Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/683

Rh These Britton saw and liked, and proposed to Prout to take him with himself into Cornwall, paying all his expenses, that the lad might make for him the drawings he required. Samuel gladly consented, and the two started for St. Germans through a heavy fall of snow, and put up at a wretched inn there. "The object of visiting the place," says Britton, "was to draw and describe the old parish church, which is within the grounds of the seat of Port Eliot, belonging to Lord Eliot. Prout's first task was to make a sketch of the west end of this building, which is of early Norman architecture, with two towers, one of which is square, the other octagonal. Between these is a large semicircular doorway, with several receding arches, but there is very little of other detail. My young artist was, however, sadly embarrassed, not knowing where to begin, how to settle the perspective or determine the relative proportions of the heights and widths of parts. He continued before the building for four or five hours, and at last his sketch was so inaccurate in proportion and detail that it was unfit for engraving." In fact, Britton had set the poor lad a task for which he was wholly incompetent. Next morning Prout began another sketch, and persevered in it in spite of the cold and discouragement nearly all the day, but the result was again a failure.

Then Britton travelled on with him to Probus, and set him to draw the wonderful sculptured tower of that church, the richest piece of work of the kind in the west of England. It is built of elvan and is not merely sculptured throughout, but has pinnacled buttresses with crockets and finials. Prout worked hard at this all day, and though Britton accepted the drawing, it was bad. "The poor fellow cried, and was really distressed, and I felt as acutely as he possibly