SAMUEL TROUT, ARTIST. 
2G1 
SAMUEL PEOUT, ARTIST. 
BY MR. J. HINE, F.R.I.B.A. 
(Read March 11th, 1880.) 
I invite the attention of the Society to a review of the life and 
works of one of the greatest artists of the picturesque that Plymouth, 
or indeed England, has ever produced. 
Had Samuel Prout heen mainly a landscape or marine painter, I 
should not have ventured, in the presence of artists who have made 
those subjects their special study, to offer this well-deserved and (so 
far as we as a Society are concerned) this long delayed-tribute of 
respect to the memory of our distinguished townsman ; but Prout's 
life was one long act of homage to that branch of art to which I 
give my humble allegiance. The " cloud-capped towers and solemn 
temples" — the old-world architecture of Europe — constituted the 
very realm of beauty in which he lived. 
Bear with me, therefore, whilst I endeavour to briefly sketch the 
life and interpret the work of this great devotee of architecture. 
I sometimes wonder how it should have happened that Ply- 
mouth has produced a larger number of distinguished artists — men 
quite of the first rank in their profession — than any other town of 
Great Britain. The nursery was not altogether a good one. There 
was no initiation here in schools of art or public galleries of 
painting. It is almost needless to say that artists can be and are 
made quite independently of such schools and galleries, as the 
career of Prout, who was almost self-taught, proves • but there can 
be no doubt of the value of such institutions, on account of the 
great technical aid they afford to students. 
Again, the patronage of art in Plymouth was (speaking very 
guardedly in the past tense) somewhat limited, although it centred 
in two or three noble families who have always been the consistent 
patrons of art and of artists in the locality, and who notably did 
much to encourage Reynolds and introduce him to public notice and 
