STUART IN IRELAND.

“The Duke of Rutland,” says Dunlap, who had the story from the artist himself, “invited Stuart to his house in Dublin. Stuart got money enough together somehow to pay his passage to Ireland; but when he got there, he found that the duke had died the day before. If anybody else had gone there, the duke would have been just as sure to live, for something extraordinary must happen to Stuart, of course. He soon got into the debtors’ prison again; but he was a star still. He would not let people give him money. Rich people and nobles would be painted by him, and they had to go to jail to find the painter. There he held his court; flashing equipages of lords and ladies came dashing up to prison, while their exquisite proprietors waited for their first sitting. He began the pictures of a great many nobles and men of wealth and fashion, received half price at the first sitting, and left their Irish lordships imprisoned in effigy. Having thus liberated himself, and there being no law that would justify the jailor in holding half-finished peers in prison, the painter fulfilled his engagements, more at his ease, in his own house, and in the bosom of his own family; and it is probable the Irish gentlemen laughed heartily at the trick, and willingly paid the remainder of the price.”