recruits were added, in some cases by compulsion,
until the band numbered about sixty. About noon on
the 22nd they were scattered by a small force of whites, hastily
gathered. Troops, marines and militia were hurried to the scene,
and the negroes were hunted down. In all thirteen men,
eighteen women, and twenty-four children had been butchered.
After hiding for several weeks Nat was captured on the 30th of
October and was tried and hanged, having made, meanwhile,
a full confession. Nineteen of his associates were hanged and
twelve were sent out of the state. The insurrection, which was
attributed to the teachings of the abolitionists, led to the
enactment of stricter slave codes.
See S. B. Weeks, “Slave Insurrections in Virginia,” in Magazine of American History, vol. xxxi. (New York, 1891), and W. S. Drewry, The Southampton Insurrection (Washington, 1900).
TURNER, SHARON (1768–1847), English historian, was born
in Pentonville, London, on the 24th of September 1768. His
parents came from Yorkshire. He was educated at a private
school kept by Dr Davis in Pentonville, and was article to a
solicitor in the Temple in 1783, and when his master died in
1789 he continued the business. He remained in business at
first in the Temple in 1783, and later in Red Lion Square till 1829, when failing health compelled him to retire. He settled for a time
at Winchmore Hill, but afterwards returned to London, and died
in his son’s house on the 13th of February 1847. In early
boyhood he had been attracted by a translation of the “Death
Song of Ragnar Lodbrok,” and was led by this boyish interest to
make a study of early English history in Anglo-Saxon and
Icelandic sources. He devoted all the time he could spare from his
business to the study of the Anglo-Saxon documents in the British
Museum. The material was abundant and had hitherto been
neglected. When the first volume of his History of England
from the earliest times to the Norman Conquest appeared in 1799,
it was at once recognized as a work of equal novelty and value.
The fourth volume appeared in 1805. He also published a
continuation (History of England during the Middle Ages), a
Modern History of England, a Sacred History of the World, and
a volume on Richard III. (1845), and he was the author of
pamphlets on the copyright laws (1813).
His son, Sydney Turner (1814–1879), educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, took orders, was known as a strong partisan of reformatory schools, and died rector of Hempstead in Gloucestershire.
TURNER, WILLIAM (d. 1568), English divine, botanist and physician, was born at Morpeth in Northumberland, and was
