“‘Two girls,’ continues that indomitable Mr. Gandish. ‘Hidea for “Babes in the Wood.” “View of Pæstum,” taken on the spot by myself, when travelling with the late lamented Earl of Kew. ‘Beauty, Valour, Commerce, and Liberty, condoling with Britannia on the death of Admiral Viscount Nelson,’—allegorical piece drawn at a very early age after Trafalgar. Mr. Fuseli saw that piece, sir, when I was a student of the Academy, and said to me, ‘Young man, stick to the antique. There’s nothing like it.’ Those were ’is very words. If you do me the favour to walk into the Hatrium, you’ll remark my great pictures also from English ’istry. An English historical painter, sir, should be employed chiefly in English ’istry. That’s what I would have done. Why ain’t there temples for us, where the people might read their history at a glance, and without knowing how to read? Why is my ‘Alfred’ ’anging up in this ’all? Because there is no patronage for a man who devotes himself to Igh art. You know the anecdote, Colonel? King Alfred flying from the Danes, took refuge in a neaterd’s ’ut. The rustic’s wife told him to bake a cake, and the fugitive sovering set down to his ignoble task, and forgetting it in the cares of state, let the cake burn, on which the woman struck him. The moment chose is when she is lifting her ’and to deliver the blow. The king receives it with majesty mingled with meekness. In the background the door of the ’ut is open, letting in the royal officers to announce the Danes are defeated. The daylight breaks in at the aperture, signifying the dawning of ’Ope. That story, sir, which I found in my researches in ’istry, has since become so popular, sir, that hundreds of artists have painted it, hundreds! I who discovered the legend, have my picture—here!’ “‘Now, Colonel,’ says the showman, ‘let me—let me lead you through the statue gallery. ‘Apollo,’ you see. The ‘Venus Hanadyomene,’ the glorious Venus of the Louvre, which I saw in 1814, Colonel, in its glory—the ‘Laocoon’—my friend Gibson’s ‘Nymth,’ you see, is the only figure I admit among the antiques. Now up this stair to the students’ room, where I trust my young friend, Mr. Newcome, will labour assiduously. _Ars longa est_, Mr. Newcome. _Vita_——’” “I trembled,” Clive said, “lest my father should introduce a certain favourite quotation, beginning ‘_ingenuas didicisse_’—but he refrained, and we went into the room, where a score of students were assembled, who all looked away from their drawing-boards as we entered.