It seems that shortly after the Gainsboroughs settled in Bath a full-length portrait of Miss Ford, who afterwards became Thicknesse's second wife, was painted and presented to that gentleman. All the trouble arose through his desire to possess his own portrait as a companion to that of his wife. We have already seen what a mania Gainsborough had for the viol da gamba; Mrs. Thicknesse had a very fine instrument, "made in the year 1612, of exquisite workmanship and mellifluous tone, and which was certainly worth a hundred guineas." This instrument Gainsborough coveted, and many a time he offered that price for it. "One night," Thicknesse relates, "we asked him and his family to supper with us, after which Mrs. Thicknesse, putting the instrument before him, desired he would play one of his best lessons upon it; this, I say, was after supper, for till poor Gainsborough had got a little borrowed courage (such was his natural modesty), he could neither play nor sing! He then played, and charmingly too, one of his dear friend Abel's lessons, and Mrs. Thicknesse told him he deserved the instrument for his reward, and desired his acceptance of it, but said, 'At your leisure give me my husband's picture to hang by the side of my own.'" Gainsborough was transported with delight and readily agreed. The very next day he began the portrait, finished the head, put in a Newfoundland dog at the sitter's feet, and roughly sketched in the remainder of the picture. There, however, he stopped, and never touched it again; requests, prayers, and remonstrances were in vain, and one day in a fit of temper Gainsborough sent back the viol da gamba to Mrs. Thicknesse, and shortly afterwards also sent the unfinished picture just as it was. At this Thicknesse was of course much offended. "Every time," he says, "I went into the room where that scarecrow hung it gave me so painful a sensation that I protest it often turned me sick, and in one of those sick fits I desired Mrs. Thicknesse would return the picture to Mr. Gainsborough. This she consented to do, provided I would permit her to send with it a card, expressing her sentiments at the same time, to which I am sorry to say I too hastily consented. In that card she bid him take his brush, and first rub out the countenance of the truest and warmest friend he ever had, and so done, then blot him for ever from his memory." Such is Thicknesse's own story of the quarrel, but according to Allan Cunningham, Gainsborough did actually, without her husband's knowledge, give Mrs. Thicknesse a hundred guineas for the viol da gamba, and then did not consider it incumbent upon him to pay twice over by painting the portrait. This is, however, hardly a plausible tale and the probabilities are that Thicknesse's version is nearer the truth. However that may be the long friendship between the artist and his protector came to an end, and Gainsborough having taken a dislike to Bath removed to London. III