278 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
He knew quite well that no building, however beautiful, could 
be seen to perfection without the ripeness and mellowness of age ; 
without the slightly fretted or crumbling masonry, and the kindly 
tints which nature and time alone can bestow. And it was this 
full ripeness of architectural effect which he knew so well how to 
do justice to — catching the salient features of outline, mass, and 
light and shade, laying hold of the grand old masonry just as the 
sun was glinting down on it. 
From time to time excursions were during many years made to 
the Continent ; and France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy 
were ransacked for examples of picturesque ancient architecture, to 
which almost exclusively he now confined his attention. Abbeville, 
Strasburg, Antwerp, Ghent, Nuremberg, Neudersdorf, Prague, 
Venice, Verona, Dresden, and many other places, furnished him 
with noble subjects, very varied in style, but in his treatment of 
all of them he shows his greatness in composition. 
"The moving and natural crowd, the frank and unforced but 
intricate grouping, the breadth, of inartificial and unexaggerated 
shadow, these are merits of an order only the more elevated 
because unobtrusive. Nor is the system of colour," says Buskin, 
" less admirable. It is a quality from which the character of his 
subjects naturally withdraws much of his attention, and of which 
sometimes that character precludes any high attainment, but never- 
theless the truest and happiest association of hues in sun and shade 
to be found in water colour art (excepting only the studies of Hunt 
and I)e Wint) will be found in portions of Prout's more important 
work." It is only right to say that Mr. Euskin's opinion of Prout 
as a colourist, expressed in this sentence, and also in his Modern 
Painters, has since undergone some modification, as will be 
gathered from his "Notes" on Mr. Prout's drawings exhibited 
this year. 
But no artist ever had a truer champion than has Prout in the 
great art critic, who indeed has immortalized by his pen the genius 
of his friend. The collection of drawings recently brought together 
by Mr. Euskin emphasizes his high opinion of Prout, and gives 
additional fame to the artist. It numbered rather more than a 
hundred drawings and sketches, but that number represents only a 
small part of the work to which with unflagging energy, and a 
nature full of joy and enthusiasm, Prout devoted himself. The 
majority of the drawings in this collection belong to the family of 
