SAMUEL COOK, ARTIST. 391 
missions he at first executed out of working hours; but by 
degrees his master consented to his devoting more time to painting, 
seeing plainly, as he said, “the boy would never be fit for anything 
else.” A more lucrative employment he found in graining wood, 
and the excellence of his work at this period was the more 
remarkable as he could have seen but very few specimens of the 
grainer’s art. 
At the age of twenty-one, having completed his apprenticeship, 
he left Camelford, and started to walk to Plymouth. I remember 
his telling me that he carried his best boots in order to save them, 
and walked in a very dilapidated old pair, which he discarded on 
entering Torpoint. On his way he took two portraits at roadside 
public-houses, which paid his expenses ; for he received a sovereign 
for each of them. 
I should much like to have met young Samuel Cook when he 
first reached Plymouth ; but it was before my time, or rather, I 
was a very young child, and knew nothing of him till some years 
had elapsed. 
At Plymouth Cook apprenticed himself to, and then became | 
an assistant of, a Mr. Winsford, a painter and glazier, in Frank- 
fort Street, and received the humble salary of eight shillings a 
week. 
About thirty or forty years ago the art of graining in imitation 
of oak and maple was much in vogue, and Cook’s artistic talent 
enabled him to execute this class of work in a manner far superior 
to anything that had been done before. He got samples of real 
oak and bird’s-eye maple, and copied them with the eye and the 
hand of an artist, and instead of graining in the common and 
most mechanical way that had been customary he positively 
imitated the different woods in an artistic manner, so that his 
graining, instead of being the conventional and stereotype pattern 
was, in fact, an actual deception. He painted a deal chest of 
drawers mahogany, and actually deceived the cabinet-maker who 
had made them. His imitation of marble was even more decep- 
tive. Thus Cook became painter, glazier, and decorator. He was 
also a frame-maker, and to the last he made frames for his own 
works, as well as for local artists and the public generally. 
At this time he still painted signs for inns, but of a better 
description, as well as scenes for a small theatre named the 
Pantheon, in Vauxhall Street. Amongst other scenery there he 
