Brown was no half-measure man; "whatsoever his
hand found to do, he did it with his might." His last stage-scene in
life was passed in New Zealand, whither he emigrated with his son,
having purchased some land,--or, as his own letter stated, having been
thoroughly defrauded in the transaction. Brown accompanied Keats in his
tour in the Hebrides, a worthy event in the poet's career, seeing that
it led to the production of that magnificent sonnet to "Ailsa Rock." As
a passing observation, and to show how the minutest circumstance did not
escape him, he told me, that, when he first came upon the view of Loch
Lomond, the sun was setting; the lake was in shade, and of a deep blue;
and at the farther end was "_a slash across it_, of deep orange." The
description of the traceried window in the "Eve of St. Agnes" gives
proof of the intensity of his feeling for color.
It was during his abode in Wentworth Place that the savage and vulgar
attacks upon the "Endymion" appeared in the "Quarterly Review," and
in "Blackwood's Magazine.
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