but resolutely pulled away the donkey to a gateway leading into a garden, at the end of which was a half-ruined old house. Our artist followed him in, when, raising his eyes toward the house, he saw leaning from one of the windows, her figure marked boldly against the dark gray of the house, a strikingly beautiful woman. There was an air of neatness in her dress, a certain care of her hair, that was an improvement over any of the other female Segnians he had yet seen.
'Can you tell me,' said Caper, pointing to the donkey, 'who owns that animal?'
'Padrone mio, I own him,' said the woman.
'I want to paint him.'
'Do you?' replied the beauty, whose name Caper learned was Margarita; and she asked this with a very astonished look.
'I do, indeed I do. It will not hurt him.'
'No, I don't believe it will. He is very ugly and sun-burnt. I think it will improve him,' said Margarita confidently.
Caper didn't see how the mere taking his portrait would improve the animal; but thinking it might be meant for a compliment, he assented, adding that he would pay a fair price for himself and his friend to be allowed to have the donkey, all saddled, for two or three hours every day when he was not used.
That very day, about four o'clock in the afternoon, Caper and Dexter, having prepared their sketching-paper, with colors on pallet, mall-sticks in hand, and seated on camp-stools in the shade of a wall, were busy sketching in Margarita's garden, the donkey held by the little lame boy, and fed from time to time with corn-meal in order to keep him steady. Margarita was seated, with a little child in her arms, on a flight of old wooden steps leading to the second story of her house; and with her bright crimson boddice, and white falling linen sleeves, and shirt gathered in folds over her bosom, while her dark blue skirts, and dark apron with brilliant gold and red stripes, were draped around her as she sat on the stairs, looked exactly like one of Raphael's Madonne alla Fornarina. Her large eyes followed seriously every movement of the painters. Caper, learning that she was a widow, did not know but what her affections were straying his way.
'I say, Dexter, don't you think, now, she's regarding us pretty closely?'
'I am sure it's the donkey is next her heart, and it is more than probable she's there on watch to keep us from stealing it. D'ye notice the manner she's eyeing the paints? Every time my brush goes near the vermilion, and I move my stool, her eyes brighten. I wonder what's up around the gate there? Hanged if half the old women and children around town an't assembled there! Look.'
Caper looked, and, sure enough, there was a crowd of heads; and not content with standing at the gateway, they began soon to enter the garden, crowding around our two artists, getting in front of the donkey, and being generally in the way.
Once or twice Dexter drove them off with words, until at last, an unlucky urchin striking his elbow and making him mar his sketch, he laid down his sketching-box, and, clubbing his campstool, made a rush at the crowd. They fled before him, in their hurry tumbling one over the other, and then, scrambling to their feet, were soon out of sight. Returning to his sketch, he was no sooner busily at work than they were all back again, but now keeping at respectful distance.
After about two hours' work, Caper proposed knocking off sketching, and continuing it next day; to which Dexter assenting, they put up their sketches. Caper agreeing to pay Margarita for the afternoon's study, he went up to her, and handing over the amount agreed upon, she seemed by no means satisfied.
'Won't that pay you?' asked he.
'Certainly, but—'
'But what?'
'When are you going to paint the donkey? Here I've told all my friends that you were to paint the little old fellow all over, perhaps a nice red color, or bright yellow; and here we've all been waiting hours to see you begin, and you haven't put the first brush to him yet!'
This was too much for the gravity of Caper, who fairly roared with laughter, and Dexter, who had listened to the talk, joining in as chorus, made the garden ring.
'They are crazy,' said one old woman, who was holding a distaff in one hand, while she was making woolen thread with the other.
'Seguro,' said another, who had once been to Rome, and therefore was great authority, 'they are Englis', and all the Englis' is crazy. Didn't I once live with an Englis' family? and they were that mad that they washed themselves every day! And they had white sticks with hair on the end of them, what they scrubbed their mouth and teeth with two and three times a day!'
'Now, Maricuccia, that is too much; what could they do that for?'
'Ma, che! I tell you it was so; and their maid told me it was to kill the little devils that are always jumping in and out of the throats of all heretics.'
'Santa Maria!'
The next day, after they had finished their sketch of the donkey, Caper proposed that they should oblige Margarita by giving the donkey a little of that painting the owner seemed so anxious to have bestowed on him. Dexter accordingly drew bright yellow circles of cadmium and yellow ochre round his eyes, giving him a peculiarly owly look; painted white rings round his tail, black streaks round his body, and touched the ends of his ears with vermilion. A more striking-looking object you never saw; and when Margarita proudly led him forth and showed him to the surrounding multitude, there were storms of applause for the Inglese who painted donkeys!
SIR JOHN SUCKLING
Prominent among the gay cavaliers at the court of Charles I. of England, was Sir John Suckling, a dashing, reckless, improvident fellow, who acted the gallant to the ladies, played skillfully at bowls and deeply at cards, was always ready at a frolic and merry-making, and died when scarcely more than thirty years of age; the author of three or four dramas of no more than ordinary merit, and of a few snatches of poetry, chiefly love-songs, betraying talent sufficient to have rendered his name of no inconsiderable interest down to the present day. It is an interest, however, growing not out of a familiarity with the circumstances of his life and character, but from a curiosity to know a little more concerning one of whom, as yet, we know almost nothing at all, albeit his name is of the most familiar.
Materials for his biography are scanty enough, made up for the most part of gossip from such antiquarians as Aubrey, who imitates Herodotus, in a fondness for the marvelous and romantic, to a degree that weakens our faith in him as a trustworthy historian. Not until the middle of the present century were we in possession of a memoir claiming to be in any respect complete. In 1838, there appeared in London an edition of his writings, with a prefatory sketch of his life, by the Rev. Alfred Suckling, LL.B. The editor had access to a few private MSS., which, in our judgment, have not served to modify the previous accounts of Sir John's character, in spite of the labored efforts of his namesake—and, it may be, descendant—to that effect. The memoir and critical remarks appended are well written, though partial; and the work is the more valuable for the reason that only a few hundred copies of it were printed.
All accounts agree in ascribing to Suckling, as an individual and as to his personnel, the same careless and unstudied manner so conspicuous in his literary efforts. He must have expended at least a moderate degree of labor on his dramas; all dramas require it. On the other hand, there is hardly a doubt that he threw off his poems in the mere fancy of an idle moment, with no care for their subsequent revision; indeed, a collected publication was not made until the lapse of four or five years after his death. A certain vivacity and sprightliness is the secret of their popularity, which, from their first appearance to the present day, has never been totally lost, though at no period could they be said to have commanded an extensive range of readers. Previous to the
