"Paint me as I am," said Cromwell, "Rough with age and gashed with wars; Show my visage as you find it, Less than truth my soul abhors."

If they could forget for a moment the correggiosity of Correggio and the learned babble of the sale-room and varnishing Auctioneer.

Well, something must be done for May, The time is drawing nigh-- To figure in the Catalogue, And woo the public eye. Something I must invent and paint; But oh my wit is not Like one of those kind substantives That answer Who and What?

There is a great difference between painting a face and not washing it.

"I'm an owl: you're another. Sir Critic, good day." And the barber kept on shaving.

A farmer travelling with his load Picked up a horseshoe on the road, And nailed if fast to his barn door, That luck might down upon him pour; That every blessing known in life Might crown his homestead and his wife, And never any kind of harm Descend upon his growing farm.