ting various symptoms of impatience, on one
occasion he came so very near desiring her to mind her own business,
that we broke off the sitting abruptly; and the offended painter adding,
to my dismay, that it was quite evident he was not considered equal to
the task he had undertaken, our own attitude toward each other became so
constrained, not to say disagreeable, that on taking my leave I declined
returning any more, and what became of Mr. Pickersgill's beginning of me
I do not know. Perhaps he finished it by memory, and it is one of the
various portraits of me, _qui courent le monde_, for some of which I
never sat, which were taken either from the stage or were mere efforts
of memory of the artists; one of which, a head of Beatrice, painted by
my friend Mr. Sully, of Philadelphia, was engraved as a frontispiece to
a small volume of poems I published there, and was one of the best
likenesses ever taken of me.

The success of "The Maid of Honor" gave me great pleasure. The sterling
merits of the play do not perhaps outweigh the one insuperable defect of
the despicable character of the hero; one can hardly sympathize with
Camiola's devotion to such an idol, and his unworthiness not only
lessens the interest of the piece, but detracts from the effect of her
otherwise very noble character. The performance of the part always gave
me great pleasure, and there was at once a resemblance to and difference
from my favorite character, Portia, that made it a study of much
interest to me. Both the women, young, beautiful, and of unusual
intellectual and moral excellence, are left heiresses to enormous
wealth, and are in exceptional positions of power and freedom in the
disposal of it. Portia, however, is debarred by the peculiar nature of
her father's will from bestowing her person and fortune upon any one of
her own choice; chance serves her to her wish (she was not born to be
unhappy), and gives her to the man she loves, a handsome, extravagant
young gentleman, who would certainly have been pronounced by all of us
quite unworthy of her, until she proved him worthy by the very fact of
her preference for him; while Camiola's lover is separated from her by
the double obstacle of his royal birth and religious vow.

The golden daughter of the splendid republic receives and dismisses
princes and kings as her suitors, indifferent to any but their personal
merits; we feel she is their equal in the lowest as their superior in
the highes