Page:The Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray Vol.20.pdf/211

Rh that poor Giglio became quite ill, took to his bed, and sent for the doctor.

His Majesty King Valoroso, as we have seen, had his own reasons for disliking his nephew; and as for those innocent readers who ask why?— I beg (with the permission of their dear parents) to refer them to Shakespeare’s pages, where they will read why King John disliked Prince Arthur. With the Queen, his royal

but weak-minded aunt, when Giglio was out of sight he was out of mind. While she had her whist and her evening-parties, she cared for little else.

I dare say two villains, who shall be nameless, wished Doctor Pildrafto, the Court physician, had killed Giglio right out, but he only bled and physicked him so severely that the Prince was kept to his room for several months, and grew as thin as a post.

Whilst he was lying sick in this way, there came to the Court of Paflagonia a famous painter, whose name was Tomaso Lorenzo, and who was Painter in Ordinary to the King of Crim Tartary, Paﬂagonia’s neighbor. Tomaso Lorenzo painted all the Court, who were delighted with his works; for even Countess Gruffanuff looked young and Glumboso good-humored in his pictures. “He flatters very much,” some people said. “Nay!” says Princess Angelica, “I am above flattery, and I think he did not make my picture handsome enough. I can’t bear to hear a man of genius unjustly cried down, and I hope my dear papa will make Lorenzo a knight of his Order of the Cucumber.”

The Princess Angelica, although the courtiers vowed her Royal Highness could draw so beautifully that the idea of her taking lessons was absurd, yet chose to have Lorenzo for a teacher, and it was wonderful, as long as she painted in his studio, what beautiful pictures she made! Some of the performances were engraved for the “Book of Beauty”: others were sold for enormous sums at Charity Bazaars, She wrote the signatures under the drawings no doubt, but