Page:Pen And Pencil Sketches - Volume I.djvu/101

64 has secured a European, if not a world-wide repu- tation.

Under this new condition of affairs, my services being no longer needed by my friend Clayton, he gave me introductions to Messrs. Powell of White- friars and to Mr. Lavers. I worked for both these houses, more particularly the last, which found me occasional employment for two or three years. I have still by me a small account-book I kept of the work I did for, and the payment I received from, Mr. Lavers. Some of the entries are curious, re- minding one of the accounts for the mystery plays of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Thus —

But I was destined to return to Clayton, or, as we must now say, Clayton & Bell. I painted from their designs and under their guidance a series of circular medallions of angels with musical instru- ments for the ceiling of St. Michael’s Church, Corn- hill. It was on the scaffolding inside the church that I first met my friend Richard Beavis, now of the Old Water Colour Society, who was then employed as their chief artist and designer by Messrs. Trollope.

In the early part of i860, 'I was working for Clayton & Bell, who had taken premises at Car-