Page:Table-Talk, vol. 2 (1822).djvu/329

 pieces with all the coolness imaginable. Whether we blow the bubble or crush it in our hands, vanity and the desire of empty distinction are equally at the bottom of our sanguine credulity or fastidious scepticism. There are some who always fall in with the fashionable prejudice as others affect singularity of opinion on all such points, according as they think they have more or less wit to judge for themselves.

If a little varnishing and daubing, a little puffing and quacking, and giving yourself a good name, and getting a friend to speak a word for you, is excusable in any profession, it is, I think, in that of painting. Painting is an occult science, and requires a little ostentation and mock-gravity in the professor. A man may here rival Katterfelto, “with his hair on end at his own wonders, wondering for his bread”; for, if he does not, he may in the end go without it. He may ride on a high trotting horse, in green spectacles, and attract notice to his person anyhow he can, if he only works hard at his profession. If “it only is when he is out he is acting,” let him make the fools stare, but give others something worth looking at. Good Mr. Carver and Gilder, good Mr. Printer’s Devil, good Mr. Bill-sticker, “do me your offices” unmolested! Painting is a plain ground,