Looking back dimly through my memory at this picture, and aided as I am in my criticism by a recent interview with the venerable artist himself, I am led to conclude now, that he had idealized and etherealized the form of that tallest and ugliest of guitar-players. As represented on the canvas, “touching his light guitar,” with his eyes turned upward in a Sapphic ecstasy, there was something so gigantically heroic in the spirit of his action, or in the blunder of the painter, that his body seemed in comparison to weigh but a scant ninety pounds, and all that was earthly in his appearance was, it must be owned, strikingly diminutive and phenomenal. Notwithstanding the annoyance caused me by the mistake of the common public in the matter of identity, I do not wish to be unjust to our artist. He is still living, at Cincinnati, a gray-haired man, supporting a large family by the honorable exercise of his brush; though of late years he has confined himself mostly, he assures me, to the more materialistic and lucrative branch of his profession,--house and sign painting, namely. With regard to the picture in question, he said, the last time I saw him, that in it he had made an attempt, if he remembered correctly, to throw an ideal halo of high art about some of the portraits; that the tall guitar-player was a special instance wherein this treatment seemed necessary; and that, in all his artistic experience, he had never since come across a man that would stand so much foreshortening. The latter part of the old painter’s speech about the guitar-player was in a different tone of voice altogether, and in words which, from their queer pathos, I think I am reporting verbatim. “Poor ----!” he said, calling my old comrade by name; “he has long since gone to his account. I suppose we must all go sooner or later.” Then, after a meditative pause, the old fellow continued: “No man is homely, I guess, in heaven, or too long and bony for good proportion. They say, too, that there’s progression up there. He died more than ten years ago. Maybe he’s now improving his talent by playing on a golden harp. He wasn’t much of a guitar-player down here, but no matter.” * * * * * There was in our troupe a remarkable character by the name of Frank Lynch, who played the tambourine and banjo. He and the celebrated Diamond had been in their youth among the first and greatest of dancers. Too portly now to endure sustained effort with his feet, he was yet an excellent instructor; and I was constantly under his training.