 after the service was finished, they were conducted
by their domestique to the house of a painter, where they found a beggar
standing for his picture, and the artist actually employed in representing a
huge louse that crawled upon his shoulder. Pallet was wonderfully pleased with
this circumstance, which he said was altogether a new thought, and an excellent
hint, of which he would make his advantage: and in the course of his survey of
this Fleming's performances, perceiving a piece in which two flies were engaged
upon the carcase of a dog half devoured, he ran to his brother brush, and swore
he was worthy of being a fellow-citizen of the immortal Rubens. He then
lamented, with many expressions of grief and resentment, that he had lost his
common-place book, in which he had preserved a thousand conceptions of the same
sort, formed by the accidental objects of his senses and imagination; and took
an opportunity of telling his fellow-travellers, that in execution he had
equalled, if not excelled, the two ancient painters who vied with each other in
the representation of a curtain and a bunch of grapes; for he had exhibited the
image of a certain object so like to nature, that the bare sight of it set a
whole hogsty in an uproar.
    When he had examined and applauded all the productions of this minute
artist, they returned to the great church, and were entertained with the view of
that celebrated master-piece of Rubens, in which he has introduced the portraits
of himself and his whole family. The doors that conceal this capital performance
were no sooner unfolded, than our enthusiast, debarred the use of speech, by a
previous covenant with his friend Pickle, lifted up his hands and eyes, and
putting himself in the attitude of Hamlet, when his father's ghost appears,
adored in silent extasy and awe. He even made a merit of necessity; and when
they had withdrawn from the place, protested that his whole faculties were
swallowed up in love and admiration. He now professed himself more than ever
enamoured of the Flemish school, raved in extravagant encomiums, and proposed,
that the whole company should pay homage to the memory of the divine Rubens, by
repairing forthwith to the house in which he lived, and prostrating themselves
on the floor of his painting room.
    As there was nothing remarkable in the tenement, which had been rebuilt more
than once since the death of that great man, Peregrine excused himself from
complying with the proposal, on pretence of being fatigued with the circuit they
had already performed. Jolter declined it for the same
