“Everybody knows the story of the sign-painter in the country, who could paint nothing but a red lion; and accordingly he advised every inn-keeper and alehouse-keeper in the neighbouring village, who applied to him, to have the sign of the Red Lion.  This did very well for a considerable time, and the painter practised so successfully that not a hamlet or town, for ten miles round, that had not its red lion; until at length a new-comer, who, like Daniel of old, thought there were quite as many lions round him as were wanted, suggested to the artist that he should like to have a swan for the sign of his small concern.  In vain the painter protested, Boniface was resolute.  ‘Well,’ said the rural Apelles, ’if you will have a swan you must, but you may rely upon it when it is finished, it will be so like a red lion, you would not know the difference.’  So Turner, if he were to paint a blackbird, it would be so like a canary when it was finished, you would not know one from the other.

“Among other sights, I was induced to go and visit the ‘Fleas,’ last Saturday.  Never was there such an imposition; instead of being harnessed, they were tied by the hind legs, and the combatants, poor wretches! were pinched by the tails in tweezers, and of course moved their legs in their agony.  Well, thought I, as I went out, I have been in Spain, and Portugal, and Italy, and have passed many a restless night, but hang me if ever I was so flea bitten in my life as I have been to day; and I thought of my shilling and the old proverb.

“There is a picture of Lord Mulgrave in the Somerset House exhibition, very like, painted by Briggs.  The best portrait there, is Pickersgill’s Lord Hill; as a likeness, it is identity; and I admire it the more, from the total absence of what the painters call accessories.  It is simple, and though honourably decorated, is unadorned by what is considered ‘groscape’ drapery; and yet Mr. Pickersgill was at one time an unqualified admirer of cloaks; every hawbuck of a fellow who sat to him, was wrapped up in a cloak:  this he has conquered, and we rejoice at it.  The portrait of Lady Coote is a good picture; it is a pity that her ladyship had not sat a few years earlier; but that is no affair of the painter.  A picture of Lady Londonderry, in the costume of Queen Elizabeth, by a Frenchman is amazingly like.  There is a story about this dress which only proves the advantages of making experiments before any grand display.  The petticoat of the Virgin Queen, as personated by her ladyship, was so thickly covered with diamonds, that the substratum of material could scarcely be seen; and nothing could be more splendid than the effect; but the diamonds glittered all round the dress, behind and before, and at the side; and so long as her ladyship paraded the magnificent suite of her apartments, all was well, and all shone brilliantly; but lo and behold, when her ladyship threw herself gracefully on her mimic throne, she found that she