until my brother had said that he was a friend of the painter
that we were permitted to pass the threshold. At length we were shown
into the studio, where we found the painter, with an easel and brush,
standing before a huge piece of canvas, on which he had lately commenced
painting a heroic picture. The painter might be about thirty-five years
old; he had a clever, intelligent countenance, with a sharp grey eye--his
hair was dark brown, and cut a-la-Rafael, as I was subsequently told,
that is, there was little before and much behind--he did not wear a
neckcloth; but, in its stead, a black riband, so that his neck, which was
rather fine, was somewhat exposed--he had a broad muscular breast, and I
make no doubt that he would have been a very fine figure, but
unfortunately his legs and thighs were somewhat short. He recognised my
brother, and appeared glad to see him.

"What brings you to London?" said he.

Whereupon my brother gave him a brief account of his commission. At the
mention of the hundred pounds, I observed the eyes of the painter
glisten. "Really," said he, when my brother had concluded, "it was very
kind to think of me. I am not very fond of painting portraits; but a
mayor is a mayor, and there is something grand in that idea of the Norman
arch. I'll go; moreover, I am just at this moment confoundedly in need
of money, and when you knocked at the door, I don't mind telling you, I
thought it was some dun. I don't know how it is, but in the capital they
have no taste for the heroic, they will scarce look at a heroic picture;
I am glad to hear that they have better taste in the provinces. I'll go;
when shall we set off?"

Thereupon it was arranged between the painter and my brother that they
should depart the next day but one; they then began to talk of art.
"I'll stick to the heroic," said the painter; "I now and then dabble in
the comic, but what I do gives me no pleasure, the comic is so low; there
is nothing like the heroic. I am engaged here on a heroic picture," said
he, pointing to the canvas; "the subject is 'Pharaoh dismissing Moses
from Egypt,' after the last plague--the death of the first-born,--it is
not far advanced--that finished figure is Moses:" they both looked at the
canvas, and I, standing behind, took a modest peep. The picture, as the
painter said, was not far advanced, the Pharaoh was merely in outline; my
eye was, of course, attracted by the finished figure, or rather what the