Frenchman. All the faces he drew were very remarkable for their smiles, and a certain smirking air which he bestowed indifferently on every age and degree of either sex. The toujours gai appeared even in his judges, bishops, and privy councillors in a word, all his men were petits maitres, and all his women coquettes. The drapery of his figures was extremely well suited to his faces, and was made up of all the glaring colours that could be mixed together; every part of the dress was in a flutter, and endeavoured to distinguish itself above the rest.

On the left hand of Vanity stood a laborious workman, who I found was his humble admirer, and copied after him. He was dressed like a German, and had a very hard name that sounded something like Stupidity.

The third artist that I looked over was Fantasque, dressed like a Venetian scaramouch. He had an excellent hand at a chimera, and dealt very much in distortions and grimaces. He would sometimes affright himself with the phantoms that flowed from his pencil. In short, the most elaborate of his pieces was at best but a terrifying dream; and one could say nothing more of his finest figures than that they were agreeable monsters.

The fourth person I examined was very remarkable for his hasty hand, which left his pictures so unfinished that the beauty in the picture (which was designed to continue as a monument of it to posterity) faded sooner than in the person after whom it was drawn. He made so much haste to despatch his business, that he neither gave himself time to clean his pencils nor mix his colours. The name of this expeditious workman was Avarice.

Not far from this artist I saw another of a quite different nature, who was dressed in the habit of a Dutchman, and known by the name of Industry. His figures were wonderfully laboured. If he drew the portraiture of a man, he did not omit a single hair in his face; if the figure of a ship, there was not a rope among the tackle that escaped him. He had likewise hung a great part of the wall with night-pieces, that seemed to show themselves by the candles which were lighted up in several parts of them; and were so inflamed by the sunshine which accidentally fell upon them, that at first sight I could scarce forbear crying out 'Fire!'

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The five foregoing artists were the most considerable on this side the gallery; there were indeed several others whom I had not time to look into. One of them, however, I could not forbear observing, who was very busy in retouching the finest pieces, though he produced no originals of his own. His pencil aggravated every feature that was before overcharged, loaded every defect, and poisoned every colour it touched. Though this workman did so much mischief on the side of the living, he never turned his eye towards that of the dead. His name was Envy.

;

Having taken a cursory view of one side of the gallery, I turned myself to that which was filled by the works of those great masters that were dead when immediately I fancied myself standing before a multitude of spectators, and thousands of eyes looking upon me at once; for all before me appeared so like men and women, that I almost forgot they were pictures. Raphael's figures stood in one row, Titian's in another, Guido Rheni's in a third.

One part of the wall was peopled by Annibale Caracchi, another by Correggio, and another by Rubens. To be short, there was not a great master among the dead who had not contributed to the embellishment of this side of the gallery. The persons that owed their being to these several masters appeared all of them to be real and alive, and differed among one another only in the variety of their shapes, complexions, and clothes; so that they looked like different nations of the same species.

Observing an old man (who was the same person I before mentioned, as the only artist that was at work on this side of the gallery) creeping up and down from one picture to another, and re-touching all the fine pieces that stood before me, I could not but be very attentive to all his motions. I found his pencil was so very light that it worked imperceptibly, and after a thousand touches scarce produced any visible effect in the picture on which he was employed. However, as he busied himself incessantly, and repeated touch after touch without rest or intermission, he wore off insensibly every little disagreeable gloss that hung upon a figure : he also added such a beautiful brown to the shades, and mellowness to the colours, that he made every picture appear more perfect than when it came fresh from the master's pencil. I could not forbear looking upon the face of this ancient workman, and immediately, by the long lock of hair upon his forehead, discovered him to be Time.

Whether it were because the thread of my dream was at an end I cannot tell, but upon my taking a survey of this imaginary old man my sleep left

me.

1 Its' (folio).

C.

No. 84. Wednesday, June 6, 1711

[STEELE.

-Quis talia fando

Myrmidonum dolopumve aut duri miles Ulyssei Temperet a lachrymis ?-VIRG., Æn. ii. 6. OOKING over the old manuscript wherein the private actions of Pharamond1 are set down

L

by way of table-book, I found many things which gave me great delight; and as human life turns upon the same principles and passions in all ages, I thought it very proper to take minutes of what passed in that age for the instruction of this. The antiquary who lent me these papers gave me a character of Eucrate, the favourite of Pharamond, extracted from an author who lived in that court. The account he gives both of the prince and this his faithful friend, will not be improper to insert here, because I may have occasion to mention many of

1 See Nos. 76, 97. Steele uses the suggestion of the romance of Pharamond, whosewhole person,' says the romancer, ' was of so excellent a composition, and his words so great and so noble, that it was very difficult to deny him reverence,' to connect with a remote king his ideas of the duty of a court. Pharamond's friend Eucrate, whose name means power well used, is an invention of the essayist for an immediate good purpose of his own, which he pleasantly contrives in imitation of the style of the romance. In the original, Pharamond is said to be truly and wholly charming, as well for the vivacity and delicateness of his spirit, accompanied with a perfect knowledge of all sciences, as for a sweetness which is wholly particular to him, and a complacence which, &c. . . All his inclinations are in such manner fixed upon virtue, that no consideration nor passion can disturb him; and in those extremities into which his ill fortune hath cast him, he hath never let pass any occasion to do good.' That is why Steele chose Pharamond for his king in these papers (Morley).

their conversations, into which these memorials of them may give light :

'Pharamond, when he had a mind to retire for an hour or two from the hurry of business and fatigue of ceremony, made a signal to Eucrate, by putting his hand to his face, placing his arm negligently on a window, or some such action as appeared indifferent to all the rest of the company. Upon such notice, unobserved by others (for their entire intimacy was always a secret), Eucrate repaired to his own apartment to receive the king. There was a secret access to this part of the court, at which Eucrate used to admit many whose mean appearance in the eyes of the ordinary waiters and door-keepers made them be repulsed from other parts of the palace. Such as these were let in here by order of Eucrate, and had audiences of Pharamond. This entrance Pharamond called the Gate of the Unhappy, and the tears of the afflicted who came before him, he would say, were bribes received by Eucrate; for Eucrate had the most compassionate spirit of all men living, except his generous master, who was always kindled at the least affliction which was communicated to him. In the regard for the miserable, Eucrate took particular care that the common forms of distress, and the idle pretenders to sorrow about courts, who wanted only supplies to luxury, should never obtain favour by his means: but the distresses which arise from the many inexplicable occurrences that happen among men, the unaccountable alienation of parents from their children, cruelty of husbands to wives, poverty occasioned from shipwreck or fire, the falling out of friends, or such other terrible disasters to which the life of man is