the irritability of authors is already proverbial, how doubly inflammatory must he be, whose very profession it is to scold. Suppressing my remark, I contented myself with offering to forward any thing he might wish to communicate to the public, to the conductor of a work, where the lenity of his satire should facilitate his introduction to the sex, whose circle is ever the retreat of charity from the gall and bitterness of a wider amphitheatre. In the expectation of speedily forwarding you an essay from the disappointed satirist, I have thought the foregoing narrative the most appropriate introduction my hero can have.-1 am, &c. &c. D. W. THE GLEANER'S PORTE-FOLIO; CONSISTING OF INTERESTING ARTICLES FROM RECENT PUBLICATIONS, PUBLIC JOURNALS, &c. &c. THE FORTUNES OF AN ARTIST. "DICK TINTO, when he wrote himself artist, was wont to derive his origin from the ancient family of Tinto, of that ilk in Lanarkshire, and occasionally hinted that he had somewhat derogated from his gentle blood, in using the pencil for his principal means of support. But if Dick's pedigree || was correct, some of his ancestors must have suffered a more heavy declension; since the good man his father executed the necessary, and, I trust, the honest, but certainly not very distinguished, employment, of tailor in ordinary to the village of Langdirdum in the west. Under his humble roof was Richard born, and to his father's humble trade was Richard, greatly contrary to his inclination, early indentured. Old Mr. Tinto had, however, no reason to congratulate himself upon having compelled the youthful genius of his son to forsake its natural bent. He fared like the schoolboy, who attempts to stop with his finger the spout of a water cistern, while the stream, exasperated at this compression, escapes by a thousand uncalculated spirts, and wets him all over for his pains. Even so fared the senior Tinto, when his hopeful apprentice not only exhausted all the chalk in making sketches upon the shopboard, but even executed several caricatures of his father's best customers, who began loudly to murmur that it was too hard to have their persons deformed by the vestments of the father, and to be at the same time turned into ridicule by the pencil of the son. This led to discredit and loss of practice, until the old tailor, yielding to destiny, and to the entreaties of his son, permitted him to attempt his fortune in a line for which he was better qualified. "There was about this time, in the village of Langdirdum, a peripatetic brother of the brush, who exercised his vocation sub Jove frigido, the object of admiration to all the boys of the village, but especially to Dick Tinto. The age had not yet adopted, amongst other unworthy retrenchments, the illiberal measure of economy, which, supplying by written characters the lack of symbolical representation, closes one open and easily accessible avenue of instruction and emolument against the students of the fine arts. It was not yet permitted to write upon the plastered doorway of an alehouse, or the unsuspended sign of an inn, The Old Magpye,' or the Saracen's Head,' substituting that cold description for the lively effigies of the plumed chatterer, or the turbaned frown of the terriffic Soldan. That early and more simple age considered alike the necessities of all ranks, and depicted the symbols of good cheer so as to be obvious to all capacities; well judging, that a man who could not read a syllable, might nevertheless love a pot of good ale as well as his bettereducated neighbours, or even as the parson himself. Acting upon this liberal principle, publicans as yet hung forth the painted emblems of their calling; and sign-painters, if they seldom feasted, did not, at least, absolutely starve. "To a worthy of this decayed profession, as we have already intimated, Dick Tinto became an assistant; and thus, as is not unusual among heaven-born geniusses in this department of the fine arts, began to paint before he had any notion of drawing. "His natural talent for observing nature, || soon induced him to rectify the errors, and soar above the instructions of his teacher. He particularly shone in painting horses, that being a favourite sign in the Scottish villages; and in tracing his progress, it is beautiful to observe how, by degrees, he learned to shorten the backs, and prolong the legs of these noble animals, until they came to look less like crocodiles, and more like nags. Detraction, which always pursues merit with strides proportioned to its advancement, has indeed alleged, that Dick once upon a time painted a horse with five legs, instead of four. I might have rested his defence upon the license allowed to that branch of the profession, which, as it permits all sorts of singular and irregular combinations, may be allowed to extend itself so far as to bestow a limb supernumerary on a favourite subject. But the cause of a deceased friend is sacred; and I disdain to bottom it so superficially. I have visited the sign in question, which yet swings exalted in the village of Langdirdum, and I am ready to depose upon oath that what has been idly mistaken or misrepresented as being the fifth leg of the horse, is, in fact, the tail of that quadru ped; and, considered with reference to the posture in which he is represented, forms a circumstance introduced and managed with great and successful, though daring, art. The nag being represented in a rampant, or rearing posture, the tail, which is prolonged till it touches the ground, appears to form a point d'appui, aud gives the firmness of a tripod to the figure, without which it would be difficult to conceive, placed as the feet are, how the courser could maintain his ground without tumbling backwards. down the brush, took up the crayons, and, amid hunger and toil, suspense and uncertainty, pursued the path of his profession under better auspices than those of his original master. Still the first rude emanations of his genius (like the nursery rhymes of Pope, could these be recovered) will be dear to the companions of Dick Tinto's youth. There is a tankard and gridiron painted over the door of an obscure changehouse in the Back-wynd of Ganderscleugh: but I feel I must tear myself from the subject, or dwell on it too long. “It would be foreign to my present purpose to trace the steps by which Dick Tinto improved his touch, and corrected,|| by the rules of art, the luxuriance of a fervid imagination. The scales fell from his eyes on viewing the sketches of a cotemporary, the Scottish Teniers, as Wilkie has been deservedly styled. He threw "Amid his wants and struggles, Dick Tinto had recourse, like his brethren, to levying that tax upon the vanity of mankind which he could not extract from their taste and liberality—in a word, he painted portraits. It was in this more advanced stage of proficiency, when Dick had soared above his original line of business, and highly disdained any allusion to it, that, after having been estranged for several years, we again met in the village of Ganderscleugh, I holding my present situation, and Dick painting copies of the human face divine at a guinea per head. This was a small premium, yet, in the first burst of business, it more than sufficed for all Dick's moderate wants; so that he occupied an apartment at the Wallace Inn, cracked his jest, with impunity, even upon mine host himself, and lived in respect and observance with the chambermaid, hostler, and waiter. "Those halcyon days were too serene to last long. When his honour the Laird of Ganderscleugh, with his wife and three daughters, the minister, the guager, mine esteemed patron Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham, and some round dozen of the feuars and farmers, had been consigned to immortality by Tinto's brush, custom began to slacken, and it was impossible to wring more than crowns and half-crowns from the hard hands of the peasants, whose ambi tion led them to Dick's painting-room. "Still, though the horizon was overclouded, no storm for some time ensued. Mine host had christian faith with a lodger who had been a good paymaster as long as he had the means: and from a portrait of our landlord himself, grouped with his wife and daughters, in the style of Reubens, which suddenly appeared in the best parlour, it was evident that Dick had found some mode of bartering art for the necessaries of life. "Nothing, however, is more precarious than resources of this nature. It was observed, that Dick became, in his turn, the whetstone of mine host's wit, without venturing either at defence or retaliation; that his easel was transferred to a garret room, in which there was scarce space for it to stand upright; and that he no longer ventured to join the weekly club, of which he had been once the life and soul. In short, Dick Tinto's friends feared that he had acted like the animal called the sloth, which, having eaten up the last green leaf upon the tree where it has established itself, ends by tumbling down from the top, and dying of inanition. I ventured to hint this to Dick, recommended his transferring the exercise of his inestimable talent to some other sphere, aud forsaking the common which he might be said to have eaten bare. "There is an obstacle to my change of residence,' said my friend, grasping my hand with a look of solemnity. "A bill due to my landlord, I am afraid,' replied I. If any part of my slender means can assist in this emergency' "No, by the soul of Sir Joshua,' answered the generous youth, I will never involve a friend in the consequences of my own misfortune. There is a mode by which 1 can regain my liberty; and to creep even through a common-sewer is better thau to remain in a prison.' "I did not perfectly understand what my friend meant. The muse of painting appeared to have failed him, and what other goddess he could invoke in his distress, was a mystery to me. We parted, however, without further explanation, and I did not again see him until three days after, when he summoned me to partake of the foy with which his landlord had proposed to regale him ere his departure for Edinburgh. "I found Dick in high spirits, whistling while he buckled the small knapsack, which contained his colours, brushes, pallets, and clean shirt. That he parted on the best terms with mine host, was obvious from the cold beef set forth in the low parlour, flanked by two mugs of admirable brown stout; and I own my curiosity was excited concerning the means through which the face of my friend's affairs had been so suddenly improved. "He perceived my curiosity, and took me by the hand. My friend,' he said, 'fain would I conceal, even from you, the degradation to which it has been necessary to submit, in order to accomplish an honourable retreat from Ganderscleugh. But what avails attempting to conceal that, which must needs betray itself even by its superior excellence? All the village-all the parish-all the world, will soon discover to what poverty has reduced Richard Tinto.' “A sudden thought here struck me—I had observed that our landlord wore, on that memorable morning, a pair of bran new velveteens, instead of his ancient thicksets. "What!' said I, drawing my right hand, with the forefinger and thumb pressed together, nimbly from my right haunch to my left shoulder, "you have condescended to resume the paternal arts to which you were first bred, long stitches, ha, Dick?' "He repelled this unlucky conjecture with a frown and a pshaw, indicative of indignant contempt; and leading me into another room, shewed me, resting against the wall, the majestic head of Sir William Wallace, grim as when severed from the trunk by the orders of the felon Edward. "The painting was executed on boards of a substantial thickness, and the top decorated with irons, for suspending the honoured effigy upon a sign-post. “There,' he said, my friend, stands the honour of Scotland, and my shame: yet not so rather the shame of those who, instead of encouraging art in its proper sphere, reduce it to these unbecoming and unworthy extremities.' "I endeavoured to smooth the ruffled feelings of my misused and indignant friend. I reminded him, that he ought not, like the stag in the fable, to despise the quality which had extricated him from difficulties, in which his talents as a portrait or landscape painter, had been found unavailing. Above all, I praised the execution, as well He as conception of his painting, and reminded men dispensed their criticism more willingly him, that far from feeling dishonoured by than their cash, and Dick thought he so superb a specimen of his talents being needed cash more than criticism. exposed to the general view of the public, therefore sought London, the universal be ought rather to congratulate himself mart of talent, and where, as is usual in upon the augmentation of his celebrity, to general marts of most descriptions, much which its public exhibition must neces more of the commodity is exposed to sale sarily give rise.' than can ever find purchasers. "You are right, my friend, you are right,' replied poor Dick, his eye kindling with enthusiasm; 'why should I shun the name of an-an (he hesitated for a phrase) an out-of-doors artist? Hogarth has introduced himself in that character in one of his best engravings; Domenichino, or somebody else, in ancient times; Moreland in our own, have exercised their talents in this manner. And wherefore limit to the rich and higher classes alone the delight which the exhibition of works of art is calculated to inspire into all classes? Statues are placed in the open air, why should Painting be more niggardly in displaying her masterpieces than her sister Sculpture ? And yet, my friend, we must part suddenly; the men are coming in an hour to put up the-the emblem: and truly, with all my philosophy, and your consolatory encouragement to boot, I would rather wish to leave Ganderscleugh before that operation commences.' "We partook of our genial host's parting banquet, and I escorted Dick on his walk to Edinburgh. We parted about a mile from the village, just as we heard the distant cheer of the boys which accompanied the mounting of the Wallace Head. Dick Tinto mended his pace to get out of hearing-so little had either early practice or recent philosophy reconciled him to the character of a sign-painter. "In Edinburgh Dick's talents were discovered and appreciated, and he received dinners and hints from several distinguished judges of the fine arts. But these gentle "Dick, who in serious earnest was supposed to have considerable natural talents || for his profession, and whose vain and sanguine disposition never permitted him to doubt for a moment of ultimate success, threw himself headlong into the crowd which jostled and struggled for notice and preferment. He elbowed others, and was elbowed himself; and finally, by dint of intrepidity, fought his way into some notice, painted for the prize at the Institution, had pictures at the exhibition at SomersetHouse, and d-d the hanging committee. But poor Dick was doomed to lose the field he fought so gallantly. In the fine arts there is scarce an alternative betwixt distinguished success and absolute failure; and as Dick's zeal and industry were unable to ensure the first, he fell into the distresses which in his condition were the || natural consequences of the latter alternative. He was for a time patronized by one or two of those judicious persons who make a virtue of being singular, and of pitching their own opinions against those of the world in matters of taste and criticism. But they soon tired of poor Tinto, and laid him down as a load, upon the principle on which a spoilt child throws away its playthings. Misery, I fear, took him up, and accompanied him to a premature grave, to which he was carried from an obscure lodging in Swallow-street, where he had been dunned by his landlady within doors, and watched by bailiffs without, until death came to his relief."—Extract from the Third Series of "Tales of my Landlord." THE WOES OF GLENCO, In April, 1691, a young English gentleman, whom we shall call William Orange Maninghame, went with his regiment to Fort William, in North Britain. Maninghame was descended from a family more ancient than wealthy. He was the fifth son; two of his elder brothers survived, but they were serving in the foreign settlements which Charles II. obtained as a dowry with the Princess of Portugal. A and St. Germains. This information was given to the sentry at the sally-port by a man on horseback, who rode off when he had delivered the letter. The sentry could not quit his post until the relief turned out; it was then late, and the Governor was aware that, except Maninghame and the officer on guard, he had no leader quite in the possession of his senses to head the enterprze. He sent for Mauinghame. It was not his tour of duty, but he readily undertook the service. A large boat was soon procured: the current and vigorous rowers brought the party to the wooded cove described by the liberal education, and a pair of colours, was all Colonel Maninghame could give to William Orange; and he bequeathed his blessing, with the care of two sisters, whose orphan youth found in William parental tenderness and attention. He knew his father's claims on the Prince of Orange, now on the throne of Great Britain as William III. and, for the sake of his sisters, overcame his natural diffidence so far as to present a memorial on the subject, through the hands of a nobleman distantly related to his mother; but Lord R- had favours to ask for himself, and postponed the memorial to a more convenient season. Our hero was the only officer in his regi-informer, and they landed just as a soft ment that had no income beside his pay; yet in externals his genteel economy and abstemious habits enabled him to maintain a dignified equality, and in mental and moral superiority they felt him supreme, without being jealous of his eminence. Far from arrogating to himself any merit, he modestly avowed that his self-denials were enforced by necessity. All the time they could abstract from military duties was in the forenoon given to billiards, cards, and dice, and in the evening consumed over the bottle. William, with a book in his pocket, his fishing rod, or gun, in his hand, rambled in the fields till some spot of peculiar beauty invited him to sit down to his studies, which the fishing or hunting apparatus were intended to screen from the imputation of ostentatious pedantry. If the weather confined him within doors, the pencil, the flute, the pen, or reading, filled up every vacuity of the day. The climate around Fort William is remarkable for humidity. A rainy week kept the gentlemen within their barracks. Near its conclusion an anonymous letter to the Governor recommended dispatching a boat the same night to the south-west, twelve miles from the garrison, where ten or twelve men, led by a resolute officer, could detect a treasonable correspondence. About a mile from the shore they should see a low built thatched house, distinguished from the dwellings of plebeian tenantry only by a garden laid out in a tasteful style; but on entering the cottage it would appear the finishing and furniture might beseem the castle of a chieftain. Those ornaments were purchased with the bribes of Versailles" tinge of light dawned far in the east.— Having reached the cottage, Maninghame posted his men, with fixed bayonets, at every outlet from the garden, and undertook to approach alone the sleeping proprietor. The Governor warned him that he had been more than once misled by anonymous intelligence given from private malevolence, and as Maninghame found the front door unlocked he began to feel a conviction that he was going to disturb a blameless family. Advancing to the lobby he gently opened the door on his right hand, and with noiseless step came before a bed, where lay in calm repose a young girl, in whose countenance angelic beauty and serene purity seemed to vouch that no traitor could be an inmate of her abode. Her arm was uncovered; its fine form, and the transparency of her polished hand and fingers, with the texture of her night dress, assured him she was of no mean degree. He retreated, and on the opposite side found a parlour, where a Scottish harp, a virginal, a violin, a half-finished drawing, an elegant piece of feminine work, books in the English, French, and Italian languages, and all the furniture declared refined affluence. As Maninghame glanced on those evidences he ques tioned with himself how he should proceed. The duty intrusted to him must be fulfilled, but it ought to be regulated with the utmost delicacy. He ascended a low stair, and saw wide open the door of a spacious garret, handsomely finished and furnished. An old gentleman, supported in his bed by pillows, looked at him with composure, and said-" I presume, Sir, |