and passing a
broker's stall, there was the portrait of a fine florid gentleman in
regimentals; he stopped to look at it--he might have bought it for a few
shillings. After we had gone away,--"that," said he, "is the portrait of
my wife's great uncle--member for the county, and colonel of militia: you
see how he is degraded to these steps." "Why do you not rescue him?" said
I. "Because he left me nothing," was the reply. A relative of mine, an old
lady, hit upon a happy device; the example is worth following. Her husband
was the last of his race, for she had no children. She took all the family
portraits out of their frames, rolled up all the pictures, and put them in
the coffin with the deceased. No one was more honourably accompanied to
the grave--and so he slept with his fathers. It has not, to be sure,
Eusebius, much to do with your portrait, but thinking of these family
portraits, one is led on to think of their persons, &c.; so I must tell
you what struck me as a singular instance of the _'sic nos non nobis.'_ I
went with a cousin, upon a sort of pilgrimage at some distance, to visit
some family monuments. There was one large handsome marble one in the
chancel. You will never guess how it had been treated. A vicar's wife had
died, and the disconsolate widower had caused a square marble tablet, with
the inscription of his wife's virtues, to be actually inserted in the Very
centre of our family monument: and yet you, by sitting for your portrait,
hope to be handed down unmutilated to generations to come,--yes, they will
come, and you will be a mark for the boys to shoot peas at--that is, if
you remain at all in the family--you may be transferred to the wench's
garret, or the public-house, and have a pipe popped through the canvass
into your mouth, to make you look ridiculous. I really think you have a
chance of being purchased, to be hung up in the club parlour as pictorial
president of the Odd-Fellows. Why should you be exempt from what kings are
subject to? The "king's head" is a sign in many a highway, to countenance
ill-living. You too, will be bought at a broker's--have your name changed
without your consent--and be adopted into a family whereof you would
heartily despise the whole kith and kin. If pride has not a fall in the
portraits of the great and noble, where shall we find it?"

A painter once told me, that he assisted one of the meanest of low rich
men, to collect some family portraits; he recommended to h