The papers say, in reference to his picture, No. 591. "Full-length portrait of her Grace the Duchess of Doldrum. Carmine R.A." Mr. Carmine never fails; this work, like all others by the same Artist, is excellent :-or, No. 591, &c. The lovely Duchess of Doldrum has received from Mr. Carmine's pencil ample justice; the chiaroscuro of the picture is perfect; the likeness admirable; the keeping and colouring have the true Titianesque gusto; if we might hint a fault, it has the left ear of the lap-dog a "little" out of drawing?' LAMAN BLANCHARD (1803-1844) Sketches from Life; By the late Laman Blanchard : With a Memoir of the Author, by Sir Edward . Blanchard's interest in types of human nature, suggested in the title of these volumes, expressed itself most happily in the character form. His essays never rise above amiability, but in the 'characters' their style becomes more terse and picturesque. The third volume contains a group of character-essays, which he calls Portraits of Notorious Characters,' and similar descriptions are freely scattered in the other two volumes. In 1841 he had contributed an amusing set of twelve Corporation Characters to Heads of the People,' reprinted separately in 1855. It is interesting to have Thackeray's reflection on the kindness of Blanchard's friends in a time of need, for 'M. A. Titmarsh' writes: "The world, it is pleasant to think, is always a good and gentle world to the gentle and good, and reflects the benevolence with which they regard it.' He goes on to praise Blanchard's jolly, clear laughter,' and his wit which was always playing and frisking about the company.' [Fraser's Magazine, Mar. 1846.] The Long-Stopper A VERY dangerous and dread-awakening species of the Long-stopper is he who drops in soon after dinner and can't stay a minute. There is always a chance that the friend who frankly owns he has come to have out an hour's gossip with you, may go at the end of three; but of the early departure of him who can't possibly stop an instant, there's no hope. If your visiter has a particularly pressing engagement elsewhere, he is sure to stay with you. If he won't take a seat at once, it's all over with you for the evening. If he keeps his hat in his hand, you may ring for your night-cap. He stands, perchance, lolling over the back of a chair for one hour and upwards, filling up a pause every ten minutes with a wilful, lying, hypocritical, 'Well, I must go,' till down he sits, tossing his hat over to the other side of the apartment, with the look, voice, action, and entire manner of a man who is not at all in a hurry, but feels himself quite at home, and is anxious that you should not put yourself out of the way the least in the world on his account. There is something that amounts to the appalling in this specimen of the tribe. He has no superior in the whole race of familiar fenderbreakers. Let him once get his foot near your fireside, and he will tantalize you all the night long; not so much by staying, as by hints of the necessity of going, conjuring up a succession of sad hopes, and mocking you with a hundred visionary departures; himself a fixture, part of the furniture of the room all the time. Of all public orators, save us from him who intimates at the outset that he has risen for the purpose of making a few brief observations.' We don't mind a long speech much; but spare us a few brief observations, for experience teaches us that there is no end to them. So with the guest with whom time is precious; who has not a moment to stay; who dares not even sit down, because he has an affair of pressing importance on his hands! THE PENNY-A-LINER The Penny-a-Liner 411 THE penny-a-liner, like Pope, is known by his style.' His fine Roman hand once seen may be sworn to by the most cursory observer. But though in this one respect of identity resembling Pope, he bears not in any other the least likeness to author dead or living. He has no brother, and is like no brother, in literature. Such as he was, he is. He disdains to accommodate his manner to the ever-altering taste of the times. He refuses to bow down to the popular idol, innovation. He has a style, and he sticks to it. He scorns to depart from it, to gratify the thirst for novelty. He even thinks that it improves with use, and that his petphrases acquire a finer point and additional emphasis upon every fresh application. Thus, in relating the last fashionable occurrence, how a noble family has been plunged into consternation and sorrow by the elopement of Lady Prudentia a month after marriage, he informs you, as though the phrase itself carried conviction to the heart, that the feelings of the injured husband may be more easily conceived than described.' If he requires that phrase twice in the same narrative, he consents to vary it by saying that they may be imagined but cannot be depicted.' In reporting an incident illustrative of the fatal effects of taking prussic acid, he states that the vital spark is extinct,' and that not the smallest hopes are entertained of the unfortunate gentleman's recovery. A lady's bag is barbarously stolen from her arm by a monster in the human form. A thunderstorm is described as having 'visited' the metropolis, and the memory of the oldest inhabitant furnishes no parallel to the ravages of the 'electric fluid.' A new actress 'surpasses the most sanguine expectations' of the public, and exhibits talents that have seldom been equalled, never excelled.' A new book is not simply published, it 'emanates from the press.' On the demise of a person of eminence, it is confidently averred that he had a hand 'open as day to melting charity,' and that take him for all in all, we ne'er shall look upon his like again.' Two objects not immediately connected are sure to be 'far as the poles asunder'; although they are very easily brought together and reconciled in the reader's mind by the convenience of the phrase 'as it were,' which is an especial favourite, and constantly in request. He is a great admirer of amplitude of title, for palpable reasons; as when he reports, that Yesterday the Right Honourable Lord John Russell, M.P., his Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department, dined with,' &c. He is wonderfully expert in the measurement of hailstones, and in the calculation of the number of panes of glass which they demolish in their descent. He is acquainted with the exact circumference of every gooseberry that emulates the plenitude of a pumpkin; and can at all times detect a phenomenon in every private family, by simply reckoning up the united ages of its various members. But in the discharge of these useful duties, for the edification and amusement of the public, he employs, in the general course of things, but one set of phrases. If a fire can be rendered more picturesque by designating it the devouring element, the devouring element rages in the |