o the picture. This last would be
rather a relaxation and relief than an effort. It is not to be wondered
at, that an artist like Sir Joshua, who delighted so much in the
sensual and practical part of his art, should have found himself at a
considerable loss when the decay of his sight precluded him, for
the last year or two of his life, from the following up of his
profession,--'the source,' according to his own remark, 'of thirty
years' uninterrupted enjoyment and prosperity to him.' It is only those
who never think at all, or else who have accustomed themselves to brood
incessantly on abstract ideas, that never feel ennui.

To give one instance more, and then I will have done with this rambling
discourse. One of my first attempts was a picture of my father, who was
then in a green old age, with strong-marked features, and scarred
with the smallpox. I drew it out with a broad light crossing the face,
looking down, with spectacles on, reading. The book was Shaftesbury's
_Characteristics_, in a fine old binding, with Gribelin's etchings. My
father would as lieve it had been any other book; but for him to read
was to be content, was 'riches fineless.' The sketch promised well; and
I set to work to finish it, determined to spare no time nor pains. My
father was willing to sit as long as I pleased; for there is a natural
desire in the mind of man to sit for one's picture, to be the object of
continued attention, to have one's likeness multiplied; and besides his
satisfaction in the picture, he had some pride in the artist, though he
would rather I should have written a sermon than painted like Rembrandt
or like Raphael. Those winter days, with the gleams of sunshine
coming through the chapel-windows, and cheered by the notes of the
robin-redbreast in our garden (that 'ever in the haunch of winter
sings'),--as my afternoon's work drew to a close,--were among the
happiest of my life. When I gave the effect I intended to any part of
the picture for which I had prepared my colours; when I imitated the
roughness of the skin by a lucky stroke of the pencil; when I hit
the clear, pearly tone of a vein; when I gave the ruddy complexion of
health, the blood circulating under the broad shadows of one side of
the face, I thought my fortune made; or rather it was already more
than made, I might one day be able to say with Correggio, '_I also am a
painter!_' It was an idle thought, a boy's conceit; but it did not make
me less happy at