in a certain gallery, wherein one particular picture of portentous size, set up in the best light, having a cordon of protection stretched before it, and a cushioned bench duly set in front for the accommodation of worshipping connoisseurs who, having gazed themselves off their feet, might be fain to complete the business sitting; this picture, I say, seemed to consider itself the queen of the collection.
It represented a woman, considerably larger, I thought, than the life. I calculated that this lady, put into a scale of magnitude suitable for the reception of a commodity of bulk, would infallibly turn from fourteen to sixteen stone. She was, indeed, extremely well fed. Very much butcher's meat, to say nothing of bread, vegetables, and liquids, must she have consumed to attain that breadth and height, that wealth of muscle, that affluence of flesh. She lay half-reclined on a couch, why, it would be difficult to say; broad daylight blazed round her; she appeared in hearty health, strong enough to do the work of two plain cooks; she could not plead a weak spine; she ought to have been standing, or at least sitting bolt upright. She had no business to lounge away the noon on a sofa. She ought likewise to have worn decent garments; a gown covering her properly, which was not the case: out of abundance of material—seven-and-twenty yards, I should say, of drapery, she managed to make inefficient raiment. Then, for the wretched untidiness surrounding her, there could be no excuse. Pots and pans, perhaps I ought to say vases and goblets, were rolled here and there on the foreground; a perfect rubbish of flowers was mixed amongst them, and an absurd and disorderly mass of curtain upholstery smothered the couch, and cumbered the floor. On referring to the catalog, I found that this notable production bore the name "Cleopatra".
Well, I was sitting wondering at it (as the bench was there, I thought I might as well take advantage of its accommodation), and thinking that while some of the details as roses, gold cups, jewels, &c., were very prettily painted, it was on the whole an enormous piece of clap-trap; the room, almost vacant when I entered, began to fill. Scarcely noticing this circumstance, as, indeed, it did not matter to me, I retained my seat, rather to rest myself than with a view to studying this huge, dark-complexioned gypsy-queen; of whom, indeed, I soon tired and betook myself for refreshment to the contempla-
