England -- Fiction; Fox hunting -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Hunting stories
'Oh, _very_ like,' replied Sponge, as soon as he had seated himself. 'I see
it now, directly; the mouth is yours to a T.'
'And the chin. It's my chin, isn't it?' asked Jawleyford.
'Yes; and the nose, and the forehead, and the whiskers, and the hair, and
the shape of the head, and everything. Oh! I see it now as plain as a
pikestaff,' observed Sponge.
'I thought you would,' rejoined Jawleyford comforted--'I thought you would;
it's generally considered an excellent likeness--so it should, indeed, for
it cost a vast of money--fifty guineas! to say nothing of the lotus-leafed
pedestal it's on. That's another of me,' continued Jawleyford, pointing to
a bust above the fireplace, on the opposite side of the gallery; 'done some
years since--ten or twelve, at least--not so like as this, but still like.
That portrait up there, just above the "Finding of Moses," by Poussin,'
pointing to a portrait of himself attitudinizing, with his hand on his hip,
and frock-coat well thrown back, so as to show his figure and the silk
lining to advantage, 'was done the other day, by a very rising young
artist; though he has hardly done me justice, perhaps--particularly in the
nose, which he's made far too thick and heavy; and the right hand, if
anything, is rather clumsy; otherwise the colouring is good, and there is a
considerable deal of taste in the arrangement of the background, and so
on.'
'What book is it you are pointing to?' asked Sponge.
'It's not a book,' replied Mr. Jawleyford, 'it's a plan--a plan of this
gallery, in fact. I am supposed to be giving the final order for the
erection of the very edifice we are now in.'
'And a very handsome building it is,' observed Sponge, thinking he would
make it a shooting-gallery when he got it.
'Yes, it's a handsome thing in its way,' assented Jawleyford; 'better if it
had been water-tight, perhaps,' added he, as a big drop splashed upon the
crown of his head.
'The contents must be very valuable,' observed Sponge.
'Very valuable,' replied Jawleyford. 'There's a thing I gave two hundred
and fifty guineas for--that vase. It's of Parian marble, of the Cinque
Cento period, beautifully sculptured in a dance of Bacchanals, arabesques,
and chimera figures; it was considered cheap. Those fine monkeys in Dresden
china, playing on musical instruments, were forty; those bronzes of
scaramouches on ormolu plinths were seventy; that ormolu clock, of the
style of Louis Quinze, by Le Roy, was eighty; those Sevres vases were a
hundred--mounted, you see, in ormolu, with lily candelabra for ten lights.
The handles,' continued he, drawing Sponge's attention to them, 'are very
handsome--composed of satyrs holding festoons of grapes and flowers, which
surround the neck of the vase; on the sides are pastoral subjects, painted
in the highest style--nothing can be more beautiful or more chaste.'
'Nothing,' assented Sponge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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