At this instant our hero John made his appearance with a most flaming and tremendous sketch of David Williams, playing on his harp at sun-down, as he had seen him in the gallery. This was the first unlucky start of John’s genius in the branch of portrait-painting, and though it was in the grand gusto of Michael Angelo, it was not quite so good as Michael Angelo would have made it, though John had bestowed as much red ink upon it as would have served a merchant’s clerk for a twelve-month. At the sight of that red ink, so profusely squandered, Philip betrayed no small alarm, and demanded where he got it. John had found a bottle of it upon the chimney-piece in his father’s bedroom. It is not ink, cried Philip; it is the blood of Saint Januarius, and you have ruined me. The vehemence of Philip’s exclamation, and the horror of his countenance, were too ridiculous to be withstood, and even the gravity of the grandfather was not proof against the laugh. Hollah! friend John, cried the colonel, you have drawn a devil in the blood of a saint. John demanded how long the saint had been dead; and the colonel answered at a guess, that it was not much more than a thousand years, but the monks could bring his blood to life again, when they had occasion for a vial of red ink. You may make a laughing matter of it, said Philip, but I got it with considerable difficulty, and not at the price of red ink, assure yourself. And what was the use of it, when you had got it, said the colonel? Sir, replied poor Philip with much solemnity--It has various uses: it is a preservative against storms by sea or land; against thunder and lightning; it guards your house from fire, keeps off evil spirits, and prevents or cures diseases. And so it may still, said the old gentleman, for the sight of John’s drawing brings to my recollection the famous recipe, which John De Gaddesden has bequeathed to us for those, who may be seized with that terrible disorder the small-pox, and I believe I can give it to you in his own, or very nearly his own, words--“after the eruption of the small pox, says that ancient and learned leech, cause the whole body of your patient to be wrapt in scarlet, or in any other red envelope, and command every thing about the couch of the sick person to be made red, for this will be found an excellent and speedy cure. It was in this manner, he adds, I treated the son of the noble King Edward the Second of England, when he had the small pox, and I cured him without leaving any marks.”--This being granted, my grandson’s performance, although not eminently meritorious for its art, may yet be turned to beneficial purposes, and Saint Januarius may share the credit of them with John De Gaddesden.