_Sir J. Reynolds._ Really my trumpet is out of order--I must go.
_P. Veronese_ (_pulling him back_). Nay, nay, you must tell us of our pictures. Do they stand your fogs and damps? Are they still brightly mellow, defying time and circumstance as such art should do?
[Illustration: INGENIOUS PROTECTION AGAINST MIDGES--A VALUABLE HINT TO SKETCHERS FROM NATURE.]
Miss Raphael makes a study for her grand picture, “The Day after the Deluge.”]
_Sir J. Reynolds._ Why, the fact is, my friends--I am sorry to say--but our climate is so very damp, and London so smoky--that they have been cleaned.
_Titian._ My Bacchus and Ariadne! Oh my tints! Oh my glazings! A picture of mine cleaned!
_Rubens._ My Peace and War! Cleaned! say flayed rather. I know your cleaners. Oh wasted labour; reputation obscured; thoughtful work rudely scrubbed away!
[Illustration: FIRST ARTIST (_who has looked in as he was passing_). How are you? I say, Stapyton, have you heard what your “Cavalier in a Coal-Hole” went for at Jobinson’s yesterday?
SECOND ARTIST. No; how much, my dear fellow; how much?
FIRST ARTIST. Why, very nearly a pound, I heard!
_M. Angelo._ So much for your _oil-painting_. Nay--excuse me, my Rafael--I sympathize with you; but why not work in fresco? Cheer up, my Titian.
FIRST SMALL BOY. I say, Bill, what’s he a doing of?
SECOND DITTO. Can’t you see he’s a-taking that old gent’s picture, and _isn’t_ it like him?]
[Illustration: WHAT AN ARTIST HAS TO PUT UP WITH.
“O! look’ee ’ere, Jane, ’ere’s one of them hacrobats a-goin’ to do the ladder-trick!”]
_Titian._ Alas! my favourite work--my Bacchus! Cleaned! Oh Ghost of Gonzaga! Barbarians!
_Leonardo da Vinci._ Nay, weep not, my beloved friends and brothers. Is it not all of a piece? Art-Unions, royal lap-dogs, condescensions which are insults, and your great pictures ruined and destroyed. Why should you wish to exist in a country where your works have been impotent to implant the seeds of Art, or aid in their growth and nurture.
_A. Durer._ Nay--Nüremberg, also, is a town of burghers, and it is not so with them.
_Sir J. Reynolds_ (_aside_). I cannot console them. Their indignation is too well grounded. I, too, am a painter, but I alone am ashamed of my country!