All at once Mr Norrell addressed Mr Strange, who was in the room and busy writing a letter to one of the Ministers. ‘Mr Strange, I feel a draught! I do believe that the window behind Mr Lawrence is open! Pray, Mr Strange, go and see if the window is open!’ Without looking up, Strange replied, ‘No, the window is not open. You are mistaken.’ A few minutes later Mr Norrell thought he heard a pie-seller in the square and begged Mr Strange to go to the window and look out, but once again Mr Strange refused. Next it was a duchess’s coach that Mr Norrell heard. He tried everything that he could think of to make Mr Strange go to the window, but Mr Strange would not go. This was very odd, and Mr Lawrence began to suspect that all Mr Norrell’s agitation had nothing to with imaginary draughts or pie-sellers or duchesses but that it had something to do with the painting.

So when Mr Norrell went out of the room Mr Lawrence asked Mr Strange what the matter was. At first Mr Strange insisted that nothing was wrong, but Mr Lawrence was determined to find out and pressed Mr Strange to tell him the truth. Mr Strange sighed. ‘Oh, very well! He has got it into his head that you are copying spells out of his books behind your easel.’

Mr Lawrence was shocked. He had painted the greatest in the land and never before been suspected of stealing. This was not the sort of treatment he expected.

‘Come,’ said Mr Strange, gently, ‘do not be angry. If any man in England deserves our patience, it is Mr Norrell. All the future of English magic is on his shoulders and I assure you he feels it very keenly. It makes him a little eccentric. What would be your sensations, I wonder, Mr Lawrence, if you woke one morning and found yourself the only artist in Europe? Would not you feel a little lonely? Would you not feel the watchful gaze of Michelangelo and Raphael and Rembrandt and all the rest of them upon you, as if they both defied and implored you to equal their achievements? Would you not sometimes be out of spirits and out of temper?’ ”

From Recollections of Sir Thomas Lawrence during an intimacy of nearly thirty years by Miss Croft

2 Francis Pevensey, sixteenth-century magician. Wrote Eighteen Wonders to be found in the House of Albion. We know that Pevensey was trained by Martin Pale. The Eighteen Wonders has all the characteristics of Pale’s magic, including his fondness for complicated diagrams and intricate magical apparatus.

For many years Francis Pevensey occupied a minor but respectable place in English magical history as a follower of Martin Pale and it was a great surprize to everyone when he suddenly became the subject of one of the bitterest controversies in eighteenth-century magical theory.

It began in 1754 with the discovery of a number of letters in the library of a gentleman in Stamford in Lincolnshire. They were all in an antique hand and signed by Martin Pale. The magical scholars of the period were besides themselves with joy.