My driver amused me with a story about Raphael. This artist, according to the tale, stayed five or six days somewhere at an inn, and paid for nothing, as indeed he had no money, and the account becoming rather high, the landlord was alarmed, and urged payment. Raphael demanded the account, and when he had received it, painted the requisite number of sequins upon the table, and something over. He then called for the landlord, and meeting him at the door, pointed to the table, saying, “There is your account,” and passed on. The landlord, seeing, as he thought, the gold, and not doubting that he was generously paid, attended his guest to the gate of the inn, and having seen him depart, returned to take his money, but was very much surprised on attempting to sweep it off into his hand, to find that nothing moved; he repeated the action with no better success. He then called in the waiters and his neighbours; but though every body saw the money there, nobody could lay hold of it. At last, an Englishman passed that way, (in relating these stories to an Englishman, they never fail to introduce one of his countrymen) who told them it was a most valuable painting, worth a thousand crowns. The landlord, however, was contented to sell his table for a hundred sequins, (about 50_l._). What the uneducated mind admires in a painting is deception, and that alone, and if Raphael was a great painter, he must, according to their notions, have possessed that power in a high degree. You hear his name, and those of the other great painters of Italy, frequently in the mouths of the common people, but this is the way in which they think of them.