ruth. Beauty itself is but one of the forms of truth, and nature is our
finite exponent of infinite truth."

His auditors gave him a marked attention. They could not but acknowledge
that men who go to the bottom of things like this should be the best
instructors.

"Now, in nature, a woman's face at this distance--ay, even at this short
distance--melts into the air. There is none of that sharpness; but, on
the contrary, a softness of outline." He made a lorgnette of his two
hands; the others did so too, and found they saw much better--oh, ever
so much better! "Whereas yours," resumed Snarl, "is hard; and, forgive
me, rather tea-board like. Then your _chiaro scuro,_ my good sir, is
very defective; for instance, in nature, the nose, intercepting the
light on one side the face, throws, of necessity, a shadow under the
eye. Caravaggio, Venetians generally, and the Bolognese masters, do
particular justice to this. No such shade appears in this portrait."

"'Tis so, stop my vitals!" observed Colley Cibber. And they all looked,
and, having looked, wagged their heads in assent--as the fat, white
lords at Christie's waggle fifty pounds more out for a copy of
Rembrandt, a brown levitical Dutchman, visible in the pitch-dark by some
sleight of sun Newton had not wit to discover.

Soaper dissented from the mass.

"But, my dear Snarl, if there are no shades, there are lights, loads of
lights."

"There are," replied Snarl; "only they are impossible, that is all.
You have, however," concluded he, with a manner slightly supercilious,
"succeeded in the mechanical parts; the hair and the dress are well, Mr.
Triplet; but your Woffington is not a woman, not nature."

They all nodded and waggled assent; but this sagacious motion was
arrested as by an earthquake.

The picture rang out, in the voice of a clarion, an answer that outlived
the speaker: "She's a woman! for she has taken four men in! She's
nature! for a fluent dunce doesn't know her when he sees her!"

Imagine the tableau! It was charming! Such opening of eyes and mouths!
Cibber fell by second nature into an attitude of the old comedy. And all
were rooted where they stood, with surprise and incipient mortification,
except Quin, who slapped his knee, and took the trick at its value.

Peg Woffington slipped out of the green baize, and, coming round from
the back of the late picture, stood in person before them; while they
looked alternately at her and at the hole in the can