Canopied by an opaque cloud, inscribed "Oedipus" and "Jocasta," and evidently intended as a scene in Lee's mad play,[151] we discover the heads of two figures reposing in the straw, instead of the garden, "as was their custom in the afternoon."
A fellow, clambered to the top of the barn, is profanely prying into the hallowed mysteries of the green-room. A little lower is the Roman eagle and standard; close to them a paint-pot, palette, and pencils. The very natural appearance of two rural scenes which lean against the wooden wall, evince that some eminent artist has united the two professions, and is both painter and hero to the company. "Hills and dales are of his dressing." He can delineate the blasted oak or nodding turret, the lofty castle or humble cottage, with such brilliancy of colouring and splendour of effect, that the astonished connoisseur sometimes exclaims,
"There is something in this more than nature,
If philosophy could find it out."
A target, close to the altar, is richly embossed with Medusa's head. A salt-box, before the divine Juno, is chalked with hieroglyphic marks that might have been originally made by this sovereign daughter of the drama as a check upon an alehouse score. This economical attention to Cocker's Arithmetic is very necessary with even a royal revenue; for
"He who to-night is seated on a throne,
Calls subjects, empires, kingdoms, all his own,
Who wears the diadem and regal robe,
Next morning shall awake as poor as Job.
"Hard is the fortune of a strolling player,