Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 050.djvu/346

Cal.The very one
You have just mention'd,
Sal. What! before you know
The subject of it?
Cal. I will take my chance!
'Twill gain the prize, and that's enough for me.
Sal. You're buying, as they say, a pig 'in a poke.·
Cal. I care not, if you will but promise me
Ne'er to make known the parent of the pig.
Sal. What is't you mean? I beg you will explain.
Cal. I mean that I would purchase not alone
Your painting, but the title to be held
Its author.
Sal. What! so you would pass yourself
Off as the painter of my work?
Cal. I would.
Sal. You are a man with merits of your own,
Then wherefore deck yourself in borrow'd plumes?
Cal. Look ye, Salvator, all men must admit
That I know some things—as a connoisseur
In painting I rank high—no name deceives me,
No colour cheats my critical discernment;
But I cannot create—The living power
Of genius, which projects beyond itself
The creatures of the brain—the shaping hand—
These are not mine. I am a wealthy man,
And no one is esteem'd more highly here;
Yet, as you know, men oft covet most
That which they least possess; and hence my soul
Pants for an artist's fame.
Sal. Come! Come! Director,
You shall not gull me so. An artist's fame!
That is a light, I'm sure, which cannot dazzle
Experienced eyes like yours.
Cal. It does, indeed;
Full twenty times—I've sought this interview,
But never till to-day could get admittance—
Your accident excluding strangers from you.
But now I've found you just in the nick o' time—
Come I be persuaded; let me call myself
The painter of that picture.
Sal. If no other
Motive than vanity prompts your request,
I will not hear of it.
Cal. I beg of you—
Sal. You need not ask me, for I will not do it.
Cal. I'll pay you any price you choose to name.
Sal. What is your gold to me?
Cal. (after a pause.) Suppose I had
Some other motive—would you then give way?
Sal. That's as the case might be.
Cal. You know, Salvator.
That two things are reported to my hurt;
'Tis said I love, and that I'm covetous.
I grant one-half of the report is true:
I am not covetous; but—I'm in love—
Smile if you will—in love with my young ward
Sal. (astonished.) And what has that to do with your demand?
Cal. Hearken, Salvator! This child's father, smitten
By love of art, has order'd in his will·
That he alone shall gain his daughter's hand,
Who, in our yearly competition, wins