iness, and their extreme
respectability. As a class they are very well behaved, particularly
those who sit for the figure, a fact which is curious or natural
according to the view one takes of human nature. They usually marry
well, and sometimes they marry the artist. For an artist to marry his
model is as fatal as for a gourmet to marry his cook: the one gets no
sittings, and the other gets no dinners.

On the whole the English female models are very naive, very natural, and
very good-humoured. The virtues which the artist values most in them are
prettiness and punctuality. Every sensible model consequently keeps a
diary of her engagements, and dresses neatly. The bad season is, of
course, the summer, when the artists are out of town. However, of late
years some artists have engaged their models to follow them, and the wife
of one of our most charming painters has often had three or four models
under her charge in the country, so that the work of her husband and his
friends should not be interrupted. In France the models migrate en masse
to the little seaport villages or forest hamlets where the painters
congregate. The English models, however, wait patiently in London, as a
rule, till the artists come back. Nearly all of them live with their
parents, and help to support the house. They have every qualification
for being immortalised in art except that of beautiful hands. The hands
of the English model are nearly always coarse and red.

As for the male models, there is the veteran whom we have mentioned
above. He has all the traditions of the grand style, and is rapidly
disappearing with the school he represents. An old man who talks about
Fuseli is, of course, unendurable, and, besides, patriarchs have ceased
to be fashionable subjects. Then there is the true Academy model. He is
usually a man of thirty, rarely good-looking, but a perfect miracle of
muscles. In fact he is the apotheosis of anatomy, and is so conscious of
his own splendour that he tells you of his tibia and his thorax, as if no
one else had anything of the kind. Then come the Oriental models. The
supply of these is limited, but there are always about a dozen in London.
They are very much sought after as they can remain immobile for hours,
and generally possess lovely costumes. However, they have a very poor
opinion of English art, which they regard as something between a vulgar
personality and a commonplace photograph. Next we have