I remember one or two
extraordinary pictures of his--especially one depicting a dragon in a
fen, of which Rossetti had a great opinion; and I believe this, with
other pictures of Smetham's, is in the hands of Mr. Watts-Dunton. The
author of _Aylwin_ would have been much amused had he seen, as I did,
in an American magazine the statement that 'Wilderspin' was
identified with William Morris--a man who was as much the opposite
of the visionary painter as a man can be. Morris, whom I had the
privilege of knowing very well, and with whom I have stayed at
Kelmscott during the Rossetti period, is alluded to in _Aylwin_
(chap. ix. book xv.) as the 'enthusiastic angler' who used to
go down to 'Hurstcote' to fish. At that time this fine old
seventeenth-century manor house was in the joint occupancy of
Rossetti and Morris. 'Wilderspin' was Smetham with a variation:
certain characteristics of another painter of genius were introduced,
I believe, into the portrait of him in _Aylwin_; and the story of
'Wilderspin's' early life was not that of Smetham.
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