of those whom business or fixed habit retained in the obscurity of London itself."
After about six years of earnest work in Devon, he returned to London and took up his abode in Brixton, and three years after he married (1810) Elizabeth Gillespie. There were pleasant meetings in town with his fellow Plymothians. Haydon was there full of enthusiasm and enormous self-confidence, and Eastlake, who had already made his mark and was rapidly rising into fame; an occasional visit was made to the surly Northcote, but from him little encouragement was to be obtained. To maintain himself, Prout gave lessons in drawing, and sent pictures to the Watercolour Society, and succeeded in selling them. In 1816, Ackermann published his Studies in parts, executed in the then new art of lithography. This was followed by Progressive Fragments, Rudiments of Landscape, and other collections of instructive drawings. How perfectly Prout mastered the technicalities of lithography may be seen by some of his late works on tinted paper, with introduction of white, as, for instance, his Hints on Light and Shade, etc., published in 1838. In the introduction to that he tells his own experience.
"Want of talent and want of taste are common lamentations and common excuses, but wonders will be achieved by the lowest ability if assisted by unremitted diligence. Nothing is denied to well-directed labour; nothing is to be obtained without it. There must be an assiduous, ardent devotedness, with a firmness of purpose, absorbing the whole mind; never rambling, but pursuing one determined object. It is the persevering who leave their competitors behind; and those who work the hardest always gain the most."
Prout's love was for marine subjects—this can be noticed in all his publications—but the influence of
