experienced this; for when the gallery, which cost the labour of eight years, was finished, Pope Paul III. asked his favourite Gioseppino, otherwise Joseph d'Arpino, what it was worth? D'Arpino, who was himself a painter, and extremely jealous of Caracci's high reputation, told the Pope that two thousand crowns would do very well; though he knew, in conscience, that an hundred thousand would hardly be a sufficient equivalent. The silly Pontiff listened to his adviser; and Caracci hearing of this unjust transaction, was so enraged, that he vowed he would be revenged both of the Pope and adviser. He set out immediately for Naples, and having no money was obliged to travel on foot. The first stage he stopped at was a wretched village, called Piperno, where the fatigues of his journey, and the vexations of his mind, threw him into a long and dangerous fit of sickness. To complete the poor artist's misfortunes, his landlord grew very insolent, taking every opportunity of teazing him for money. Caracci was long at a loss how to pacify his rude host; but at last thought of the following expedient, which, he apprehended, would at once satisfy the innkeeper, and his own resentment against the Pope. He had recourse to his pencil and colours, drew on a piece of a broken chest an ass of a monstrous size, magnificently accoutred, and decorated with the ignorant Pontiff's arms. The driver of this beast was proportionally large and tall, representing to the life the envious Gioseppino. This picture being finished, Caracci advised his landlord to set it up instead of the old sign-post of his inn. This being done, the novelty of the painting drew the eyes of travellers, and occasioned a considerable sum of money to be spent in the house. Many of them being well acquainted with Gioseppino, soon guessed the true reason of his portrait being placed there, and unravelled the whole design of the emblem. This occasioned much mirth and laughter in Rome, at the expense of the Pope and his worthless favourite. MARC WILLEMS, AND ONE OF HIS SITTERS. Every one has heard of Hogarth threatening to convert into a monkey the portrait of a person who refused him his price. The following stratagem of Marc Willems may serve as a companion to it : He had a scholar and brother-in-law named Jacques de Foindre, whose pursuits were history and portrait, but chiefly the latter. A curious and amusing tale is related by Deschamps, of this last, who, like many other professional men, had found those who sat to him sometimes less solicitous about the recompense of his labours than he could have wished having observed that an English officer, named Peter Andrew, whose likeness he had : painted, was in this way remiss in the performance of his promises, he conceived the idea of painting a grating of iron bars in distemper upon the surface of the portrait, so that the poor man appeared as if literally placed in limbo. Having done this, he exposed it in a conspicuous part of a window looking towards the street; when, from the fidelity of the resemblance to its original, it was immediately recognised by all his acquaintance, and he was constantly rallied upon the subject. He appears to have been greatly annoyed at the circumstance, and the painter's scheme succeeded to perfection, Mr. Peter Andrew making what haste he could to pay down his money, and redeem his effigy from disgrace: when this was done, one stroke with a wet sponge restored the appearance of the picture, and gave the prisoner his liberty. KING CHARLES THE FIRST AND VANDYKE. VANDYKE on his arrival in England set up a splendid household establishment, and revelled in luxury. He worked with such rapidity as to finish a portrait generally within the day: the person who sat to him in the morning was generally kept to dinner, the picture was completed in the course of the evening, and he rarely had any occasion to retouch it. But Vandyke's habits of expense increased still beyond the means which were thus afforded him he was naturally of an extravagant |