_Leonardo da Vinci._ Is Art so honoured by the great of England?
_Sir J. Reynolds._ Hum! Oh, His Majesty George the III was pleased to give a charter to the Royal Academy. I have been presented--but, certainly, I don’t remember to have seen him in my painting room at Leicester Square, or to have been asked to take a seat in the Privy Council.
_Rafael._ But your reigning monarch is a Queen. Woman has ever loved the Beautiful. Surely she much affects you painters.
_Sir J. Reynolds._ Hum--ha--I am extremely deaf.
_P. Veronese_ (_shouting into his trumpet_). Does the Queen give due honour to our brethren?
_Sir J. Reynolds._ I am assured she has had painted already ten portraits of her gracious self, thirty of her Royal consort, twenty of the Royal infants, and fifty of the Royal pets, from paroquet to Brazilian monkey.
_M. Angelo._ These are your court painters, who so disgrace their calling. But your _Artists_? How goes it at the palace with them?
_Rubens._ Seated at the Royal board, doubtless--in places of honour.
_L. da Vinci._ Where else should sit the architects, engineers, philosophers, poets of the nation--in whom all knowledge is orbed around the Beautiful, and grows to Art?
_Sir J. Reynolds._ I am not informed that they _do_ sit _exactly_ at the Royal board, but the equerries’ table is excellent--and no doubt----
_M. Angelo._ _Basta!_ Do not mince words, man--out with it. The painters’ table with the lackeys! Excellent England!
[Illustration: AN ARTIST SCAMP IN THE HIGHLANDS.
ARTIST (_entering_). My good woman, if you’ll allow me, I’ll just paint that bedstead of yours.
COTTAGER (_with bob-curtsey_). Thank ye, sir, I’ sure it’s very kind of ye--but dinna ye think the wee yin wants it more?]
_Titian_ (_aside_). These islanders! But our pictures which adorn your English galleries, my Bacchus and Ariadne--I painted it for Gonzaga.
_M. Angelo._ Well remembered, Vicellio. There’s Sebastiano’s picture, too, in your gallery; I painted the Lazarus, my Rafael, to shame thee. Blister my hand for it! How of it?
_Rafael._ It is a noble work, and I was honoured by such a rivalry.
_Rubens._ And my Peace and War? I painted it for your Charles, before I opened my negotiation for peace with Spain. Surely it is well cared-for, as a historic record, if not as a picture?