tham, and several of his pictures
(small ones) were on Rossetti's studio walls. 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. The series of
'large attics in which was a number of enormous oak beams' supporting
the antique roof was a favourite resort of my own; but all the
ghostly noise that I there heard was the snoring of young owls--a
peculiar sound that had a special fascination for Rossetti; and after
dinner Rossetti, my brother, and I would go to the attics to listen
to them.

But a more singular mistake with regard to the _Aylwin_ characters
than that of Morris being confounded with 'Wilderspin' was that of
confounding, as certain newspaper paragraphs at the time did, 'Cyril
Aylwin' with Mr. Whistler. I am especially able to speak of this
character, who has been inquired about more than any other in the
book. I knew him, I think, even before I knew Rossetti and Morris, or
any of that group. He was a brother of Mr. Watts-Dunton's--Mr. Alfred
Eugene Watts. He lived at Park House, Sydenham, and died suddenly
either in 1870 or 1871, very shortly after I had met him at a wedding
party. Among the set in which I moved at that time he had a great
reputation as a wit and humorist. His style of humour always struck
me as being more American than English. While bringing out humorous
things that would set a dinner-table in a roar, he would himself
maintain a perfectly unmoved countenance. And it was said of him, as
'Wilderspin' says of