408 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
he loved them, and he painted them as none had ever painted them 
before, with his own especial and characteristic mind, and heart, 
and hand. We took excursions to Llyn Idwal and the Ogwen 
Falls, to the Dolwyddelan Valley, to Penygwryd, to Capel Curig, to 
Llyn Craftnant, Llyn Elsy, Fos Nobbyn—now called the Fairy Glen 
—and various other places, Cook sketching vigorously, and all day 
long, always making one good sketch a day, and enjoying for him 
very fair health and strength, though on one day, when he had 
walked to Llyn Craftnant, some five miles, to make a sketch, and 
returned late to dinner, I was alarmed by his pallid and worn ex- 
pression of excessive fatigue. This was the first evidence I had of 
his failing health. After dinner he rallied, and joined in the 
chorus of a song (sung capitally by Mr. T. Earl, an artist) whilst 
he quietly smoked his cigar. He never missed a single day making 
a sketch. Mr. Earl wanted to buy some, and told me Cook’s 
sketches were cheap at seven guineas each. Cook did not part with 
any, as he wanted to paint from them; as he truly said, “ They 
are my stock-in-trade.” As an outdoor sketch in this locality 
there is none better than the one he made from close to the 
Bettws bridge, looking up the river. When I last saw that sketch | 
it was in the possession of Mr. Liscombe, of Tamerton. But all 
his sketches were gems of art. The Llyn Craftnant he made a 
fine drawing from afterwards. He brought home the essence of 
North Wales in his folio, declaring it was the finest country he had 
seen, and, comparing it with his tour in Switzerland, considered 
Wales much more paintable, and more within the range of art. 
Talfourd and I ascended to the top of Snowdon with Sir Robert 
Collier, but Cook was afraid to encounter the fatigue. 
The following year some of us went again to Bettws-y-Coed, 
Mr. Penson, of Plymouth, and Mr. Philp, of Falmouth, being of 
the party ; but on this occasion Cook did not go. We found old 
David Cox there, and made his acquaintance. It was the last visit 
he ever paid to Bettws. 
Cook’s last sketching trip was at Clovelly, North Devon, in 1858. 
There again Talfourd, Philp, and myself were of the party; 
Mitchell, being otherwise at Bideford, could not join until I 
had left. We lodged together in the steep street (if it can be 
called a street where no wheels travel), and here of course Cook 
was in his element and his glory. Fine bluff headlands running 
out into the sea, Lundy Isle in the distance, the picturesque quay 
