138. Such happy though rare interludes in school-hours, and occasional attempts at home, usually from the carts and horses which stopped at a public-house opposite, began the studentship of the young artist before he had quitted his pinafore. An unhappy accident which happened about the same time, and which farther enfeebled his health, rendered it still less advisable to interfere with his beloved occupation. We have heard the painter express, with a melancholy smile, the distinct recollection remaining with him to this day, of a burning autumn morning, on which he had sallied forth alone, himself some four autumns old, armed with a hooked stick, to gather nuts. Unrestrainable alike with pencil or crook, he was found by a farmer, towards the close of the day, lying moaning under a hedge, prostrated by a sunstroke, and was brought home insensible. From that day forward he was subject to attacks of violent pain in the head, recurring at short intervals; and until thirty years after marriage not a week passed without one or two days of absolute confinement to his room or to his bed. "Up to this hour," we may perhaps be permitted to use his own touching words, "I have to endure a great fight of afflictions; can I therefore be sufficiently thankful for the merciful gift of a buoyant spirit?" 139. That buoyancy of spirit--one of the brightest and most marked elements of his character--never failed to sustain him between the recurrences even of his most acute suffering; and the pursuit of his most beloved Art became every year more determined and independent. The first beginnings in landscape study were made in happy truant excursions, now fondly remembered, with the painter Haydon, then also a youth. This companionship was probably rather cemented by the energy than the delicacy of Haydon's sympathies. The two boys were directly opposed in their habits of application and modes of study. Prout unremitting in diligence, patient in observation, devoted in copying what he loved in nature, never working except with his model before him; Haydon restless, ambitious, and fiery; exceedingly imaginative, never captivated with simple truth, nor using his pencil on the spot, but trusting always to his powers of memory. The fates of the two youths were inevitably fixed by their opposite characters. The humble student became the originator of a new School of Art, and one of the most popular painters of his age. The self-trust of the wanderer in the wilderness of his fancy betrayed him into the extravagances, and deserted him in the suffering, with which his name must remain sadly, but not unjustly, associated.