Tantara, the celebrated landscape painter, was a man of ready wit, but he once met his match.  An amateur had ordered a landscape for his gallery, in which there was to be a church.  Our painter did not know how to draw figures well, so he put none in the landscape.  The amateur was astonished at the truthfulness and colouring of the picture, but he missed the figures.  “You have forgotten to put in any figures,” said he, laughingly.  “Sir,” replied the painter, “the people are gone to mass.”  “Oh, well,” replied the amateur, “I will wait and take your picture when they come out.”

Chantrey’s First Sculpture.—­Chantrey, when a boy, used to take milk to Sheffield on an ass.  To those not used to seeing and observing such things, it may be necessary to state that the boys generally carry a good thick stick, with a hooked or knobbed end, with which they belabour their asses sometimes unmercifully.  On a certain day, when returning home, riding on his ass, Chantrey was observed by a gentleman to be intently engaged in cutting a stick with his penknife, and, excited by curiosity, he asked the lad what he was doing, when, with great simplicity of manner, but with courtesy, he replied, “I am cutting old Fox’s head.”  Fox was the schoolmaster of the village.  On this, the gentleman asked to see what he had done, pronounced it to be an excellent likeness, and presented the youth with sixpence.  This may, perhaps, be reckoned the first money Chantry ever obtained in the way of his art.

BEGGING.

Admiral Chatillon had gone one day to hear mass in the Dominican Friars’ chapel; a poor fellow came and begged his charity.  He was at the moment occupied with his devotions, and he gave him several pieces of gold from his pocket, without counting them, or thinking what they were.  The large amount astonished the beggar, and as M. Chatillon was going out of the church-door, the poor man waited for him:  “Sir,” said he, showing him what he had given him, “I cannot think that you intended to give me so large a sum, and am very ready to return it.”  The admiral, admiring the honesty of the man, said, “I did not, indeed, my good man, intend to have given you so much; but, since you have the generosity to offer to return it, I will have the generosity to desire you to keep it; and here are five pieces more for you.”

A Beggar’s Wedding.—­Dean Swift being in the country, on a visit to Dr. Sheridan, they were informed that a beggar’s wedding was about to be celebrated.  Sheridan played well upon the violin; Swift therefore proposed that he should go to the place where the ceremony was to be performed, disguised as a blind fiddler, while he attended him as his man.  Thus accoutred they set out, and were received by the jovial crew with great acclamation.  They had plenty of good cheer, and never was a more joyous wedding seen.  All was mirth and frolic;