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 Rene, 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