they wear broadcloth, and settle their tailors' accounts even as other men. At this present moment Her Majesty's poets are perhaps the most respectable of Her Majesty's subjects. They are all teetotallers; if they sin, it is in rhyme, and then only to point a moral. In past days the poet flew from flower to flower, gathering his honey; but he bore a sting, too, as the rude hand that touched him could testily. He freely gathers his honey as of old, but the satiric sting has been taken away. He lives at peace with all men--his brethren excepted. About the true poet still there is something of the ancient spirit,--the old "flash and outbreak of the fiery mind,"--the old enthusiasm and dash of humourous eccentricity. But he is fast disappearing from the catalogue of vagabonds--fast getting commonplace, I fear. Many people suspect him of dulness. Besides, such a crowd of well-meaning, amiable, most respectable men have broken down of late years the pales of Parnassus, and become squatters on the sacred mount, that the claim of poets to be a peculiar people is getting disallowed. Never in this world's history were they so numerous; and although some people deny that they are poets, few are cantankerous enough or intrepid enough to assert that they are vagabonds. The painter is the most agreeable of vagabonds. His art is a pleasant one: it demands some little manual exertion, and it takes him at times into the open air. It is pleasant, too, in this, that lines and colours are so much more palpable than words, and the appeal of his work to his practised eye has some satisfaction in it. He knows what he is about. He does not altogether lose his critical sense, as the poet does, when familiarity stales his subject, and takes the splendour out of his images. Moreover, his work is more profitable than the poet's. I suppose there are just as few great painters at the present day as there are great poets; yet the yearly receipts of the artists of England far exceed the receipts of the singers. A picture can usually be painted in less time than a poem can be written. A second-rate picture has a certain market value,--its frame is at least something. A second-rate poem is utterly worthless, and no one will buy it on account of its binding. A picture is your own exclusive property: it is a costly article of furniture. You hang it on your walls, to be admired by all the world. Pictures represent wealth: the possession of them is a luxury. The portrait-painter is of all men the most beloved. You sit to him willingly, and put on your best looks. You are inclined to be pleased with his work, on account of the strong prepossession you entertain for his subject. To sit for one's portrait is like being present at one's own creation. It is an admirable excuse for egotism. You would not discourse on the falcon-like curve which distinguishes your nose, or the sweet serenity of your reposing lips,