Stuart was an inveterate punster. Mr. Allston, calling on him a short time before his death, asked him how he was. “Ah!” said he, drawing up his pantaloons, and showing his emaciated leg, which in his youth had been his pride, “you can judge how much I am _out of drawing_.” STUART BORN IN A SNUFF-MILL. Stuart was an inordinate snuff-taker. He used to jocosely apologize for the habit, by saying that “he was born in a snuff-mill,” which was literally true, for his father was a manufacturer of snuff. He said, “a pinch of snuff had a wonderful effect upon a man’s spirits.” An old sea captain once observed to him, “you see, sir, I have always a nostril in reserve. When the right becomes callous after a few weeks’ usage, I apply for comfort to the left, which having had time to regain its sense of feeling, enjoys the _blackguard_ till the right comes to its senses.” “Thank you,” said Stuart, “it’s a great discovery. Strange that I should not have made it myself, when I have been voyaging all my life in these channels.” STUART’S NOSE. Stuart always maintained that a likeness depended more on the _nose_, than any other feature, and in proof of his theory, he would put his thumb under his own large and flexible proboscis, and turning it up, exclaim, “who would know my portrait with such a nose as this?” Therefore, he is said to have generally painted a likeness, before _putting in_ the eyes. On one occasion, a pert young coxcomb, who was sitting for his portrait, stole a glance at the canvass and exclaimed, “why, it has no eyes!” Stuart coolly observed, “It is not nine days old yet,” referring of course to the time when a _puppy_ first opens its eyes. STUART’S SITTERS. A portrait was once returned to Stuart with the grievous complaint, that the muslin of the cravat was too coarsely executed. Stuart indignantly observed to a friend, “I am determined to glue a piece of muslin of the finest texture on the part that offends their _exquisite_ judgment, and send it back again.” A lady once sat to him dressed in the extreme of fashion, loaded with jewelry and gewgaws, besides an abundance of hair powder and rouge. Stuart, being _hard up_ for cash, consented to “raise a monument to her folly.” After the picture was completed, he observed to a friend, “There is what I have all my life been endeavoring to avoid,--vanity and bad taste.”