beautiful faces,
and all those other objects that fill the mind with gay ideas, and
disperse that gloominess which is apt to hang upon it in those dark
disconsolate seasons.

I was some weeks ago in a course of these diversions, which had taken
such an entire possession of my imagination that they formed in it a
short morning's dream, which I shall communicate to my reader, rather as
the first sketch and outlines of a vision, than as a finished piece.

I dreamt that I was admitted into a long, spacious gallery, which had one
side covered with pieces of all the famous painters who are now living,
and the other with the works of the greatest masters that are dead.

On the side of the living, I saw several persons busy in drawing,
colouring, and designing. On the side of the dead painters, I could not
discover more than one person at work, who was exceeding slow in his
motions, and wonderfully nice in his touches.

I was resolved to examine the several artists that stood before me, and
accordingly applied myself to the side of the living. The first I
observed at work in this part of the gallery was Vanity, with his hair
tied behind him in a riband, and dressed like a Frenchman. All the faces
he drew were very remarkable for their smiles, and a certain smirking air
which he bestowed indifferently on every age and degree of either sex.
The _toujours gai_ appeared even in his judges, bishops, and Privy
Councillors. In a word, all his men were _petits maitres_, and all his
women _coquettes_. The drapery of his figures was extremely well suited
to his faces, and was made up of all the glaring colours that could be
mixed together; every part of the dress was in a flutter, and endeavoured
to distinguish itself above the rest.

On the left hand of Vanity stood a laborious workman, who I found was his
humble admirer, and copied after him. He was dressed like a German, and
had a very hard name that sounded something like Stupidity.

The third artist that I looked over was Fantasque, dressed like a
Venetian scaramouch. He had an excellent hand at chimera, and dealt very
much in distortions and grimaces. He would sometimes affright himself
with the phantoms that flowed from his pencil. In short, the most
elaborate of his pieces was at best but a terrifying dream: and one could
say nothing more of his finest figures than that they were agreeable
monsters.

The fourth person I examined was very remarkable for his hasty h