Harrison's ‘Pocket Magazine’ kept him well employed for a few years, during which he travelled over a great part of England and Wales, south of Chester and Lincoln, mostly on foot, walking twenty to twenty-five miles a day with his baggage at the end of a stick. The exhibited drawings of this period (1790–1797) were mostly of cathedrals, abbeys, bridges, and towns, but in 1796 and 1797 he exhibited two seapieces, ‘Fishermen at Sea’ and ‘Fishermen coming ashore at Sunset, previous to a Gale,’ and ‘Moonlight: a study at Millbank’ (said in the catalogue of the National Gallery to have been his first exhibited work in oil colours). At this time he gave lessons in drawing at five shillings, and later at a guinea, a lesson; but he did not care for teaching.
It is probable that during this period Turner was often the companion of Thomas Girtin [q. v.] As boys they sketched together on the banks of the Thames and elsewhere in London and its neighbourhood. He once told David Roberts, ‘Girtin and I have often walked to Bushey and back to make drawings for good Dr. Monro at half a crown apiece and a supper.’ They were both of the party of young artists who gathered in the evenings at Dr. Monro's in the Adelphi Terrace [see Monro, Thomas, (1759–1833)]. The first entry of Turner's name in Dr. Monro's ‘Diary’ is in 1793 (see Roget, ‘Old Watercolour’ Society). There they copied drawings by Paul Sandby [q. v.], Thomas Hearne (1744–1817) [q. v.], John Robert Cozens [q. v.], and other watercolourists, and had the opportunity of studying works by Gainsborough, Morland, Wilson, De Loutherbourg, Salvator Rosa, Rembrandt, Claude, Van de Velde, and others. The drawings made by Turner were generally in neutral tint, and are known as his ‘grey’ drawings. They are by no means slavish copies, and are exquisite in gradation. Mr. Ruskin says that Dr. Monro was Turner's true master. Another kind patron of both Girtin and Turner was John Henderson, the father of John Henderson (1797–1878) [q. v.] Down to 1797 Turner's subjects were principally architectural and topographical, though distinguished by their original and delicate treatment of light, especially in interiors like the ‘Choir of Salisbury Cathedral’ and the ‘South Transept, Ely.’ But in this year his emulation was excited by the success of Girtin's drawings of York, Jedburgh Abbey, &c., and he started on his first tour in Yorkshire and the north. The result of this tour was an extraordinary development of artistic power and feeling, and in the academy of 1798 he proclaimed distinctly his genius as a painter of poetical landscape by works in oil and watercolours, among which were ‘Morning on the Coniston Fells, Cumberland’ (now in the National Gallery), ‘Dunstanburgh Castle’ belonging to the Duke of Westminster, and ‘Norham Castle on the Tweed—Summer's Morn,’ a drawing to which he attributed his success in life. He repeated the subject several times. With this journey is associated his introduction to Dr. Whitaker [see Whitaker, Thomas Dunham], for whom he illustrated several local histories. The first of these, ‘The Parish of Whalley,’ appeared in 1800, and included an engraving of Farnley Hall, the residence of Mr. Fawkes, who was afterwards to be one of his best patrons and most intimate friends. About this time he was employed by Lord Harewood and William Beckford of Fonthill. In 1799 the competition between himself and Girtin was keen at the academy. His subjects were principally Welsh, including Harlech and Dolbadern castles, and the drawing of Warkworth Castle, now at South Kensington. He also exhibited his first picture of a naval engagement, ‘The Battle of the Nile,’ and was elected an associate of the Royal Academy. He was now only twenty-four years old, and was at the head of his profession. In person he was small, with crooked legs, ruddy complexion, a prominent nose, clear blue eyes, and a somewhat Jewish cast of countenance. Nevertheless he was decidedly good-looking, if we can trust Dance's portrait of him and two pencil portraits in the British Museum said to be by Charles Turner [q. v.], the engraver, all of which belong to this time or a year or two later. He was shy and secretive, allowing no one to see him work, and sharp in all dealings where money was concerned. Before he went to stay with Dr. Whitaker, that gentleman was advised that he was a ‘Jew,’ and, taking it literally, treated him as an Israelite, to his great annoyance. Ill-educated and unpolished, very proud and very sensitive, conscious at once of his great talents and his social defects, he was always silent and suspicious, and often rough and surly, except with the few who had won his confidence. Among these were the family of William Frederick Wells, the artist, whose daughter, Mrs. Wheeler, who knew him and loved him for sixty years, has recorded that Turner was the most light-hearted and merry of all the light-hearted merry creatures she ever knew. His want of confidence in his fellow-creatures may have been confirmed by a disappointment in love. It is said that he returned from a long tour to find his letters to his betrothed (the
