It is to be hoped that these parsimonious Misters will soon recognise that it is not possible for modern up-to-date Art to be florescent under this retrograde and fossilized system, and be warned that such untradesmanlike goings-on will deservedly forfeit the confidence and patronage of their most fastidious customers.
Miss Jessimina remarked more than once that such and such a picture was not in her taste and she would never have chosen it personally, while Miss Primmett declared that she would not have had her likeness taken by Hon'ble Sir Josh Gainsboro, or Misters Velasky and Vandick, not even if they implored her on their bended marrowbones, and that, as for a certain individual effeminately named Etty, it was a wonderment to her how respectable people could stand in front of such brazen performances! These remarks are trivial, perhaps, but even straws will serve as cocks of the weather on occasions, and, moreover, I shall certify that the most general tone was of a critical and disapproving severity, and it was quite evident that the greater portion of the spectators could have done the job better themselves.
A certain Mister Turner came in for the Benjamin's mess of obloquy, having represented Pluto, the god of wealth, in the act of carrying off a female Proserpine, but the figures so Lilliputian, and in such a disproportionate expansion
