imagine myself driving a nail: I have driven it some way, and, by
persevering, I may drive it home; by quitting it to attack others, though
I may amuse myself, I do not advance beyond the first, while that
particular nail stands still. No one who can do any one thing well, will
be able to do any other different thing equally well; and this is true
even of Shakspeare, the greatest master of variety." Constable was in a
condition, in fact, to quote the Archdeacon against himself; for in 1827
Fisher had written: "I must repeat to you an opinion I have long held,
that no man had ever more than one conception. Milton emptied his mind in
the first part of _Paradise Lost_. All the rest is transcript of self. The
_Odyssey_ is a repetition of the _Iliad_. When you have seen one Claude,
you have seen all. I can think of no exception but Shakspeare; he is
always varied, never mannered."

Here is a graphic sketch by Constable of one who had known better days,
and whom it is probable those conversant with art about that time may
recognise. We shall not fill up the asterisks. "A poor wretched man called
to see me this morning. He had a petition to the Royal Academy for
charitable assistance--it was * * *. His appearance was distress itself,
and it was awful to behold to what ill conduct may bring us; yet calamity
has impressed even on this man an air of dignity: he looked like Leslie's
Don Quixote. When I knew him at the Bishop's he wore powder, had a soft
subdued voice, and always a smile, which caused him to show some decayed
teeth; and he carried a gold-headed cane with tassels. Now, how changed!
His neck long, with a large head, thin face, nose long, mouth wide, eyes
dark and sunken, eyebrows lifted, hair abundant, straight, erect, and very
greasy, his body much emaciated and shrunk away from his dismal black
clothes, and his left arm in a sling from a fall, by which he broke the
left clavicle. I shall try the Artists' Fund for him. I cannot efface the
image of this ghostly man from my mind."

Here are two clerical sketches as a _pendant_, by Fisher:--"I write this
sitting in commission upon a dispute between a clergyman and his
parishioners, and compose while the parties argue. There is a brother
parson arguing his own case, with powder, white forehead, and a very red
face, like a copper vessel newly tinned. He is mixing up in a tremulous
note, with an eager bloodshot eye, accusations, apologies, statements,
reservations, and ap