The things we do!

Of course our young man commenced as a historical painter, deeming that
the highest branch of art; and declining (except for preparatory studies)
to operate on any but the largest canvasses. He painted a prodigious
battle-piece of Assaye, with General Wellesley at the head of the 19th
Dragoons charging the Mahratta Artillery, and sabring them at their guns.
A piece of ordnance was dragged into the back-yard, and the Colonel's
stud put into requisition to supply studies for this enormous picture.
Fred Bayham (a stunning likeness) appeared as the principal figure in the
foreground, terrifically wounded, but still of undaunted courage,
slashing about amidst a group of writhing Malays, and bestriding the body
of a dead cab-horse, which Clive painted, until the landlady and rest of
the lodgers cried out, and for sanitary reasons the knackers removed the
slaughtered charger. So large was this picture that it could only be got
out of the great window by means of artifice and coaxing; and its
transport caused a shout of triumph among the little boys in Charlotte
Street.


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