ave
daubs of reds, and yellows, and greys perked up against your nose for
comparison. Your man may be a fancy mesmerizer, or mesmerize you, now that
it is flying about like an epidemic, without knowing it. If he can, he
will surely do it, to keep you still: that is the way to get a good sitter.
Eusebius in a _coma_! answering all comers, like one of the heads in the
play of Macbeth! But I was to tell you how to sit--that is the way, get
into a _coma_--that will be the painter's best chance of having you; or,
when he has been working for hours, he may find you a Proteus, and that
you have slipped through his fingers after all his toil to catch you. I
will tell you what happened to a painter of my acquaintance. A dentist sat
to him two days--the third the painter worked away very hard--looked at
the picture, then at his sitter. "Why, sir," said he; "I find I have been
all wrong--what can it be? Why, sir, your mouth is not at all like what it
was yesterday." "Ah! ah! I will tell you vat it ees," replied the French
dentist; "ah! good--my mouse is not de same--no indeed--yesterday I did
have my jaw in, but I did lend it out to a lady this day." Don't you think
of this now while you are sitting. You know the trick Garrick played the
painter, who, foiled in his attempt, started up, and said--"You must be
Garrick or the d----!" Then as to attitude, 'tis ten to one but you will
be put into one which will be quite uncomfortable to you. One, perhaps,
after a pattern. I should advise you to resist this--and sit easy--if you
can. Don't put your hand in your waistcoat, and one arm akimbo, like a
Captain Macheath, however he may entreat you; and don't be made looking up,
like a martyr, which some wonderfully affect; and don't be made turn your
head round, as if it was in disgust with the body; and don't let your
stomach be more conspicuous than the head, like a cucumber running to seed.
Don't let him put your arm up, as in command, or accompanied with a rapt
look as if you were listening to the music of the spheres; don't thrust
out your foot conspicuously, as if you meant to advertise the blacking.
Some artists are given to fancy attitudes such as best set off the coats,
they are but nature's journeymen at the faces; don't fancy that the cut,
colour, or cloth of your coat will exempt you from the penalty of their
practice. Why, Eusebius, they have lay-figures, and dress them just as you
see them at the tailor's or perfumer's; and one of