"Mr. Visscher, a man worth about a hundred thousand pounds, and whose annual expenses, with a large family of seven children, are not one thousand, had a little frame for which he repeatedly desired me to paint a picture. I told him I would as soon as I had finished one of my landscapes. I began it immediately, without his knowing it, and determined to surprise him with it. I also had two frames which fitted Mr. Breed's pictures, and which I was going to give to Mr. Breed with his pictures. But Mr. Visscher was particularly pleased with the frames, as they were a pair, and told me not to send them to Mr. Breed as he should like to have them himself, and wished I would paint him pictures to fit them (the two other landscapes before mentioned). I accordingly was employed three months longer in painting these three pictures. I finished them; he was very much pleased with them; all his family were very much pleased with them; all who saw them were pleased with them. But he _declined taking them_ without even asking my price, and said that he had more pictures than he knew what to do with. "Mr. and Mrs. Allston heard him say twenty times he wished I would paint him a picture for the frame. Mr. Allston, who knew what I was about, told him, no doubt, I would do it for him, and in a week after I had completed it. I had told Mr. Visscher also that I was considerably in debt, and that, when he had paid me for these pictures, I should be something in pocket; and, by his not objecting to what I said, I took it for granted (and from his requesting me to paint the picture) that the thing was certain. But thus it was, without giving any reason in the world, except that he had pictures enough, he declined taking them, making me spend three months longer in Bristol than I otherwise should have done; standing still in my art, if not actually going back; and forcing me to run in debt for some necessary expenses of clothing in Bristol, and my passage from and back to London. During all this time not a single commission for a portrait, _many_ of which were promised me, nor a single call from any one to look at my pictures. Thus ended my jaunt in quest of money. "Do not think that this disappointment is in consequence of any misconduct of mine. Mr. Allston, who was with me, experienced the same treatment, and had it not been for his uncle, the American Consul, he might have starved for the Bristol people. His uncle was the only one who purchased any of his pictures. Since I have been in London I have been endeavoring to regain what I lost in Bristol, and I hope I have so far succeeded as to say: '_I have not gone back in my art_.'