ARTISTS.

Sir Joshua Reynolds.—­“What do you ask for this sketch?” said Sir Joshua to an old picture-dealer, whose portfolio he was looking over.  “Twenty guineas, your honour.”  “Twenty pence, I suppose you mean?” “No, sir; it is true I would have taken twenty pence for it this morning, but if you think it worth looking at, all the world will think it worth buying.”  Sir Joshua ordered him to send the sketch home, and gave him the money.

Ditto.—­Two gentlemen were at a coffee-house, when the discourse fell upon Sir Joshua Reynold’s painting; one of them said that “his tints were admirable, but the colours flew.”  It happened that Sir Joshua was in the next box, who taking up his hat, accosted them thus, with a low bow—­“Gentlemen, I return you many thanks for bringing me off with flying colours.”

Richardson, in his anecdotes of painting, says, a gentleman came to me to invite me to his house:  “I have,” says he, “a picture of Rubens, and it is a rare good one.  There is little H. the other day came to see it, and says it is a copy.  If any one says so again, I’ll break his head.  Pray, Mr. Richardson, will you do me the favour to come, and give me your real opinion of it?”

Gainsborough.—­A countryman was shown Gainsborough’s celebrated picture of “The Pigs.”  “To be sure,” said he, “they be deadly like pigs; but there is one fault; nobody ever saw three pigs feeding together but what one on ’em had a foot in the trough.”

Turner.—­Once, at a dinner, where several artists, amateurs and literary men were convened, a poet, by way of being facetious, proposed as a toast the health of the painters and glaziers of Great Britain.  The toast was drunk, and Turner, after returning thanks for it, proposed the health of the British paper-stainers.

Lely and the Alderman.—­Sir Peter Lely, a famous painter in the reign of Charles I., agreed for the price of a full-length, which he was to draw for a rich alderman of London, who was not indebted to nature either for shape or face.  When the picture was finished, the alderman endeavoured to beat down the price; alleging that if he did not purchase it, it would lie on the painter’s hands.  “That’s a mistake,” replied Sir Peter, “for I can sell it at double the price I demand.”—­“How can that be?” says the alderman; “for it is like nobody but myself.”—­“But I will draw a tail to it, and then it will be an excellent monkey.”  The alderman, to prevent exposure, paid the sum agreed for, and carried off the picture.