DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31830#0027
liis art. Nor was he without a childish experience comparable
to that related of Palmer, when he received his memorable
impression of the beauty of the shadows by moonlight. When
he was six years old, as he sat in a garden at Honiton, the evening
light transformed the grass and flowers into a Paradise of
miraculous splendour and serenity; the child was overcome with
a sense of the glory of earth; he had a sense “ as of a loving spirit
taking up his abode within him, and seating himself beside his
own soul.” Did Palmer cherish the little volume of Milton’s
Early Poems given him by his nurse? Calvert had a Virgil,
equally treasured, which while he was yet an unconscious baby
had been given him, instead of a Bible, as if by some premonitory
inspiration, by the clergyman who baptised him. When there-
fore at his first coming up to London he went to sell shares and
found in his stockbroker a friend of the spirit, it seemed but a
kind of natural providence.
Apart from John Giles, Calvert had other opportunities of
meeting artists. For he had brought from the artist, under whom
he had studied for a time at Plymouth, a letter to Fuseli; and
Fuseli, then Keeper of the Royal Academy, had liked his
drawings and given him encouragement. He worked at the
Academy schools; and it was in the Library at Somerset House
that he became acquainted with George Richmond. The two
seem to have known one another without introduction at first
sight : doubtless each had heard of the other from their friend
Giles.
Calvert was already a married man. His wife, Mary
Bennell, came from Brixton, then a rural suburb; there, in
Russell Street, they now settled; and there Calvert’s new friends,
and Blake himself, came to visit him. The other members of
the group were all younger than he, except Linnell; and Linnell,
established in practice as a portrait-painter, and with a growing
family, stood somewhat apart. Besides, he did not share the
peculiar vein of rather solemn sentiment current with these
young idealists, and was known on occasion to interject a
sarcastic question or comment. Yet it was chiefly owing to him
that these disciples of Blake came to know each other and their
master. He was always the practical friend in need. He intro-
duced Blake to Charles Heathcote Tatham, a well-known
architect, and it was at TathanPs house that George Richmond
11
to that related of Palmer, when he received his memorable
impression of the beauty of the shadows by moonlight. When
he was six years old, as he sat in a garden at Honiton, the evening
light transformed the grass and flowers into a Paradise of
miraculous splendour and serenity; the child was overcome with
a sense of the glory of earth; he had a sense “ as of a loving spirit
taking up his abode within him, and seating himself beside his
own soul.” Did Palmer cherish the little volume of Milton’s
Early Poems given him by his nurse? Calvert had a Virgil,
equally treasured, which while he was yet an unconscious baby
had been given him, instead of a Bible, as if by some premonitory
inspiration, by the clergyman who baptised him. When there-
fore at his first coming up to London he went to sell shares and
found in his stockbroker a friend of the spirit, it seemed but a
kind of natural providence.
Apart from John Giles, Calvert had other opportunities of
meeting artists. For he had brought from the artist, under whom
he had studied for a time at Plymouth, a letter to Fuseli; and
Fuseli, then Keeper of the Royal Academy, had liked his
drawings and given him encouragement. He worked at the
Academy schools; and it was in the Library at Somerset House
that he became acquainted with George Richmond. The two
seem to have known one another without introduction at first
sight : doubtless each had heard of the other from their friend
Giles.
Calvert was already a married man. His wife, Mary
Bennell, came from Brixton, then a rural suburb; there, in
Russell Street, they now settled; and there Calvert’s new friends,
and Blake himself, came to visit him. The other members of
the group were all younger than he, except Linnell; and Linnell,
established in practice as a portrait-painter, and with a growing
family, stood somewhat apart. Besides, he did not share the
peculiar vein of rather solemn sentiment current with these
young idealists, and was known on occasion to interject a
sarcastic question or comment. Yet it was chiefly owing to him
that these disciples of Blake came to know each other and their
master. He was always the practical friend in need. He intro-
duced Blake to Charles Heathcote Tatham, a well-known
architect, and it was at TathanPs house that George Richmond
11