One surely need not look a fright when dead."
We choose to be satirical, and call it vanity; but put both anecdotes into tolerably good grave Latin, and name them Portia and Lucretia, and we should have as fine a sentiment as the boasted one of the hero endeavouring to fall decently. There may be but little difference, and that only just what we, in our humours, choose to make it. I am sure you, Eusebius, will stand up for the old village crone, and the fine lady, too. But the fraternity of the brush, if they do now and then promote vanity, much more commonly gratify affection. Private portraits seem to me to be things so sacred, that they ought not to survive the immediate family or friends for whose gratification they are painted. I much like the idea of burying them at last. I will show you how estimable these things sometimes are. You remember a portrait I have—a gentleman in a dress of blue and gold—in crayon. Did I ever tell you the anecdote respecting him? If not, you shall have it, as I had from my father. If you recollect the picture, you must recollect that it is of a very handsome man. His horses took fright, the carriage was overturned, and he was killed upon the spot. The property came to my father. One day an unknown lady, in a handsome equipage, stopped at his door, and, in an interview with him, requested a portrait of this very person, not the one you have seen, but another in oil-colour, and of that the head only. My father cut it out, and gave it to her. Many, many years afterwards it was returned to him by an unknown hand, with an account of the accident that caused the death, pasted on the back; and it is now in my possession. The lady was never known. No, Eusebius, we must not deny portrait-painters, nor portrait painting. It is the line in which we excel—and that we have above all others patronized, and had great men too arise from our encouragement—Who are so rich in Vandyks as we are? And some we have had better than the world allowed them to be—Sir Peter Lely was occasionally an admirable painter—though Sir Joshua did say, "We must go beyond him now." There was Sir Joshua himself, and Gainsborough—would that either were alive to take you, Eusebius, though I were to pay for the sitting. I think too, that I should have given the preference to Gainsborough—it would have been so true. Did you ever see his portrait of Foote?—so unaffected—it must be like. I won't be invidious by naming any, where we have so many able portrait-painters—but if you have not fixed upon your man, come to me, and I will tell half-a-dozen, and we will go to them, and you shall judge for yourself—and if you like miniature, there are those who will make what is small great. What wonderful power Cooper had in this way. I recently had in my hands a wondrous and marvellous portrait of Andrew Marvell by him. The sturdy honest Andrew. This man Cooper, had such wonderful largeness of style, of execution too, even in his highest finished small oil pictures—such as in this of Andrew Marvell. We had an age, certainly, of very bad taste, and it was not extinct in the days of Sir Joshua and Gainsborough; nay, sometimes under both of these, I am sorry to say, it was even made worse. The age of shepherds and shepherdesses—in the case of Gainsborough, brought down to downright rustics. This, of making the sitters affect to be what they were not, was bad enough—and it was any thing but poetical. But it was infinitely worse in the itinerants of the day—and is very well ridiculed by Goldsmith, who lived much among painters, in his Vicar of Wakefield and family sitting for the family picture. We have happily quite got out of that folly. But we are getting into one of most unpoetical pageantry—portrait likenesses. We have not seen yet a good portrait of Wellington, and the Queen, or the Prince; and if they must send their portraits to foreign courts, let them be advised to learn, if they know not yet how, and we are told they do, to paint them themselves. Montaigne tells us, that he was present one day at Bar-le-duc, when King Francis the Second, for a memorial of Réné, King of Sicily, was presented with a picture the king had drawn of himself. Some how or other, kings and queens are apt to have too many trappings about them; and the man is often chosen to paint, who paints velvets and satins best, and faces the worst. That is the reason we have them so ill done; and even if the faces are well painted, they are overpowered by the ostentation of the dress. Now, the Venetian portrait-painters contrived to keep down the glare of all this ornament, to make it even more rich, but not obtruding. I remember seeing a portrait of our queen, where, in a large bonnet, her face looked like a small pip in the midst of an orange. It would be a good thing, too, if you could contrive to spend a week or so in company with your painter before you sit, that he may know you. Many a characteristic may he lose, for want of knowing that it is a characteristic; and may give you that in expression which does not belong to you, while he may miss "your sweet expression about your eyes." He may purse up your large and generous mouth, because you may screw it for a moment to keep some ill-timed conceit from bolting out, and, besides missing that noble feature, may give you an expression of a caution that is not yours. A painter the other day, as I am assured, in a country town, made a great mistake in a characteristic, and it was discovered by a country farmer. It was the portrait of a lawyer—an attorney, who, from humble pretensions, had made a good deal of money, and enlarged thereby his pretensions, but somehow or other not very much enlarged his respectability. To his pretensions was added that of having his portrait put up in the parlour, as large as life. There it is, very flashy and very true—one hand in his breast, the other in his small-clothes' pocket. It is market-day—the country clients are called in—opinions are passed—the family present, and all complimentary—such as, "Never saw such a likeness in the course of all my born days. As like 'un as he can stare." "Well, sure enough, there he is." But at last—there is one dissentient! "'Tain't like—not very—no, 'tain't," said a heavy middle-aged farmer, with rather a dry look, too, about his mouth, and a moist one at the corner of his eye, and who knew the attorney well. All were upon him. "Not like!—How not like? Say where is it not like?" "Why, don't you see," said the man, "he's got his hand in his breeches' pocket. It would be as like again if he had his hand in any other body's pocket." The family portrait was removed, especially as, after this, many came on purpose to see it; and so the attorney was lowered a peg, and the farmer obtained the reputation of a connoisseur.
But it is high time, Eusebius, that I should dismiss you and portrait-painting, or you will think your thus sitting to me worse than sitting for your picture; which picture, if it be of my Eusebius as I know him and love him, will ever be a living speaking likeness, but if it be one but of outward feature and resemblance, it will soon pass off to make up the accumulation of dead lumber—while do you, Eusebius, as you are, vive valeque.
MY FRIEND.
Wouldst thou be friend of mine?—
Thou must be quick and bold
When the right is to be done,
And the truth is to be told;