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My friends have often heard me in my "garrulous old age" discourse of
things past and gone, and know what they bring down on their heads when
they request me "to run over," as they call it, the faces looking out
upon us from these plain unvarnished frames.
Let us begin, then, with the little man of Twickenham, for that is his
portrait which hangs over the front fireplace. An original portrait of
Alexander Pope I certainly never expected to possess, and I must relate
how I came by it. Only a year ago I was strolling in my vagabond way up
and down the London streets, and dropped in to see an old
picture-shop,--kept by a man so thoroughly instructed in his calling
that it is always a pleasure to talk with him and examine his collection
of valuables, albeit his treasures are of such preciousness as to make
the humble purse of a commoner seem to shrink into a still smaller
compass from sheer inability to respond when prices are named. At No. 6
Pall Mall one is apt to find Mr. Graves "clipp'd round about" by
first-rate canvas. When I dropped in upon him that summer morning he had
just returned from the sale of the Marquis of Hastings's effects. The
Marquis, it will be remembered, went wrong, and his debts swallowed up
everything. It was a wretched stormy day when the pictures were sold,
and Mr.
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