rawn
from the knowledge of human life, and many of his portraits are not
unworthy of the pen of La Bruyere. If he finds a spark of piety in his
reader's mind he will soon kindle it to a flame.'

Law's art as a portrait painter will be seen in the following sketch of
Flavia:

'_Flavia_ would be a miracle of piety if she was but half so
careful of her soul as she is of her body. The rising of a
_pimple_ on her face, the sting of a gnat, will make her keep
her room two or three days, and she thinks they are very rash
people that do not take care of things in time. This makes her
so over careful of her health that she never thinks she is well
enough, and so over indulgent that she never can be really well.
So that it costs her a great deal in sleeping draughts and
waking draughts, in spirits for the head, in drops for the
nerves, in cordials for the stomach, and in saffron for her tea.

'If you visit _Flavia_ on the Sunday, you will always meet good
company, you will know what is doing in the world, you will hear
the last lampoon, be told who wrote it, and who is meant by
every name that is in it. You will hear what plays were acted
that week, which is the finest song in the opera, who was
intolerable at the last assembly, and what games are most in
fashion. _Flavia_ thinks they are atheists who play at cards on
the Sunday, but she will tell you the nicety of all the games,
what cards she held, how she played them, and the history of all
that happened at play, as soon as she comes from church. If you
would know who is rude and ill-natured, who is vain and foppish,
who lives too high and who is in debt; if you would know what is
the quarrel at a certain house, or who and who are in love; if
you would know how late Belinda comes home at night, what
clothes she has bought, how she loves compliments, and what a
long story she told at such a place; if you would know how cross
Lucius is to his wife, what ill-natured things he says to her,
when nobody hears him; if you would know how they hate one
another in their hearts though they appear so kind in public;
you must visit _Flavia_ on the Sunday. But still she has so
great a regard for the holiness of the Sunday, that she has
turned a poor old widow out of her house as a _profane wretch_,
for having been found once mending her clothes on the Sunda