A few days since I went to call on an artist of my acquaintance. I met, coming out of his door, an old woman, and a very handsome girl, remarkably well shaped. I rallied him a little on the subject of his visitors, and his good fortune in being attended in a morning by the prettiest girl I had seen since I came to Rome. “I think myself fortunate,” said he, “in having found a girl so perfectly well made, who allows me to study her charms without restraint, and at a reasonable price; but I assure you, I can boast of no other kind of good fortune with her.” “I am convinced,” rejoined I, “that you take great pleasure in your studies, and there can be no doubt that you have made a very desirable progress.” “Of that you shall be the judge,” replied he, leading me into another room, where I saw a full length painting of the girl, in the character of Venus, and in the _usual dress_ of that goddess. “There,” said he, “is the only effect my studies have had hitherto, and I begin to suspect that they will never produce any thing more nearly connected with the original.” He then informed me, that the old woman I had seen was the girl’s mother, who never failed to accompany her daughter, when she came as a model to him; that the father was a tradesman, with a numerous family, who thought this the most innocent use that his daughter’s beauty could be put to, till she should get a husband; and to prevent its being put to any other, his wife always accompanied her. “I have drawn her as Venus,” added he; “but, for any thing I know to the contrary, I should have approached nearer to her real character if I had painted her as Diana. She comes here merely in obedience to her parents, and gains her bread as innocently as if she were knitting purses in a convent from morning to night, without seeing the face of a man.” “However innocent all this may be,” said I, “there is something at which the mind revolts, in a mother’s being present when her daughter acts a part which, if not criminal, is, at least, highly indelicate.” “To be sure,” replied the painter, “the woman has not quite so much delicacy as to starve, rather than let her daughter stand as a model; yet she seems to have attention to the girl’s chastity, too.” “Chastity!” answered I, “why this would shock an _English_ woman more than any thing which could be proposed to her. Every other kind of liberty must have been previously taken with her. She must be a complete prostitute in every sense of the word, before she could be brought to submit to appear in this manner.”