seeing that the space allotted for the picture had only been daubed over
with red, declared he had no idea of paying a painter when he had proceeded
no farther than to lay his ground. "Ground!" exclaimed Hogarth, "there is
no _ground_ in the case, my lord, it is all sea. The red you perceive is
the Red Sea. Pharoah and his host are drowned as you desired, and cannot be
made objects of sight, for the sea covers them all."


Tantara, the celebrated landscape painter, was a man of ready wit, but he
once met his match. An amateur had ordered a landscape for his gallery, in
which there was to be a church. Our painter did not know how to draw
figures well, so he put none in the landscape. The amateur was astonished
at the truthfulness and colouring of the picture, but he missed the
figures. "You have forgotten to put in any figures," said he, laughingly.
"Sir," replied the painter, "_the people are gone to mass_." "Oh, well,"
replied the amateur, "I will wait and take your picture _when they come
out_."


Chantrey's First Sculpture.--Chantrey, when a boy, used to take milk to
Sheffield on an ass. To those not used to seeing and observing such things,
it may be necessary to state that the boys generally carry a good thick
stick, with a hooked or knobbed end, with which they belabour their asses
sometimes unmercifully. On a certain day, when returning home, riding on
his ass, Chantrey was observed by a gentleman to be intently engaged in
cutting a stick with his penknife, and, excited by curiosity, he asked the
lad what he was doing, when, with great simplicity of manner, but with
courtesy, he replied, "I am cutting _old Fox's head_." Fox was the
schoolmaster of the village. On this, the gentleman asked to see what he
had done, pronounced it to be an excellent likeness, and presented the