Page:Table-Talk, vol. 2 (1822).djvu/331

are you a painter, sir?” The other made answer, a little startled in his turn, “Why, didn’t you know that? Did you never see my name at the bottom of prints?” He could not recollect that he had. “And yet you sell picture-frames and prints?” “Yes.” “What painter’s names, then, did he recollect: did he know West’s?” “Oh! yes.” “And Opie’s?” “Yes.” “And Fuseli’s?” “Oh! yes.” “But you never heard of me?” “I cannot say that I ever did!” It was plain from this conversation that Mr. N—— had not kept company enough with picture-dealers and newspaper critics. On another occasion, a country gentleman, who was sitting to him for his portrait, asked him if he had any pictures in the Exhibition at Somerset-house, and on his replying in the affirmative, desired to know what they were. He mentioned, among others, “The Marriage of Two Children;” on which the gentleman expressed great surprise, and said that was the very picture his wife was always teasing him to go and have another look at, though he had never noticed the painter’s name. When the public are so eager to be amused, and care so little who it is that amuses them, it is not amiss to remind them of it now and then; or even to have a starling taught to repeat the name, to which