Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/102

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LONDON.
99

and outline, but she wants her charm of naturalness and attractive sweetness; so it may not seem to Mrs. A.'s sisters and fond friends. A company attitude is rarely anybody's best.

There is a most pleasing frankness and social charm in Sir Francis Chantry's manner. I called him repeatedly Mr. Chantry, and begged him to pardon me on the ground of not being "native to the manner." He laughed good-naturedly, and said something of having been longer accustomed to the plebeian designation. I heard from Mr. R. a much stronger illustration than this of this celebrated artist's good sense and good feeling too. Chantry was breakfasting with Mr. R., when, pointing to some carving in wood, he asked R. if he remembered that, some twenty years before, he employed a young man to do that work for him. R. had but an indistinct recollection. "I was that young man," resumed Chantry, "and very glad to get the five shillings a day you paid me!" Mr. B, told a pendant to this pretty story. Mr. B. was discussing with Sir Francis the propriety of gilding something, I forget what B. was sure it could be done, Chantry as sure it could not; and "I should know," he said, "for I was once apprenticed to a carver and gilder." Perhaps, after all, it is not so crowning a grace in Sir Francis Chantry to refer to the obscure morning of his brilliant day, as it is a disgrace to the paltry world that it should be so considered.

I have seen Owen of Lanark, a curiosity rather from the sensation he at one time produced in our