SMALL CONVERSATION.
Fuseli had a great dislike to common-place observations. After sitting perfectly silent for a long time in his own room, during “the bald disjointed chat” of some idle callers in, who were gabbling with one another about the weather, and other topics of as interesting a nature, he suddenly exclaimed, “We had pork for dinner to-day!” “Dear! Mr. Fuseli, what an odd remark!” “Why, it is as good as anything you have been saying for the last hour.”
CHANGING HATS.
Barry, the painter, was with Nollekens at Rome in 1760, and they were extremely intimate. Barry took the liberty one night, when they were about to leave the English Coffee-house, to exchange hats with him; Barry’s being edged with lace, and Nollekens’s a very shabby, plain one. Upon his returning the hat next morning, he was requested by Nollekens to let him know why he left him his gold-laced hat. “Why, to tell you the truth, my dear Joey,” answered Barry, “I fully expected assassination last night, and I was to have been known by my laced hat.” Nollekens often used to relate the story, adding: “It’s what the Old Bailey people would call a true bill against Jem.”
SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE’S BOYHOOD.
When Lawrence was but ten years old, his name had flown over the kingdom; he had read scenes from Shakspeare in a way that called forth the praise of Garrick, and drawn faces and figures with such skill as to obtain the approbation of Prince Hoare; his father, desirous of making the most of his talents, carried him to Oxford, where he was patronized by heads of colleges, and noblemen of taste, and produced a number of portraits, wonderful in one so young and uninstructed. Money now came in; he went to Bath, hired a house—raised his price from one guinea to two; his Mrs. Siddons, as Zara, was engraved—Sir Henry Harpur desired to adopt him as his son—Prince Hoare saw something so angelic in his face, that he proposed to paint him in the character of Christ, and the artists of London heard with wonder of a boy who was rivalling their best efforts with the pencil, and realizing, as was imagined, a fortune.
The Hon. Daines Barrington has the following record of Lawrence’s precocious talent in his Miscellanies: “This boy is now, (viz. February, 1780,) nearly ten years and a half old; but, at the age of nine, without the most distant instruction from any one, he was capable of copying historical pictures in a masterly style, and also succeeded amazingly in compositions of his own, particularly that of Peter denying Christ. In about seven minutes he scarcely ever failed of drawing a strong likeness of any person present, which had generally much freedom and grace, if the subject permitted.”