her hours with each other.  They gave the warmth of the sinking sun, overwhelming all things in its gold, but they did not give those gray passages about the horizon, where, seen through its dying light, the cool and the gloom of night gather themselves for their victory....  But in this picture, under the blazing veil of vaulted fire, which lights the vessel on her last path, there is a blue, deep, desolate hollow of darkness out of which you can hear the voice of the night wind, and the dull boom of the disturbed sea; the cold deadly shadows of the twilight are gathering through every sunbeam, and moment by moment, as you look, you will fancy some new film and faintness of the night has risen over the vastness of the departing form. (Compiled from Modern Painters, Vol.  I. pt. ii.  Sec.  I. ch. vii. sec. 46 n., Sec.  II. ch i. sec. 21; Harbours of England, p. 12; and Notes on the Turner Gallery, pp. 75-80.)

[Illustration:  THE FIGHTING TEMERAIRE.
        Turner.]

Finally a few words about the history of the picture itself may be interesting.  The subject of it was suggested to Turner by Clarkson Stanfield (who himself, it will be remembered, had painted a Battle of Trafalgar).  They were going down the river by boat, to dine, perhaps, at Greenwich, when the old ship, being tugged to her last berth at Deptford, came in sight.  “There’s a fine subject, Turner,” said Stanfield.  This was in 1838.  Next year the picture was exhibited at the Academy, but no price was put upon it.  A would-be purchaser offered Turner 300 guineas for it.  He replied that it was his “200 guinea size” only, and offered to take a commission at that price for any subject of the same size, but with the Temeraire itself he would not part.  Another offer was subsequently made from America, which again Turner declined.  He had already mentally included the picture, it would seem, amongst those to be bequeathed to the nation; and in one of the codicils to his will, in which he left each of his executors a picture to be chosen by them in turn, the Temeraire was specially excepted from the pictures they might choose.[30]

    Edward T. Cook, A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery.

FOOTNOTES: 

[30] Mr. W. Hale White recently drew up for Mr. Ruskin, from official records, the following history of the Temeraire.  To him and to Mr. Ruskin I am indebted for permission to insert the history here.  It will be seen that Turner was right in calling his picture the Fighting Temeraire and the critic who induced him to change the title in the engraving to the Old Temeraire wrong:—­