282 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
pictures are the faint but beautiful symbols of that celestial city, 
which he saw u as through a glass, darkly." 
After the funeral obsequies comes the reading of the will ; and 
many might be disposed to think that the man who had accumu- 
lated so much beauty, and given to the world so much that was 
beautiful, must have amassed great wealth. 
Well, if he had covered the walls of London with picturesque 
advertisements, such as before suggested we should all like to see 
on the walls of Antwerp ; if he had invented (say) a new brim- 
stone match that would go off if you only looked at it ; or if he 
had introduced an Indian pickle (precious article that !), or if he had 
been a celebrated Anglo-American physician, who had invented a 
perforated plaster that would cause anybody wearing it to breathe 
freely for at least 150 years; if he had done any of these clever 
things, it is probable that a short time after his death it would have 
been recorded in the Illustrated London News that his personal 
estate had been sworn under half a million. 
But although it is not strictly or technically correct that Prout 
made such a large fortune as this, it is a fact (and it is no secret, 
for it is alluded to in Mr. Euskin's notes) that he died very rich ; 
that is to say, very rich in portfolios of sketches — and such 
sketches ! 
What were the legacies he left to England and to posterity 1 
He left to artists the example of a beautiful life, devoted from 
infancy to old age to the truest interests of art. 
He left to the dwellers in towns some of the best lessons on the 
value of the picturesque that have ever been given, lessons which 
one day in the far distance they may, perhaps, wake up to the 
appreciation of. 
He left to the literature of history and romance the most vivid 
architectural scenes and effects. 
And he left to an age devoted to commerce and gain the noblest 
artistic memorials of an age devoted to chivalry and religion. 
