to be poetic; the painter is not a mere transcriber, but a translator. There is such a thing as pictorial poetry; the pencil can, and should, be employed sincerely yet romantically. Observe, in this very drawing of Stamford, how Turner, whilst not departing one whit from the truth, has by the perfectly possible, yet wonderful, sky-scape he has introduced, with the effective play of light and shade that would be caused thereby, strong yet not forced, and the happy arrangement of figures and the old coach in the foreground, added the grace of poetry to the natural charms of the ordinary street scene. The photograph can give us hard facts and precise details, enough and to spare, yet somehow to the artistic soul the finest photographs have a want, they are purely mechanical, soulless, and unromantic. They lack the glamour of the painter's vision, who gives us the gold and is blind to the dross, he looks for the beautiful and finds it; so he brightens his own life and those of others, and his work is not in vain!
Scott, who often travelled by this famous Great North Road, described St. Mary's Hill at Stamford as being "the finest street between London and Edinburgh," and surely Scott ought to know! To use an artist's slang expression of a good subject "it takes a lot of beating." Besides being beautiful, Stamford is one of the most interesting towns in England, with quite a character of its own; it is essentially individual, and therein lies its special charm: to me it is passing strange that such a picturesque and quaint old town should be so
