“‘Well,’ said Mrs. Thrale, ‘he had one portrait at the last Exhibition, that I think hardly could be paid enough for; it was of a Mr. Stuart; I had never done admiring it.’ “‘What stuff is this, ma’am!’ cried Mr. B——y; ‘how can two or three dabs of paint ever be worth such a sum as that?’ “‘Sir,’ said Mr. Selwyn (always willing to draw him out), ‘you know not how much he is improved since you knew him in Minorca; he is now the finest painter, perhaps, in the world.’ “‘Pho, pho, sir!’ cried he, ‘how can you talk so? you, Mr. Selwyn, who have seen so many capital pictures abroad?’ “‘Come, come, sir,’ said the ever odd Dr. Delap, ‘you must not go on so undervaluing him, for, I tell you, he is a friend of Miss Burney’s.’ “‘Sir,’ said Mr. B——y, ‘I tell you again I have no objection to the man; I have dined in his company two or three times; a very decent man he is, fit to keep company with gentlemen; but, ma’am, what are all your modern dabblers put together to one ancient? Nothing!—a set of— not a Rubens among them! I vow, ma’am, not a Rubens among them!’... “Whenever plays are mentioned, we have also a regular speech about them. “‘I never,’ he says, ‘go to a tragedy,—it’s too affecting; tragedy enough in real life: tragedies are only fit for fair females; for my part, I cannot bear to see Othello tearing about in that violent manner;—and fair little Desdemona—ma’am, ’tis too affecting! to see your kings and your princes tearing their pretty locks,—oh, there’s no standing it! ‘A straw-crown’d monarch,’—what is that, Mrs. Thrale? ‘A straw-crown’d monarch in mock majesty.’ I can’t recollect now where that is; but for my part, I really cannot bear to see such sights. And then out come the white handkerchiefs, and all their pretty eyes are wiping, and then come poison and daggers, and all that kind of thing,—Oh, ma’am, ’tis too much; but yet the fair tender hearts, the pretty little females, all like it!’ “This speech, word for word, I have already heard from him literally four times. “When Mr. Garrick was mentioned, he honoured him with much the same style of compliment as he had done Sir Joshua Reynolds. “‘Ay, ay,’ said he, ‘that Garrick is another of those fellows that people run mad about. Ma’am, ’tis a shame to think of such things! an actor living like a person of quality! scandalous! I vow, scandalous!’ “‘Well,—commend me to Mr. B——y!’ cried Mrs. Thrale, ‘for he is your only man to put down all the people that everybody else sets up.’