im a fine
Velasquez. "Velasquez!--who's he?" said the head of his family. "It is a
superb picture, sir--a genuine portrait by the Spaniard, and doubtless, of
some Spanish nobleman. "Then," said he, "I won't have it; I'll have no
Spanish blood contaminate my family, sir." "Spanish blood," rejected by
the plebeian! I have known better men than you, Eusebius--excuse the
comparison--vamped up and engraved upon the spur of the moment, for
celebrated highwaymen or bloody murderers. But this digression won't help
you out in your sitting. Let me see what the learned say upon the
subject--what advice shall we get from the man of academies. Here we have
him, Gerrard Larresse; you may be sure that he treats of portrait-painting,
and with importance enough too. Here it is--"Of Portraiture." But that is
far too plan. We must have an emblem:--

"Emblem touching the handling of portraits."

"Nature with her many breasts, is in a sitting posture. Near her stands a
little child, lifting her garment off her shoulders. On the other side
stands Truth, holding a mirror before her, wherein she views herself down
to the middle, and is seemingly surprised at it. On the frame of this
glass, are seen a _gilt pallet and pencils. Truth has a book and palm
branch_ in her hand." What do you think of that, Eusebius, for a position?
But why Nature or Truth should be surprised at viewing herself down to the
middle, I cannot imagine. It evidently won't do to surprise you in that
manner. Poor Gerrard, I see, thinks it a great condescension in him to
speak of portrait-painting at all; he calls it, "departing from the
essence of art, and subjecting (the painter) to all the defects of nature."
Hear that, Eusebius! you are to sit to be a specimen of the _defects_ of
nature. He is indignant that "such great masters as Vandyke, Lely, Van Loo,
the old and young Bakker, and others," possessed of great talents,
postponed what is noble and beautiful to what is more ordinary. There you
are again, Eusebius, with your ordinary visage, unworthy such men as the
old and young Bakker, whoever they were. But since there must be portraits,
he could endure the method of the ancients, who, "used to cause those from
whom the commonwealth had received extraordinary benefits, either in war
or civil affairs, or for eminence in religion, to be represented in marble
or metal, or in a picture, that the sight of them, by those honours, might
be a spur to posterity to emulate the s