390 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
the floor of the factory, thereby getting into sad disgrace with Mr. 
Richards, the foreman, and causing his master, Mr. Pearse, to 
prophecy with some vexation, “That boy will never be fit for 
anything but a limner.” Little did the master or the foreman 
think what a limner the boy would one day become. 
During his apprenticeship he lived at home with his mother and 
grandmother, and amongst his fellows he went by the name of 
“The Limner Cook.” 
About this time he made a sketch of his grandmother, a very 
old woman, sitting in the chimney corner beside her bakehouse 
oven. He also drew at this early age miniature portraits in water- 
colour in profile. 
As an apprentice boy he was occasionally sent to Bodmin on 
errands. Bodmin at that time must have been a miserable country 
town, but nevertheless a metropolis compared to Camelford ; and 
it contained a small print shop, before the window of which the 
youthful artist used to stand spellbound. This very humble 
initiation was clearly the first he ever had in pictorial art, and it was 
probably some print he saw in this window which first inspired 
him with an earnest desire to paint a miniature on ivory. It is 
unnecessary to say that ivory was then, to him, utterly unattain- 
able, so for want of a better substitute the persevering and 
determined boy actually painted a miniature on his left thumb- 
nail, copying the head from a print, and colouring it from his own 
fancy. Not long after this an uncle of his, who kept a billiard- 
table at Devonport, hearing of his desire for ivory, sent him an 
old billiard-ball, which the boy contrived to cut in two, and then 
painted a miniature on either half. 
It is hard to conceive the full extent of the difficulties which 
beset this part of his career, or to estimate sufficiently the strength 
of will, the patience, and faith which animated that gentle nature 
to struggle against them. We must remember that he had hitherto 
not only no art instruction, few materials, and but little leisure, 
but, what is worse, he could have no sympathy, certainly no 
intelligent sympathy ; and most likely, on the other hand, dis- 
couragement, ridicule, and even blame, hard for such a refined and 
sensitive mind to bear. The faith, however, which was so strong 
within himself at last began to influence others. 
He was applied to from time to time to paint signs for public- 
houses, comprising bunches of grapes and the like. ‘These com- 
