The Harbours of England | Page 4

in general.
[H] Portsmouth, Sheerness, Scarborough, and Whitby.
These remarks, therefore, I have thrown together, in a connected form;
less with a view to the illustration of these particular plates, than of the
general system of ship-painting which was characteristic of the great
artist. I have afterwards separately noted the points which seemed to
me most deserving of attention in the plates themselves.
Of archæological information the reader will find none. The designs
themselves are, in most instances, little more than spirited sea-pieces,
with such indistinct suggestion of local features in the distance as may
justify the name given to the subject; but even when, as in the case of
the Dover and Portsmouth, there is something approaching
topographical detail, I have not considered it necessary to lead the
reader into inquiries which certainly Turner himself never thought of;
nor do I suppose it would materially add to the interest of these cloud
distances or rolling seas, if I had the time--which I have not--to collect
the most complete information respecting the raising of Prospect Rows,
and the establishment of circulating libraries.
DENMARK HILL. [1856.]

THE HARBORS OF ENGLAND.
Of all things, living or lifeless, upon this strange earth, there is but one
which, having reached the mid-term of appointed human endurance on
it, I still regard with unmitigated amazement. I know, indeed, that all
around me is wonderful--but I cannot answer it with wonder:--a dark
veil, with the foolish words, NATURE OF THINGS, upon it, casts its
deadening folds between me and their dazzling strangeness. Flowers

open, and stars rise, and it seems to me they could have done no less.
The mystery of distant mountain-blue only makes me reflect that the
earth is of necessity mountainous;--the sea-wave breaks at my feet, and
I do not see how it should have remained unbroken. But one object
there is still, which I never pass without the renewed wonder of
childhood, and that is the bow of a Boat. Not of a racing-wherry, or
revenue cutter, or clipper yacht; but the blunt head of a common, bluff,
undecked sea-boat, lying aside in its furrow of beach sand. The sum of
Navigation is in that. You may magnify it or decorate as you will: you
do not add to the wonder of it. Lengthen it into hatchet-like edge of
iron,--strengthen it with complex tracery of ribs of oak,--carve it and
gild it till a column of light moves beneath it on the sea,--you have
made no more of it than it was at first. That rude simplicity of bent
plank, that can breast its way through the death that is in the deep sea,
has in it the soul of shipping. Beyond this, we may have more work,
more men, more money; we cannot have more miracle.
For there is, first, an infinite strangeness in the perfection of the thing,
as work of human hands. I know nothing else that man does, which is
perfect, but that. All his other doings have some sign of weakness,
affectation, or ignorance in them. They are overfinished or
underfinished; they do not quite answer their end, or they show a mean
vanity in answering it too well.
But the boat's bow is naïvely perfect: complete without an effort. The
man who made it knew not he was making anything beautiful, as he
bent its planks into those mysterious, ever-changing curves. It grows
under his hand into the image of a sea-shell; the seal, as it were, of the
flowing of the great tides and streams of ocean stamped on its delicate
rounding. He leaves it when all is done, without a boast. It is simple
work, but it will keep out water. And every plank thence-forward is a
Fate, and has men's lives wreathed in the knots of it, as the cloth-yard
shaft had their deaths in its plumes.
Then, also, it is wonderful on account of the greatness of the thing
accomplished. No other work of human hands ever gained so much.
Steam-engines and telegraphs indeed help us to fetch, and carry, and

talk; they lift weights for us, and bring messages, with less trouble than
would have been needed otherwise; this saving of trouble, however,
does not constitute a new faculty, it only enhances the powers we
already possess. But in that bow of the boat is the gift of another world.
Without it, what prison wall would be so strong as that "white and
wailing fringe" of sea. What maimed creatures were we all, chained to
our rocks, Andromeda-like, or wandering by the endless shores;
wasting our incommunicable strength, and pining in hopeless watch of
unconquerable waves? The nails that fasten together the planks of the
boat's bow are the rivets of the fellowship of the world. Their iron does
more than draw