THE COLLINS PORTRAIT-G A T F.RY
AMONGST other arts, that of living upon your wits, and upon others' want of wit, has been brought to its greatest perfection in our day. We read of illustrious bandits and sharpers in olden time ; and their feats were more picturesque—in some walks, as in that of Barrington, the workmanlike finish defied surpassing. But in the most productive branches competition has had its usual effect. Formerly the art rested on the audacity of the Robin. Hood or Dick 'Turpin ; the sleight of hand and polished manner of Barrington or Hardy Vaux formed a great advance ; but the modern principle rests on a profounder science—it is to make your victim, like the Commons of England in Parliament assembled, pick his own pocket.
Moral means are chiefly requisite to that end, and the artist relies mainly on the quality which phrenologists call " love of approbation," and vulgarer, folks " vanity." One method is to get up an association for noble objects, and with lists of its promoters ostentatiously blazoned as patrons, directors, and ruling geniuses ; the humbler officials being content with the work and the pay. An inventive man may derive more than one income as " secretary " for any mission.
Another plan is very similar: it is to get up an association avowedly to dispense cash—a benevolent or charitable institution ; and by clever management, as we saw a few years back in the case of a lying-in association, the secretary may contrive to continue all the revenue-machinery of the institute, but to dispense with those expensive burdens its " objects" ; himself receiving the monies, for example, quite as effectually as the lying-in women could receive it. The " lying-in," therefore becomes a surplusage ; and the society goes on quite as flourishingly for him, and as cheeringly to the vanities of the donors and subscribers, by simply omitting in its practical effect the word " A third plan is exemplified by a venerable gentleman, whose method was explained before Mr. Arnold this week at theiVest- minster Police Court. This artist struck out plans for yriblishing portraits in series, of "Eminent Military Men," "Eminent Con- servatives," "Eminent Liberals." Many a man feels that he is eminent, without being sure that his eminence is recognized ; and how great a relief to the mind to have it publicly recorded ! Major- General —, who regrets that Waterloo happened too soon, who hates the Peace Association, and feels that he is perhaps unappre- ciated as a commander, is invited to place his portrait amongst "Eminent Military Men." What a chance for him ! Of course he accedes, and lends his portrait. Many a Liberal or Conservative feels that he owes it to his country not to refuse an invitation to stand by his principles, and so he accepts fame on the demand of Mr. Thomas Collins. To publish portraits of "The Female Aristocracy of the Reign of Queen Victoria,"--beginning, of course, with Lady Herne Bay,—was a stroke of genius. ._What if there is some delay ? Mr. Collins has difficulties ; but a man of such great ideas must over- come adversity. And if at last these portraits of the " Eminent ". are discovered, in illustrious assemblage, at the pawnbroker's, what can be done better than to hush it up? The man who caught at the recognition of being eminent, will be slow to proclaim him- self a gull and a snob in a public .police court; so that the de- vice offered at once a motive to gain by and a motive to impede detection. But in the best of schemes accidents may happen : a Collins may alight on a man too really eminent to care much about the ridicule, too really virtuous to wink at fraud ; and thus it was that at last Collins found his Desart. But it was a great scheme, worthy of a Boccaccio to record. The life and adventures of Col- lins should be published, .with a complete set of the portrait-gallery which he had collected. at the residence Of his eminent relative,
" his uncle." • -
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