was a cultivated man of very wide tastes,
and it was largely through his encouragement that Watts gave to the
study of the French and Italian languages, and to music, what little
time he could spare from his professional work. London was to render him
greater services than this. Thanks to his visits to the British Museum,
he had, while still in his teens, come under a mightier spell. Though
few Englishmen had yet learnt to value their treasures, the Elgin
Marbles had been resting there for twenty years. But now, two years
before Queen Victoria's accession, there might be seen, standing rapt in
admiration before the works of Phidias, a boy of slender figure with
high forehead, delicately moulded features, and disordered hair, one
who, as we can see from the earliest portrait which Mrs. Watts has
preserved in her biography, had something of the unearthly beauty of the
young Shelley. He was physically frail, marked off from ordinary men by
a grace that won its way quickly to the hearts of all who were
susceptible to spiritual charm. Untaught though he was, he had the eye
to see for himself the grandeur of these relics of Greece, and
throughout his life they remained one of the guiding influences in his
development, one of the standards which he set up before himself, though
all too conscious that he could not hope to reach that height. We see
their influence in his treatment of drapery, of horses, of the human
figure, in his idealization of types, in the flowing lines of his
compositions, and in the grouping of his masses. Compared to the hours
which he spent in the British Museum, the lessons in the Royal Academy
schools seem unimportant. He attended classes there for some months in
1835, but the teaching was poor and its results disappointing. William
Hilton, R.A., who then occupied the post of Keeper, gave him some kind
words of encouragement, but in general he came and went unnoticed, and
he soon returned to his solitary self-training in his own studio. If we
know little of his teaching in art, we know still less of his personal
life during the time when he was laying the foundations of his success
by study and self-discipline. Early rising was an art which he acquired
early, and maintained throughout life; long after he felt the spur of
necessity, even after the age of 80, he could rise at four when there
was work to be done; and, living as he did on the simplest diet, he
often achieved his best results at an hour when