Had he returned in better plight, had he come back with some of the appearance of success, the chances are that he might have thriven on the accidents of fame; but he was famishing and in beggary. Some alleged that he was a worthless fellow who had passed a life of idleness and debauch; others, that he was not without ability, but that his habits of dissipation rendered him hopeless; and a few--a very few--pitied him as a weak-brained enthusiast, who had no bad about him, but was born to failure! In his utter destitution he obtained work as a house-painter,--an employment which he followed for three or four yeare, and in which capacity he had been sent by his master to paint some ornamental stucco-work at Cro' Martin. The ability he displayed attracted Lady Dorothea's notice, and she engaged him to decorate a small garden villa with copies from her own designs. He was entirely successful, and so much pleased was her Ladyship that she withdrew him from his ignoble servitude and attached him to her own household, where now he had been living two years, the latter half of which period had been passed in the great work of which we have already made some mention. It so chanced that poor Simmy had never sold but two copies in his life: one was The Abdication of Charles V., the other, The Finding of Moses; and so, out of gratitude to these successes, he went on multiplying new versions of these subjects _ad infinitum_, eternally writing fresh variations on the old themes, till the King and the Lawgiver filled every avenue of his poor brain, and he ceased to have a belief that any other story than these could be the subject of high art. Happy as he now was, he never ceased to feel that his position exposed him to many an ungenerous suspicion.