s part of the country. Perhaps you will
not find it easy to forgive me this. I must tell you that Mrs. Mills,
who sets up to be no judge of pictures, but who never is wrong about
anything, instantly pitched on your portrait of Coningham as the best in
the Exhibition, without seeing who it was by: and when she referred to
the Catalogue, called out to her husband 'Why this is by E. F. G.'s
friend Mr. Laurence.'

July 18. You see that all up to this was written a fortnight ago. I did
not finish, for I did not know where to direct. And now I shall finish
this portrait of my mind, you see, in a different aspect perhaps to that
with which I set out. On looking over what I wrote however, I stick to
all I said about the painting: as to Mrs. Mills, whose case seems to
require some extenuation on my part, I fancied she was one of those
persons' faces you would not take to: and so not succeed in. It is
rather a pretty face, without meaning, it seems to me: and yet she has
meaning in her. Mills has already had one portrait of her, which
discontents all, and therefore it was I would not advise any painter who
did not understand the art of _Millinery_ well: for if the face does not
wholly content, there is the dress to fall back on. I fancy Chalon would
do the business.

I hear you have been doing some brother or brother in law of Mrs.
Lumsden. Mind what I have told you. I may not be a good judge of
painting, but I can judge of what people in general like. . . .

_To John Allen_.

(About July 16, 1844 J. A.)

MY DEAR GOOD ALLEN,

Let me hear from you, if even but a line, before you leave London on your
summer excursion, whithersoever that is to be. I conclude you go
somewhere; to Hampshire, or to Tenby. . . .

I have nothing to tell you of myself. Here I exist, and read scraps of
books, garden a little, and am on good terms with my neighbours. The
Times paper is stirring up our farming society to the root, and some good
will come of it, I dare say, and some ill. Do you know of any good books
on Education? not for the poor or Charity schools, but on modern
Gentlemen's grammar schools, etc. Did not Combe write a book? But he is
the driest Scotch Snuff. I beg leave to say that this letter is written
with a pen of my own making: the first I have made these twenty years. I
doubt after all it is no proof of a very intelligent pen-Creator, but
only of a lucky slit. The next effort shall decide. Farewell, my dear