ROUND THE GALLERIES
CAUTION.—(To the two young ladies in pink bonnets who expressed such enthusiasm about Mr. B. Stubbs’s pictures, and would so like to see that “dear Mr. Stubbs.”) The tall young man who on overhearing the above praise, wetted his pocket-handkerchief, and removed an imaginary speck of dust from Mr. S.’s picture, thereby trying to convey the impression that he was the fortunate man who had painted it, is some impudent impostor, and never touched a canvas before in his life. Mr. B. Stubbs is a good-looking, short man, with wideawake, auburn beard and spectacles.
PAINTERS AND GAZERS
A SKETCH AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY
I had hopes—I know that they have proved to be unfounded, but I cannot admit that they were unreasonable!—I had hopes that I should have been able to avail myself of the privilege of free admission conceded to exhibitors. Unfortunately, I do not exhibit!
I sent three pictures! 1 (a pre-Raphaelite bit of nature), “Docks and Marsh Mallows”; 2 (an attempt to depict a really unhackneyed historical situation), “Charles the Second in the Oak”; 3 (a genre painting), “The New Crinoline.”
If it were becoming (which it is not) I could say a good deal about these works; but I forbear to do so. They were all three rejected by the Hanging Committee.
I have accordingly paid my shilling, and I mean to take it out in criticism. The Academicians have exercised their rights; I shall use mine. There will be plenty of hacks to fawn upon the imbecile canvas-spoilers, the miserable, crass, cringing, dull, feeble, superannuated, impotent, and abject Forty. Of those hacks I decline to be one. Honest truth (uninfluenced by passion) is what the wretched dotards shall hear from me.
