hide himself behind the canvass, in order to hear the remarks made by spectators. He once overheard himself blamed by a shoemaker for a fault in the slippers of some figure; having too much good sense to be offended with any objection, however trifling, which came from a competent judge, he corrected the fault which the man had noticed. On the following day, however, the shoemaker began to animadvert upon the leg; on which Apelles, with some anger, looked out from the canvass, and reproved him in these words, which are also become a proverb, "ne sutor ultra crepidam"—"let the cobbler keep to his last," or "every man to his trade."
APELLES' FOAMING CHARGER.
In finishing a drawing of a horse, in the portraiture
of which he much excelled, a very remarkable
circumstance is related of him. He had painted a
war horse returning from battle, and had succeeded
to his wishes in describing nearly every mark that
could indicate a high-mettled steed impatient of restraint;
there was wanting nothing but a foam of
bloody hue issuing from the mouth. He again and
again endeavored to express this, but his attempts
were unsuccessful. At last in vexation, he threw
against the mouth of the horse a sponge filled with
different colors, which produced the very effect desired
by the painter. A similar story is related of
Protogenes, in painting his picture of Jalysus and
his Dog.
