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Updated: June 25, 2025
I asked further if in a drawing which I then had in my mind, the well-known "Llanthony Abbey," the central passage of sunlight and shadow through rain was done in that way, and she again gave the affirmative reply, emphatically.
Born in 1775, died in 1864; educated at Oxford; visited Paris in 1802; joined the Spaniards at Corunna against the French in 1808; purchased Llanthony Abbey in 1809; owing to family troubles, removed to Jersey in 1814; and then to France and Italy, settling in Florence in 1821, where he remained until his return to England in 1835; his first book, a volume of poems, appeared in 1795, and his last, "Heroic Idyls," in 1863.
The drawings of the England and Wales series in the possession of Ruskin seemed to my critical faculty the ne plus ultra of water-color painting, especially the "Llanthony Abbey," of which I recall those early impressions with the greatest distinctness . I saw in the Academy Exhibition the last pictures he ever exhibited, some whaling subjects, fresh from his retouching of two days before, gorgeous dreams of color art, but only dreams the actuality had all gone out.
Later, however, they returned to the old place and kept up both establishments, but in the reign of Edward IV. the older was merged into the newer "because of the turbulence of the neighboring people and the irregular lives of its inmates." The ruins of Llanthony are supposed to date from about 1200, and are of a marked though simple beauty.
Returning to England he bought Llanthony Abbey, stocked it with Spanish sheep, planted extensively, and was to be the squire of squires; and at the same time seeing a pretty penniless girl at a ball in Bath, he made a bet he would marry her, and won it. Lawsuits followed, and such expenses and vexations occurred that Landor decided to leave England always a popular resource with his kind.
I asked further if in a drawing which I then had in my mind, the well-known "Llanthony Abbey," the central passage of sunlight and shadow through rain was done in that way, and she again gave the affirmative reply, emphatically. Six weeks later I sailed for England, and, on arriving in London, I went at once to see Ruskin, and told him the whole story.
*Robert de Bethune*, A.D. 1131-1148, had become prior of his monastery at his native place of Bethune, in French Flanders, and thence had gone to Llanthony, a priory in a glen of the Hatteral Hills in the disputed district of Ewias.
I did not and could not put it on the same plane as the "Llanthony Abbey," but the straight thrust for the truth was evidently the shortest way to a certain excellence, and this of the kind most akin to my own faculties, and I said to Delf, who was with me at the exhibition of the Academy, that if ever English figure painting rose out of mediocrity it would be through the work of the P.R.B. My impression is that the picture was the "Christ in the Carpenter's Shop," but of this I cannot be sure, though I am certain that it was in the exhibition of 1850.
After four years' struggle he became disgusted with Llanthony and its people: he was in a quarrel with almost everybody, and his genius for punctiliousness had turned nearly the whole neighborhood against him. He had sunk his capital in the estate and its improvements, and becoming embarrassed, it was taken out of his hands and vested in trustees.
Outside we could see the ruined nave of the church, with all the surrounding buildings. We were in another age. Had the sun shined next morning we should have gone on our gypsy journey, and Llanthony Abbey would have been only an incident. But for five days and five nights the rain descended. We could make valiant sallies, but were driven back for shelter.
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