then considered the Woodburn of
Edinburgh. Mitchell occasionally ground Dick's
colours and set his palette, which invested him
in our eyes with great dignity; and he used at
the breakfast-hour to gather round him half a
dozen of us, and excite our admiration and
astonishment by taking out of his pocket, and
exhibiting, little pictures in oil, which he had
painted overnight." The best artist among them
was William Kidd, who afterwards rose to some
degree of eminence, but who was one of those
unpractical men that never do any good for
themselves or their families. His name often
occurs in Roberts's diary, with much sad
significance. "Poor William Kidd, five pounds."
"William Kidd here with the old story—a
distress put into his house, five pounds." At last
comes, "Died, poor William Kidd." These
were long years after the Life Academy
established by Beugo's apprentice lads and a
donkey, in Mary King's Close; at which time,
indeed", "poor William Kidd" was the chief
artist and leading member—looking down that
golden vista of hope destined never to be
traversed.

At last the seven years' apprenticeship came
to an end, and young Davie was of age and his
own master. After a short sojourn at Perth, in
the employ of a house-decorator, he came back
to Edinburgh just about the time when Mr.
Bannister, the proprietor of the circus in North
College-street, had resolved to add to the
attractions of the ring, a stage, stage scenery,
and a company of pantomimists. Roberts was
out of employ, and a friend advised him to
apply for the place of scene-painter to Mr.
Bannister's new stage. He thought it
presumptuous on his part, but his friend was
resolute, and carried his point. In his diary,
Roberts says that he could never forget the
tremor he felt, the faintness that came over
him, when he ascended to the second floor of
5, Nicholson-street, and, after much hesitation,
at length mustered courage to pull the door-
bell. Mr. Bannister received him very kindly,
however, approved his drawings, and engaged
him to paint a set of wings for a palace. The
canvas was brought and laid down on the
dining-room floor, and after the young man, only
a journeyman house-painter as yet, had ground
his colours, he began and completed his painting.

This was the beginning of his career as a
scene-painter—at that time the highest object
of his ambition; and at the close of the circus
season he was engaged at a salary of twenty-
five shillings a week to travel with the troupe
into England, paint all scenery, &c., that might
be required, and to make himself generally
useful. The last clause translated itself into
acting a barber in a pantomime, with other like
parts to follow; wherein, he says, he rather
over-did than under-did his business.

Thrown out of scene-painting by the ruin of
Bannister, Roberts was forced to turn back to
his old trade of house-painting, engaging
himself first to Mr. Irvine, of Perth, as his foreman
and chief hand, and then to Mr. Jackson,
where he got forward with his art better than
he had yet done. And then came another spell
of his favourite scene-painting, and he was
engaged by Mr. Corri, at the Edinburgh Pantheon,
for the lordly honorarium of twenty-five
shillings a week. Here he was much exercised by
the chief scene-painter, a generally handy man
capable of all things in a small way, who "was
often so overpowered by fatigue" that he was
obliged to lie down and sleep, after indicating
what he wished done, leaving the execution to
me, although he very frequently gave the work
what he called a few finishing touches—
disgusting me by obliterating any artistic feeling
there might have been." He got a better
engagement soon after this, as scene-painter to
the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, with thirty
shillings a week salary. "This unexpected
burst of good fortune was hailed by me with
grateful enthusiasm," says David Roberts,
the future R.A., when making his yearly
thousands, "as I felt it would give me an
opportunity to make my way onward as an
artist." It was about this time that Andrew
Wilson, master of the Trustees' Academy,
where Roberts had permission to draw, made one
of those wise and incisive remarks which tell on
a young mind for life. Roberts thought he drew
well in outline, and said so. "Ah," said Mr.
Wilson, "in nature there are no outlines!"
This is a companion anecdote to one related of
Stanfield. "Stanny had shown his sketch-book
to the veteran Nasmyth, and told him that he
wished to form a style of his own. 'My young
friend,' exclaimed the experienced artist, 'there
is but one style an artist should endeavour to
attain, and that is the style of nature. The
nearer you get to her the better.'"

This scene-painting at the Glasgow Theatre
was a great success, and got the young artist
much local fame and many faithful friends and
admirers. Among others, W. L. Leitch, who
was engaged as scene-painter at the same
theatre after him, and who says: "I then began
to study the works of Roberts with deep
interest, and found that, especially in architectural
scenes, the simple beauty of his outline,
combined with masses of light and shade, gave
them a grand and most impressive effect; and
it is impossible for me to say how much good
I derived from their excellent teaching."
Leitch's first introduction to Roberts was when,
as apprentice to a house-painter who worked
for Mason, he was sent with a pot of colour for
Roberts at the theatre: finding him in the
"pentin'-room at the vera tap o' the hoose,"
standing before a sheet of canvas as big as a
mainsail, busy painting in some of the grand
effects, which the lad, then just fourteen, felt
as a revelation, and vainly tried to imitate.
How far he succeeded in after-life, his reputation
remains as the best proof. In 1820
Roberts went as scene-painter to the Theatre
Royal, Edinburgh, and this was the manner of
his going:

"I started from Dumfries for Edinburgh one
fine autumnal morning, minus many weeks'
salary, and having little in my pocket, but
with a heart buoyant with hope. My traps