And
this puts me in mind of another of her wicked sayings about Dr Skinner.
She told me one day that he had the harmlessness of the serpent and the
wisdom of the dove.
But to return to Dr Skinner's library; over the chimney-piece there was a
Bishop's half length portrait of Dr Skinner himself, painted by the elder
Pickersgill, whose merit Dr Skinner had been among the first to discern
and foster. There were no other pictures in the library, but in the
dining-room there was a fine collection, which the doctor had got
together with his usual consummate taste. He added to it largely in
later life, and when it came to the hammer at Christie's, as it did not
long since, it was found to comprise many of the latest and most matured
works of Solomon Hart, O'Neil, Charles Landseer, and more of our recent
Academicians than I can at the moment remember. There were thus brought
together and exhibited at one view many works which had attracted
attention at the Academy Exhibitions, and as to whose ultimate destiny
there had been some curiosity. The prices realised were disappointing to
the executors, but, then, these things are so much a matter of chance.
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