the use of his legs, which
otherwise might be doubted, and is therefore judicious. If you are
supposed to be in the open air, you will not know at first sight that you
are so represented, until you have learned the painter's hieroglyphic for
trees. You will find them to be angular sorts of sticks, with red and
yellow flag-rags flapping about; and ten to one but you have a murky sky,
and no hat on your head; but as to such a country as you ever walked in,
or ever saw, don't expect to see such a one as a background to your
picture, and you will readily console yourself that you are turning your
back upon it. If you are painted in a library, books are cheap--so that
the artist can afford to throw you in a silver inkstand into the bargain,
and a pen--such a pen! the goose wouldn't know it that bred it--and
perhaps an open letter to answer, with your name on the cover. If you are
made answering the letter, that will never be like you--perhaps it would
be more like if the letter should be unopened. Now, do not flatter
yourself; Eusebius, that all these things are matters of choice with you.
"_Non omnia possumus omnes_," is the regular rule of the profession; some
stick to the curtain all their lives, from sheer inability to set it--to
draw it aside. You remember the sign-painter that went about painting red
lions, and his reply to a refractory landlord who insisted upon a white
lamb. "You may have a white lamb if you please, but when all is said and
done, it will be a great deal more like a red lion." And I am sorry to say,
the faces too, are not unfrequently in this predicament, for they have a
wonderful family likeness, and these run much by counties. A painter has
often been known totally to fail, by quitting his beat. There is certainly
an advantage in this; for if any gentleman should be so unfortunate as to
have no ancestors, he may pick up at random, in any given county in
England, a number that will very well match, and all look like
blood-relations. There is an instance where this resemblance was greatly
improved, by the advice of an itinerant of the profession, who, at a very
moderate price, put wigs on all the Vandyks. And there you see some danger,
Eusebius, that--be represented how you may--you are not sure of keeping
your condition ten years; you may have, by that time, a hussar cap put
upon your unconscious head. But portraits fare far worse than that.

I remember, when a boy, walking with an elderly gentleman,