a hawk is hovering over and going to pounce upon some of the more harmless feathered tribe. He added, "It was surprising how Swift had escaped with so little censure; but the 'Gulliver's Travels' passed off as a story-book, and you might say in verse what you would be pelted for in plain prose. The same thing you have observed in politics may be observed in religion too. You see the anxiety to divide and bring nearer to our own level. The Creator of the universe is too high an object for us to approach; the Catholics therefore have introduced the Virgin Mary and a host of saints, with whom their votaries feel more at their ease and on a par. The real object of worship is kept almost out of sight. Dignum the singer (who is a Catholic) was arguing on this subject with some one who wanted to convert him, and he replied in his own defence, "If you had a favour to ask of some great person would you not first apply to a common friend to intercede for you?" In some part of the foregoing conversation, Northcote remarked that "West used to say, you could always tell the highest nobility at court from their profound humility to the King the others kept at a distance, and did not seem to care about it. The more the former raised the highest person, the more they raised themselves, who were next in point of rank. They had a greater interest in the question; and the King would have a greater jealousy of them than of others. When Bwas painting the

:

6

Queen, with whom he used to be quite familiar, he was one day surprised, when the Prince Regent came into the room, to see the profound homage and dignified respect with which he approached her. 'Good God!' said he to himself, here is the second person in the kingdom comes into the room in this manner, while I have been using the greatest freedoms!' To be sure that was the very reason: the second person in the kingdom wished to invest the first with all possible respect, so much of

Y

which was naturally reflected back upon himself. B— had nothing to lose or gain in this game of royal ceremony, and was accordingly treated as a cypher."

Conversation the Tenth.

NORTHCOTE showed me a printed circular from the Academy, with blanks to be filled up by Academicians, recommending young students to draw. One of these related to an assurance as to the moral character of the candidate; Northcote said, "What can I know about that? This zeal for morality begins with inviting me to tell a lie. I know whether he can draw or not, because he brings me specimens of his drawings; but what am I to know of the moral character of a person I have never seen before? Or what business have the Academy to inquire into it? I suppose they are not afraid he will steal the Farnese Hercules; and as to idleness and debauchery, he will not be cured of these by cutting him off from the pursuit of a study on which he has set his mind and in which he has a fair chance to succeed. I told one of them, with as grave a face as I could, that as to his moral character he must go to his godfathers and godmothers for that. He answered, very simply, that they were a great way off, and that he had nobody to appeal to but his apothecary. The Academy is not an institution for the suppression of vice, but for the encouragement of the fine arts. Why then go out of their way to meddle with what was provided for by other means the law and the pulpit? It would not have happened in Sir Joshua's time," continued Northcote, nor even in Fuseli's: but the present men are 'dressed in a little brief authority,' and they wish to make the most of it, without perceiving the limits. No good can possibly come of this busybody spirit. The dragging

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morality into everything, in season and out of season, is only giving a handle to hypocrisy, and turning virtue into a byword for impertinence.'

Here Northcote stopped suddenly to ask if there was not such a word as "rivulet" in the language? I said it was as much a word in the language as it was a thing in itself. He replied, it was not to be found in Johnson; the word was "riveret" there. I thought this must be in some of the new editions; Dr. Johnson would have knocked anybody down who had used the word "riveret." It put me in mind of a story of Young the actor, who being asked how he was, made answer that he had been indisposed for some days with a feveret. The same person, speaking of the impossibility of escaping from too great publicity, related an anecdote of his being once in a remote part of the Highlands, and seeing an old gentleman fishing he went up to inquire some particulars as to the mode of catching the salmon at what are called "salmon-leaps." The old gentleman began his reply, Why, Mr. Young," at which the actor started back in great surprise. "Good God!" said Northcote, "did he consider this as a matter of wonder, that after showing himself on a stage for a number of years people should know his face? If an artist or an author were recognised in that manner it might be a proof of celebrity, because it would show that they had been sought for; but an actor is so much seen in public that it is no wonder he is known by all the world. I once went with Opie in the stage-coach to Exeter; and when we parted, he to go on to Cornwall and I to Plymouth, there was a young gentleman in the coach who asked me who it was that I had been conversing with.' I said it was Mr. Opie the painter; at which he expressed the greatest surprise, and was exceedingly concerned to think he had not known it before. I did not tell him who I was, to see if my name would electrify him in the same manner,

That brings to my mind the story I perhaps may have told you before of a Mr. A—- and Dr. Pennick of the Museum. They got into some quarrel at the theatre, and the former, presenting his card, said with great pomposity, 'My name is A- sir' to which the other answered, I hear it, sir, and am not terrified!" I asked if this was the A- who fought the duel with F- He said he could not tell; but he was our ambassador to some of the petty German States.

A country gentleman came in, who complimented Northcote on his pictures of animals and birds, which I knew he would not like. He muttered something when he was gone, in allusion to the proverb of giving snuff to a cat. Afterwards, a miniature painter brought some copies he had made of a portrait of a young lady by Northcote. They were really very well, and we learned he was to have five guineas for the larger size and two for the smaller ones. I could now account for the humility and shabby appearance of the artist. He paid his court better than his rustic predecessor; for being asked by Northcote if the portrait of the young lady was approved, he said the mother had told him, before she engaged him to copy it, that "it was one of the loveliest pictures (that was her expression) that had ever been seen!" This praise was better relished than that of his dogs and parrots.

I took notice to Northcote that the man had a very good head, but that he put me in mind of the state and pretensions of the art, before artists wrote "Esquire" after their names. He said, "Yes, he was like Andrew Taffi, or some of those in Vasari." I observed how little he was paid for what he really did so well; to which Northcote merely replied, "In all things that are not necessary those in the second class must always be miserably paid. Copying pictures is like plain-work among women; it is what anybody can do, and therefore

nothing but a bare living is to be got by it." He added that the young lady, whose portrait her family was so anxious to have copied, was dead, and this was a kind of diversion to their grief. It was a very natural mode of softening it down; it was still recurring to the object. of their regret and yet dwelling on it in an agreeable point of view. "The wife of General Hhe continued, “many years ago came to me to do a picture of her son, a lieutenant in the navy, who was killed in battle, but whom I had never seen. There was no picture of him to go by, but she insisted on my doing one under her direction. I attempted a profile, as the easiest; and she sat behind me and sang in a soft manner to herself, and told me what I was to do. It was a wretched business, as you may suppose, being made out from description; but she would have it to be a great likeness, and brought all the family and even the servants to see it, who probably did not dare to be of a different opinion. I said to her, 'What a pity it was Sir Joshua had not done a portrait of him in his lifetime!' At this she expressed great contempt, and declared she would not give twopence for all Sir Joshua's pictures; indeed, she had one which I was very welcome to have if I chose to come for it. I lost no time in going to her house, and when I came there she led me up into an old garret which was used as a lumber-room, and taking it carefully out of a shabby frame not worth a groat, said, 'There, take it, I am not sorry to get it out of the house.' I asked what it was that made her so indifferent about this picture, and she answered, 'It was a likeness of a young gentleman who had been kind enough to die, by which means the estate came to the General.' She spoke in this unfeeling manner though her own son had just died in the same circumstances; and she had had a monument made for him, and strewed flowers upon it, and made such a fuss about his death,