“Sure I _tould_ you he was not _expicted_,--that is, if you don’t know in England, _not expicted to live_; and sure I _tould_ your honour so from the first,” said O’Brien. “But then the jantleman was as well as I am this minute, that minute afore--and the _nixt_ fell his length on the floor entirely. Well! I set and up again, and, for want of better, filled out a thimble-full, say, of the spirits of wine as they call it, which he got by good luck for the varnish, and made him take it down, and he come to, and I axed him how was he after it?--Better, says he. That’s well, says I; and who will I send for to ye, sir? says I. But afore he could make answer, I bethought me of your own honour; and for fear he would say another, I never troubled him, putting the question to him again, but just set the spirits nigh hand him, and away with me here; I come off without _letting on_ a word to nobody, good or bad, in dread your honour would miss the job.” “Job!” said Dr. Percy’s servant: “do you think my master wants a job?” “Oh! Lord love ye, and just give his hat. Would you have us be standing on ceremony now in a case of life and death?” Dr. Percy was, as far as he understood it, of the Irishman’s way of thinking. He followed as fast as he could to the painter’s--found that he had had a slight paralytic stroke, from which he had recovered. We need not detail the particulars. Nature and Dr. Percy _brought him through_. He was satisfied with his physician; for Erasmus would not take any fee, because he went unsent for by the patient. The painter, after his recovery, was one day complimenting Dr. Percy on the inestimable service he had done the arts in restoring him to his pencil, in proof of which the artist showed many master-pieces that wanted only the finishing touch, in particular a huge, long-limbed, fantastic, allegorical piece of his own design, which he assured Dr. Percy was the finest example of the _beau idéal_, ancient or modern, that human genius had ever produced upon canvas. “And what do you think, doctor,” said the painter, “tell me what you can think of a connoisseur, a patron, sir, who could stop my hand, and force me from that immortal work to a portrait? A portrait! Barbarian! He fit to encourage genius! He set up to be a Mecænas! Mere vanity! Gives pensions to four sign-post daubers, not fit to grind my colours! Knows no more of the art than that fellow,” pointing to the Irishman, who was at that instant grinding the colours--_asy_ as he described himself. “And lets me languish here in obscurity!” continued the enraged painter. “Now I’ll never put another stroke to his Dutch beauty’s portrait, if I starve--if I rot for it in jail! He a Mecænas!” The changes upon this abuse were rung repeatedly by this irritated genius, his voice and palsied hand trembling with rage while he spoke, till he was interrupted by a carriage stopping at the door.