Chrome, who paints " still life " nicely, fruit
and flowers, and so on, (his detractors say
apples, oranges, and bills of the play,) smokes
a prodigious meerschaum, warranted to be
from the Danube, crammed with Hungarian
tobacco, and formerly the property of 'the
Waywode of Widdin. Scumble (good in old
houses and churches) inhales the fumes of a
big pipe with a porcelain bowl, purchased in
the Dom-Platz of Aix-la-Chapelle, and having
Saladin and all his paladins depicted thereon.
The black cutty, patronised by Bristley (son
of Sir Hogg Bristley, R.A.) has been his
constant companion in the adventurous
sketching journeys he has undertaken—was
with him when under sentence of fusillation
for sketching a droschky in the Nevski
Perspective at Petersburgh; when lion-hunting
in Caffreland; nay, it is suspected, even lay
quiescent in his pocket when hunted as a
lion here, on his return.

In the farther corner, sits, as perpetual
vice-chairman, the famous Nobbs. Nobbs
was gold medallist and travelling student
of the Royal Academy in the year Thirty-
four. He has been a blockhead ever since.
He has never painted a picture worth looking
at; nor, I seriously believe, were you
to lock him into a room with a pencil and a
piece of paper, could he draw a pint pot from
recollection. Yet hath he covered roods,
perches, acres, of tinted paper, with studies
from the antique and the life; set him
before a statue, with drawing-board, crayons,
compasses, and plumb-line complete, and he
will give you every hair of Moses's beard,
every muscle of the Discobolus; give him
a Raphael or a Titian to copy, and he will
produce a duplicate so exact that you would
be puzzled to tell the ancient from the modern.

Storyteller in ordinary, historiographer, and
undisputed nautical authority, is Jack Bute,
who is supposed, once upon a time, to have
painted Lord Nelson's portrait, and who, on
the strength of that one achievement, has been
a famous man ever since. Who would not
be proud of standing fourpenn'orth to Jack
Bute? Jack has been a sailor, too, a gallant
sailor. " I was at Algiers, sir," he says, "and fit
there "—he always says fit. " I was among the
boarders, and the only difficulty I had was in
shaking the Algerine blackguards off my
boarding-pike, I spitted so many of them."
Sometimes an over-sense of his dignity, and
an over-dose of gin-and-water, make Jack
quarrelsome and disagreeable; sometimes he
is maudlin, and can only ejaculate " Nelson"
—" Fourpenn'orth "—amid floods of tears.

The artists' " public " is generally hard-by
a "life school," or institution where adult
artists meet nocturnally to study the human
figure, animals, &c., from the life. One of
the standing patterns or text-books of the
school is quietly standing in front of the
house now, in the shape of a symmetrically-
shaped donkey, which Bill Jones, its master,
the costermonger, is very happy (for a
consideration) to lend to the life school to be
"drawed " at night, after the patient animal
has been drawing all day. Another pattern
is refreshing himself with mild porter at the
bar, being no other, indeed, than the well-
known Caravaggio Potts, Artiste-modèle, as he
styles himself. He began life as Jupiter
Tonans, subsequently passed through the
Twelve Apostles, and is now considered to be
the best Belisarius in the model world. His
wife was the original Venus Callipyge, of
Tonks, R. A., but fluctuates at present between
Volumnia and Mrs. Primrose.

The landlord of the artists' inn knows all
about the exhibitions, what days they open,
and what days they shut —who ought to have
been hung "on the line," who the prize-holders
in the Art Union, are, and what
pictures they are likely to select for their
prizes. Were you to enter the sitting-room,
you would be astonished at the number of
portraits, full-length, half-length, three-quarter-
length, in oil, water-colour, and crayons, of
himself, his wife, children, and relations
generally, which adorn that apartment. Has
the blushing canvas blotted out the sins of
the slate?

Between art and literature there is a very
strong band of union (becoming stronger
every day, I trust), and I would step at once
from the artists' tavern to the literary tavern,
were I not enabled to save time and our
chariot steeds by remaining awhile in Camden
Town, where two or three varieties of Public
life yet remain to be noticed; for, in this
locality uplifts its lofty head " The Railway
Tavern; " here, also, is the " house"
frequented by veterinary surgeons; here, the
hostelry affected by medical students. A
brief word we must have with each of them.

Hope—wild, delusive, yet comfortable hope
—baked the bricks and hardened the mortar
of which the Railway Tavern was built. Its
contiguity to a railway station appeared to
its sanguine projector a sufficient guarantee
for immense success. He found out what the
fallacies of hope were, before he had done
building. He hanged himself. To him enters
an enterprising licensed victualler, formerly
of the New Cut, who obtained a transient
meed of success by an announcement of the
sale within of " Imperial black stuff, very
nobby." Everybody was anxious to taste the
"Imperial black stuff," and for some days
the Railway Tavern was thronged; but the
public found out that the mixture was not
only very nobby, but very nasty, and declined
a renewal of the draught. The next
proprietor was a fast gentleman, which may
account for his having gone so very fast into
the Gazette; although he always attributed
his ruin to his having had a great many
pewter pots stolen, which he subsequently
unwittingly received again in the guise of bad
half-crowns. For years the Railway Tavern
stood, big, white, deserted-looking, customer-
less; but a new neighbourhood gradually arose