end go without it. He may
ride on a high-trotting horse, in green spectacles, and attract notice
to his person anyhow he can, if he only works hard at his profession.
If 'it only is when he is _out_ he is acting,' let him make the fools
stare, but give others something worth looking at. Good Mr. Carver and
Gilder, good Mr. Printer's Devil, good Mr. Billsticker, 'do me your
offices' unmolested! Painting is a plain ground, and requires a great
many heraldic quarterings and facings to set it off. Lay on, and do not
spare. No man's merit can be fairly judged of if he is not known; and
how can he be known if he keeps entirely in the background?(4) A great
name in art goes but a little way, is chilled as it creeps along the
surface of the world without something to revive and make it blaze up
with fresh splendour. Fame is here almost obscurity. It is long
before your name affixed to a sterling design will be spelt out by an
undiscerning regardless public. Have it proclaimed, therefore, as a
necessary precaution, by sound of trumpet at the corners of the street,
let it be stuck as a label in your mouth, carry it on a placard at your
back. Otherwise, the world will never trouble themselves about you, or
will very soon forget you. A celebrated artist of the present day, whose
name is engraved at the bottom of some of the most touching specimens
of English art, once had a frame-maker call on him, who, on entering his
room, exclaimed with some surprise, 'What, are you a painter, sir?' The
other made answer, a little startled in his turn, 'Why, didn't you know
that? Did you never see my name at the bottom of prints?' He could
not recollect that he had. 'And yet you sell picture-frames and
prints?'--'Yes.'--'What painter's names, then, did he recollect: did
he know West's?' 'Oh! yes.'--'And Opie's?' 'Yes.'--'And Fuseli's?' 'Oh!
yes.'--'But you never heard of me?' 'I cannot say that I ever did!' It
was plain from this conversation that Mr. Northcote had not kept company
enough with picture-dealers and newspaper critics. On another occasion,
a country gentleman, who was sitting to him for his portrait, asked him
if he had any pictures in the Exhibition at Somerset House, and on
his replying in the affirmative, desired to know what they were. He
mentioned, among others, The Marriage of Two Children; on which the
gentleman expressed great surprise, and said that was the very picture
his wife was always teasing him to go and have another l