Cleopatra, which
you say was drawn from your own wife, I believe the copy has as much of
the to kalon as the original: but, were it mine, it should be hung up
in the Temple of Cloacina, as the picture of that goddess; for any
other apartment would be disgraced by its appearance."--"Hark ye, sir,"
replied Pallet, enraged in his turn at the contemptuous mention of his
darling performance, "you may make as free with my wife as you think
proper, but 'ware my works; those are the children of my fancy,
conceived by the glowing imagination, and formed by the art of my own
hands: and you yourself are a Goth, and a Turk, and a Tartar, and
an impudent pretending jackanapes, to treat with such disrespect a
production which, in the opinion of all the connoisseurs of the age,
will, when finished, be a masterpiece in its kind, and do honour to
human genius and skill. So I say again and again, and I care not
though your friend Playtor heard me, that you have no more taste than a
drayman's horse, and that those foolish notions of the ancients ought to
be drubbed out of you with a pod cudgel, that you might learn to treat
men of parts with more veneration. Perhaps you may not always be in the
company of one who will halloo for assistance when you are on the brink
of being chastised for your insolence, as I did, when you brought upon
yourself the resentment of that Scot, who, by the Lord! would have paid
you both scot and lot, as Falstaff says, if the French officer had not
put him in arrest."

The physician, to this declamation, which was conveyed through the
key-hole, answered, that he (the painter) was a fellow so infinitely
below his consideration, that his conscience upbraided him with no
action of his life, except that of choosing such a wretch for his
companion and fellow-traveller. That he had viewed his character through
the medium of good-nature and compassion, which had prompted him to give
Pallet an opportunity of acquiring some new ideas under his immediate
instruction; but he had abused his goodness and condescension in such a
flagrant manner, that he was now determined to discard him entirely
from his acquaintance; and desired him, for the present, to take himself
away, on pain of being kicked for his presumption.

Pallet was too much incensed to be intimidated by this threat, which he
retorted with great virulence, defying him to come forth, that it might
appear which of them was best skilled in that pedestrian exercise