Painting in England
Hawkesworth Fawkes, of Farnley Hall, whose house was adorned with fifty thousand dollars’ worth of Turner’s pictures. Some additions to Farnley Hall were designed by Turner, and he was always a welcome visitor. Here he sketched, and at intervals enjoyed himself greatly in hunting and fishing. It is said that the Farnley portfolios still contain sketches not only of the hall and its precincts, but of coast scenes, Swiss views, drawings of birds, illustrations of the Civil War, and, more especially, of fifty-three remarkable drawings of the Rhineland regions, done at the rate of three a day; these last were offered by Turner to Mr. Fawkes on his return from the Continent for the sum of five hundred pounds, and the bargain was closed at once. When Mr. Fawkes visited London he spent hours in Turner’s private gallery, but was never shown into the painting-room. Indeed, very few persons were ever allowed there. Once, when Turner dined at a hotel with Mr. Fawkes, the artist took too much wine, and reeled about, exclaiming, “Hawkey, I am the real lion—I am the great lion of the day, Hawkey.” When Mr. Fawkes died, ended Turner’s visits to Farnley. He never went there again, but when the younger Fawkes brought the Rhine drawings up to London for him to see again, he passed his hand over the “Lorelei Twilight,” saying, with tears in his eyes, “But Hawkey! but Hawkey!” When Mr. Wells, an artist of Addiscomb, died he mourned his loss bitterly, and exclaimed to his daughter: “Oh, Clara, Clara, these are iron tears! I have lost the best friend I ever had in my life!” In this family all the children loved him. He would lie on the floor, and play with them, and the oldest daughter afterward said: “Of all the light-hearted, merry creatures I ever knew, Turner was the most so.” But in 1797 Turner had a bitter disappointment which warped and distorted all his after-life. A young lady to whom he had become attached while a schoolboy at Margate, was engaged to be married to him. He had been absent for two years on sketching tours, and the step-mother of the young lady had intercepted and destroyed his letters, so that at last she believed the representations made that Turner had deserted her. She became engaged to another, and was about to be married, when Turner appeared, and pleaded passionately that she would return to him. She thought that she had been trifled with, and held — 221 —