ellows, has a great many enemies; he is hated by his brethren of
the brush--all the land and water scape painters hate him--but, above
all, the race of portrait-painters, who are ten times more numerous than
the other two sorts, detest him for his heroic tendencies. It will be a
kind of triumph to the last, I fear, when they hear he has condescended
to paint a portrait; however, that Norman arch will enable him to escape
from their malice--that is a capital idea of the watchmaker, that Norman
arch.'

I spent a happy day with my brother. On the morrow he went again to the
painter, with whom he dined; I did not go with him. On his return he
said, 'The painter has been asking a great many questions about you, and
expressed a wish that you would sit to him as Pharaoh; he thinks you
would make a capital Pharaoh.' 'I have no wish to appear on canvas,'
said I; 'moreover he can find much better Pharaohs than myself; and, if
he wants a real Pharaoh, there is a certain Mr. Petulengro.'
'Petulengro?' said my brother; 'a strange kind of fellow came up to me
some time ago in our town, and asked me about you; when I inquired his
name, he told me Petulengro. No, he will not do, he is too short; by the
by, do you not think that figure of Moses is somewhat short?' And then
it appeared to me that I had thought the figure of Moses somewhat short,
and I told my brother so. 'Ah!' said my brother.

On the morrow my brother departed with the painter for the old town, and
there the painter painted the mayor. I did not see the picture for a
great many years, when, chancing to be at the old town, I beheld it.

The original mayor was a mighty, portly man, with a bull's head, black
hair, body like that of a dray horse, and legs and thighs corresponding;
a man six foot high at the least. To his bull's head, black hair, and
body the painter had done justice; there was one point, however, in which
the portrait did not correspond with the original--the legs were
disproportionably short, the painter having substituted his own legs for
those of the mayor, which when I perceived I rejoiced that I had not
consented to be painted as Pharaoh, for, if I had, the chances are that
he would have served me in exactly a similar way as he had served Moses
and the mayor.

Short legs in a heroic picture will never do; and, upon the whole, I
think the painter's attempt at the heroic in painting the mayor of the
old town a decided failure. If I am now ask