spread of a taste for and appreciation of art,
among persons over whom it will exercise an
especially good influence.

PHOTOGRAPHEES

THROUGH a variety of causes, over which, it
seems to me, I have had no control, I have been
rather unfortunate in life. I was expelled
from "Warton Grammar-school immediately
after the great Rebellion (I mean, of course,
the barring out there, and not the more generally
known affair of sixteen hundred and
forty-two), although I protest I was led into
it by my seniors. I was plucked in honours
at Cambridge through the malignancy of
the examiners, who, because I did not
graduate the Steel-yard, refused to graduate
me; partly through a pecuniary embarrassment,
partly through a misunderstanding of
a mere legal subtlety, I was unable to obtain
my attorney's certificate. Then, naturally,
turning my attention to bill-discounting, I
was unfortunate there; and, finally, upon the
turf—last scene of all, wherein the
Unsuccessful plays—my private Tart gave me false
intelligence, and I laid the whole of my remaining
store against the winning favourite, which
I had most conscientiously believed to have
been safely poisoned the night before.
"When," as the bard has observed, "a man
is like me, sans six sous, sans souci, bankrupt
in purse, and in character worse, with a
shocking bad hat and his credit at zero,"
what on earth can he now-a-days hope to
become save a photographer? This profession,
which requires little capital, but great
assurance; no book learning, but considerable
knowledge of character, was the very thing
to suit me, and I may say that I have
succeeded in it: when generations yet unborn
shall speak with fervour of the leafy woodlands
of Creswick, the breezy moorlands of
Landseer, the peaceful kine of Cooper,
and a great number of other things of a great
number of other people, they will not,
perhaps, be altogether silent concerning Jones
the photographer; his judicious groupings
will not, I venture to affirm, be then
forgotten, whether they be his domestic—
grandmother in centre with a baby on each arm,
Paterfamilias, L. C., mother of the family, R. C.,
eldest son, left of male parent; eldest
daughter, left of female parent; and
miscellaneous offspring promiscuously disposed: or
his classical- tallest girl in sheet and wreath,
with bread-knife and salad-bowl, as Melpomene
the Tragic Muse. Second ditto, in ditto,
ditto, with backgammon-board under the left
arm, as Clio, Muse of History. Small fat brother,
upon one leg, in act of flying, with wreath
and bow-and-arrow, complete, as God of Love;
and Materfamilias in arm-chair with hired
peacock, as Juno, Queen of Heaven. Or his
romantic—only son with exposed throat,
Ready Reckoner for small edition of Byron
apon adjacent pillar, quill pen in the left,
with back-ground of wood and water, with
turret—in any case, I say, my groupings
will challenge criticism, and their combined
effects set competition at defiance.
All amateur artists and many professionals
forget that the situations are reversed in the
photographic process, and the family ensign
is but too often represented with his drawn
sword in the wrong hand, and the domestic
poet composing from right to left, after the
manner of the literati of Japan.

Before a man can become a first-rate
photographer I hold it necessary that he should
have had some experience as a photographee.
I made my living in the latter capacity for
the first two years after my little Turf transaction,
and laid by enough to purchase the
instruments of my present profession as well.
I was that hussar, whom you know so well
in the stereoscopic pictures, who is making
love to the young lady in ball costume in the
conservatory; I was perpetually doing it for
upwards of a fortnight, and then (as you also
remember) I married her with considerable
pomp, and that venerable divine who
performed the ceremony is the very man whom
I now employ in superintending my apparatus.

Many and many a time have I formed one
of those delicious pic-nic parties, which look
to you, my public, so pleasant and so real,
with pasteboard tongue and fowls, artificial
smiles, and a painted screen for New Forest
scenery up two pair of stairs in the New
Road.

I was the bishop who is baptising the child
in presence of that magnificently apparelled
company at two shillings an hour, and to
provide their own costumes and I was the
groom who is biting the puppy's tail off with
an expression of enjoyment (price six shillings
and sixpence, and cheap at the price,
besides the hire of the puppy), who is marked
at the back of the stereoscopic slide—"A
Study."

I learnt thereby how persons in every rank
of life are to be most characteristically
composed for pictorial representation, besides
qualifying myself, better perhaps than most
place-holders, to fill almost any position
which the state has to offer. Is it a government
office? Here is our newspaper and our
official expression with the "I really don't
know, sir," pleasantly balancing in it the "I
really don't care," tape and pamphlets to any
amount in the back-ground, and the government
coals seen blazing between our departmental
legs as we stand with our back to
the fire, with our coat-tails under our arms.
Or is it the colonies themselves? Here is the
table of the house (dresser, sideboard, or
other convenience, as occasion offers), upon
which the fingers of our right hand are impressively
doubled up; those of our left upon the
despatch-box- missionary or other—with slit,
the second finger just touching it, and the "I
hold in my hand, sir, the refutation "order