SAMUEL COOK, ARTIST. 40] 
Dartmoor. Each of us in comparative youth, with health and 
spirits enhanced by the bracing air of the Moor; all of us bent on 
spending the longest possible day in out-door sketching ; it will not 
be difficult to imagine that we were a very merry party. Beginning 
the day early, most of us took a dip in the river, not our friend 
Cook, who amused himself by watching us from the bridge. After 
a substantial breakfast we started for the day, taking a crust for 
our luncheon. We either went to Dartmeet or Postbridge, each 
about four miles distant, or we might have been found nearer home, 
in the Beardown Valley, or at Wistman’s Wood, or possibly on the 
top of Longaford Tor. In each of these localities sketches were 
made by all of us. But what were all the rest compared to Cook’s! 
He gave the poetry, most of us only the prose. We all looked up 
to him and to his sketches with admiration and wonder. 
For a weakly frame and constitution, Cook at this time enjoyed 
his life, joined in the chorus after dinner of many a comic song, 
laughed at and enjoyed a joke (and there were many in those days) 
as much as anyone. After dinner in the fine, long, and warm 
summer evenings we generally took a stroll out together before 
bedtime. On one occasion, smoking our cigars (Cook was fond of 
tobacco, as most artists are), we strolled into the smithy close by 
the little inn. The men were at work, and the firelight fell pic- 
turesquely on their figures. Cook screwed up his eyes, as was 
customary with him when looking at a subject for a picture, and 
presently afterwards, on returning to the inn, we all tried our hands 
at representing the interior of the smithy. Cook’s sketch on that 
occasion, entirely from memory, which I have much pleasure in 
exhibiting, is in my possession. 
From Two Bridges we all proceeded to Chagford, over the moor- 
land road, and took up our quarters at the ‘Three Crowns.” Here 
again sketching from Nature from early morning till dusk was our 
sole occupation. The celebrated Holy Street Mill, which has been 
so often painted, afforded Cook a favourite subject, and he sketched 
it in oil, and made some other sketches with the same vehicle. 
These were the only occasions in which I have known him paint 
from Nature in oil colours. He made also some valuable sketches 
in water colour during this visit to Chagford, by the river side and 
at Whiddon Park. There was some sketching made even after 
dinner by lamplight. Talfourd made a most excellent likeness of 
old Mrs. Brock, the then landlady: Bell and I made sketches of 
