took up
the crayons, and, amid hunger and toil, and suspense and uncertainty,
pursued the path of his profession under better auspices than those of
his original master. Still the first rude emanations of his genius, like
the nursery rhymes of Pope, could these be recovered, will be dear to
the companions of Dick Tinto's youth. There is a tankard and gridiron
painted over the door of an obscure change-house in the Back Wynd of
Gandercleugh----But I feel I must tear myself from the subject, or dwell
on it too long.

Amid his wants and struggles, Dick Tinto had recourse, like his
brethren, to levying that tax upon the vanity of mankind which he could
not extract from their taste and liberality--on a word, he painted
portraits. It was in this more advanced state of proficiency, when Dick
had soared above his original line of business, and highly disdained any
allusion to it, that, after having been estranged for several years,
we again met in the village of Gandercleugh, I holding my present
situation, and Dick painting copies of the human face divine at a guinea
per head. This was a small premium, yet, in the first burst of business,
it more than sufficed for all Dick's moderate wants; so that he occupied
an apartment at the Wallace Inn, cracked his jest with impunity even
upon mine host himself, and lived in respect and observance with the
chambermaid, hostler, and waiter.

Those halcyon days were too serene to last long. When his honour the
Laird of Gandercleugh, with his wife and three daughters, the minister,
the gauger, mine esteemed patron Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham, and some
round dozen of the feuars and farmers, had been consigned to immortality
by Tinto's brush, custom began to slacken, and it was impossible to
wring more than crowns and half-crowns from the hard hands of the
peasants whose ambition led them to Dick's painting-room.

Still, though the horizon was overclouded, no storm for some time
ensued. Mine host had Christian faith with a lodger who had been a
good paymaster as long as he had the means. And from a portrait of our
landlord himself, grouped with his wife and daughters, in the style of
Rubens, which suddenly appeared in the best parlour, it was evident that
Dick had found some mode of bartering art for the necessaries of life.

Nothing, however, is more precarious than resources of this nature. It
was observed that Dick became in his turn the whetstone of mine host's
wit, without venturing ei