the St. Gothard diligences for many years, and only retired when
the railway was opened. Titian once made me a pair of boots at
Vicenza, and not very good ones. At Modena I had my hair cut by a
young man whom I perceived to be Raffaelle. The model who sat to
him for his celebrated Madonnas is first lady in a confectionery
establishment at Montreal. She has a little motherly pimple on the
left side of her nose that is misleading at first, but on
examination she is readily recognized; probably Raffaelle's model
had the pimple too, but Raffaelle left it out--as he would.
Handel, of course, is Madame Patey. Give Madame Patey Handel's wig
and clothes, and there would be no telling her from Handel. It is
not only that the features and the shape of the head are the same,
but there is a certain imperiousness of expression and attitude
about Handel which he hardly attempts to conceal in Madame Patey.
It is a curious coincidence that he should continue to be such an
incomparable renderer of his own music. Pope Julius II was the late
Mr. Darwin. Rameses II is a blind woman now, and stands in Holborn,
holding a tin mug. I never could understand why I always found
myself humming "They oppressed them with burthens" when I passed
her, till one day I was looking in Mr. Spooner's window in the
Strand, and saw a photograph of Rameses II. Mary Queen of Scots
wears surgical boots and is subject to fits, near the Horse Shoe in
Tottenham Court Road.
Michael Angelo is a commissionaire; I saw him on board the Glen
Rosa, which used to run every day from London to Clacton-on-Sea and
back. It gave me quite a turn when I saw him coming down the stairs
from the upper deck, with his bronzed face, flattened nose, and with
the familiar bar upon his forehead. I never liked Michael Angelo,
and never shall, but I am afraid of him, and was near trying to hide
when I saw him coming towards me. He had not got his
commissionaire's uniform on, and I did not know he was one till I
met him a month or so later in the Strand. When we got to Blackwall
the music struck up and people began to dance. I never saw a man
dance so much in my life. He did not miss a dance all the way to
Clacton, nor all the way back again, and when not dancing he was
flirting and cracking jokes. I could hardly believe my eyes when I
reflected that this man had painted the famous "Last Judgment," and
had made all those statues.
Dante is, or was a year or two ago, a
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