at she did not
live to read Byron's "thoroughbred and tapering fingers," or to be
shocked by his theory that "the hand is almost the only sign of blood
which aristocracy can generate." Her Bath friend appeals to a
miniature (engraved for this work) by Roche, of Bath, taken when she
was in her seventy-seventh year. Like Cromwell, who told the painter
that if he softened a harsh line or so much as omitted a wart, he
should never be paid a sixpence,--she desired the artist to paint her
face deeply rouged, which it always was[1], and to introduce a
trivial deformity of the jaw, produced by a horse treading on her as
she lay on the ground after a fall. In this respect she proved
superior to Johnson; who, with all his love of truth, could not bear
to be painted with his defects. He was displeased at being drawn
holding a pen close to his eye; and on its being suggested that
Reynolds had painted himself holding his ear in his hand to catch the
sound, he replied: "He may paint himself as deaf as he pleases, but I
will not be Blinking Sam."

[Footnote 1: "One day I called early at her house, and as I entered
her drawing-room, she passed me, saying, 'Dear Sir, I will be with
you in a few minutes; but, while I think of it, I must go to my
dressing-closet and paint my face, which I forgot to do this
morning.' Accordingly she soon returned, wearing the requisite
quantity of bloom; which, it must be noticed, was not in the least
like that of youth and beauty. I then said that I was surprised she
should so far sacrifice to fashion, as to take that trouble. Her
answer was that, as I might conclude, her practice of painting did
not proceed from any silly compliance with Bath fashion, or any
fashion; still less, if possible, from the desire of appearing
younger than she was, but from this circumstance, that in early life
she had worn rouge, as other young persons did in her day, as a part
of dress; and after continuing the habit for some years, discovered
that it had introduced a dull yellow colour into her complexion,
quite unlike that of her natural skin, and that she wished to conceal
the deformity."--_Piozziana_.]

Reynolds' portrait of Mrs. Thrale conveys a highly agreeable
impression of her; and so does Hogarth's, when she sat to him for the
principal figure in "The Lady's Last Stake." She was then only
fourteen; and he probably idealised his model; but that he also
produced a striking likeness, is obvious on comparing his pictu