We directed his attention to the statuesque Anak.
“Oh! he is the cook!” with never a gleam of amusement or surprise.
“Artistically considered,” pursued Prima, with another lingering look, “he is magnificent.”
This time the black-gown was slightly—never so slightly, bewildered.
“He is the cook,” he said.
“’Twas throwing words away, for still
The little man would have his will,
And answered—‘’Tis the cook!’”
parodied Dux. “Wordsworth was an Englishman and ‘knew how it was himself.’”
We spent four hours in the Bodleian Library, Museum, and Picture Gallery, leaving them then reluctantly. It was “realizing our history” in earnest to see the portrait of William Prynne, carefully executed, even to Archbishop Laud’s scarlet ear-mark. The clipped organ is turned to the spectator ostentatiously, one fancies, until he bethinks himself that the uncompromising Puritan received the loving admonition of Church and State in both ears, and upon separate occasions. The miniatures of James III. and his wife are here given an honorable position. Some years since the words, “The Pretender,” were scratched by an unknown Jacobite from the gilded frame of the uncrowned king’s picture. The custodian pointed out the erasure with a smile indulgent of the harmless, if petulant freak. It is odd who do such things, and when, so vigilant is the watch kept over visitors. Three of the delicate fingers are gone from the hands of Marie Stuart in Westminster Abbey, and, if I remember aright, as many from the effigy of Elizabeth in the same place.