 would I conceal, even from you, the degradation to which it has been
necessary to submit, in order to accomplish an honourable retreat from
Gandercleugh. But what avails attempting to conceal that, which must needs
betray itself even by its superior excellence? All the village - all the parish
- all the world - will soon discover to what poverty has reduced Richard Tinto.«
    A sudden thought here struck me - I had observed that our landlord wore, on
that memorable morning, a pair of bran new velveteens, instead of his ancient
thicksets.
    »What,« said I, drawing my right hand, with the fore-finger and thumb
pressed together, nimbly from my right haunch to my left shoulder, »you have
condescended to resume the paternal arts to which you were first bred - long
stitches, ha, Dick?«
    He repelled this unlucky conjecture with a frown and a pshaw, indicative of
indignant contempt, and leading me into another room, showed me, resting against
the wall, the majestic head of Sir William Wallace, grim as when severed from
the trunk by the orders of the felon Edward.
    The painting was executed on boards of a substantial thickness, and the top
decorated with irons, for suspending the honoured effigy upon a sign-post.
    »There,« he said, »my friend, stands the honour of Scotland, and my shame -
yet not so - rather the shame of those, who, instead of encouraging art in its
proper sphere, reduce it to these unbecoming and unworthy extremities.«
    I endeavoured to smooth the ruffled feelings of my misused and indignant
friend. I reminded him, that he ought not, like the stag in the fable, to
despise the quality which had extricated him from difficulties, in which his
talents, as a portrait or landscape painter, had been found unavailing. Above
all, I praised the execution, as well as conception, of his painting, and
reminded him, that far from feeling dishonoured by so superb a specimen of his
talents being exposed to the general view of the public, he ought rather to
congratulate himself upon the augmentation of his celebrity, to which its public
exhibition must necessarily give rise.
    »You are right, my friend - you are right,« replied poor Dick, his eye
kindling with enthusiasm; »why should I shun the name of an - an« - (he
hesitated for a phrase)- »an out-of-doors artist? Hogarth has introduced himself
in that character in one of his best engravings - Domenichino, or somebody else,
in ancient times - Morland
