nearly twelve months which ended in his father's death in September 1802.
Brockedon was proud to acknowledge his obligations to his father, whose 'natural talents,' as he wrote to a friend in 1832, he had 'never seen surpassed,' adding that 'whatever turn my own character may have taken, if the world thinks kindly of it, it grew under his instruction and advice, and the impressions made upon me before I was fifteen.'
After his father's death, Brockedon spent six months in London in the house of a watch manufacturer, to perfect himself in what he expected to have been his pursuit in life. On his return to Totnes he continued to carry on the business for his mother for five years. In a letter written to his friend, Octavian Blewitt, in November 1832, he says: 'I recollect with much pleasure the hand I had in making the present parish clock in the church at Totnes. An order was given to my father to make a new church clock a short time before the accident by lightning which, in February 1799, struck the tower, threw down the south-east pinnacle, and did so much damage to the church as to require nearly three years to repair it. This accident prevented the clock being put up until the summer of 1802, during my father's last illness.... I remember when the clock was making that I was set to do some of the work, though only about thirteen years of age, particularly cutting the fly-pinion out of the solid steel.'
During the five years in which he carried on the watchmaking business for his mother he devoted his spare time to drawing, for which from childhood he had as great a taste as he had for mechanics. Archdeacon (then the Rev. R. H.) Froude, rector of Dartington (father of Mr. J. A. Froude), encouraged him to pursue painting as a profession. The archdeacon liberally aided Brockedon's journey to London and his establishment there during his studies at the Royal Academy. Brockedon found another generous patron in Mr. A. H. Holdsworth, M.P. for Dartmouth, and governor of Dartmouth Castle.
This was in February 1809. From that time his career must be considered under three heads: 1, as a painter; 2, as an author; 3, as an inventor.
1. For six years he pursued his studies in London as a painter with little interruption till 1815. In that year, immediately after the battle of Waterloo, he went to Belgium and France, and had the benefit and gratification of seeing the gallery of the Louvre before its dispersion. From 1812 to 1837 he was a regular contributor to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy and the British Institution. In these twenty-five years he exhibited sixty-five works, historical, landscape, and portraits—thirty-six at the Academy and twenty-nine at the British Institution (Graves, Dict. of Artists}. The works he exhibited in 1812 were portraits of Governor Holdsworth, M.P., and of Samuel Prout, who was, like himself, a Devonshire artist. He next exhibited 'a more ambitious work, of which artists of name spoke with approbation,' a portrait of 'Miss S. Booth as Juliet' (Cunningham, 'Town and Table Talk,' Illustr. News, 1854), pictures on scriptural and other subjects, portraits of Sir Alexander Burns, Sir George Back, now in the library of the Royal Geographical Society, and some interesting landscapes of Alpine and Italian scenery. He also painted the 'Acquittal of Susannah,' presented by him to his native county and now in the Crown Court of the Castle of Exeter; 'Christ raising the Widow's Son at Nain,' which he presented to Dartmouth church as a mark of respect to Governor Holdsworth, and which obtained for him the prize of one hundred guineas from the directors of the British Institution; and, about the same time, 'Christ's Agony in the Garden,' which he presented to Dartington church, a picture, he says in a letter to Blewitt, 'associated with my grateful recollections of Mr. Froude's friendship; and I mention it, trifling as it is, as one public testimonial of my desire to acknowledge his exceeding kindness to me.' Another large picture, representing the 'Delivery of the Tables of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai,' was presented by him to Christ's Hospital in 1835, and placed by order of the governors in their great hall. Another picture, painted at Rome in 1821, the 'Vision of the Chariots to the Prophet Zechariah,' excited so much interest that, by permission of the pope (Pius VII), it was exhibited in the Pantheon. At the same time Brockedon was elected a member of the Academies of Rome and Florence. In compliance with a law of the Florentine Academy he presented it with his portrait painted by his own hand. Brockedon's portrait is now a conspicuous object in the Uffizi of the Florence Gallery near those of Reynolds and Northcote.
2. Brockedon was meanwhile earning for himself a reputation as an author. In 1824 he made an excursion to the Alps for the purpose of investigating the route of Hannibal, and the idea of publishing 'Illustrations of the Passes' occurred to him. During the summers of 1825, 1826, 1828, and 1829, he was led in the course of his journeys to
