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CHAPTER V

FREDERICK WALKER

1845-1851

FREDERICK WALKER was a disciple of Leigh’s, joining the school after I had left. I heard of him before we met as a very clever young fellow who drew by day at the British Museum and at Newman Street in the evening. He became a student of the Academy in 1858, but never advanced beyond the An- tique School. It was not till the days of the Langham Society that I came to know him. Here he made few actual studies, but was ever making mental sketches, drawing with his eye, if not with his hand, and cultivating a naturally retentive memory, which enabled him to reproduce forms, lines, and expressions with ready certainty. On the Friday sketching even- ings he shone with brilliance. His work, always

excellent and replete with touches of nature, was

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