dren which he had painted for the Royal Academy, where it duly
appeared. Others less humorously imaginative perhaps have written to me
assuring me of the great pleasure which would have been theirs had they
themselves conceived the idea which my caricature of their work
supplied.

Although, however, there are so few artists who object to having their
pictures caricatured, there is, of course, another side to the question.
It is indeed most true that nothing kills like ridicule, and in the
course of my experience I have found it is just as easy unconsciously to
inflict an injury with my pen and Indian ink as it is to do good. Let us
suppose, for instance, that a great painter has just finished a very
sentimental work--a picture so brimful of beauty and pathos that it
appeals to everybody, myself included. As I stand before it, and admire,
it is impossible perhaps for me to restrain a sympathetic tear from
making its appearance in, at all events, one of my eyes. But how about
the other? Ah! with regard to that other eye, I must confess it is very
differently employed, and, superior to my control, is searching the
canvas high and low for that "something ridiculous" which, except in the
case of the very greatest masters, is always there. Now what ensues? The
purchaser of that picture, who, mark you, unlike myself, regarded it and
admired it with _both_ of his eyes, congratulates himself upon its
acquisition. I have known it for a fact, however--to my regret--that
after the publication of the caricature the purchaser was never able to
look at his picture again through his own glasses, and bitterly
regretted his outlay.

[Illustration: THE GREAT BACCARAT CASE. MY SKETCH IN PENCIL MADE IN
COURT, AND CONGRATULATORY NOTE FROM THE EDITOR OF _PUNCH_.]

An art publisher with whom I was acquainted agreed to pay a heavy sum
for the copyright of a work of a well-known and popular painter, and
after the caricature had appeared in _Punch_ he resolved to forego the
publication of the engraving from it by which he had hoped to recoup his
expenditure, because he considered that the sobriety of the work was so
completely destroyed as to preclude the possibility of sale; and an
eminent sculptor, who was responsible for a well-known statue which I
caricatured some years ago when it appeared in the Royal Academy, has
told me, since it was put up in the Metropolis, that he has actually
meditated replacing it by another piece, owing to the lud