Note 376 — The Drawing Room. (continued 3)

Lysander is well warranted in borrowing the pencil of Jan Steen, in the above bold and striking portrait of Wanley: who was, I believe, as honest a man, and as learned a librarian, as ever sat down to morning chocolate in velvet slippers. There is a portrait of him in oil in the British Museum, and another similar one in the Bodleian Library—from which latter it is evident, on the slightest observation, that the inestimable, I ought to say immortal, founder of the Cow Pox system (my ever respected and sincere friend, Dr. Jenner) had not then made known the blessings resulting from the vaccine operation: for poor Wanley's face is absolutely peppered with variolous indentations! Yet he seems to have been a hale and hearty man, in spite of the merciless inroads made upon his visage; for his cheeks are full, his hair is cropt and curly, and his shoulders have a breadth which shew that the unrolling of the Harleian MSS. did not produce any enervating effluvia or mismata. Our poet, Gay, in his epistle to Pope, ep. 18, thus hits off his countenance: