We presently afterwards departed;my brother talked much about the painter.'He is a noble fellow,'said my brother;'but,like many other noble fellows,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 bye,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 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 Ihave 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?