s 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 asked whether the picture would
have been a heroic one provided the painter had not substituted his own
legs for those of the mayor--I must say, I am afraid not. I have no idea
of making heroic pictures out of English mayors, even with the assistance
of Norman arches; yet I am sure that capital pictures might be made out
of English mayors, not issuing from Norman arches, but rather from the
door of the "Checquers" or the "Brewers Three." The painter in question
had great comic power, which he scarcely ever cultivated; he would fain
be a Rafael, which he never could be, when he might have been something
quite as good--another Hogarth; the only comic piece which he ever
presented to the world being something little inferior to the best of
that illustrious master. I have often thought what a capital picture
might have been made by my brother's friend, if, instead of making the
mayor issue out of the Norman arch, he had painted him moving under the
sign of the "Checquers," or the "Three Brewers," with mace--yes, with
mace,--the mace appears in the picture issuing out of the Norman arch
behind the mayor,--but likewise with Snap, and with whiffler, quart pot,
and frying pan, Billy Blind, and Owlenglass, Mr. Petulengro and
Pakomovna;--then, had he clapped his own legs upon the mayor, or any one
else in the concourse, what matter? But I repeat that I have no hope of
making heroic pictures out of English mayors, or, indeed, out of English
figures in general. England may be a land of heroic hearts, but it is
not, properly, a land of heroic figures, or heroic
posture-making.--Italy--what was I going to say about Italy?