a good excuse for the
queen of this history, and that it was her wicked, domineering old prime
minister who led her wrong. Otherwise, I say, we would have another dynasty. Oh,
to think of a generous nature, and the world, and nothing but the world, to
occupy it; of a brave intellect, and the milliner's bandboxes, and the scandal
of the coteries, and the fiddle-faddle etiquette of the court for its sole
exercise! of the rush and hurry from entertainment to entertainment; of the
constant smiles and cares of representation; of the prayerless rest at night and
the awakening to a godless morrow! This was the course of life to which Fate,
and not her own fault altogether, had for a while handed over Ethel Newcome. Let
those pity her who can feel their own weakness and misgoing; let those punish
her who are without fault themselves.
    Clive did not offer to follow her to Scotland. He knew quite well that the
encouragement he had had was only of the smallest; that as a relation she
received him frankly and kindly enough, but checked, him when he would have
adopted another character. But it chanced that they met in Paris, whither he
went in the Easter of the ensuing year, having worked to some good purpose
through the winter, and dispatched, as on a former occasion, his three or four
pictures, to take their chance at the Exhibition.
    Of these it is our pleasing duty to be able to corroborate, to some extent,
Mr. F. Bayham's favourable report. Fancy sketches and historical pieces our
young man had eschewed, having convinced himself either that he had not an epic
genius, or that to draw portraits of his friends was a much easier task than
that which he had set himself formerly. Whilst all the world was crowding round
a pair of J.J.'s little pictures, a couple of chalk heads were admitted into the
Exhibition (his great picture of Captain Crackthorpe on horseback, in full
uniform, I must own, was ignominiously rejected), and the friends of the parties
had the pleasure of recognizing in the miniature room, No. 1246, Portrait of an
Officer - namely, Augustus Butts, Esq., of the Life Guards Green; and Portrait
of the Rev. Charles Honeyman, No. 1272. Miss Sherrick the hangers refused; Mr.
Binnie Clive had spoiled, as usual, in the painting; the chalk heads, however,
before named were voted to be faithful likenesses, and executed in a very
agreeable and spirited manner. F