He recognised my
brother, and appeared glad to see him.

'What brings you to London?' said he.

Whereupon my brother gave him a brief account of his commission. At the
mention of the hundred pounds, I observed the eyes of the painter
glisten. 'Really,' said he, when my brother had concluded, 'it was very
kind to think of me. I am not very fond of painting portraits; but a
mayor is a mayor, and there is something grand in that idea of the Norman
arch. I'll go; moreover, I am just at this moment confoundedly in need
of money, and when you knocked at the door, I don't mind telling you, I
thought it was some dun. I don't know how it is, but in the capital they
have no taste for the heroic, they will scarce look at a heroic picture;
I am glad to hear that they have better taste in the provinces. I'll go;
when shall we set off?'

Thereupon it was arranged between the painter and my brother that they
should depart the next day but one; they then began to talk of art.
'I'll stick to the heroic,' said the painter; 'I now and then dabble in
the comic, but what I do gives me no pleasure, the comic is so low; there
is nothing like the heroic. I am engaged here on a heroic picture,' said
he, pointing to the canvas; 'the subject is "Pharaoh dismissing Moses
from Egypt," after the last plague--the death of the first-born; it is
not far advanced--that finished figure is Moses': they both looked at the
canvas, and I, standing behind, took a modest peep. The picture, as the
painter said, was not far advanced, the Pharaoh was merely in outline; my
eye was, of course, attracted by the finished figure, or rather what the
painter had called the finished figure; but, as I gazed upon it, it
appeared to me that there was something defective--something
unsatisfactory in the figure. I concluded, however, that the painter,
notwithstanding what he had said, had omitted to give it the finishing
touch. 'I intend this to be my best picture,' said the painter; 'what I
want now is a face for Pharaoh; I have long been meditating on a face for
Pharaoh.' Here, chancing to cast his eye upon my countenance, of whom he
had scarcely taken any manner of notice, he remained with his mouth open
for some time. 'Who is this?' said he at last. 'Oh, this is my brother,
I forgot to introduce him. . . . '

We presently afterwards departed; my brother talked much about the
painter. 'He is a noble fellow,' said my brother; 'but, like many other
noble f