[ UNIVERSITY OF 
 \CAUf<3BNIA 
 
 
A HANDBOOK 
 
 TO THE 
 
 MUSEUM OF ORNAMENTAL ART 
 
 %xi' 
 
 By J. B. WARING, ESQ. 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED 
 
 THE ARMOURY, 
 
 BY J. E. PLANCHE, ESQ. 
 
 BEING A REPRINT OF CRITICAL NOTICES ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 
 IN "THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN." 
 
 LONDON: 
 BBADBUKY AND EVANS, 11, BOTTYEKIE STJBEET. 
 
 1857. 
 

 (TCP) 
 
 ' JLf h 
 
 BRADBURY AND EVANS, 
 
 PRINTERS TO THE MANCHESTER ART TREASURES EXHIBITION, 
 WHITWRIARS, LONDON. 
 
A HANDBOOK 
 
 > / 
 
 TO THE 
 
 MUSEUM OF ORNAMENTAL AET, AND 
 THE AEMOUEIES 
 
 IN THE 
 
 ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 THE MUSEUM OF ORNAMENTAL ART. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE GLASS AND ENAMELS. 
 
 IN contradistinction to the fine arts, those termed "orna- 
 mental " are frequently spoken of in a vague manner, as of very 
 secondary consideration, and altogether inferior to the former. 
 "We have no desire to lower the regard in which painting and 
 sculpture are held, although we may think that their practitioners 
 somewhat unreasonably lay claim to being workers in the fine 
 arts par excellence, and are too apt to imagine that none except 
 themselves deserve the noble distinction of artists. We, how- 
 ever, at the present day, and especially in this country, live in an 
 age in which work is honoured, and above all ingenious work ; 
 we would, therefore, remind men that if the names of individuals 
 are honoured amongst us, as artists, when they themselves have 
 long since passed away from the sphere of their labours, so is it 
 also with localities ; and so long as the world lasts we are not 
 likely to forget that one stymie of art takes its name from Eome or 
 
 456 B2 
 
4 THE AET TREASUBES EXHIBITION. 
 
 Byzantium that the beautiful earthenware of Samos was world- 
 famous that the name of Venice is inseparably connected with 
 the art of glass-making that pistols are so termed from a small 
 and now insignificant town in central Italy that the name of 
 Cordova is commemorated in that of cordwainers that Arras is 
 synonymous with noble works in the art of weaving that diaper 
 tells of Tpres, Urbino, Faenza Delft of fine works in earthen- 
 ware; and that cities like Milan, Home, Venice, Florence, Augs- 
 burg, Nuremburg, and Paris will for ever be noteworthy .in 
 history as the great workshops from whence emanated some of 
 the most beautiful productions of industrial art. The cities 
 which have signalised themselves in the past become the instruc- 
 tors of the present ; and the emulation which is thus excited, not 
 between individuals, but communities, is less selfish in its nature 
 than the rivalry of artists, and is calculated to be of the highest 
 practical service to the entire nation. Indeed we have a very 
 great objection to the expression fine, as applied to one or two 
 arts in particular. All art is fine, when well carried out, and 
 that is the most worthy of praise and deserving of consideration 
 which is not merely a piece of barren beauty, but which lends a 
 grace and charm to the common requirements of every-day 
 existence. Art is good in itself, and if we discover its presence 
 in the commonest materials, we give it all the more reverence. 
 Whatever is touched by the magic wand of art becomes beautified 
 and enriched, and the clay beneath our feet is transmuted by its 
 power into objects which nations carefully preserve amongst their 
 most valuable treasures. From considerations of this nature 
 we are inclined to regard the museum of ornamental art as that 
 portion of the present Exhibition which is calculated to produce 
 the most practically useful result, and to be of the highest im- 
 portance to the community. We propose, then, to enter some- 
 what into detail regarding the several arts illustrated in the 
 museum, and will commence with those which come first in order, 
 as arranged in the cases, the manufacture of glass, and the appli- 
 cation of enamel to ornamental purposes. 
 
 Glass is one of those substances which most strikingly attests 
 the ingenuity and art of man ; white, delicate, fragile, and pel- 
 lucid, it bears little trace of the hard and opaque elements from 
 
THE MUSEUM OF ORNAMENTAL ART. 5 
 
 which it is produced. Pliny, in his " Natural History," ascribes 
 its invention to the chance burning of " nitrum " by some Phoe- 
 nician sailors on the banks of the sandy river Bel us, at the foot 
 of Mount Carmel, in Palestine; but this is, doubtless, a most 
 apocryphal account. Glass was known and used in a great 
 variety of form amongst the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Assyrians, 
 Greeks, and Romans. Indeed all the nations, we may conclude, 
 of antiquity knew and used glass for various purposes. Amongst 
 the Komans, the manufacture was carried to great perfection, 
 some fine examples of which are still preserved, such as the cele- 
 brated Portland Vase in the British Museum, so well known by 
 means of Wedgewood's excellent copy of it ; the Alexandria^ 
 Vase, and especially the very beautiful vase found at Pompeii iti 
 1839, both now preserved in the Museo Borbonico at Naples. 
 Under the empire great improvements were made in the art ; 
 and Nero is stated by Pliny to have given 6,000 sestertia, nearly 
 50,OOOZ. sterling, for two cups alone. On the transference of the 
 seat of empire to Byzantium, the modern Constantinople, the art 
 was continued there from the fourth or fifth century to the thir- 
 teenth, after it had declined and had been finally lost at Rome 
 itself. During this period also Damascus, as the chief manufac- 
 turing city of the great Arab dynasty, and Alexandria, in Egypt, 
 another of their greatest commercial towns, were celebrated for 
 works in glass ; the former, probably, in the shape of ewers, 
 goblets, lamps, &c., the latter for coloured beads, and those 
 diamond squares, gilded, red, and blue, which formed so im- 
 portant a feature in the architectural decoration of the thirteenth 
 century in Italy. It is amongst the Greeks of Byzantium that 
 we first read of coloured glass used in windows; and Paulus 
 Silentiarius gives a detailed account of the coloured glass used 
 at Sta. Sofia in the sixth century. During the mediaeval period, 
 or from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, Venice and the 
 East were the two main sources from whence glass was supplied ; 
 although manufactories, especially for coloured glass to be used in 
 windows, existed in other Italian towns, in Flanders, and pro- 
 bably in other countries. Venice sent glass beads and imitation 
 jewels to all parts of Asia and Africa, whilst Byzantium and 
 Damascus transmitted their coloured ewers, &c., to Europe. 
 
6 TELE AET TEEASUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 Thus we read in the fourteenth century of a flat bowl, painted 
 Damascus fashion, two glass bottles, of Damascus work, &c. At 
 the close of the fifteenth century, the Venetians had learnt from 
 the Greeks all the processes in use amongst them, and, after the 
 fall of Byzantium in 1453, became the great manufacturers of 
 glass for Europe. Few, if any, examples, however, of their work 
 prior to the sixteenth century are known to exist, and the great 
 mass of specimens preserved to us are of the sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth centuries. Early in the eighteenth century, the art from 
 various causes declined, and finally gave way to the new style of 
 Bohemian ware, which was principally of a massive character, 
 cut into facets, and broadly coloured and gilt. Since that period 
 the art has once more progressed with little intermission, and at 
 the present it is not manipulative or scientific skill so much which 
 is deficient, as a good artistic feeling and sufficient boldness of 
 execution. 
 
 The earliest example in the present collection is contributed 
 by J. W. Wyld, Esq. of London, who has forwarded with great 
 liberality an enamelled Arabic pendent lamp (case A, south side, 
 central hall), probably of the fourteenth or early fifteenth century. 
 This is not only beautiful as a work of art, but very interesting, 
 as being an example of the style in which the earlier enamelled 
 Venetian tazzas, &c. of the same character were founded; of 
 these the museum contains a large number, principally in the 
 Soulages collection (case M, north side) ; others are contributed 
 by Mr. Nicholson of London, who was the first boldly to lead the 
 way in consenting to exhibit such fragile treasures; and Mr. 
 Felix Slade (case A). These tazzas, or flat dishes raised on a 
 little stand, are of white glass, having generally an ornamental, 
 coloured, or gilded border ; the peacock-feather pattern being 
 most common, and a central heraldic shield enclosed in a wreath 
 or circle. Of another class, are the coloured vessels, &c. also 
 ornamented with enamel. A very fine early example of this 
 class, rich blue with animals gardant, and foliage round the bowl, 
 is in the collection (case A, on step). 
 
 At about this period, or early in the sixteenth century, the 
 Venetians made use of that particular process which is so charac- 
 teristic of their ornamental work in glass : it was called by them 
 
THE MTJSETJM OF OBNAMENTAL AET. 7 
 
 " Vitro di Trina," or lace glass, the secret of making which was lost 
 in the eighteenth century, but has since been partially recovered 
 through the persevering and intelligent researches of M.Bontems. 
 It consisted in enclosing opaque white or coloured canes within the 
 glass, arranged in a great variety of patterns, the most remarkable, 
 perhaps, being the spiral crossed work of opaque canes in clear 
 glass, between each crossing of which an air bubble is formed in 
 the process of fusion. Many very beautiful examples of this 
 description are exhibited in case A. Of Schmelz glass, a dark 
 brown mottled species, which, when held to the light, has a deep 
 rich, ruby tint, several very fine specimens are contributed, and 
 may be found in the same case. The Schmelz aventurine is the 
 same description of glass, spotted over with globules and patches 
 of gold ; besides which we find frosted glass and chemical vessels of 
 great variety and fancy in form. Of these last, some exceedingly 
 curious pieces are to be remarked in the contributions of Earl 
 Cadogan, the Duke of Buccleuch (case A), and in the Soulages 
 collection (case M). Nothing can be imagined more delicately 
 beautiful than the colour of the opal glasses, tazzas, &c., of which 
 there are many, and the varied iridescent tints they assume 
 according as the light falls upon them. Beside these are 
 numerous toys, millefiore balls, glasses with flowers or a little 
 boy astride a cask inside, beaux and belles of the eighteenth 
 century, where we may see a belaced and frilled exquisite, with 
 the tiniest of little cocked hats, his hands enveloped in a muff, 
 and quite raised off his feet with simpering vanity. He is 
 attended by a partner, equally jaunty, who has applied la mecha~ 
 nigue as liberally as any fine lady of this age of good taste itself 
 (case A). But the application of this coloured enamelled glass 
 was carried, at the close of the seventeenth century and beginning 
 of the eighteenth, much further. Thus in the present collection 
 we have a complete cabinet of rich architectural design, with 
 balustraded parapet and richly decorated frieze, such as might 
 have served as a model to any " deviser of buildings and pageants" 
 (second group of furniture south), and a shrine of coloured glass, 
 jewelled and festooned, in which is set a pretty terra-cotta 
 statuette, Notre Dame de Montaygu, with the infant Christ in 
 her arms. Other curious specimens of etching on glass, by means 
 
8 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 of a powerful acid, a German invention, are seen in case A ; but 
 to appreciate the beautiful effect of this process the specimens of 
 it require to be held up to the light in a certain position before 
 it can be seen. The deep drinking German shows his artistic 
 appreciation of Bacchic pleasures by numerous large cylindrical 
 " Wiederkoms," or Come agains, of that size, however, that to us 
 degenerate votaries of the god of this day it seems impossible, 
 that, after having finished the contents of one such, we should be 
 in a state to come again at all. These Teuton drinking cups are 
 of no beauty as regards form in this respect offering a marked 
 contrast to the graceful contours of the Venetian glasses, but are 
 covered with heraldic bearings, redolent of aristocratic pride, 
 exhibiting the quarterings of innumerable " Vons," barry bendies, 
 vairs, countervaires, columbines, hydras, and split eagles, in such 
 abnormal and eccentric variety as would drive an English herald 
 quite out of his wits. Others, instead of these genealogical and 
 heraldic ornaments, show a happy couple stepping gracefully 
 forward, as only the fine ladies and gentlemen of the eighteenth 
 century could, holding each other by the hand, surrounded by a 
 shower of letters, usually in this case white, informing the world 
 that they were happily united on such and such a day in the year 
 of grace, and defy fate ever to render them less loving than in 
 their courting days. Some again of these glasses are intended 
 to promote joviality ; and a very bloated Bacchus, in a red skin, 
 with a vine wreath round his head, bestrides an enormous cask, 
 and offers a goblet of its contents, with each hand, to broad- 
 tailed, long-wigged, berufned gentlemen by his side. Others 
 again are commemorative of great political facts, and much 
 interesting information as to the sentiments of the day may be 
 gleaned by whoever can decipher the somewhat puzzling and 
 closely-written lines which record them. Very valuable examples 
 of these classes are in case A. The writing on all the examples 
 in the present collection sufficiently attests the whereabouts of 
 their manufacture ; they are German or Dutch. One very 
 curiously engraved bottle is sent from the Philosophical Museum, 
 York (case A) ; it is a clear glass bottle, with wreaths of flowers 
 engraved on it, within which are the words in German text, 
 " Concerning constancy, it is a hidden treasure." This, probably, 
 
THE MUSEUM OF ORNAMENTAL ABT. 
 
 was expressly engraved for some adherent of the house of Stuart, 
 in the early part of the eighteenth century. 
 
 Of modern glass, there are also several interesting examples in 
 this case. Some very fine pieces of boldly cut, richly- coloured 
 Bohemian ware ; an ewer and glasses, executed after designs by 
 G. Nicholson, Esq., are very good as regards form and fineness of 
 engraving, for which also some specimens contributed by Apsley 
 Pellatt & Co., are very praiseworthy. All this modern glass, 
 however, is remarkable for its crystal-like clearness, which appears 
 to us to be no advantage, and we deem the very slightly tinged 
 material fabricated at Venice, usually of a delicate green, pre- 
 ferable to the colourless translucency of modern work. Some 
 specimens executed by Messrs. Binns of "Worcester, con- 
 tributed by Mr. Apsley Pellatt, show the application of enamel 
 painting to glass, much on the same principle and in the same 
 style as the Limoges enamels, en grisaille, of the sixteenth 
 century. 
 
 From the glass, we now proceed to the enamel case (B), in 
 which this material, very similar in its component parts to glass, 
 coloured by means of various metallic oxides, is applied either as 
 an ornamental accessory to works in metal, or as a means of 
 painting, and perfect in itself. The art of enamelling has been 
 known in the East from the most remote antiquity. In the 
 Museum Die Vereinigten Sammlungen at Munich is preserved a 
 very beautiful enamelled Egyptian bracelet. Many Greek and 
 Roman examples are to be found scattered in the various national 
 museums, and in the east it is this art has been in use from time 
 immemorial. Among the Byzantines it was practised to a very 
 great extent and with much mechanical skill. Several beautiful 
 specimens are still preserved throughout Europe, and more 
 especially in Italy. Of these the most remarkable is the cele- 
 brated Pala d'Oro, or Golden Frontal of the Altar of St. Mark, at 
 Venice, which, though very much in the state of Sir John Suck- 
 ling's silk stockings, still closely retains its original appearance. 
 The characteristic of this style of enamel work is its being 
 embedded in metal, generally gold, with thin partitions of the 
 same metal to divide the several colours. The drawing is usually 
 of the lowest description and monotonous. The execution, how- 
 
10 THE AET TEEASUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 ever, is of the very delicate nature generally found in Oriental 
 work. Enamels of this class are rare in England. Of the two 
 most celebrated, one a pectoral cross, the property of Mr. Beres- 
 ford Hope, from the Debruges Dumesnil collection, is in the 
 museum (case B, south side). The other, Alfred's jewel, in the 
 Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, was also promised, but the authorities 
 could not decide on parting with it when the hour of packing 
 arrived, on account of its great historical value. Some of the 
 Celtic and Anglo-Saxon enamels in the present collection are of 
 the greatest beauty and interest, as seen in the Fausset collection, 
 contributed by J. Mayer, Esq. of Liverpool (wall case U, north 
 side). At the beginning of the 12th century, the enamel work of 
 Limoges in the south of France, which had been made in that 
 neighbourhood more, probably, than a hundred years previously, 
 came greatly in vogue, and to such an extent was it used to 
 decorate ecclesiastical works in metal (chiefly copper gilt), that it 
 must have been carried out on a large scale, and no doubt at 
 several workshops. France is especially rich in examples of this 
 class, but they have been met with also frequently in Germany, 
 Italy, England, and other countries. The process is, in point of 
 fact, similar to the Byzantine ; the enamelling substance is still 
 embedded in the metal, and the colours are divided by partitions, 
 but instead of being let in and attached by hand to the sides, they 
 are portions of the metal itself remaining from the ground which 
 is cut out. Of this class, which for some time was called Byzantine 
 work, aud ascribed to a period as early as the 9th and 10th 
 centuries, a very large and complete collection is here formed, 
 consisting of reliquaries, pyxes, in which the consecrated wafer 
 was kept ; small portable altars for the devout, or the sick on the 
 point of death ; candlesticks, with large spikes to fix the candles 
 on ; bookcovers, on which we see the long cadaverous body of the 
 Saviour nailed to the cross, surrounded with the emblems of the 
 evangelists, the Lion of St. Mark, the angel of St. Matthew, the 
 winged bull of St. Luke, and the eagle of St. John ; bowls for 
 washing the sacred utensils in : and salvers, richly ornamented 
 with scroll-work, and angels armed with sword and shield. The 
 colours in these examples appear on a dark-brown copper ground 
 only, but these colours, mainly red, blue and green, were 
 
THE MUSEUM OF OENAMENTAL AET. 11 
 
 originally placed on a bright gilded field, and must have had a 
 most brilliant effect. The examples are mostly to be found in case 
 33, and wall-case B. Examples forwarded from the Meyrick col- 
 lection (case L, north side) are also very remarkable, among them 
 being the celebrated pastoral staff called St. liagenfroi's, of the 
 12th or 13th century. This collection, with the armour, &c., is, 
 however, unfortunately kept separately from the rest, that being 
 a stipulation made by the owner. 
 
 After the 13th and during the 14th century, another process 
 was in vogue, in which the metal ground was engraved with the 
 outlines of the design, which was covered with a varying depth of 
 transparent enamel, allowing the lines to be seen beneath it. In 
 this method, which apparently took its rise in central Italy, we 
 meet with much greater artistic merit, and some of the finest 
 specimens, such as in the great altars of Florence and Pistoia, are 
 of the highest beauty as pictures. The pastoral staff of William 
 of Wykeham, contributed by New College, Oxford ; the tenure 
 horn of Severnake Forest, belonging to the Marquis of Aylesbury; 
 the cup of King's Lynn, Norfolk, and two morses or clasps, 
 forwarded by Mr. Magniac, present very fair examples of this 
 style, used as an accessory to other arts (case B). The next dis- 
 tinct process we meet with is that termed a paillettes, in which the 
 colours are richly studded with imitation enamel jewels. At the 
 close of the loth century this method appears to have been in 
 vogue at Limoges, and several fine pieces, remarkable for the 
 brilliancy of their colour, especially the turquoise blue, are to be 
 found in the collection. We were particularly struck with a 
 crucifixion, belonging to S. Addington, Esq.; another sent by 
 Lord Hastings, and a Holy Family, contributed by Mr. Danby 
 Seymour, M.P. (case B). Early in the 16th century we perceive 
 a great advance in the art, or rather in its pictorial development, 
 at Limoges, in which place it was destined to reach its apogee. 
 There can be little doubt that this arose from the impulse given 
 to art by the revival of the antique in Italy, from which country 
 artists of the greatest ability visited and settled in France, and 
 from the advancement of a knowledge concerning the best works 
 of the day, by means of engravings : so that the beautiful produc- 
 tions of L. Limousin, Pierre Raymond, the Penicauds, Courteys, 
 
12 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 and Court, could vie with any other art of the day. At the 
 earlier stage, these enamels were highly coloured, and the high 
 lights frequently made with gold hatchings ; in the next the 
 ground is usually dark, and the subject delineated with white and 
 grey. Sometimes the flesh tints only are expressed in proper 
 colour. This style was called en grisaille or camaieu ; in the last 
 period, or at the middle or close of the 17th century, we perceive 
 a return to colour, but the drawing is poor, and the spirit of the 
 earlier masters is fled, until at last the art declines into mere 
 foolish representations of saints in ecstasies, and is revived only 
 for a short period to shine in miniatures, watches, and brooches, 
 until it is lost through its frivolity, at the close of the 18th century. 
 Thus we see that the history of this portion of the art may be 
 divided into four periods : the finest examples of the first are the 
 hunting horn of Erancis I. and a splendid cofler, of unusual pro- 
 portions. Some very beautiful salt cellars and candlesticks, a 
 magnificent oval plateau, representing a chase, &c. ; and some 
 very remarkable ewers (case B). Of the second period, in the 
 same case, are a beautiful pair of candlesticks, several fine circular 
 dishes, illustrating mythological and sacred subjects, after Raffaelle 
 and others : a grand oval plateau, with the Judgment of Paris, 
 after the engraving of Marc Antonio Raimondi. Of the third 
 period, that of the Laudins and others, excellent specimens are 
 contributed by the Marquis of Bath and Lord Delamere (case B 
 and wall case B). Of the fourth period, that of the Toutins, 
 Petitots, Bordiers, and their followers, very choice examples are 
 to be found in the case containing domestic and personal objects 
 (wall case A), and in the government contribution from Marl- 
 borough House (case U, north side). Oriental enamels abound here* 
 and are of a very fine description, especially the great Shanghai 
 vases. 
 
THE MUSEUM OF ORNAMENTAL ART. 13 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE METAL WORK. 
 
 THE art of working in metal is one of the earliest probably to 
 which the ingenuity of man was applied, and one which, from its 
 difficulty, has always been held in peculiar estimation, especially 
 when manual dexterity has been accompanied with artistic genius. 
 Thus the names of Tubal Cain, DaBdalus, St. Eloisius, and St. 
 Dunstan are still renowned as the fathers of all ancient and 
 modern art of this description. The troublous days of the dark 
 ages have not left many examples of goldsmiths' work for after 
 times to treasure. Some few, however, still exist, and are charac- 
 terised by much richness and skill, such as the silver vases 
 preserved in the museum of the Vatican, the celebrated Lombard 
 crown at Monza, the crown and sword of Charlemagne in the 
 imperial treasury at Vienna, the altar frontals of St. Ambrose at 
 Milan, of St. Mark at Venice, and that formerly at Basle in 
 Switzerland. In the llth and 12th centuries the art, in common 
 with all others, received a fresh impulse. Bishop Bernward of 
 Hildesheim, and Abbot Suger of St. Denis, near Paris, were great 
 patrons, and the first certainly an adept of the art ; and to 
 Theophilus, a " humilis presbyter" we owe a detailed account of the 
 processes employed in all the arts at this period. From the 13th 
 century onwards the reliques of the goldsmith's art increase. In 
 the 14th century the artist in precious metals was employed not 
 on ecclesiastical subjects only, but on works for the wealthy and 
 noble. Thus the inventories of gold and silver plate, &c., in the 
 possession of Charles V. of France and his brother, the Duke of 
 Anjou, written about the year 1369, describe a great quantity of 
 most valuable objects for daily use, richly ornamented. The taste 
 for such works progressed still more rapidly in the 15th century, 
 the same style being retained, though characterised by the more 
 florid ornament of the late pointed architecture in vogue during 
 the century. Many subjects of this period are preserved, and are 
 
14 THE AET TEEASUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 remarkable for their manipulative skill, fine design, and richness. 
 The revival of the antique before the commencement of the 
 16th century, had already in Italy completely changed the 
 character of all art, under the direction of such great artists 
 as Ghiberti, Donatello, Brunelleschi, della Inercia, Filarete, Pol- 
 laiuolo, and Francia. The new style spread gradually into Germany, 
 France, Spain, and England, and entirely overthrew the traditions 
 of former ages. In the 16th century, the goldsmith's art was prac- 
 tised in a noble manner, and was held in high esteem throughout 
 Europe. "Weakness and decrepitude, however, did not fail to 
 overtake it. In the 17th century, the principles and practice of 
 the art equally declined ; its glory departed before the middle of 
 the 18th century, and was lost in the contorted affectation of the 
 French school. From that time forward the artistic value of all 
 works in metal decreased, until at the present day we again per- 
 ceive symptoms of its revival in England ; and we have little 
 doubt that the present Exhibition will powerfully aid in shaping 
 its progress in a right direction. One of the earliest examples of 
 the goldsmith's art, in the present collection, is a thurible, con- 
 tributed by the Eev. Dr. Eock (case G-.) This is probably a 
 relique of the latter part of the 12th or commencement of the 13th 
 ceutury. Another very curious early piece is the Dun vegan Cup 
 (case G), of wood in metal setting, a remarkable example of the 
 Celtic style, perhaps of the llth century. It is contributed by 
 Norman M'Leod, Esq., who holds it by right of family descent. 
 Of this period also is a curious bronze candlestick, of draconfcic 
 design, formerly gilt (case F). The universities have been 
 extremely liberal in their contributions ; and we can here admire 
 at our leisure such invaluable specimens of art as the celebrated 
 pastoral staff of William of Wykehara (case B), allowed to be 
 exhibited for the first time to the public by the authorities of New 
 College, Oxford, and the pastoral staff of Bishop Fox, from Corpus 
 Christi College, Oxford, as richly ornamented with nielli as that of 
 Wykeham with enamels (case G). Oriel College forwards some 
 most delicate specimens of mediaeval workmanship, in the shape of 
 salts, cups, &c. ; and from Queen's we see one of those large 
 curved horns, set in silver gilt, with the inscription " Wasseyl," 
 from which all the members of the college drink on certain com- 
 
THE MUSEUM OF OBNAMENTAL ART. 15 
 
 memorative days. Cambridge also forwards one from Corpus. In 
 this university it is called the " Copus horn;" and Pembroke 
 College exhibits the cup, of good design and workmanship, pre- 
 sented by its founder. All these are in case Gr. Among the 
 contributions from private collections, we particularly remarked 
 a silver and silver gilt monstrance of the 15th century, with 
 enamelled stand (case G) ; a censer, contributed by Mr. Wells 
 (case Gr) ; a thurible of the early part of the 16th century, 
 belonging to Cardinal Wiseman (case E) ; and several interesting 
 examples in the Meyrick collection (case L, north side). In 
 works of the Renaissance style, the museum is particularly rich. 
 Here our attention is attracted to the fact that the goldsmith of 
 that epoch did not confine himself to works in the precious metals. 
 It is true, that in previous ages he worked in several materials, 
 but it is to this period especially that we must Jook for some of 
 the finest examples of art, executed in the base metals by some of 
 the first goldsmiths, of the day. How varied and unusual were 
 the powers granted to the artist of those days ; a short account of 
 one, the celebrated Benvenuto Cellini, may suffice to give some idea. 
 Vasari says, " Cellini, a citizen of Florence, now a sculptor, had 
 no equal in the goldsmith's art, when he followed it in his youth, 
 and was perhaps many years without having any, as well in the 
 execution of little detached figures or bas-reliefs, and all the works 
 of this profession. He mounted precious stones so beautifully, 
 and decorated them with such wonderful settings, such exquisite 
 little figures, and sometimes of so original and so fanciful a taste, 
 that nothing can be imagined superior to them. Nor can we suf- 
 ficiently praise the medals of gold and silver engraved by him in 
 his youth, with incredible care. He made at Rome, for Pope 
 Clement VII. a cope button of admirable workmanship, in which 
 he represented the Eternal Father. In it he set a diamond cut 
 into a point, surrounded by little children chased in gold, with 
 extraordinary talent. Clement VII. having ordered him to make 
 a chalice of gold, the cup of which was to be supported by the 
 theological virtues, Benvenuto conducted this astonishing work 
 almost entirely to its completion. Of all the artists of his time 
 who tried their abilities in engraving medals of the Pope, no man 
 succeeded better than he did, as all those know who possess any, 
 
16 THE ABT TBEA.STJBES EXHIBITION. 
 
 or have seen them ; therefore all the dies of the Roman money 
 were entrusted to him, and never were finer pieces struck. After 
 the death of Clement VII. Benvenuto Cellini returned to 
 Florence, where he engraved the head of Duke Alexander upon 
 the dies of the money. The beauty of these is so great, that 
 many impressions are now preserved like valuable ancient medals, 
 and that not without reason, for Benvenuto here surpassed 
 himself. Finally, he' devoted himself to sculpture, and the art of 
 casting statues. In Prance, while in the service of Francis I. he 
 executed a number of works in bronze, silver, and gold. On his 
 return to his own country, he worked for Duke Cosmo, who first 
 ordered of him several pieces of metal work, and afterwards some 
 sculptures." Thus the goldsmith of the Renaissance period was 
 truly an universal artist. He was regularly taught drawing from 
 the figure, and the principles of architecture, as well as the arts 
 more immediately connected with his profession, such as niello 
 work, enamel, and damascening, and from amongst his class rose 
 the greatest armourers of the day. Such were Michelagnolo, the 
 master of Cellini, and Filippo Negrolo, of Milan. Nor was 
 Cellini singular in his talent for casting medals or making dies. 
 Numerous goldsmiths of the 16th century distinguished them- 
 selves in the same line ; and amongst the most excellent carvers 
 of cameos and intaglios of his day, ranks Caradosso, the celebrated 
 goldsmith of Milan the Cellini of Lombardy. Of the example 
 of this epoch in art, forwarded to the exhibition, we would 
 particularly mention the Cellini cup (case G), a fine piece of 
 chasing in silver gilt, the property of the Earl of Warwick, and 
 also the very beautiful Nautilus shell cup, contributed with 
 several other fine specimens of 16th and 17th century work, by 
 her Majesty (case G). This specimen has also been ascribed to 
 Cellini. Note also the clock of Anne Boleyn, presented to her 
 by Henry VIII., also from Windsor Castle (case F), the mace of 
 St. George, and an ewer and salver, very richly ornamented with 
 repousse work in silver gilt, contributed by the mayor and corpo- 
 ration of Norwich (case G). The corporation of Oxford sends a 
 grand loving cup, a large goblet of silver gilt which is passed 
 round the table on the occasion of bountiful city feasts. This 
 cup was presented to Oxford by Charles II. Another, of equally 
 
THE MUSEUM OF ORNAMENTAL ART. 17 
 
 grand appearance, is forwarded from St. John's College, Cam- 
 bridge (case G-). Great Yarmouth, Thetford, York, Cambridge, 
 Oxford, Chester, Rochester, and Lincoln also have most liberally 
 contributed the cherished insignia of their civic authority, in the 
 shape of richly-worked and ponderous maces, oars and chains of 
 office (cases Gr and K). Nor have the several great London com- 
 panies been niggardly in assisting the great work, with the 
 unfortunate exception of the company of Goldsmiths themselves. 
 The Barber Surgeons send some beautiful tazzas and chaplets, or 
 caps, used by the officers of the company in state ceremonies 
 (case K, north side) ; the Carpenters send their goblets and 
 chaplets also (case K) ; the Clothworkers, amongst other curious 
 pieces of 17th century art in England, have forwarded the cup 
 presented to them by that prince of gossips, Samuel Pepys (case 
 G-) ; and the "Worshipful Company of Mercers have lent three of 
 the most exquisite examples of Renaissance work in the museum, 
 a waggon to hold condiments, a tun or a stand to hold sauce or 
 liqueur, and a grace cup, all of the best design, exquisitely chased, 
 embossed, and enamelled (case G). Messrs. Hunt & Roskell, 
 who undertook to collect examples of goldsmith's work, have 
 obtained several fine examples ; but they are mostly of a late 
 period, and though grand from their size are not commendable 
 perhaps, as models for imitation. Such are the great wine 
 coolers of the Duke of Rutland, the wine coolers and the cande- 
 labra of the Earl of Stamford and Warrington, and the gold plate 
 of the Duke of Devonshire (cases K, north side, near the transept) . 
 Some exceptions, however, we note, and these are mainly from 
 Mr. Hunt's private collection. Especially we would notice a 
 silver medallion plateau of great interest, and a dish, silver gilt, 
 curiously encrusted with imitation jewels and enamel work 
 (case K, north side). It is not, however, in the precious metals 
 alone that we must look for good examples of art, for some 
 of the most delicately executed and best designed works are 
 in brass, latten (a compound of copper, tin, and silver), and 
 pewter. The earliest and most interesting, as well as the most 
 remarkable in point of elaborate execution, are the mediaeval 
 Arabic latten salvers contributed by Mr. E. Falkener and Mr. 
 Rhode Hawkins, of London (case P, south side). Nothing can 
 
 o 
 
18 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 be imagined more intricate than the arabesque designs on them r 
 which are broadly incised on the metal, the interstices 
 having been frequently filled up with what appears to have 
 been a red enamel. From these as is clearly attested by several 
 fine specimens of Italian work of the 15th and 16th centuries, to 
 be seen in the Soulages collection, the government contribution 
 (case IT, north side), and some salvers belonging to Mr. R. 
 Hawkins (case F, south side) the Venetians and Milanese took 
 many a model. Indeed, the peculiar style and name of Damas- 
 cene work, speak clearly of the place whence its adoption in 
 Europe was derived. The influence of the East, during the 13th 
 and subsequent centuries, on the art of Europe, has often been 
 suspected to have been more powerful than is usually supposed ; 
 and when the subject is duly investigated, we are inclined to 
 believe that Europeans will be found indebted to Eastern nations, 
 not only for much valuable knowledge in science and literature, 
 but in art also. 
 
 The most remarkable works in brass and Intten are the large 
 salvers ornamented with central repousse subjects, such as Adam 
 and Eve standing beneath the tree of the knowledge of good and 
 evil, the Annunciation, the labourers of the vineyard bearing large 
 branches of vine, from which hang clustering grapes. All these 
 subjects show that the salvers were used for ecclesiastical pur- 
 poses, and the frequent occurrence of sacred inscriptions, such as 
 " Ave Maria gracia plena," certifies this. Indeed, many may still 
 be found in use in the more out of the way towns of Italy and 
 Germany. The large ones were used for washing the sacred 
 utensils in, and the smaller ones were probably offertory dUhes. 
 They appear to have been manufactured in great quantities at 
 Augsburg and Nuremberg, in southern Germany, at the close of 
 the 16th and during the 17th centuries. Very fine examples of 
 this class are exhibited by the Duke of Buccleuch and others 
 (case F). If, besides the great Italian artists of this epoch, the 
 names of such men as Jamnitzer, Kellerthaler, and Silber of 
 Nuremberg, and Euker of Augsburg, are still honoured as 
 wo rkers in metal, we must not therefore forget one who lent to 
 the commonest material a charm of the highest nature. The 
 pewter dishes and vases of Francis Briot are amongst the most 
 
THE MUSEUM OP OBKAMENTAL ABT. 19 
 
 remarkable and beautiful productions of the 16th century, for 
 their elegant forms, exquisite design, and delicate execution. 
 Little is known of Briot's life, but it is certain that for some 
 time he was die-maker to the mint at London, and executed 
 several works in this country. Very excellent examples are to 
 be seen in the Soulages collection, the government contribution 
 (case U, north side), and those of Lord Hastings and Baron 
 Marochetti (case F). Besides the larger works in metal which 
 we have just noticed, there are many most interesting and curious 
 examples to be found in the first wall case (A) on the left hand 
 as we enter, containing articles of personal and domestic use. 
 Amongst them are some very fine specimens of mediaeval and 
 Renaissance jewellery. Of the first an enamelled hairpin, and 
 chatelaine, contributed by C. Bradbury, Esq. of Manchester, are 
 exceedingly interesting, although not so brilliant as the jewels of 
 the later period, such as the fine Sicilian earrings, contributed by 
 Miss Auldjo, of London; an "enseigne" and earring worthy of 
 Cellini, the property of the Earl of Cadogan ; a fine coral brooch 
 set in turquoise, lent by Lord de Tabley ; several very remarkable 
 mother-of-pearl brooches, in the form of frogs and insects, belong- 
 ing to Lord Delamere ; some splendidly enamelled and jewelled 
 pectoral crucifixes, the property of Mr. Francis Pulszky and 
 Cardinal "Wiseman ; and several fine specimens of cinque cento 
 jewellery, contributed by Messrs. Hunt & Boskell, through 
 whose interest Mr. Wheble has allowed one of the most curious 
 pieces in the collection to be exhibited, viz. an Anglo-Saxon ring 
 of pure gold, with the name of the owner, " Alstan," enamelled 
 around it. Here also are to be seen some of those "gemmel" or 
 double rings, which form one in appearance, and which when 
 detached show a heart or some amatory device within two 
 hands which clasp together being a favourite subject. These 
 betrothal rings were much in vogue during the 16th and 17th 
 centuries. 
 
 Under the head of metal work, we also include the series of 
 clocks and watches in this case, and those also contributed by 
 Mr. Mayer, of Liverpool, in his case near the transept (south 
 side). From the first invention of clocks, early in the 10th 
 century, by the monk Gerbert, they were executed on a large 
 
 c 2 
 
20 THE AET TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 scale and in a cumbrous manner, with cog-wheels and pendant 
 weights. In the 15th century, however, the invention of a spiral 
 spring, placed within a hollow cylinder, took the place of the chain 
 and weights, which till then was the motive power; and Caro- 
 vagius, about the year 1480, invented portable clocks, with 
 striking bells and an alarum. In the succeeding century portable 
 clocks of the most complicated mechanism, and richly ornamented, 
 were made in Italy and Germany, especially in those two classic 
 cities of art, Augsburg and Nuremberg. At what precise date 
 these portable clocks were transmuted into watches is not ascer- 
 tained, but watches occur about the commencement of the 16th 
 century. The Flemish and French watches are large, cylindrical, 
 and with open worked arabesque borders ; the German ones, or 
 rather that particular class made at Nuremberg, being small and 
 ovoidal in form, became known as " Nuremberg eggs." In the 
 course of the century we meet with watches of great variety, 
 tulip-shaped, octagonal, or let into a cross, so as to be worn as 
 ornaments, and decorated with engravings, enamel work, and nielli. 
 Many were set in rock-crystal, so as to allow the delighted owner 
 to examine the works within ; and one in the present collection 
 (wall case A), contributed by Lord de Tabley, is set within a red 
 transparent stone, little more than half an inch in diameter. A 
 very small and pretty tulip watch is contributed by Mr. Mence. 
 The Earl of Cadogan sends a fine small crystal watch, set on a 
 silver gilt stand ; and very pretty enamelled examples are forwarded 
 by the Hon. A. Willoughby, Messrs. Ellis, of Exeter, and Miss 
 J. Clarke (wall case A). From the Philosophical Museum of 
 York we remark one with the solemn inscription of "Vigila, 
 nescis qua hora." " Watch, for you know not the hour." Nor 
 are specimens of historical interest wanting, and we find amongst 
 them the watch of Louis XVI. contributed by the right Hon. 
 Crofton Croker, and two which belonged to Charles I. and II. 
 most liberally forwarded with other Stuart relics by the 
 Duke of Kichmond (wall case A). Several very beautiful 
 examples of enamelled watches of the 17th and 18th cen- 
 turies should also be remarked in the government contribution 
 (case U). 
 Various other specimens of art in the metals deserve notice in 
 
THE MUSEUM OF ORNAMENTAL ART. 21 
 
 the collection, either from their workmanship or as serving to 
 illustrate customs now obsolete. Such are the pretty bridal 
 knives with which ladies were presented at their marriage by the 
 bridegroom, to cut the thread of life, should he ever prove untrue. 
 A few good specimens are contributed by J. Mills, Esq. of 
 Norwich (wall case A). Near them are several apostle spoons, 
 as they are termed. One fine set is sent by the Rev. T. Stani- 
 forth ; and Oxford contributes some. A few curious ones with 
 ships, &c. at the haft, in place of apostles, are sent by Messrs. 
 Ollivant & Botsford, of Manchester: these are probably of 
 Dutch manufacture. Spoons of this description were given to 
 children at their christening, whence the common expression of 
 a man being born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Besides 
 these, we have scissors, nutcrackers, and snuffers, all more or 
 less ornamental, and though not so nicely finished as the work 
 of the present day, of much bolder and more effective design. 
 Indeed, from all that we have seen in this section of the museum, 
 we would say that in spite of the ambitious character of modern 
 work, and its size and richness (always excepting the unrivalled 
 works of Yechte, case K, near transept, north side) we are very 
 inferior to the great artists of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries 
 in goldsmiths' work, and in all that appertains to it. The best 
 things we have produced are copies of ancient models, or are 
 founded on old designs. Originality is not our forte, and never 
 will be until the professed goldsmith, no longer a mere capitalist 
 trading on the brains and genius of other men, shall become bona 
 fide what he professes himself to be an artist. He will then 
 have to attend academies, and serve his apprenticeship to art as 
 all other artists do. He will not only do this, but perceiving the 
 value which various processes may lend to his productions, will 
 make himself master of enamelling, niello, and damascene 
 work ; and then, not placing his reliance on richness of 
 material or elaboration of ornament alone, he will be enabled 
 to turn the commonest metal into something which shall 
 receive the meed^of approbation from his fellow-men to the end 
 of time. 
 
22 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE POTTERY AND PORCELAIN. 
 
 MOST states in former times acknowledged and recompensed 
 those on whom their prosperity depended, and with a far-seeing 
 wisdom recognised the honour due, amongst others, to the deco- 
 rative artist. Thus we find that peculiar privileges and dignities 
 have been, at various times, awarded to him. The glass painters 
 of Normandy were " gentilshommes " by virtue of their vocation. 
 To be a master-workman in glass, at Venice, was to be enrolled 
 in the " Libro d'Oro," and become one of the most privileged 
 citizens of the republic. The trades and arts of Florence could 
 found or destroy a dynasty; and to be a cunning workman in 
 clay was sufficient, in the dukedom of Urbino, to endow a man 
 with nobility. Indeed, throughout southern and western Europe, 
 the artist of every class was regarded as one whose presence and 
 whose works conferred an honour on the state wherein he dwelt. 
 This has always been especially the case in classic Italy, where, 
 amongst other arts, that of pottery was held in high esteem during 
 the 15th and 16th centuries ; and we propose to sketch briefly the 
 history of that art as shown in the works to be seen in the present 
 collection. 
 
 We need hardly, perhaps, observe that there are two distinct 
 species of earthenware, usually classed separately as pottery and 
 porcelain; the distinctive difference being that the first is com- 
 paratively thick, heavy, and always opaque, whilst the latter is 
 thin and often of delicate semi- transparency. Such, however, is 
 the value which art can lend to common materials, that ordinary 
 pottery can at all times by its means vie with porcelain in beauty 
 and in value. It is to this class of work that the Italian artists 
 turned their attention, and the celebrated " Majolica," so esteemed 
 by virtuosi, is nothing more than the most ordinary earthenware, 
 rendered valuable by means of the drawing, colour, and glaze 
 applied to it. Amongst the Greeks of the Lower Empire, the 
 
THE MUSEUM OP ORNAMENTAL ART. 23 
 
 traditions of Rome were preserved for many centuries after the 
 commencement of our era; and there appears to be good reason 
 for supposing that up to the 12th or 13th century the method of 
 ornamenting common earthenware with gilding and colour, and 
 of covering it with a glaze, was known to them. There is little 
 doubt that from them the art was obtained by the wide-spreading, 
 powerful, and intelligent Arab races which overran Asia, Africa, 
 and Southern Europe, between the 9th and 13th centuries. 
 Several fragments of pottery, thus ornamented, still preserved in 
 the Sevres Museum of Ceramic Art, have been ascribed to the 
 Arabs of Northern Africa in the 9th century; whilst the fine 
 examples of coloured and enamelled tiles still remaining in the 
 Moorish buildings of Spain attest the perfection which they had 
 attained in the art at a later period. Indeed, it appears satis- 
 factorily certain that the Moors of Spain, as well as their brethren 
 at Damascus and Bagdad, were well versed in the art of making 
 ornamental pottery, and established numerous manufactories for 
 its production; for many and incontrovertible proofs of this exist 
 in the reliques still preserved to us, amongst which the celebrated 
 vase discovered at the Alhambra in Granada is a noteworthy 
 example. On the expulsion of the Moors, under Ferdinand and 
 Isabella, at the close of the 15th century, this art, with all others 
 practised by them, gradually declined. A manufactory, however, 
 had apparently for some time been established at Majorca, one 
 of the Balearic islands, and the ware there manufactured, and 
 forwarded to the great Italian trading communities, was known 
 as " Majolica." Other factories appear to have existed in Northern 
 Spain ; and a dish still preserved in the Sevres museum, is orna- 
 mented with the arms of Blanche of Navarre and Don John of 
 of Arragon, to whom she was married in the year 1419 ; whilst 
 another dish, in the Kunst Kammer at Berlin, bears the arms of 
 Arragon and Sicily alone, and is probably of the second half of 
 the 15th century. These dishes, however, and many others of 
 less antiquity, but of the same style, may yet have been executed 
 at Majorca. However this may be, the art appears to have been 
 transferred in the last part of the 15th century from Spain to 
 Italy, where a rough coloured pottery had been manufactured 
 from a very early period, especially in the valleys of the rivers 
 
24 THE AET TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 Po and Arno ; and we are inclined to believe that the pieces of 
 enamelled earthenware so frequently found let into the walls of 
 churches, especially at Pavia and Pisa, were of local manufacture. 
 In the 15th century Luca della Robbia, the celebrated sculptor, 
 brought the production of earthenware enamelled figures to great 
 perfection, and covered them, with a tin glaze, which has kept them 
 perfect down to our own day. About the year 1-430, the Sforza 
 family, lords of Pesaro, in central Italy, greatly encouraged the 
 art of coloured earthenware, and by the year 1486 the manu- 
 factures of Pesaro, TJrbino, Gubbio, and Castel Durante obtained 
 a wide-spread reputation. Towards the close of the century there 
 came into general use a white enamel ground or glaze, on which 
 the beautiful paintings of the 16th century were subsequently 
 executed. Of the artists of this period the most celebrated is 
 Maestro Giorgio, of Gubbio, who as Giorgio Audreoli, migrated 
 from Lombardy to Gubbio about the year 1480. His ability in 
 the art speedily became known and honoured. He carried to 
 great perfection the manufacture of the metallic lustres which had 
 been in use before his time, and is usually considered to have 
 been the discoverer of that particular one known as " the ruby 
 glaze." Guidobaldo the second, who succeeded to the dukedom 
 of Urbino in 1538, particularly encouraged the art, which 
 during his reign afforded occupation to many skilful artists, 
 who frequently copied the designs of Raffaelle and other great 
 painters, in their works. A great number were also taken 
 from the engravings of Marc Antonio, the designs of Giovanni 
 da Udine, Eaffaelle dal Colle, and Titnoteo della Vite. The 
 little state of Urbino, however, soon fell into the ambitious 
 grasp of its more powerful neighbours, and by degrees the art 
 declined, until a mere remembrance of its beauty remained 
 in the productions of Savona, Siena, Montelupo, Venice, and 
 Naples. 
 
 In the present Exhibition there is a large and valuable collec- 
 tion of this species of Italian earthenware ; in the earlier examples 
 of which the Soulages collection is peculiarly rich, as there are 
 upwards of thirty fine pieces of Gubbo ware, many by Maestro 
 Giorgio himself, all resplendent with his ruby lustre, of which we 
 have spoken. Our readers should notice, also, a metallic lustre, 
 
THE MUSEUM OF OBNA.MENTAL AET. 25 
 
 of very fine character, likewise of a ruby tone, which is to be 
 remarked on two fine Siculo-Moorish vases, placed in the case 
 D, containing Oriental china, and which are probably of Arabic 
 manufacture of the 12th or 13th century. These very interest- 
 ing vases are perhaps the most perfect of their kind known. The 
 government contribution from the department of science and 
 art (cases B and S), contains some very excellent examples of 
 Hispano-Moorish ware, characterised by a white ground, on 
 which is delicately traced a conventional foliage pattern, in bistre, 
 sometimes with touches of dark blue, which, when held at various 
 angles to the light, appears golden, dark brown, and even purple. 
 On some fine dishes of this class, contributed by Lord Hastings 
 (case P), we notice several religious mottos, which induce us to 
 conclude that they were used for ecclesiastical purposes. Many 
 peculiarly good bits of early Urbino and Paenza ware are sent 
 from the British Museum (case E) ; but, as is the case at that 
 national institution, no explanatory labels are placed beside them, 
 and the public can gain little instruction from them in conse- 
 quence. We need hardly say, that the authorities in London 
 keep the keys themselves, so that the cases cannot be opened, in 
 order to supply the deficiency. 
 
 Many fine marriage plates, containing the portrait of the bride, 
 encircled in a wreath or border of arabesque, and surmounted 
 with a scroll, on which is written the lady's name, are to be seen 
 in the Soulages collection (case O), and that of Lord Hastings 
 (case P), whose contribution alone is enough almost to form an 
 epitome of the art. These large dishes, executed principally in 
 blue and gold, on a white ground, were made in great numbers 
 at Pesaro, at the close of the 15th century and later. Others of 
 smaller dimensions, with the lady's portrait, coloured, on a deep 
 blue ground, with the mottoes " Cintia bella," " Beatrice diva," 
 and so forth, on them, are of later date. Some very choice pieces 
 are sent by government (case E), Lord Hastings (case P), and 
 Mr. Addington (case E, south side). So numerous and excellent 
 are the various examples of the 16th and 17th centuries, that we 
 hardly know which to particularise. Subjects from history, my- 
 thology and romance, arabesque borders with figures, generally 
 cupids in the centre, patterns of fine colour and charming design 
 
26 THE AET TEEASUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 abound (case E). Of the latest period (that of coloured " ca- 
 priccii," on a white ground, and landscapes), some very good 
 examples are also exhibited in case E. Amongst the curiosities 
 of purchasing connected with Majolica, we may mention that a 
 plate, on which is represented an artist painting a dish, in the 
 presence probably of Duke Guidobaldo himself (case B,, north 
 side), sold at the Stowe sale for a few pounds, and was again sold 
 at the Bernal sale, lately, for about 1501. 
 
 France, as well as Italy, produced fine works in earthenware 
 during the 16th and 17th centuries. The earliest in point of date 
 are some pieces of a peculiar description, of which not above 
 forty exist, known as Henry II. or Diana of Poitiers ware, the 
 cyphers or device of both having been found on them. They 
 are made of a fine pipe clay, on which complicated arabesque 
 designs have been incised, and then filled up either with coloured 
 clays or a composition coloured and then varnished. Very beau- 
 tiful specimens of this earthenware, the most delicate with which 
 we are acquainted (a candelabrum, ewer, and salt cellar, in case 
 E) are contributed by Sir Anthony Rothschild and Mr. Field. 
 The name of Bernard Palissy is inseparably connected with the 
 history of pottery in France. This great man, through long 
 years of trouble and affliction, beset by difficulties of every de- 
 scription, and sustained by that inward strength alone which so 
 often accompanies the greatest genius, after many trials and 
 disappointments, invented the style of earthenware which now 
 bears his name. It is characterised by intrinsic evidence of a 
 close and loving study of nature (all the subjects being taken 
 from the Fauna and Flora to be found in the valley of the 
 Seine), and by a fine artistic feeling, which, despising the produc- 
 tion of pretty gewgaws for the boudoirs of the luxurious, sought 
 to render nature simply as he found her, and to give value to 
 subjects in themselves commonplace and poor, by means of artistic 
 treatment. Finally he succeeded, and thus the man who, as he 
 himself informs us, had in his early years suffered so much misery 
 and reproach who was accused on account of his experiments 
 of being engaged in the coinage of false money who was obliged 
 at times to pay his assistant with the clothes off his own back, 
 but who yet said to himself in the midst of his troubles, " work 
 
THE MUSEUM OP ORNAMENTAL AET. 27 
 
 on, and thou shalt bring to shame all thy detractors," did work 
 on bravely, faithful to himself and his own convictions for fifteen 
 weary years, and obtained at last a tardy but complete acknow- 
 ledgment of his worth and genius from the noblest of the land. 
 His earthenware is characterised by a peculiar mottled enamel glaze, 
 and the predominance of fish, lizards, insects, leaves and flowers in 
 his designs. Besides some exceedingly fine examples in the Soulages 
 collection (case O), others of great interest and excellence are con- 
 tributed by the Earl of Cadogan (wall case P), Lord Hastings 
 (case P), Mr. Bohn, and Mr. Napier of Shandon (case E) . Palissy, 
 besides being a great artist, was a zealous protestant. Through 
 the favour in which he was held, he escaped the massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew; but in 1587, on refusing to alter his opinions, he 
 was thrown into prison, and died at an advanced age in 1589. In 
 the 17th century, a fine kind of earthenware of good design and 
 colour, was manufactured at Nevers, the predominant tone of 
 which is a fine rich blue. A good example is contributed by 
 Messrs. Minton & Co. (case E). Clermont sent forth some 
 fine pieces of dark mottled brown ware, of very remarkable de- 
 sign, specimens of which are to be seen in the Soulages collection 
 (case M), and the contributions of Lord Hastings (case P), and 
 "W. Stirling, Esq., of Keir (first group of furniture on the right 
 hand). Kouen also was famous for a species of French Majolica. 
 Many large vases, with coloured flowers, &c., on a light ground, 
 were manufactured there. Two fine examples of this ware are 
 exhibited by Messrs. Annoot & (Me, of London (second group 
 of furniture, left hand). All earthenware, however, but that for 
 ordinary use gradually went out of fashion, and in the 18th century 
 articles de luxe were sought for almost exclusively in the new 
 manufacture of porcelain. 
 
 In order to do justice to the Ceramic section of the museum, 
 we should write volumes, not a brief notice. We have as yet said 
 nothing of the fine examples of Gres de Plandres ware that 
 blue and white stoneware diapered with ornamental designs, 
 or impressed with figures and flowers, which we have so 
 often met with in the charming cabinet pictures of the Flemish 
 painters. It was from, such tankards as these that Dow and 
 Teniers, and Mieris, and Jan Steen drank deep and inspiring 
 
28 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 draughts of the deep-coloured vintage of Burgundy or sparkling 
 Bhenish, and in gratitude immortalised them in their paintings. 
 Yery good specimens of this class are contributed by the British 
 Museum and the Department of Science and Art (cases Q and S). 
 As usual, the Soulages collection has some excellent pieces, and 
 others will be found in case E. Next to these we notice the tall 
 cylindrical stoneware tankards or goblets, the Jacobus Kanetjes of 
 Alsatia and Germany, formed of one light-coloured clay, impressed 
 with small figure subjects, sacred and profane, in which the toper 
 might contemplate at will the sacred story of Susannah and the 
 Elders, the creation of man, or the history of the last war, as 
 fancy dictated his choice. That romance which is attached to the 
 potter's art, perhaps more than to any other, adds also an addi- 
 tional charm to these quaint drinking cups ; for it is a received 
 tradition, one thought worthy of being preserved by Bronguiart, 
 the principal French writer on the history of Ceramic art, that 
 Jacqueline of Holland, whilst captive in the castle of Teyliugen 
 on the Rhine, beguiled the hours of her solitude by making cups 
 of this description and casting them into the river, with the 
 express and malicious intention (so saith the legend) of puzzling 
 the brains of the antiquaries of succeeding ages. 
 
 England, also, in the person of Josiah Wedgewood, lays claim to 
 a foremost place in the advancement of the potter's art, which, up 
 to his time, had been of the roughest description in this country. 
 To him is due the honour of having raised it out of that state to 
 one of unsurpassed perfection, by his energy, enterprise, and good 
 taste. "Wedgewood, who was born at Burslem in 1730, a boy of 
 poor parentage and education, rose by his own sagacity, industry, 
 and appreciation of art to be one of the wealthiest and most 
 remarkable men in England, founding first manufactories and then 
 towns, and giving to England one of our most valuable export 
 trades. He died in the year 1795, leaving behind him a name 
 not only honoured by all lovers of art, but by the entire nation. 
 It is usual to fancy that Wedgewood' s ware is confined to the 
 white figures on a blue ground, but although such certainly pre- 
 dominate, yet no man ever produced a greater variety of subjects, 
 and it is not too much to say that there is hardly a process in the 
 manufacture, as practised to within the last few years, which he 
 
THE MUSEUM OF ORNAMENTAL ART. 29 
 
 did not attempt and succeed in. Of his celebrated copy of the 
 Portland Vase, in the British Museum, there are three examples, 
 one contributed by Mr. Mayer, of Liverpool (in his own case, 
 near the transept) ; the other two by Mrs. Preston, of Chester, 
 and Mr. Addington, of London (dwarf wall case E). Prom an 
 inspection of the three may be obtained an understanding of 
 those minute differences which constitute the greater or less 
 excellence of the copy. Mr. Mayer, of Liverpool, also sends a 
 large and beautiful collection of "Wedgewood ware (wall case S), 
 and several fine examples are also contributed by Her Majesty, 
 Mr. Addington, Mr. Bradbury, of Manchester, Mr. Apsley 
 Pellatt, Mr. Davis, and Mr. Smith, of London (wall case C, 
 south side). Earthenware, however great its artistic beauty, had 
 for some time been out of vogue amongst the wealthy and luxu- 
 rious, and ever since the discovery of the passage to India and 
 China by the Cape of Good Hope in 1497, Europeans having be- 
 come acquainted with the finer nature of Chinese porcelain, sought 
 it for use on great occasions, until, at the close of the 17th 
 century and beginning of the 18th, the desire to possess 
 it became quite a mania amongst the fashionable. It was re- 
 garded as something wonderful, from the fact that Europeans 
 were ignorant how to produce it. When, therefore, about the 
 year 1700, Johan Bottcher, of Saxony, assisted by Tschirnhaus, a 
 good analytical chemist, discovered the secret of its manufacture 
 i. e. the two clays from which pure porcelain is formed great 
 was the sensation, and the protection which he thenceforth re- 
 ceived from the State was but another word for persecution. A 
 prisoner in the hands of the Elector of Saxony, he was placed 
 under constant surveillance, for fear he might divulge to strangers 
 the secret of his priceless discovery ; and over the walls of the 
 prison-workshop the strong Castle of Meissen in which he 
 shortly after died, were inscribed the words " Geheim bis ins 
 Grab " (Secret to the grave). But it is not in the power of 
 potentates or churches to keep knowledge from the light, fettered 
 in dungeons, or to be used for their own advantage only. Before 
 the close of the century the secret was known, and the manu- 
 facture in activity throughout Europe. Stolzen, a foreman at 
 Meissen, escaped to Vienna, in 1720, and established himself 
 
30 THE AET TEEASTJEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 there under the protection of the Emperor. Ringler, a workman 
 at Yienna, fled in 1740, and took the secret with him to Hochst, 
 near Mayence, on the Rhine, from whence it rapidly spread to 
 Frankenthal, Berlin, Sevres, Chelsea, Copenhagen, and indeed, 
 before the year 1780, was commonly known throughout Europe. 
 The celebrated porcelain of Sevres, up to about the year 1770, 
 was an artificial imitation of true porcelain; but, from that 
 period, the use of the two clays simply (kaolin and petuntse) 
 formed the basis of a real porcelain, which has, through the 
 ability of the artists employed on it, and the great encourage- 
 ment always given to it by the State, become of European cele- 
 brity. Very beautiful examples of Sevres are contributed by Her 
 Majesty, from Buckingham Palace (case C, south side) ; by the 
 Duke of Portland who, with unusual liberality, forwarded a 
 large and most valuable series of specimens, at his own expense 
 and risk, for the use of the Executive Committee (wall case R) ; 
 by the Marquis of Bath (case C) : Charles Mills, Esq., of Lon- 
 don ; E. Napier, Esq., of Shandon (case C) ; the Duke of New- 
 castle, and Mark Philips, Esq. (second group of furniture, south 
 side). The Eev. T. Staniforth, of Storrs, Windermere, sends two 
 complete dejeuner sets, of rare manufacture, one of Copenhagen, 
 the other of Buen Retire, near Madrid (case C) ; Mr. Adding- 
 ton, several choice pieces of the German and French fabriques ; 
 Mr. Bohn and Mr. Drake, of London, specimens of Doccia por- 
 celain (central Italy, case C) ; and General Lygon (north aisle), 
 Mr. Addington, Mr. Napier (case C), and Mr. Mendel, of Man- 
 chester (second group of furniture, north side), several fine 
 examples of the Capo di Monte manufacture, near Naples. Nor 
 is England unrepresented. From the Foundling Hospital, in 
 London, is sent the great Chelsea vase, considered the chef 
 d'ceuvre of that particular class (case C). Other fine pieces of 
 old Chelsea are kindly contributed by the Earl of Cadogan, the 
 Marquia of Bath, Mr. Addington, and Sir Philip Egerton (case 
 C) ; whilst excellent specimens of early Bow, Worcester, Derby, 
 Swansea, <&c., are exhibited by the Rev. E. Trollope, Sir Philip 
 Egerton, the Hon. A. Willoughby, Messrs. Mainwaring, Napier, 
 Arnold, and Catt (case C). The entire collection of English 
 porcelain, although certainly not equal in finish or richness to 
 
TIIE MUSEUM OF O3NAMENTAL ART. 31 
 
 the more ambitious productions of Sevres, Yienna, Berlin, or 
 Dresden, yet is note-worthy in many cases for its originality, 
 and, generally speaking, for its boldness of execution. In this 
 respect it contrasts favourably with the very elaborate and pain- 
 fully worked up examples of modern art contributed by our 
 principal manufacturers, in which we regret to say that we can 
 perceive very few traces of any artistic feeling whatever. Still 
 it is a great thing to have improved upon the hideous " orna- 
 ments " which formed the decoration of our mantelpieces some 
 few years since. Before quitting this section of the Museum, we 
 would say a few words oil the Oriental Porcelain (case D), of 
 which extremely valuable examples have been contributed by Her 
 Majesty, Lord Hastings, Mr. Fischer, Mr. Addington, the Duke 
 of Manchester, Mr. Davidson, and Mr. 0. Coope. At the pre- 
 sent day it is not by any means in the favour it formerly was. 
 A fine specimen of Sevres, however small, or a rare example of 
 Majolica, would probably outweigh the largest and best piece of 
 China porcelain in the collection ; and yet we cannot but believe 
 that both in beauty of outline and richness, as well as delicacy of 
 colour, the former are infinitely inferior to the good examples 
 of the latter. We remark in them colour unattainable, as far as 
 we can judge, by European artists, and processes in manufacture 
 which appear to be unknown to our workmen. "Whatever about 
 them is bad, results frequently from the bad taste of their pos- 
 sessors in Europe, who have hidden the most exquisite outlines 
 with unmeaning silver-gilt settings of wretched taste and form. 
 Instead of looking so much to France and Germany for their 
 models, we would suggest to our manufacturers a careful con- 
 sideration of Oriental examples, and without copying their con- 
 ventional style of ornament, we think they may learn from the 
 study much that will be of service to them, and which, combined 
 with the power they now possess, may lead to most important 
 and desirable results. 
 
32 THE AET TEEASUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CAEVED WORK. 
 
 THEEE is no branch of art in the Exhibition more thoroughly 
 illustrated than that of sculpture. Taking the works in ivory, 
 bronze, terra cotta, and marble together, we may trace the history 
 of the art from the earliest years of Christianity down to the 
 present day, and obtain from them a very satisfactory idea of the 
 principal characteristics of each successive style. We may note 
 the last flickering ray of antique art in the late Roman school, 
 the dark night of the Byzantine style, the dawn of another 
 day during the Romanesque period, its fitful but ever-increasing 
 brightness struggling through the heavy clouds of the dark ages, 
 until it burst forth clear and bright in the mediaeval epoch, 
 reaches its meridian in the sunny days of the best Renaissance 
 age, and in the 16th and 17th centuries fades gradually 
 away once more into deepening twilight, and finally disappears 
 beneath the horizon, leaving man to cope with those spirits of 
 darkness, Indifference, and Affectation, until once again its rays 
 illumine the mountain peaks of the 19th century with the 
 promise of another glorious day. The most remarkable example 
 of the state of art in the Roman period, is to be seen in the 
 celebrated votive ivory tablets which formerly belonged to Count 
 Fejervary, and were part of his unique collection of works in ivory, 
 which has of late years passed into the hands of Mr. Mayer of 
 Liverpool. In these tablets we have the figures of JEsculapius 
 and Telesphorus, Hygeia and Cupid, the god and goddess of 
 health and the healing art ; they are carved in very low relief, 
 within square-headed recesses supported on each side by pilasters, 
 and with the snake by their side the emblem of wisdom. These 
 are probably of the second century of our era, and still b^ar 
 traces of the finest style of art. Another plaque or tablet in 
 the same collection (Mr. Mayer's case, near the transept, south 
 side) represents an emperor, probably Philip the Arab, with two 
 
THE MUSEUM OF ORNAMENTAL AET. 33 
 
 attendants, presiding at the games of the circus. This also is a 
 good example of art in. the third century. The most remarkable 
 piece, however, in, Mr. Mayer's collection, is perhaps the large 
 double tablet or diptych, representing Clementinus, consul of the 
 East, A.D. 513, holding the " Mappa Circensis " or napkin, by 
 throwing down which the signal was given for the commencement 
 of the games in the circus. On each side of him are placed 
 personifications of B/ome and Constantinople. Above these, busts 
 of the Emperor Anastasius and the Empress Ariadne ; and below 
 them, the distributors of largess. The style of art in these tablets 
 exhibits a great falling off from the first-mentioned (that of 
 JEsculapius), and serves to exhibit how speedily the best prin- 
 ciples and practice of art were lost. Several other pieces in this 
 very interesting collection of ivory carvings present us with all 
 the characteristics of the Byzantine school the long attenuated 
 figures, the minute and stiff folds of the drapery, and the utter 
 absence of lively action ; everything appears flat, monotonous, and 
 constrained. But whilst art in the East, bound down to certain 
 formalities and conventionalities of style, advanced in little else 
 beyond manipulative skill, a better spirit was struggling into life 
 in the productions of the artists of Western Europe. Divided 
 from the East by land and sea, by religious doctrine, and by 
 physical and social peculiarities, the vigour and activity of those 
 barbaric races who were gradually being incorporated with the 
 more instructed inhabitants of the lands they had obtained 
 mastery of, exhibited themselves in a restless love of art, and in 
 rough efforts to embody the newly-adopted principles of their 
 Christian creed on models taken from the remains of old Roman 
 grandeur still standing around them. Of this class we find few, 
 if any examples ; but a little later about the 10th and llth 
 centuries we meet with several fine examples ; in case I, south 
 side of the central hall, a series of apostles, &c. beneath arched 
 niches, the property of Lord Hastings ; and the horn of Ulphus, 
 contributed by the Dean and Chapter of York ; some remarkable 
 bits, sent by Mr. Attenborough, of London; and still more 
 interesting examples in the famous Meyrick collection of ivories 
 (case L north side), bequeathed by Francis Douce, the 
 antiquary, to the late Sir Samuel Meyrick, amongst which a 
 
34 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 large Eomnnesque casket, with ranges of busts in niches 
 contained \\ithiii highly ornamental scroll borders, is of the 
 greatest service in illustrating the state of sculpture in the 
 llth century. A mixed eastern and western influence is 
 observable in this and other works of the same period. During 
 the 12th century the art of sculpture made constant pro- 
 gression in western Europe : equal to the Byzantine school in 
 point of manipulative skill, it certainly was not; its principal 
 merit consisting in an evident endeavour to translate nature. 
 There are few examples to note of this period in the collection; 
 and it is not until the close of the loth century, and com- 
 mencement of the 14-th, that we are enabled again to appe- 
 ciate the great advance which had been effected. About this 
 period the art of carving in ivory was carried to great perfection 
 in Italy, Germany, and France; and some exceedingly valuable 
 examples are to be seen in the Meyrick collection (case L) ; 
 amongst which we would especially mention two statuettes, 
 beneath niches, one of the Virgin Mary, and another of a saint, 
 but more especially a beautiful plaque or tablet in four compart- 
 ments, containing scenes in relief from the life of Christ, which 
 still retains important traces of gilding and colour. The meeting 
 of Mary and Elizabeth, in this piece, is of great beauty, and fully 
 worthy of the best productions of Giovanni Pisano; to whose 
 style, indeed, the various subjects bear a close resemblance. Upon 
 other interesting reliques of this century are handed down to us 
 illustrations of the secular literature of the day ; and we remark 
 not only the legend of Aristotle, who made a fool of himself for 
 his fair pupil's sake, going on all fours and allowing her to put a 
 bridle in his mouth, and ride on his back, as on a donkey's, and 
 the Storming of the Castle of Love, a favourite romance of the 
 time (both in case L) but souvenirs of a still more remote age, 
 the story of Pyramus and Thishe and the Judgment of Paris, 
 in which an angel is bringing the apple for Paris to award the 
 prize. These two last very curious carvings are contributed by 
 the .Reverend Walter Siieyd, and are in c.-ise I. Several very 
 fine examples of 14th century work, probably Italian, are con- 
 tributed by Mr. llhode Hawkins. \Ve were especially struck 
 with a Madonna and Child, and two groups of Apostles (case I), 
 
THE MUSEUM OF OUNAMKNTAL ART. 35 
 
 cut in complete relief, as of the highest artistic merit. These are 
 more simple in their style than is usually the case at this period, 
 of which we meet with numerous and valuable illustrations, 
 especially in the " coffrets," or email caskets of the Meyrick 
 collection ; the caskets of Mr. AVardeand Dr. Wellesley (case I); 
 several interesting plaques, belonging to Mr. Mayer; and some 
 beautiful small triptychs, or central figures of the Madonna and 
 Child, with folding bides, ornamented v\ith sacred subjects in bas 
 relief, in case J, contributed by the Reverend Walter JSneyd and 
 Mr. Farrer. These triptychs, when small, were folded together, 
 forming an oblong box, which was hung from the girdle. In 
 addition to these, the museum boasts of one of the finest and 
 largest examples of ivory carving in the 14th century exist- 
 ing. It is the large triptych, or rather " retable," in ivory, 
 containing forty-seven figures in full relief, illustrating various 
 sacred subjects from the .New Testament, with the " Crucifixion " 
 in the centre. With the exception of the celebrated " lietable 
 <]e Poissy" in the Louvre, this may be considered one of the most 
 remarkable works of the period: it is placed against the dwarf 
 wull, near case I. Ivory was much in vogue also for making 
 crooks of bishops' staves, &c., about this time. One or 
 two of an earlier period may be remarked in those forwarded 
 from the Newcastle-on-Tyne and Ashmolean Museums, and by 
 Mr. Farrer (case I) ; but by far the finest, in point of sculpture, 
 is the staff- head, with richly designed open-work carving round 
 the crook, belonging to Mr. Howard, of Corby ; and the finely 
 foliated one with crocketed head and stem, or "bnculus," com- 
 plete in ivory also, contributed by Mr. Beresf'ord Hope (both in 
 case I). In the loth century we meet with the same subjects, 
 executed, however, with greater delicacy and sharpness. There is 
 an angularity of character in the drapery which is unrnistakeable, 
 and bespeaks the influence of the German and llhenish schools of 
 Freemasonry, which at this time more or less influenced all archi- 
 tecture and sculpture throughout Europe. Examples of the 
 early part of thia century, of an exceedingly rich and finely- 
 worked character, are to be remarked in the beautiful tablets, 
 containing subjects from the life of Christ, placed beneath canopies 
 which are separated from each other by buttresses, decorated with 
 
 D2 
 
3(J THE AET TKEASUKES EXHIBITION. 
 
 minute statuettes of the saints and apostles ; they are contributed 
 by Mr. G. Field and Mr. E. Goff (case I). Amongst the finest 
 of this class, Mr. Field has a large plaque, unfortunately incom- 
 plete ; but we can here study it in its entirety, as the mining 
 pieces are in the possession of Mr. Goff. Combs and mirror 
 cases of the 14th and 15th centuries are also of frequent 
 occurrence ; and very elaborate examples are contributed by 
 Colonel Meyrick, the Eeverend Walter Sneyd, and Mr. Mayer 
 (Mr. Mayer's case, in case L and case I respectively). 
 
 We cannot leave this portion of our subject without a few 
 words on the very interesting series of drinking or tenure horns, 
 in case I. We have already noticed in a former paper two 
 drinking horns, set in silver gilt ; one from Oxford, the other 
 from Cambridge. Thc-7 were made from the horn of the ox ; but 
 those we now speak of are of bone or ivory, and are more 
 or less elaborately ornamented with carved animals and figure 
 subjects. They are, perhaps, of Scandinavian origin, and the 
 most interesting in an historical point of view is the horn 
 of Ulphus, belonging to the dean and chapter of York, a work 
 probably of the 10th century. That contributed by the Eoyal 
 Society of Scottish Antiquaries is very richly carved, with 
 interlaced work and animals. It is apparently a work of the 
 llth or 12th century. The tenure horn of the Marquis of 
 Northampton is of an extremely early date, and highly interesting 
 from the figure subjects of architecture carved on its surface. 
 The horn of Severnake forest, sent by the Marquis of Ayle^bury, 
 is remarkable for its enamel mounts (case B) ; the horn of Mr. 
 Blackburn, of London (case I), is a very rich and well preserved 
 example of Scandinavian type, with its dracontine designs and 
 interlaced serpents ; whilst the horn (case I) contributed by 
 the executors of the late Henry Bush, Esq., of Clifton, would 
 appear to be one of those curious pieces of Indian workmanship 
 carved at Goa, or some of the early Portuguese settlements in 
 India, in imitation of European models, of which such very in- 
 teresting specimens are to be seen in the large chalice belonging 
 to the Museum of Natural History, Newcastle-on-Tyne (case I), 
 and in several pieces contributed by Mr. Mayer, Colonel Mey- 
 rick, and Mr. F. Pulszky. These last, although of a most archaic 
 
THE MUSEUM OF ORNAMENTAL ART. 37 
 
 look, and strangely Homanesque in many points, were of course 
 executed at a date at least posterior to the year 1500. 
 
 Already, at the close of the 15th century, a change both in 
 the style and in the subjects illustrated is to be remarked, con- 
 sequent on the revolution affected in art by those great Italians, 
 Filippo Brunelleschi, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, and Luca della 
 Eobbia ; and we find in the present collections some examples 
 which will serve to give an excellent idea of the great advance 
 effected by them in several pieces of Luca della Robbia ware, or 
 terra cotta covered with a white enamel glaze, consisting of a 
 beautiful group of the Madonna and Child, and an Adoration, in 
 the Soulages collection. Other pieces by the same artist, or in 
 his style, are contributed by Mr. Lee Jortiu, Mr. Joseph, and 
 Messrs. Minton (south aisle of Central Hall), a terra-cotta 
 plaque with the Virgin and Child, belonging to Mr. Cheney 
 (case H), and a very beautiful head of a female saint, executed in 
 that low relief peculiar to the artist Donatello, exhibited by Lord 
 Elcho (south aisle, Central Hall). It was impossible but that 
 works of such excellence as those produced by the above-named 
 artists, should have a great effect on all cotemporary and sub- 
 sequent works, and in Italy this was universally the case ; but 
 it is not until the sixteenth century that we find Germany, 
 France, and Spain following in the same path. At Nuremberg, 
 the great centre of art in southern Germany at this epoch, the 
 models of Adam Kraft, Peter Vischer, and Yeitt Stoss, 
 thoroughly late Gothic in their character and what that is, may 
 be understood in some measure from the coloured wood statues 
 contributed by Cardinal Wiseman (south aisle, near the Meyrick 
 armour) were still law in art ; but before the middle of the six- 
 teenth century, the Italian influence was in full action, and we 
 may see the mixture of style produced by the junction of the 
 native school with it, in such subjects as the fine wood carv- 
 ing ascribed to Albert Diirer, contributed by Mr. Howard, of 
 Corby ; in. the small wood carving of the Deposition, belonging 
 to Mr. Napier, of Shandon ; the profile bust of Charles V. in 
 stone, the property of Mr. M'Manus, of Dublin ; the head of 
 a philosopher, carved in wood, sent by Mr. Pield ; and one of 
 Maximilian the Emperor, in stone, ascribed to Albert Diirer, 
 
38 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 contributed by Her Majesty, from Windsor Castle (case H, south 
 side). 
 
 Excellent as these minute examples of German wood and stone 
 carving are and we must not omit to draw attention to some' 
 charming examples in Mr. Mayer's collection it would be well to 
 compare them with the productions or the Italian medallist in 
 bronze, the earliest of which were cast about the year 1440, and 
 reach down to the middle of the 10th century. The medals by 
 Sperandio, Pisanello, de Pasti, and others, are exceedingly simple 
 and bold in style, characterised by a truth to nature in no way 
 inferior to the more minute works of the later German artists, 
 and may serve as models in this branch of art (wall case H). 
 The history of Italian sculpture is continued by some examples of 
 no slight merit, amongst which we were especially pleased with a 
 bronze group of three figures, contributed by the Earl of Cado^an 
 (case H) ; they represent the flagellation of Christ at the pillar, 
 and are excellent examples of the Florentine school of sculpture 
 in the early part of the IGth century. The Soulages collection 
 is very rich in fine works of this period, chiefly of the Italian 
 school, characterised by great boldness of design and execution, 
 and always with the true artistic stamp on them. Amongst the 
 private contributions, the best illustrations are to be seen in the 
 series of bronze knockers (ca*e H), so large and massive that they 
 would batter a door down, if applied by the practised "hand of a 
 modern footman. Other very fine examples of bron/.evvork aie to 
 be remarked in the fire dogs of the Earl of Cado^an (- 
 aisle, Central Hall), the candelabra of Mr. Field, the inkstand of 
 Mr. Brunei, and the lamp of Mr. Achiington, in case H. The 
 close of the 16th century and the commencement of the 17th, 
 lead us back once more to the carvings in ivory. Of the former 
 period, although a great variety of subjects still remain to us, 
 we are unable to cite any particular artists ; but in the 17th cen- 
 tury it is far otherwise, and a long list of sculptors in ivory has 
 been handed down to us, such as Fiammingo, Algardi, Zeiler, 
 Pronner, Augermayer, Barthel, and Van Bossiut; at a later date 
 still, Magnus Berger, Balthazar Permoser, and Simon Troger. 
 One of the finest works of the 10th century is the ivory-handled 
 and sheathed knife, know r n as that of Diana of Poitiers, contri- 
 
THE MUSEUM OF ORNAMENTAL ART. 30 
 
 bated by the Earl of Cadogan (case I). It appears, however, to 
 be much later in style than the time of that celebrated beauty ; a 
 knife of somewhat the same character, but of much rougher work- 
 manship, is to be seen near it, the property of C. Bradbury, Esq. 
 Amongst the later pieces in the Renaissance style, of which there 
 is to be seen here so large and valuable a collection, should be 
 particularly noted (case I) a bonbonniere, contributed by Mr. 
 Beresford Hope, M.P. ; statuettes of the seasons, by Mr. Field ; 
 a great number of goblets, very rich in design and boldly executed, 
 belonging to Mr. Eobert Goff; two of marvellous beauty, one of 
 them signed with the name of Magnus Berger, the property of 
 Her Majesty the Queen ; two cups, set in silver gilt, sent by Mr. 
 Lumsden, of Glasgow ; and a magnificent plateau, representing 
 shunting subject, by Mr. Beresford Hope. Note also an unusually 
 fine piece of Adam and Eve beneath the tree of knowledge of 
 good and evil, contributed by Mr. Phillips, of London (dwarf wall, 
 near case 1) ; several examples sent by Lord Hastings, and an 
 important series, including some very good examples of ivory 
 carving of the present day, forwarded by Mr. Napier, of Shandon 
 (in case I). 
 
 In addition to these interesting illustrations of the history of 
 sculpture, the museum contains supplementary examples in the 
 bronze and terra-cotta subjects yet unmentioned. 1 hese are the 
 celebrated Dolphin arid Child '(in the Transept), ascribed to 
 Baffaelle himself, kindly contributed by the owner, Sir H. K. 
 Bruce; a terra-cotta bust of Henry VII. belonging to Lord Elcho, 
 and another somewhat larger, in bronze, sent by Mr. Catt, of 
 Brighton (south aisle, Central Hall) ; a model in tena-cotta of the 
 Moses of JMichael Angelo, in San Pietro alle Vincoli, Home, the 
 property of Gibson Craig, Esq. (dwarf wall, case C) ; two or three 
 fine bronze statues, by Sansovino, belonging to Mr. Cheney, and 
 a marble Ganymede, of great beauty, of the Bernini school, from 
 Mr. Bigby, London (dwarf wall, case C) ; a bronze bas-relief of 
 Cosmo de Mtdici, the third and last Duke of Florence of that 
 family, sent by Mr. Pilleau (south aisle, on Mr. Brunei's cabinet); 
 a Prometheus, in marble, of the Eoubilliac school, from Mr. 
 Bigby, near it, and several pieces in terra-cotta, by Clodion (18th 
 century), amongst which some charming female busts, contributed 
 
40 THE ABT TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 by Mr. Grundy, of Manchester, such as Greuze the painter 
 loved to study (case H) ; two large and important friezes, by Mr. 
 Field (north aisle), and two or three groups, by Mr. Arnold, of 
 London (case H). These, with several other subjects in other 
 parts of the building, bring 'us down to the decline of art in the 
 second half of the 18th century, and thus passing in review before 
 us the various styles of successive periods, we are satisfied as far 
 as the present collection serves to illustrate them, that within a 
 few hundred years after the commencement of the Christian era, 
 all trace of the glory of antique art had fled. We are not of those 
 who can perceive any high merit in the Byzantine school of art. 
 It is admissible to allow a certain degree of austere grandeur in 
 the large Mosaic pictures which cover the domes of such great 
 churches as San Marco, at Venice, and Santa Maria, at Moureale, 
 in Sicily, or the apsides of the Koman basilicas ; but beyond this 
 excellence, arising principally from their size and severity of style, 
 the period of Byzantine art, extending from the 5th to the 13th 
 century, has nothing to recommend it beyond manipulative skill, 
 whether in painting, enamel work, or ivory carving. No artist 
 can derive the slightest inspiration from the ivory subjects in the 
 present collection, which are interesting only to the archaeologist. 
 The same may be said of the early efforts of the western school, 
 which, though generally more or less under the influence of By- 
 zantium, yet made visible efforts to imitate nature, combined with 
 a rough reminiscence of the remains of Roman art still existing 
 throughout Europe. It is interesting to mark the gradual develop- 
 ment of this feeling, more and more noticeable until we arrive 
 at the commencement of the 13th century, shortly after which 
 period the name of Nicolo Pisano indicates not only a sudden 
 revival of the finest style of art in sculpture, but should be re- 
 garded, we think, as the key note to the very remarkable change 
 which we now perceive to have taken place throughout western 
 Europe. The sculpture of the latter half of the 13th and begin- 
 ning of the 14th century may be ranked, for its grandeur and 
 simplicity, amongst the productions of the best epochs of art. 
 Little by little, Nature is lost sight of, and in the 15th century, 
 fanciful and elaborate as are the examples which now abound in 
 all countries, we cannot but allow that an affectation and con- 
 
THE MUSEUM OF ORNAMENTAL ART. 41 
 
 ventional feeling, both in figures and drapery, is so universal, 
 that all sculpture is overloaded with them. Italy once again in 
 this century gave new life to the art, and sent vivifying pulses 
 throughout Europe. At this period, when geniuses such as the 
 world seldom sees, culled all that was best from Nature, from the 
 antique, and from Gothic art itself, and formed them into a com- 
 plete and perfect whole, we are disposed to consider that the sun 
 of art, of sculpture especially, was at its meridian. It is strange, 
 but no less true, that the Titan of art, whose name is synonymous 
 with all that man can effect, whether in sculpture, architecture, or 
 painting Michael Angelo was the main cause of its rapid decline. 
 A style which he alone could venture on, characterised by the ex- 
 tremes of boldness and eccentricity, was admired and imitated by 
 those who had the desire but not the power to endue it with either 
 grandeur or beauty. The downward course is proverbially swift 
 it was so especially in this case. There is no resting place. 
 Bernini or Puget only stem it for a time ; and the former, carried 
 away by his own fertility of invention and power of execution, 
 only hastened the catastrophe. It is in the minor works of this 
 epoch, such as the numerous ivory carvings, so many of which are 
 to be studied in the Exhibition, that the greatest merit is to be 
 remarked. Art lingered in these, however, but for a short period, 
 and the great school founded at the Gobelins by that most ambi- 
 tious of kings, Louis XIY., gave its impress to all succeeding art 
 in Europe, until at last, whatever of good there was in it merged 
 itself, and was finally lost in the meaningless and capricious out- 
 lines of the time of Louis XV. and Louis XVI. The revival of 
 sculpture with all other art in Europe, during the present century, 
 has been of the most remarkable and promising character ; but 
 our sculptors may still return, we think, to the best productions 
 of the 13th and 15th centuries, in Italy especially, and profit from 
 the study. 
 
 Those who would endeavour to obtain an idea of the internal 
 arrangement of an ancient household, as regards objects of furni- 
 ture, must consult not only the inventories of great households 
 in the past, which lie hid amongst mouldy parchments in our 
 museums and record offices, or such of them as have been made 
 public by means of archa?ological societies, but must also inspect 
 
42 THE ABT TEEASUBES EXHIBITION. 
 
 carefully the illuminated pages of our ancient manuscripts, 
 amongst which they -will meet with representations of the stately 
 hall, the quiet library and study, the private chapel, and the neafc 
 bedroom. From these they will perceive what a wide difference 
 exists between the mobilia of a rich man's house in the past arid 
 at the present day. Then everything useful was rendered orna- 
 mental, and of mere objects of ornament there were few; whilst 
 no\v the necessary articles of use are usually the plainest or 
 ugliest things in a room, the main ornament of which consists in an 
 extravagant and promiscuous collection of objects of vertu, as they 
 are called, which are a constant source of anxiety to their owner, 
 and of terror to the visitor. The lordly castle or town mansion of 
 the great in the middle ages was somewhat plain internally. The 
 larger pieces of wood furniture were more or less carved and 
 coloured. With the exception of chairs of state, settles or forms 
 were used, placed each side of a long table in the hall, at the end 
 of which was the chair of the master. The walls were ornamented 
 with tapestry, or painted in diaper and with figures in fresco or 
 tempera. The ceilings -were not unfrequently painted and 
 coloured. Curtains were sometimes placed before doors, and the 
 ground was strewed with rushes or straw, which was swept away 
 at stated times, and replaced with fresh. In the state room was 
 a dressoir, or carved dresser, on which was ranged the gold and 
 silver plate, on the occasions of festivals, &c. ; and in the great 
 hall were not unfrequently placed trophies of the heads of animals 
 slain in the chase, armour, arms, and banners, together with the 
 armorial bearings of families connected with the master of the 
 house. From the close of the 14th century, comfort, and even 
 luxury in furniture gradually increased ; and if in the houses of 
 the most noble there was little ornament, compared with a wealthy 
 commoner's house of the present day, it must also be admitted 
 that the number of servants' rooms, cellars, closets, wardrobes, &c., 
 was incalculably greater, and the ceremonies of the table, &c., 
 were exceedingly minute and tedious. In the noble Chateau de 
 Marcoussis, at the beginning of the 15th century, as described by 
 Anastase de Marcoussis, "the greater part of the furniture, such 
 as tables, chairs, &c., were only of oak or walnut, some few of 
 cedar and other odoriferous wood, as coffers, wardrobes, and 
 
THE MUSEUM OF ORNAMENTAL ART. 4?B 
 
 buffets in the old styles," <fcc. ..." Two chapels, built one 
 over the other, after the manner of the palace at Paris, were 
 remarkable for the numerous paintings which decorated them ; 
 glass of different colours diffused over ail a mysterious light, and 
 on the vault were painted the twelve Apostles, each bearing on a 
 scroll one of the articles of faith," &c. Somewhat about the same 
 time we meet with a description, by Alienor de Poitiers, of a bed- 
 room devoted to the accouchement of a lady of rank, in which we 
 find that "the bed coverings were lined with fur, a velvet carpet 
 was placed on the floor, the pillows were of velvet or bilk ; there 
 was a dressoir of three steps, on which were placed the gold and 
 silver vessels, lighted up with two wax candles, and at each end 
 of the dresser a comfit box, quite full, and covered with a fine 
 napkin." Alienor, however, is afraid that all this luxury will lead 
 to no good ; everyone says so. In 1587, an anonymous writer 
 addressed a pamphlet to Catherine de Medicis, on the sad growth 
 of luxury ; for his forefathers never knew what it was to pufc 
 marble and porphyry in chimney-pieces or doorways, nor did they 
 cover with gilding the vaults, roofs, and soffits ; they did not make 
 galleries of rich paintings, nor spend a large sum for a single 
 picture ; they did not purchase rich and precious furniture, to fit 
 with the richness around, nor allow these beds of cloth ot gold, 
 velvet, satin, and damask, such exquisite fringes, or such a quan- 
 tity of works in gold and silver. From all these complaints, we 
 may gather to what extent the love of rich furniture had. increased 
 by the latter part of the 16th century. These statements would 
 hardly refer to exceptional c;ises, to the noble and great only, but 
 also to the commonalty ; for Gilbert de Metz, in his manuscript 
 description of the city of Paris, about half a century earlier, speaks 
 of the house of a rich merchant Maistre Jacques Duchie as 
 having peacocks and divers fine birds in the courtyard ; describing 
 the first room as embellished with pictures and instructive mot- 
 tos hung on the walls ; another room full of all manner of instru- 
 ments, harps, organs, viols, citherns, psalterions, &c., all of which 
 Maistre Jacques knew how to play. Another room, he says, was 
 devoted to games of chess, &c. ; there was also a beautiful chapel, 
 with desks for books of wonderful art ; and amcngst a variety of 
 other rooms, was one, the tables of which were ingeniously carved 
 
44 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 and furnished with rich cloths, and carpets of gold work ; whilst 
 in another were standards, banners, guisarmes, halberts, shields, 
 and all appliances of war. At the top of the house, too, was a 
 gallery, with windows on each side, from which one overlooked the 
 city, and in which much eating and drinking went on not hot 
 dinners, however, as it was too high to bring things hot from the 
 kitchen. Higher still, the pinnacles of the roof were surmounted 
 with beautiful gilded images. At a still later date, the inventory 
 of the goods and chattels belonging to all the royal residences of 
 Henry VIII. (a manuscript in the British Museum) makes men- 
 tion of an immense quantity of decorative furniture, and serves to 
 show to how great a pitch richness of fitting up was carried in 
 the royal household. Luxury could hardly go beyond this, nor 
 did it, even up to the time of Charles I., although under that 
 monarch England first obtained picture and sculpture galleries. 
 From that time forwards, nobility of appearance gave way to a 
 still richer but more petty style of decoration, still, however, 
 retaining much that was picturesque. This last claim for praise, 
 however, disappeared with the 18th century, and the false taste of 
 the French empire led to an adoption throughout most European 
 countries of ancient Greek outlines for all kinds of furniture, 
 which were as frigid and poverty-stricken as they were monoto- 
 nous and inappropriate. 
 
 The earliest examples in the present collection consist of a 
 finely-carved armoirc or wardrobe, of the 15th century, contri- 
 buted by Cardinal Wiseman. It is one of the first pieces of 
 furniture against the south wall of the Central Hall, at the Transept 
 end. And here we may remark that the chronological series, as 
 far as the requirements of the portrait gallery would permit, 
 commences here, continuing down the south wall across to the 
 northern wall of the Central Hall, ending again near the Soulagea 
 collection, with the best examples of the 17th and 18th centuries. 
 
 Near the armour is a fine retable or triptych, richly carved in 
 wood, coloured and gilded ; the coloured statues which belong to 
 it are on the dwarf walls. These are excellent examples of the 
 ecclesiastical furniture of the 15th century, being of German 
 workmanship. Several finely carved fronts of coffers or chests, 
 also of the 15th century, are to be remarked in this part of the 
 

 THE MUSEUM OF OBNAMEtfTAL AET. 45 
 
 museum. These, with several very interesting pieces of sculpture 
 of the same date, are contributed by Lord Stafford. Against the 
 dwarf wall we remark also a small armoire, open beneath, and with 
 carved panels above, forwarded by Mr. Ellis, of Edinburgh ; it is 
 especially interesting as having been formerly in Linlithgow 
 Palace. On it may be observed two bronze mortars, the largest 
 and most ornamental of which is lent by the Philosophical Society 
 of York. It is a fine work of the 14th century, and was formerly 
 used by the monks of St. Mary's Abbey. JSTear it is a very 
 remarkable iron chest of the 16th century, belonging to Mr. C. 
 Eeed, of London, which, from the great pains taken to render it 
 secure, sufficiently attests the value of its former contents. 
 Beyond is another strong box of later date, with a remarkably 
 complicated and ornamental lock. This rich bit of metal work is 
 contributed by Mr. Billings, architect, of London, and is of the 
 time of Charles II. We should not pass on without mentioning 
 a fine labten or brass lectern, placed against one of the columns, 
 a good example of 15th century metal work, forwarded by Mr. 
 A. J. B. Hope, M.P. 
 
 The transition from the Gothic to the Renaissance epoch is 
 somewhat abrupt ; but this also was the case with architecture in 
 England, of which furniture is always a reflex. We miss that 
 strange, fanciful, but most picturesque combination of the classic 
 and Gothic styles so frequently met with on the continent, 
 especially in France and Spain. The nearest approach to it is to 
 be seen in the fine dressoir, consisting of two open compartments, 
 carved in the style of the latter part of the 15th or beginning of 
 the 16th century, the property of the Duke of North umberland. 
 Next to this is a remarkably rich piece of carving, a wardrobe 
 of the 16th century, in the Renaissance style, probably of French 
 workmanship. It was purchased at the sale of the celebrated 
 Debruges-Dumesnil collection in Paris, by the Earl of Cadogan, 
 through whose kindness it is now exhibited. Another very boJdly 
 carved cabinet, of the Italian late Renaissance school, is contri- 
 buted by Miss Auldjo. Between these two cabinets is placed 
 one of those marriage chests so common in Italy during the 
 16th century a large oblong wooden box, ornamented with very 
 bold and finely composed sculpture. In such chests as these, 
 
46 THE ART TEliASUIlES EXHIBITION. 
 
 ladies kept their apparel, and we may see, in Titian's celebrated 
 recumbent A r enus, an attendant arranging the contents of one of 
 these large chests. The one we have just noticed is the property 
 of Mr. Talbot Rothwell. We would here pause for a time in 
 our walk down the south side, and proceed to the Soulages col- 
 lection, ranged within three bays of the north side, near the 
 armour; for, in this, we shall see not only two exceedingly fine 
 examples of the same kiad of chest, richly cut and set off with 
 gilding, but, moreover, such a collection of Kenaissance furniture, 
 principally of Italian workmanship, as would be vainly sought for 
 perhaps in any other European museum. It consists of 80 objects; 
 of these the Uvo coffers, mentioned above, three magnificent carved 
 wood and inlaid ivory secretaires, with four folding chairs of 
 polished wood elaborately inlaid with ivory, are not only of the 
 highest merit as works of art, but, moreover, interesting, as having 
 belonged to Guido Ubaldo, that illustrious Duke of Urbino who 
 so well sustained the traditional taste of his family (Montefeltro) 
 for the arts and literature. Besides these we remark three most 
 elaborately-sculptured walnut-tree cabinets, or armoires, of excel- 
 lent design and execution, three equally fine buffets, four tables 
 of good design, beautifully carved with foliage, figures, &c. ; and 
 upwards of forty-five chairs, richly carved in wood, and gilded, fit 
 for the palace of a king. These are sufficient of themselves to 
 afford a high idea of the perfection to which the manufacture of 
 furniture \\as carried in Italy some three hundred years since. 
 But, iii addition to these, we meet \\ith ornamental objects of 
 daily use, richly-carved and gilded frames of the Venetian school, 
 three valuable metallic mirrors, one of which has a circular frame, 
 worthy, in its elaborate sculpture, of the hand of a Cellini; a 
 reading desk, credence, and framed pieces of Luca della itobbia 
 ware, such as were fitting for the? palace of one of Italy's noblest 
 families. .Near this section of this museum is placed also the 
 unique chimney-piece, most elaborately carved in the boldest style 
 by the celebrated Italian sculptors, the Lombard! of Ferrara- to 
 cue of whom (Alfonzo) Bologna owes so much of its fine sculp- 
 ture. To this belongs also the grand and elaborate bronze tire- 
 dogs, and a very remarkable set of fire-irons. We may here 
 call to mind that, from, the practice of iron hooks being let 
 
THE MUSEUM OF ORNAMENTAL AKT. 47 
 
 into the projecting cornice of such chimney-pieces, on which 
 mantles were hung to dry before the fire, arises our own 
 ordinary term of mantel-shelf. Two smaller fire-dogs, of 
 bronze, surmounted by amorini, came from the palace of 
 the Brancaleoni. Here also are busts in bronze and marble, such 
 as ornamented the halls of the great Italian families. The richly 
 carved wooden cornices from which hang the remarkably fine and 
 early pieces of tapestry that separate the SouLiges collection from 
 the rest of the museum, once ornamented the walls of rooms 
 lighted up at night by such magnificent chandeliers as that made 
 of Venetian glass, another in latten, and the great wood carved 
 lanthorn, ornamented with amorini, caryatides, and wreaths of 
 foliage which whilome shed its lustre on the richly furnished halls 
 of Doge Gradenigo, at Venice. This collection, indeed, forms a 
 most important feature in the Exhibition, and we are in hopes 
 that Manchester will never allow it to be dispersed and lost 
 amongst private collections, but, with a wise spirit of liberality, 
 will make it her own, and form by its means the nucleus of a 
 local museum such as no other city in the United Kingdom will 
 be able to rival. 
 
 The liberality of private contributors has furnished the museum 
 with other excellent examples of the same period, although not so 
 rich, perhaps, or varied, amongst which a boldly-carved sideboard, 
 under the orchestra gallery, is especially deserving of notice. It 
 is the property of D. Hodgson, Esq., of Liverpool. Returning 
 to the south aisle, at the point we left off, our attention is drawn 
 to an exceedingly fine cabinet, contributed by Mr. Brunei. It is 
 richly carved in wood, picked out with gilding, and both for 
 peculiarity of outline, general design, and execution, is a good 
 example of 16th or early 17th century workmanship, probably 
 Plemish. Near it, against the dwarf wall at case O, is to be 
 remarked one of those picturesque ebony cabinets, inlaid with 
 graceful arabesque designs, for which Italy was especially famous 
 during the 10th century. It is full of suggestions for the artist 
 in ornament. This, as well as a very remarkable table on the 
 north side of the central hall (near case Q), of wood inlaid 
 with beautiful running foliage in mother-of-pearl and ivory, of 
 Florentine manufacture, is the property of Talbot Both well, Esq. 
 
48 THE AKT TEEASUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 "We arrive now at a period, that of the close of the 16th and 
 during the 17th century, when carved furniture gave place to the 
 more decorative practice of inlaid ornament, of \vhich there are 
 numerous examples in the museum. Besides the table just 
 mentioned, there is another of ivory on ebony, with engraved 
 figures, &c., on it. It lies beneath the orchestra gallery, and is 
 the property of Miss Auldjo. Without including this method, 
 there are three distinct styles of inlay in vogue at this period 
 that of different coloured woods, of marble and other coloured 
 stones, and of metal, on wood or tortoiseshell. Of the first kind, 
 a magnificent example is to be seen on the north side of the 
 museum, consisting of a large flower vase, in light brown woods 
 on a dark ground, the property of the Earl of Warwick as fine a 
 specimen of its kind, perhaps, as exists. It is worthy of the hand 
 of a De Heem or a Van Huysum. Further on, towards the 
 Soulages collection, is a small table, with knights and ladies 
 feastiug beneath the shadow of a wood. This interesting work 
 of the 17th century is contributed by the Hon. E. Curzon. A 
 later example of the 18th century, a secretaire elaborately orna- 
 mented with arabesque designs, is forwarded by Her Majesty the 
 Queen. It is with the first group of furniture, on the right hand 
 of the entrance. In this group several other good examples of 
 the same class, contributed by Mr. C. K. Mainwaring and Mr. 
 Napier, of Shandon, deserve attention. One very remarkable 
 piece in the north aisle a small chest, with figures in relief, not 
 of common occurrence, sent by Lord Hastings, and two small 
 cabinets, with architecture and figures, belonging to the Earl of 
 Chesterfield, call to our mind that celebrated artists of the period 
 of the Renaissance did not disdain to employ themselves on such 
 works; and amongst the best artificers in " marqueterie," or inlay 
 of wood, should especially be recorded the names of Giuliano and 
 Benedetto da Maiano, of Florence, in the 15th century, and Era 
 Raftaelle da Brescia in the 16th century. Of the second class 
 (marble and other stone inlay) a very elaborate specimen in the 
 north aisle is contributed by the Duke of Manchester. It con- 
 sists of an inlay of various coloured marbles, representing land- 
 scapes, sea pieces, &c. It is a fine example of its kind, probably 
 executed at the close of the 17th century ; still, it can be regarded 
 
THE MUSEUM OP OBffAMENTAL ART. 49 
 
 in no other light than as a monument of labour and material 
 misapplied. A more sensible, though less showy application of 
 the process, is to be seen in the ebony cabinet, the property of 
 the Earl of Stamford and Warrington, placed against a column in 
 the south aisle. But the best of all, and the most characteristic 
 of the decorative work of the 17th century, is the very richly 
 inlaid cabinet belonging to Mr. W. M. Drake, on the group of 
 furniture, central hall (north), near the armour, into the com- 
 position of which enter agates, various-coloured marbles, lapis 
 lazuli, and other precious stones. It was purchased at Mr. 
 Beckford's sale, at his celebrated seat, Eonthill. Of the third 
 class (inlay of copper, &c., on tortoiseshell), which was brought 
 to great perfection by Boule, chief upholsterer to Louis XIV. 
 (whose name is so familiar to the English in the words " Buhl 
 work"), the most interesting, as being the most perfect of its 
 class, as well as one of the earliest, is the escritoire of the Cardinal 
 de Hetz, in the group of furniture (north) near the Soulages 
 collection. This, with several other very fine specimens, amongst 
 which is a large terminal clock in the Queen's ante-room, is con- 
 tributed by Her Majesty from "Windsor Castle. A very orna- 
 mental cabinet, with inlaid metal plates, on tortoiseshell, repre- 
 senting battle scenes, &c., is forwarded for exhibition by the Earl 
 of Cadogan ; it is in the north aisle. Another very fine terminal 
 clock, with richly- chased pedestal, in or cisele, by Caffieri, is to 
 be seen in the ante-room, and is the property of the Duke of 
 Buccleuch. The kind of furniture that was in vogue at the latter 
 part of the 18th century may be seen in the ante-room, in the 
 grand rosewood and ormolu cabinet by Gouthier, a work of great 
 value and beauty, also sent for exhibition from Windsor Castle 
 by Her Majesty. Other examples of the close of the last and 
 beginning of the present century exhibib what may be called the 
 boudoir style. Such are the very delicate and pretty cabinets 
 inlaid with plaques of porcelain, exquisitely painted, contributed 
 by Her Majesty (group of furniture north, near the armour), 
 the Duke of Buccleuch (north aisle), and Mr. Charles Mills, of 
 London (first group of furniture on entering south side of the 
 Central Hall). We have left unnoticed two remarkable cabinets, 
 which are perhaps unique. One is of ebony, with the leaves and 
 
50 THE AET TEEASUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 panels on the inside beautifully painted with scripture subjects 
 in oil, by old Franks, the master of Rubens ; it belongs to the 
 Hon. Warren Yernon. The other is ornamented vrith subjects 
 painted on glass from the inside, an art not now practised. The 
 drawing and colour are both of great excellence, and are charac- 
 teristic of the 17th century. It is contributed by Mr. Oilman, 
 of Norwich. Amongst other rich and remarkable pieces of 
 furniture, we would particularly cite the silver-chased table and 
 candelabra, presented by the city of London to Charles II. in the 
 group of furniture (south), near the armour. These fine examples 
 of the silversmith's art are contributed by Her Majesty, from 
 "Windsor Castle. We should also notice a strong box of the early 
 part of the 18th century, belonging to the Duke of Portland, most 
 elaborately covered with steel open work, on a velvet ground, 
 both inside and out (north aisle) ; a chest of drawers, sandal-wood, 
 inlaid with very delicate ivory arabesques, of Oriental workman- 
 ship, also the Duke of Portland's (group of furniture, south, near 
 the armour) ; a unique faience cabinet in two parts (in the group 
 of furniture near the entry, south), contributed by Mr. A. 
 Joseph, of London ; a secretaire, by Vernis Martin i. e. Martin 
 of the Varnish, so called from his peculiar style of ornamenting 
 wood and other materials with very delicate and pretty varnished 
 paintings. This specimen (in the group of furniture near the 
 Transept, north), together with a remarkably decorative clock 
 (group of furniture to right on entering), probably of Oerman 
 workmanship, architectural in design, with coloured-glass columns, 
 &c., and chased silver setting, is the property of Her Majesty, 
 who has been a most liberal contributor to the museum. It 
 would be unjust, in concluding this notice of the furniture, not to 
 mention one or two examples of the art of wood carving at the 
 present day: such as the large sideboard (near the Hertford 
 gallery, corner of Transept), belonging to Mr. West, designed 
 and executed by Messrs. Cookes, of Warwick, remarkable for its 
 adaptation of natural objects to decorative sculpture ; and the 
 elaborately-carved bedstead opposite to it, designed and mainly 
 executed manually by Mr. Charles, of Warrington, in which every- 
 thing is fanciful and befitting a cradle of dreams. We may add, 
 that this is the more to the credit of Mr. Charles, as we under- 
 
THE MUSEUM OF ORNAMENTAL AST. 51 
 
 stand that he has persevered in completing it under disheartening 
 difficulties of no ordinary kind. The large collection of tapestry 
 and embroidery, scattered through the museum, was originally got 
 together with the idea of placing it in chronological succession on 
 the walls of the Central Hall, so as to form a complete history of 
 the art from the 15th to the middle of the 18th century. Cir- 
 cumstances, however, rendered that impossible, and it is conse- 
 quently placed throughout the building, wherever room could be 
 found for it. 
 
 There are no more antique or interesting arts than those of 
 embroidery and weaving. Although the ancients were well 
 skilled in both, our ancestors in Europe appear to have been 
 ignorant of the weaver's art, for pictorial purposes, up to the 
 9th or 10th century. During this period, and up to many 
 centuries later, the East supplied Europe with her finest woven 
 work. Of the llth century, however, we have still preserved 
 to us the celebrated Bayeux embroidery, representing the conquest 
 of England by the JS"ormans ; probably worked by the hands of 
 Queen Matilda and her attendants. During the middle ages, the 
 great monasteries and the cities occupied themselves with tapestry 
 or machine-woven pictures, and the ladies with embroidery. 
 England was especially renowned for the last, and very fine 
 specimens were generally termed " English work." The manu- 
 facture of woven tapestry was rapidly extended, and in the 
 14th and 15th centuries, Flanders the city of Arras, 
 especially was celebrated for such work, in wool and cotton, 
 throughout civilised Europe. Examples in silk and gold thread, 
 however, came mainly from Genoa and Venice. In the 16th 
 century, Francis I. founded a tapestry manufacture at Fontaine- 
 bleau, of silk and gold, as well as of wool, for which Primaticcio 
 made designs. A great impulse was thus given to the art, which 
 received still greater extension in the 17th century, when 
 Louis XIV. founded that universal art academy of the Gobelins, 
 which was, under the direction of the celebrated painter Le Brun, 
 to give laws in art to all Europe. The design succeeded but too 
 well ; and although the mechanical processes were much improved, 
 yet the charming art of pictorial tapestry dates its decline from 
 this epoch, and by the close of the last century, had almost com- 
 
 E 2 
 
52 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 pletely fallen into decay. The earliest examples in the present 
 collection are a very fine embroidered cope of the 14th 
 century, contributed by Mr. Bo\vdon and St. Mary's College, 
 Oscott. Several beautiful specimens of embroidered ecclesias- 
 tical vestments, of the loth and 16th centuries, belonging to 
 Stonyhurst College, are also to be seen in the glass cases, at each 
 end of the Transept (west). Amongst other interesting pieces, in 
 these cases, should be remarked the state palls of the Barber- 
 Surgeons' and Saddlers' Companies ; and some very richly worked 
 pieces of embroidery on satin, contributed by the Rev. Mr. Kenna- 
 way, Lady Lyttelton, and Miss I. Clarke. The earliest tapestry 
 is that in the Soulages collection. It consists apparently of 
 illustrations of one of those romans so popular in the middle ages, 
 and is a work of the 15th century. In these examples the 
 whole is formed by a number of small pieces sewn together ; and 
 this reminds us that it was not until the 16th century that the 
 large subjects so frequently seen could be woven in one piece. 
 Mr. Domett, of Chard, contributes some exceedingly curious 
 pieces, illustrative of a "Welsh wedding, or bundling, in the 
 17th century (Transept, south end). The Duke of Buc- 
 cleuch sends a fine and well-preserved set of subjects, after 
 Baffaelle's celebrated cartoons, of 16th century work (orchestra 
 gallery). Mr. Miles, of Ford Abbey, exhibits another set of the 
 same subject and period, but with more ornamental bordering 
 (Central Hall, under the gallery). Prom Hampton Court, Her 
 Majesty contributes some fine old pieces, executed in thread 
 interwoven with silver and gold, now tarnished and black. The 
 designs, however, which illustrate various passages from the Old 
 Testament, are characterised by no slight grandeur of conception, 
 and the borders of arabesque, with niches, containing allegorical 
 figures, are exceedingly quaint and good. They are placed in the 
 Transept, and gallery leading to the refreshment tent. The silk 
 tapestries (at the north end of the Transept), contributed by Her 
 Majesty, from Buckingham Palace, the subjects of which relate to 
 the history of Christ, and are enclosed within very delicately 
 worked arabesque foliage, are fair examples of 17th century 
 work, and are about the last examples of the style which prevailed 
 before the florid and ambitious efforts of the Grobeliris manu- 
 
THE MUSEUM OF OENAMENTAL AET. 53 
 
 facturers, under the direction of Le Brun, specimens of which 
 are to be seen in Her Majesty's ante-room, and in the passage 
 from the Transept leading to the refreshment tent. The most 
 characteristic pieces of the 18th century are also in this 
 passage, such as a fete-champetre, after Cozette, and a well- 
 executed but somewhat straggling composition of Diana at the 
 bath. These are about the last specimens of the manufacture 
 in the collection a manufacture which of late has been brought 
 to the highest decree of mechanical perfection : witness the mag- 
 nificent piece, the Slaughter of the Mamelukes, after Horace 
 Vernet, executed at the Gobelins, exhibited at the great gathering 
 of 1851, and now in the possession of Her Majesty. The practical 
 use of the material, however, in furnishing houses, is still un- 
 common, but we trust will again come into fashion. In winter, 
 nothing would be more comfortable, and certainly nothing looks 
 more rich and picturesque. As a general rule, pieces of tapestry 
 might be let into the panels of walls, otherwise painted or papered ; 
 and for portieres, across those folding-doors so common in our 
 houses, for the drapery of beds, &c., we conceive they would be 
 pleasing to more senses than that of sight in our cold and changeful 
 climate. Nor can we agree, even with such a high authority as 
 Sir John Ealstaff, that " a pretty slight drollery, or the G-erman 
 hunting in water work, is worth a thousand of these bed hangings 
 and these fly-bitten tapestries." 
 
THE AKMOUEIES, 
 
 BY J. R. PLANCHE, ESQ. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE MEYBICK COLLECTION. 
 
 ON the subject of ancient arms and armour, nothing but the 
 most confused and erroneous ideas existed at the commencement 
 of the present century. Francis Grose had published (1786-1801) 
 his military antiquities, full of valuable documents and false 
 deductions. Joseph Strutt, the most laborious and unassuming of 
 archa3ologists, had scattered here and there throughout his 
 voluminous works, important facts, without systematic arrange- 
 ment or scientific investigation. It remained for Sir Samuel (then 
 Doctor) Meyrick to collect, to examine, to sift, to classify, and 
 chronologically marshal all these and numberless other evidences, 
 and to produce, as the result of his enthusiastic yet cautious 
 labour, his " Critical Inquiry into Ancient Arms and Armour," 
 which, despite the imperfections almost unavoidable to the first 
 publication of an extensive work upon a forgotten art and an 
 abstruse subject, increased by the peculiarly disadvantageous 
 circumstances under which it passed through the press, will con- 
 tinue to be the grammar of the English student in this branch of 
 archeology. The practical knowledge Sir Samuel eventually de- 
 rived from the accumulation and examination of existing specimens 
 of the weapons and personal defences of our ancestors, was com- 
 municated some twenty years afterwards to the antiquarian world 
 in two quarto volumes, entitled, " Engraved Illustrations of Ancient 
 Arms and Armour " (London, 1830), and the greater portion of 
 the invaluable collection therein engraved by Mr. Joseph Skelton, 
 after the drawings and with the descriptions of Sir Samuel, is now, 
 by the liberality of his relative and heir, Lieutenant-colonel 
 
THE AKMOUEIES MEYEICK COLLECTION. 55 
 
 Augustus Meyrick, arranged on the south side of the nave of the 
 Art Treasures Exhibition, at Manchester. 
 
 The plan Sir Samuel Meyrick pursued in this particular 
 investigation is one which cannot be too strongly recommended 
 to all critical inquirers. He appropriated certain drawers to 
 certain centuries, and threw into each, as he made or acquired 
 them, the notes and authorities, engravings, drawings, tracings, 
 <&e., which appeared to appertain to such particular periods. 
 Having thus in the course of many years collected an immense 
 mass of material, he sat patiently down to examine and compare 
 the dated and undoubted evidences with those supposed to belong 
 to the same eras. By this test he was enabled to correct an 
 erroneous date and to recognise a particular fashion, to detect 
 fraud and to rectify misconception. Everything that did not tally 
 with the general features of the age to which it had been assigned 
 was ejected from that compartment, and, if genuine, speedily 
 found its proper place in another. Shrewd, cautious, indefatigable, 
 warped by no theory, misled by no assertion, he toiled on in 
 pursuit of truth, his veneration for which, in all things, was the 
 finest point in his character. Due as this acknowledgment is to 
 his memory, particularly from the writer of this article, it would 
 not have been obtruded upon the reader, did it not furnish one of 
 the strongest guarantees for the integrity and instructiveness of 
 the collection about to be described. 
 
 It is to be regretted that only three articles belonging to the 
 earliest period of British history were selected from the treasures 
 at G-oodrich Court, by the gentleman who solicited their trans- 
 mission to Manchester; but one of the three is unique and 
 priceless. It is the gilt bronze coating of a shield, made by the 
 Britons, in imitation of the Eoman scutum (glass case J). It was 
 found in the bed of the river Witham, Lincolnshire, with several 
 broken swords and spear-heads of bronze, and presented to Sir S. 
 Meyrick by the Eev. H. W. Sibthorp. The umbo or boss is 
 studded with pieces of red cornelian. " The ornament," Sir 
 Samuel remarks, "is just such an attempt to rival Eoman art as 
 would be made by a less civilised nation." On each side of it is 
 placed a fine specimen of the tarian, the round target or buckler 
 in common use amongst the Celtic inhabitants of these islands, 
 
56 THE ABT TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 the concentric circles of studs being imitated down to the last 
 century in the shields of the Scotch Highlanders. In front is a 
 beautiful bronze sword, with leaf-shaped blade, found in Ireland, 
 the property of His Grace the Duke of Rutland, and the only 
 article on the south side of the nave not belonging to the 
 Meyrick collection. It has, unfortunately, been furnished with a 
 modern hilt and sheath, which sadly detracts from its interest. 
 
 It is a long leap from the times of the ancient Britons to the 
 reign of Edward III. ; but, as is remarked in the chronological 
 note, inserted in the Provisional Catalogue, a few corroded sword- 
 blades, bosses of shields, and a spur or two, form the sum total of 
 the military remains as yet discovered of the Saxons, the Danes, 
 and the Normans. Of their personal ornaments, their manu- 
 scripts, drawings, and furniture, there exist ample and rich collec- 
 tions, but from the perishable nature of their body armour, which 
 was principally composed of rings or small plates, of various 
 forms, stitched upon leather or linen, no authentic specimen has 
 descended to us. "Within the last ten years, four or five helmets 
 of the 12th and 13th centuries have been discovered, one of 
 which, of the time of King John, is to be seen in the armour 
 court on the north side of the Nave, and will be described in a 
 future article ; but previous to the death of Sir Samuel Meyrick 
 in 1848, no armour was known to exist in England of a date 
 earlier than that of the helmet and gauntlets of Edward the 
 Black Prince, preserved by good fortune rather than good 
 guardianship in Canterbury Cathedral. Of the same period are 
 the bascinet and heaume (Nos. 1 and 2) in this collection ; the 
 latter (No. 2) being the jousting helmet of Sir Eichard Pern- 
 bridge, who died in 1375, and which was formerly suspended over 
 his tomb in Hereford Cathedral. It was presented to Sir Samuel 
 by the dean and chapter. The bascinet (No. 1) may indeed be 
 earlier, as it was obtained from Naples, and the form of it, were 
 it even English, would induce us to attribute it to the very com- 
 mencement of the reign of Edward III., while we know that 
 fashion travelled then as now from the south, and that continen- 
 tal specimens may always be dated some years in advance of 
 English. Sir S. Meyrick indeed believed this specimen to be 
 unique, and has so described it in his own handwriting on the 
 
THE AEMOUEIES METKICK COLLECTION. 57 
 
 card still appendant to it ; but it must have escaped him that 
 there was at "Warwick Castle one of nearly the same date. It is 
 engraved in Grose's work, plate 42, and is therein attributed to 
 the celebrated but fabulous Guy, Earl of Warwick. It may 
 fairly be supposed to have belonged actually to Guy de Beau- 
 champ, Earl of Warwick, who died A.D. 1315. No. 3 exhibits an 
 improvement on the bascinet by the addition of a removable 
 vizor, which in the reign of Richard II., to which this specimen 
 is assigned, assumed a peculiar form, the central portion project- 
 ing, and tapering to a sharp point. This fashion lasted with some 
 variation to the reign of Henry VI. It was only used for battle. 
 For the joust, the vizor was removed, and the heaume (No. 2) 
 was placed over the bascinet. No. 4, is a heaume, or tilting 
 helmet, of the time of Henry VI., as is indicated by the globular 
 form of the crown and the roundness of the anterior portion, com- 
 pared with No. 6, which is another of the time of Henry VII., 
 natter on the top, and presenting an angular front. On the side 
 of an ivory casket in the Doucean collection of ivories may be 
 seen two knights jousting, who are represented wearing heaumes 
 of the latter description. No. 5, hung beneath, is a very rare 
 and fine specimen of the headpiece, called the casquetel. worn 
 during the close of the 15th century. It is attributed to the 
 reign of Henry VII., being slightly engraved. 
 
 No. 7 is a masked bourginot, with a vizor made to represent a 
 human face, with formidable moustaches. This species of helmet, 
 taking altogether more precisely the shape of the human head, 
 was called a bourginot from its being of Burgundian origin. 
 No. 8 is an English armet, a helmet distinguished by the pecu- 
 liarity of its opening at the back. The etymology of the name is 
 uncertain. It has been conjectured by some to be only a corrup- 
 tion of the word helmet. However this may be, the headpiece is 
 peculiarly English, and was, as well as the bourginot, much in 
 fashion during the reign of Henry VIII. 
 
 These headpieces, from 1 to 8, have been chronologically ar- 
 ranged on the partition through which this court is entered from 
 the east, commencing on the bracket nearest to the Nave. Rising 
 above them are the weapons of the 15th century, called ran- 
 seurs and spetums, distinguished from the halbard by sharper 
 
58 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 points and side projecting ears, those of the spetum being curved. 
 Beneath are two square targets of the same period, and a beauti- 
 ful ivory saddle, engraved all over with love verses in old German, 
 and the figures of the two personages whose sentiments they ex- 
 press carved in high relief and in the costume of the time, recall- 
 ing Chaucer's description, 
 
 " His saddle was of whale's bone," 
 
 such being in the middle ages the ordinary name for ivory, which 
 had become familiar to the Normans originally by the use made 
 of the tusk of the walrus or sea-horse, acd whose descendants 
 continued to apply to elephantine ivory the ancient term for all 
 similar material. At the entrance ia also to be seen the morning 
 star, a formidable weapon, used from the earliest times to the 
 reign of Henry VIII., and still carried by the watchmen in Nor- 
 way ; and specimens of the two-handed sword, which seems to 
 have been first used in England about the commencement of the 
 15th century, and remained in fashion, to the middle of the 
 16th. 
 
 The earliest complete suit in the Meyrick collection is the first 
 mounted figure in the Nave, on the south side, its date being about 
 1445, the reign of Henry VI. Although the era of complete 
 plate is assigned with good reason to the previous reigti of 
 Henry V., and the armour of that time possessed characteristics 
 which could not easily be mistaken, it is a singular fact, that in 
 no public or private collection in England, France, or Germany, 
 that is known to the writer, nor in the works that have been 
 published illustrating the imperial and royal armouries of Russia, 
 Spain, and Sardinia, is there to be found a suit which could be 
 confidently ascribed to an earlier date than 1425. The tilting 
 helmet, saddle, and shield of Henry V. moulder in rust and dust 
 on oaken rafters, almost out of sight, over his tomb in West- 
 minster Abbey, and helmets and spurs of that period are to be 
 met with occasionally. Two bascinets remain at Goodrich Co art, 
 and one of similar form to them will be seen in the armoury on 
 the north side of the Nave ; but not a fragment of the long steel 
 coats that bore the brunt at Harfleur or Agincourt have been as 
 yet identified. In the Tower of London, in the Mus6e d'Artil- 
 
THE ABMOUBIES METEICK COLLECTION. 59 
 
 lerie at Paris, the Rust Kammer at Dresden, and the Ambras 
 Collection at Vienna, the earliest suits present the same features 
 as those to be observed in the mounted knight from Goodrich 
 Court referred to. The headpiece is the salade so called from 
 the Italian salata introduced to England apparently in the reign 
 of Henry VI., though the bascinet continued to be worn with 
 and without the vizor. The peculiarity of the salade consists in 
 its covering the upper half of the face, a horizontal aperture 
 being made for the sight, as in the earlier tilting helmets, and 
 projecting considerably behind where it terminates in a peak like 
 the knight's chapeau, which was usually worn over it. The 
 lower portion of the visage is guarded by a piece called the hause 
 col, rising above the chin, and almost meeting the rim of the 
 salade. The breast and backplates are of exquisite form and 
 workmanship ; the former consists of three pieces, independent 
 of the taces as the plates were called below the waist and the 
 latter of four, not including the skirt, and is fluted in the most 
 tasteful manner, imitating the gatherings of some textile fabric. 
 The sollerets, or steel shoes, are sharply pointed, a distinguishing 
 characteristic of this epoch, and the outlines of all the pieces, 
 extremely elegant. It is of German manufacture. On the left 
 arm is a fine shield, also German ; the notch on the side was 
 called the bouche, and was made for the passage of the lance. It 
 does not appear before the reign of Henry IV. in England. The 
 left thigh is protected by what English antiquaries call a socket 
 (a fashion peculiarly German), the ornamentation of which in- 
 duces us to attribute it to the same period as the suit. Imme- 
 diately facing this figure is a magnificent fluted suit of bright 
 steel, with pass guards, first introduced in the reign of Henry VII. 
 The two centre suits, mounted in the Nave, are of the reign of 
 Henry VIII. in England. The bright one, stamped with the 
 Nuremberg arms, denoting the place of its manufacture, was 
 brought from Vienna by the French General Amielle, and as- 
 signed by tradition to Maximilian, King of the Romans. The 
 black and gold one is said to have belonged to an Elector of 
 Bavaria. The third on the left or south side is of the date of 
 Edward VI. or Philip and Mary. These are all extremely fine 
 specimens of armour of the 16th century. The third on the 
 
60 THE AET TEEASUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 north side, a grand Elizabethan suit, does not belong to the 
 Meyrick collection, and will therefore be described in the next 
 article. 
 
 We will now return into the south court, in which the suits 
 stand in regular chronological succession, from the reign of 
 Henry VII. to that of Charles I. and the time of the Common- 
 wealth, and ranged behind them the weapons of their respective 
 ages the bill, the halbard, the partisan, the pike, the lintstock, 
 the battle-axe, the martel de fer, the mace, the latch or cross- 
 bow, the matchlock, the wheel-lock, the firelock, and a German 
 beheading sword of the time of Charles II. 
 
 Our limits will not allow us to dwell on the various peculi- 
 arities of this interesting and instructive series. We must 
 briefly point out the fine fluted cap-a-pied suit with which it 
 commences, date about 1495; the singular puffed and slashed 
 suit, in imitation of the dress of the day, A.D. 1510 ; the beauti- 
 ful globular breastplate hanging beside it, and another, with 
 cuisses, ribbed and " engraved," says Meyrick, " with a masterly 
 freedom, in the very best style of the German school ; " the 
 black armour of a Knight of St. George of Ravenna, A.D. 1525 ; 
 the suit of Genoese armour, \\ith raised white ornament on a 
 black ground, the prototype of the embossed armour, which 
 indicated the rapidly approaching confession of its inutility 
 as a personal defence by the elaborate art lavished on its 
 decoration. 
 
 A mass of tilting armour, gilt and engraved, of the reigns of 
 Edward VI., Philip and Mary, and Elizabeth, occupies the centre 
 of this compartment. The coursing hat, the mentonierie, the 
 volant piece, the grand guard, all superbly ornamented, are here 
 exhibited. These trophies are followed by suits of long-waisted 
 armour of the reign of Edward VI.; a fine suit of splints, the 
 name given to that kind of armour made of overlapping plates, 
 and called by the French ecrcvisses, from their resemblance to the 
 tail of the lobster, the date of this suit is about 1558 ; a black 
 suit of the reign of Elizabeth, 1592 ; a finely gilt and engraved 
 one of the time of James I. in England, the badge on which, of 
 hands conjoined grasping a flower, belonged to the family of 
 Manfredi, of Paenza, better known to us as of Otranto, and that 
 
THE JLEMOUEIES MEYRICK COLLECTION. 61 
 
 of palm branches issuing from a coronet to the house of Grimaldi, 
 Princes of Monaco. It is probable, therefore, that this suit might 
 be identified by the discovery of a match about this period 
 between those distinguished Italian families. 
 
 The series terminates with a black suit of the reign of 
 Charles I., and the gorget which, after having been worn over the 
 buff coat, and occasionally over the silk doublet, dwindled down 
 into the gilt toy suspended by a blue ribbon round the neck of 
 an officer on guard, within the recollection of the present 
 generation. 
 
 Here, also, are to be seen the lobster-tailed casques, backs, 
 breasts, and tassets, worn by the Cavaliers and Koundheads in the 
 civil wars ; and, while contemplating the single and triple barred 
 helmets of this period, a circumstance is recalled to our memory 
 which may not be without its lesson. Sir David Wilkie did the 
 writer of these lines the honour of consulting him respecting the 
 elaborate picture of John Knox Preaching the Reformation. He 
 was desirous, he said, of being very correct in the costume he had 
 introduced, and requested a candid opinion upon it ; the picture 
 being then finished, and ready for removal to the Royal Academy, 
 for the purpose of exhibition. On its being pointed out. to him 
 that he had introduced in the gallery of the church, military per- 
 sonages wearing the barred helmets of the time of Charles I. in 
 the reign of Mary Stuart, he replied that his reason for so doing 
 was, that these persons were to be supposed as having visited the 
 church with a desire to be unknown ; and yet he had actually 
 selected more in the spirit of an Irishman than of a Scotchman 
 the open head-piece of the 17th century, through the bars 
 of which the face was distinctly visible, in preference to the 
 helmet of the 16th, the closed vizor of which would have 
 defied scrutiny ! The glaring absurdity of this anachronism was, 
 notwithstanding, allowed by the great painter to remain, and to 
 be disseminated by the burin of the engraver, although it might 
 have been remedied in half an hour, with as much advantage to 
 the effect of the picture as to its historical accuracy. 
 
 This anecdote " reminds us," as an inveterate story-teller would 
 say, of one more creditable to the taste and intelligence of another 
 royal academician. Mr. A. Cooper's " Battle of Bosworth " 
 
62 THE ABT TEEASUBES EXHIBITION. 
 
 graces, by permission of the Earl of Durham, the walls of the 
 gallery of modern artists in this Exhibition (No. 195). While 
 at work upon it the painter consulted Sir Samuel Meyrick as to 
 how King Richard III.'s horse should be caparisoned. " In silk 
 housings, embroidered with the royal arms," was the answer, 
 "covering the steed from his ears to his hoofs." " Oh !" ex- 
 claimed the mortified artist, "that will never do for me, my prin- 
 cipal object is to paint White Surrey, and if I cover him from 
 head to foot, as you describe, I may as well not paint him at all." 
 "But," rejoined the antiquary, " you tell me the moment you 
 have chosen is that in which Richard made his last desperate 
 charge, and slew Sir John Cheney, Richmond's standard-bearer. 
 Now as this was at the close of the battle, the caparisons of the 
 horse would probably by that time have been cut and torn to 
 shreds, and the colour and anatomy of the horse in that case 
 might be rendered sufficiently visible for your purpose." The true 
 artist jumped at the suggestion. Look, reader, at the result! 
 the silken housings rent to ribbons, streaming in the wind, add 
 action to the horse, tell a terrible tale of the fury of the fight, and 
 completely satisfy the archaeologist, while they display the peculiar 
 genius of the painter, and give additional effect to the picture. 
 
 But to return to our armour. The chronological series ter- 
 minated, we have to point out art treasures of various dates 
 especially deserving the notice of the visitors. Beneath the por- 
 trait of Sir Samuel Meyrick, by the late H. P. Briggs, R.A., is 
 placed one of the gems of the collection. The half-suit of 
 Alphonso II., Duke of Ferrara, immortalised by Tasso in his dedi- 
 cation to him of the " Girusalemme Liberata ; " born 1533, died 
 1579. It is perhaps the finest in Europe: that in which Sir 
 Philip Sidney was killed at the battle of Zutphen (formerly at 
 Stowe, and now, alas ! to our great shame, afc St. Petersburg), and 
 another in the Louvre at Paris, ascribed to one of the Henries of 
 France, may possibly contest its superiority, but without impairing 
 its character as a chef d 'ceuvre. 
 
 The morion placed above it, and the front of a saddle below it, 
 do not belong to the suit, but are of the same period, and but 
 little inferior to it in workmanship. On the floor stands a most 
 interesting relic of the 16th century, an Italian armourer's 
 
THE ARMOURIES MEYRICK COLLECTION. 63 
 
 anvil ! The taste and skill displayed in its ornamentation is a 
 curious illustration of the feeling for art existing at that period, 
 and rendering the manufacture of such magnificent specimens of 
 armour as those immediately above it a labour of love to the enthu- 
 siastic and intelligent workman. Facing it, against the end of the 
 horizontal glass case, stands another embossed half suit, imperfect, 
 of Florentine manufacture, which, but for its magnificent vis-a-vis, 
 might claim more than a passing tribute to its merit. Hard by, 
 two tilting suits of the 16th century have been confronted on 
 horseback, as running a course. The knee staves are painted, as in 
 the old tournament rolls, with the supposed colours of the riders, 
 furnished with vamplates, and headed, one with a steel point rebated 
 or turned back, called a morne, and the other with a triple- 
 pronged but blunted instrument, called a eoronel, or cornel, as for 
 a joust of peace. One of the figures has a shoulder-shield, or, as 
 the French call it, a manteau d'armes, the raised lines on which 
 may, as the suit came out of the arsenal at Munich, represent the 
 arms of Bavaria, fusilly-bendy, argent, and azure. On the front 
 of the saddle is the steel of Burgundy, and the date 1549. 
 Against the columns are placed several tilting suits, more or 
 less perfect, of the 16th century (principally of the reigns of 
 Edward VI. and Mary) and glaives of the guard of the doges of 
 Venice, and of the electors of Saxony of the same date. 
 
 In the horizontal glass case occupying the centre of the 
 court are arranged a series of fire-arms, dating from the com- 
 mencement of the 16th to the close of the 17th cen- 
 tury. Amongst the most interesting specimens will be found the 
 dragon, so called from the head represented at the muzzle, and 
 from the use of which the troops now known as dragoons derived 
 their name ; a hand mortar of the time of Elizabeth, for throwing 
 grenades ; a snaphaunce, a blunderbuss, wheel-lock pistols, and 
 dags of various dates, and a fine pair of pistols by Lazzarino Corn- 
 minazzo. Here is also a matchless cross-bow of ivory, of the 
 time of Henry VI., carved with sculptured figures in the military 
 and civil costume of the period, and shields of arms, amidst which 
 that of Bavaria is conspicuous. Near it are three lighter kinds 
 of cross-bows for shooting bullets, called prodds by the English, 
 two of them finely carved, and all of the 16th century, wind- 
 
64 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 lasses for bending the latch, and a goat's foot lever for the prodd ; 
 powder-flasks, touch-boxes, and patrons from the time of 
 Henry VIII. to that of Cromwell, and a grenadier officer's cap 
 of the reign of Queen Anne, which will recall to the mind of the 
 visitor fresh from the gallery of modern painters, Hogarth's 
 " March of the Guards to Finchley." To end where we began, 
 with glass case J, in the upper portion are to be seen three 
 morions and two casques, all fine specimens of the embossed 
 and engraved armour of the 16th century, and the vizor and 
 beaver of a helmet of the reign of Francis I., representing with 
 exquisite taste the upper part of the head of some fabulous 
 monster, astonishingly beaten out of a flat piece of steel. Below 
 them, on the south side, facing the court, are three targets of 
 embossed leather, in front of which is the finely gilt and engraved 
 head of a partisan, with the arms of Alexander Farnese, Duke of 
 Parma and Placentia, 1586; a close gauntlet, forbidden to be 
 worn in the tournament, as it was not possible to disarm a man 
 when the hilt of his sword was locked in it; a right hand 
 gauntlet, belonging to the suit of Henry, Prince of Wales, now, 
 by permission of Her Most Gracious Majesty, exhibited in the 
 north armour court, and of which it will be our " hint to 
 speak " in the next article ; and the baton of the renowned Duke 
 of Alva, presented to him by Philip II. of Spain. It is of steel, 
 hollow, to contain the muster-roll of an army, and covered outside 
 with Arabic numerals in gold, with divisions of silver on a russet 
 ground. These are the results of calculations, according to the 
 system of warfare in the 16th century, by which the general 
 is apprised what number of men would occupy any given space. 
 Some phrases in the French language are supposed to allude to 
 this description of numerical truncheon, such as " etre lien assure 
 de son baton" " obtenir son objet par le tour du baton," and " etre 
 reduit au baton blanc" i. e., to his last shift by the exhaustion or 
 obliteration of the calculations. 
 
 The east end of the glass case is filled with swords and daggers 
 of the reigns of Henry VII., Henry VII i.., Edward VI., Mary, 
 and Elizabeth. The earliest taper to a very fine point, and have 
 a ridge down the centre of the blade. There is a sword-breaker 
 of the reign of Henry VIII., the name of which explains its 
 
THE AEMOUEIES MEYRICK COLLECTION-. 65 
 
 purpose ; a fine dagger, in its embossed sheath, of the same date; 
 two triple-bladed daggers, which, after being thrust into the 
 body, are, by a spring, made to open within it; a sword and 
 wheel, with pistol combined, a Spanish knife, &c., &c. The side 
 facing the Nave presents us with two of the chief treasures in this 
 collection, the targets of the Emperor Charles V., and of 
 Francis I., King of France. The first is the work of Hieronymo 
 Spaciori, a Milanese artist, whose name is engraved in the centre, 
 around the spike underneath the two gilt cinquefoils. It is of 
 steel, and ornamented with eight-and-fbrty gilt engravings, on a 
 ground-work of niello, arranged in four concentric circles. The 
 innermost represents the twelve signs of the Zodiac ; the next, 
 twelve subjects from classical mythology ; the third, twelve inci- 
 dents in the life of the Emperor ; and the fourth, as many 
 illustrations of Holy Writ. As the latest historical event repre- 
 sented on it is the submission of the Landgrave of Hesse, which 
 took place in 1547, it is presumed that it was made about 1550. 
 The whole of the subjects are fully described by Sir Samuel 
 Meyrick in Skelton's Engraved Illustrations. The worthy com- 
 panion to this valuable relic,, the target of Charles's great con- 
 temporary Francis I., was "exhumated in France," says Sir 
 Samuel, in the same work, " and has suffered greatly from the 
 pickaxe, which was struck through it, and from the hole thus made 
 was broken into three parts. The gold, which once profusely 
 adorned it, has been almost entirely removed to gratify the 
 avarice of the finder, and the steel itself is in one place somewhat 
 corroded. It was rescued from entire destruction by Count 
 Yassali, who, after directing the several pieces to be cautiously 
 and skilfully united, brought it with great care to this country. 
 The design is by Giulio Romano, or his contemporary Primaticcio, 
 and it was probably executed by Filippo Negroli, a celebrated 
 Milanese armourer, known to have worked for Francis I." The 
 historical event commemorated upon it is the retreat of the 
 English army under Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk ; and the 
 target is said by Sir S. Meyrick to have been presented to Francis 
 by the Parisians in gratitude for their relief by the levee en 
 masse, called out in aid of the French army under Tremouille. 
 Amongst the other curiosities in this case, is a crest-holder, which 
 
66 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 could be placed on the top of a plain helmet for the fixing of a 
 crest, and removed at pleasure ; a finely designed grotesque mask, 
 the termination of a tailpiece for a horse, an embossed breastplate, 
 and some pieces of armour gilt, and engraved with the same 
 badges as the Italian suit of the time of James I. in the chrono- 
 logical series. 
 
 "We have now briefly described the principal objects of interest 
 and value in the south armoury, which, though not comprising the 
 whole of the treasures acquired by Sir Samuel Meyrick, and 
 deficient in specimens of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 
 presents a mass of information to such as are inclined to study it, 
 not to be exceeded, even if it can be equalled, by any private 
 collection existing, to the best of our knowledge, in Europe. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE NORTH ARMOURY. 
 
 THE armour on the north side of the nave has been arranged 
 on the same principle as that observed in the Meyrick Collection 
 already described, and had not the committee been bound by the 
 pledge given to Colonel Meyrick, that his armour should be 
 exhibited "by itself apart," the intermixture of the rare and 
 magnificent specimens collected in this court would have vastly 
 increased the value of its exhibition as a school, as well as its 
 effect as a spectacle. It would have required, however, greater 
 space than was at the disposal of the committee, who had already 
 promised the most eligible compartment (the Oriental Court) to 
 Dr. Eoyle for the display of the art treasures from India, the 
 corresponding compartment being at first reserved for engravings, 
 but from the pressure of circumstances, since appropriated to the 
 noble collection of paintings, the property of the Marquis of 
 Hertford. The great object of this Exhibition being to teach, 
 the next best plan appeared to be to repeat the lesson read upon 
 
THE AEMOFEIES. 67 
 
 the south side, with such additional information as could be 
 supplied by specimens from other sources, of which no variety 
 existed in the Meyrick Collection. With this view several 
 noblemen and gentlemen were applied to, the majority of whom 
 kindly responded to the request, while Her Majesty and the 
 Prince Consort most promptly and liberally extended their 
 original permission, affording every facility for examination and 
 selection. 
 
 Thus favoured, the director was enabled to present the public 
 with an armoury on the north side, equally grand and instructive 
 with that on the south, so that the information acquired by the 
 study of one, would be additionally impressed on the mind, and 
 illustrated by the examination of the other. 
 
 The series of head-pieces arranged on the partition corre- 
 sponding with that on the south side, commences with a heaume 
 of the 12th or earliest part of the 13th century, such as was worn 
 in the reign of King John (1199-1216), contributed by the 
 Earl of "Warwick. It was discovered some years ago in digging 
 amongst the ruins of Eyusford Castle, Kent ; and may probably, 
 therefore, have belonged to "William de Eynsford, a powerful per- 
 son in those days, and who possessed the manor in the 12th and 
 13th year of King John. This cumbrous, heavy, inelegant helmet 
 was only worn in actual combat, when it was placed over the coif- 
 de-mailles and chapel-de-fer {Angl. mail hood and iron skull-cap), 
 and rested on the shoulders, which, it would seem, were in some 
 danger of being severely injured if the heaume were forcibly 
 turned round upon them by a vigorous stroke of the lance ; for 
 in the romance of Launcelot du Lac, the helmet of a knight is 
 said to have been so turned that the edges grazed his shoulders, 
 and the blood flowed over his armour (ses armes estoient toutcs 
 engsanglantees) . 
 
 No. 2 is also the property of the Earl of Warwick. It is a 
 vizored bascinet, with the camail or neck chain appended to it. 
 Such head-pieces are seen as early as the reign of Edward II. ; 
 but we should ascribe this specimen to a much later date. It has 
 been so exceedingly injured that the exact form of the cone 
 cannot now be ascertained. This species of vizored bascinet 
 continued in use to the middle of the 15th century. 
 
68 THE ABT TBEASTJBES EXHIBITION. 
 
 No 3 is a heaume of the early part of the 15th century, very 
 large, and of a fine form, sent from the Tower since the opening 
 of the Exhibition. 
 
 "No. 4 is a Venetian salade, of the time of Henry V. in England 
 (1411-1422), and approximating in form to the ancient Greek 
 helmet. This specimen is exhibited by Mr. Samuel Pratt, of 
 Bond-street, London, to whom the committee are also indebted 
 for 
 
 Nos. 5 and 6, two salades, of the reign of Edward IV., the 
 latter having its original covering of velvet and ornaments of gilt 
 metal, such as we see in illuminations of the 15th century worn 
 in conjunction with the jazeraut jacket, which was covered also 
 with velvet and studded with gilt nails. 
 
 No. 7 is a ponderous heaume of the early part of the reign of 
 Henry VII. (Tower.) 
 
 No. 8, an English helmet of the reign of Henry VIII. exhibited 
 by Lord De Lisle, and presenting us with that great rarity, an 
 original crest, the porcupine collared and chained, the well-known 
 cognisance of the Sidneys. This interesting relic is from Pens- 
 hurst, the family seat, and its age would induce us to consider it 
 as the actual helmet of Sir "William idney, to whom Penshurst 
 was granted by King Edward VI. Sir "William was chamberlain 
 of the household to King Henry VIII., one of the commanders at 
 Flodden Field, in 1515, and grandfather of the all-accomplished 
 Sir Philip Sidney. 
 
 No. 9 is an armet of the same date, opening at the back, the 
 property of Mr. S. Pratt. 
 
 Beneath this series of helmets are glass cases, containing a 
 matchless collection of spurs, chronologically arranged from the 
 time of the conquest to the 18th century, the property of Mr. 
 James, of Aylesbury, who has also kindly sent for Exhibition the 
 fine long-toed solleret or steel shoe, with long-necked fixed spur 
 of the time of Henry VI. placed in the adjacent upright glass 
 case, in company with probably the earliest specimen of plate 
 armour as yet discovered in England, viz. the pair of jambs and 
 cuisses, connected by pieces of chain, and which may be fairly 
 assigned to the time of Edward II. exhibited by Mr. Pratt ; a 
 pair of rude iron solleret stirrups of the 14th century (the Earl 
 
THE ABMOTTEIES. 69 
 
 of "Warwick) ; and a pair of spurs, with a portion of chain mail 
 of the 15th century, discovered in the bed of the river Seine, in 
 France, encrusted with petrified clay. 
 
 A more singular and interesting group of relics has seldom 
 been assembled. 
 
 Under a glass against the wall is a gorget of chain said to have 
 belonged to Ralph ]S"evil, Earl of "Westmoreland, temp. Henry 
 IV., brought originally from Leeds Castle, Kent, by the late Mr. 
 !Xewington Hughes, and exhibited by Lord Hastings. 
 
 "We shall now proceed to notice the complete suits of armour, 
 the first two of which have been removed from the armoury to 
 the back of the screen at the main entrance. 
 
 One of them is a fine suit of the 15th century, from the Tower 
 of London, and assigned to the reign of Henry VI. The long- 
 toed sollerets and general form of the armour are characteristic 
 of the end of that reign. The helmet appears later ; but if the 
 vizor is raised it is seen to be little more than a variety of the 
 salade, indicating the approach to the more complete headpiece 
 of the reign of Henry VII. In the hand of the figure is placed 
 a fine lance of singular form. Xear the door to Vestibule 4, 
 Modern, is a Pavoise, a long shield so called, from behind which 
 the archers took their aim. On it is depicted a knight armed 
 like the equestrian figure in the nave (temp. Henry VI.) with 
 salade and hausse col, and bearing on his shield gules, three swans 
 argent. He is in the act of slaying a dragon. Behind the Pavoise 
 are two battle-axes, one from the Tower, the other an exceedingly 
 fine specimen, with serrated back, from the royal collection, 
 "Windsor Castle. 
 
 The other (No. 11) is of the same date with the first ; the 
 gauntlets armed with gads or spikes at the knuckles are particu- 
 larly fine. This is also from the Tower of London. 
 
 Returning to the armoury, we find on the wall two shields of 
 the same period. On one is depicted a knight bearing a shield 
 with three swans, as on the Pavoise, and on the other a lady, in 
 the costume of the time, hunting. "With these are two cross- 
 bows, called latches, with the windlass, or apparatus for bending 
 them (Tower), and an armet of the reign of Henry VIII. exhi- 
 bited by Lord De Lisle. 
 
70 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 The third suit is from the Tower, of the earliest part of the 
 reign of Henry VIII., added since the opening of the Exhibition. 
 It is of very peculiar construction, having no joint that could be 
 perforated by the finest pointed weapon. Being what the French 
 term " a culotte" it could only have been worn on foot, and was 
 probably made for a duel a Voutrance. 
 
 The fourth suit (against the wall a little nearer the transept) 
 is a remarkably grand specimen of the same reign, with skirts or 
 bases, as they were called in the civil dress of the period, formed 
 of horizontal steel plates or lames, the lower portion being en- 
 graved with the Tudor rose. Round the neck of the helmet is 
 the collar of the Order of the Garter. It is probable that this 
 suit belonged to the King himself. In the hand of the figure is 
 placed a magnificent partisan. The staff, hollow and of two 
 pieces, is of exquisite workmanship, being of steel, inlaid and 
 damasked with mother-of-pearl and gold, and displaying amongst 
 other ornaments a double H with what has been considered a 
 double figure of 8 interlaced in the centre, but which, on exami- 
 nation, will, we think, prove to be a double German-text S ; four 
 similar single letters of smaller size being placed round each 
 cypher. The tradition is that this splendid weapon was pre- 
 sented by the Pope to Henry VIII. The Popes during his 
 reign were Julius II., Leo X., Adrian VI., Clement VII., and 
 Paul III. It is a curious subject for investigation, but our limits 
 preclude the pursuit of it at present. 
 
 Near this suit will be seen one of the most interesting relics in 
 this collection. A two-handed sword, exhibited by Lord De 
 Lisle, the hilt and pommel most tastefully combining the crowned 
 lion passant of the barony of De Lisle, and the bear and ragged 
 staff of the Earls of Warwick. The joint testimony of these two 
 remarkable cognisances favour the belief that this was the sword 
 of John Dudley, Lord De Lisle, Earl of Warwick, and Duke of 
 Northumberland, and who was attainted and beheaded in 1553, 
 for the part he took in the usurpation of the Lady Jane Grey. 
 The tradition in the family, however, is, that it was the sword 
 of that nobleman's son, the celebrated Eobert Dudley, Earl 
 of Leicester, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth; and we have 
 been informed that it is mentioned in an inventory of the Earl's 
 
THE ARMOURIES. 71 
 
 effects, taken by his order, at his castle of Kenilworth;" but 
 unless stated as having been made expressly for him, the form 
 being of more ancient date, together with the fact that neither 
 the barony of De Lisle nor the earldom of Warwick had de- 
 scended to E-obert Dudley, who died before his elder brother 
 Ambrose, induces us to consider the sword as having been made for 
 the father and not for the sou. The blade has, unfortunately, been 
 broken, and the remaining portion re-pointed: but the hilt is 
 in fine preservation, and as beautiful as a work of art as it is 
 interesting from its historical associations. "With it is a square 
 shield, late 15th century, with the bouche for the lance, exhibited 
 by Mr. S. Pratt. 
 
 We have next a fine suit with globose breastplate and pass 
 guards fluted and chamfered (temp. Henry VIII.), from the 
 Tower of London ; and then comes the superb shield, from Wind- 
 sor Castle, said to be the workmanship of Benvenuto Cellini, and 
 certainly of his time arid school. It is exhibited here by the 
 gracious permission of Her Majesty. Beside it are portions of a 
 tilting suit, called pieces de renfort by the Erench, and the saddle 
 belonging to it, all from Windsor Castle. The remainder of the 
 suit is believed to be somewhere in the Tower, and to have been 
 made for King Henry VIII. Such divisions are greatly to be 
 regretted. Above is a half suit, black and white ; with open 
 casque of the same reign. 
 
 The sixth is a Burgundian suit from the Tower (No. 19), exhi- 
 biting a singular projecting breastplate, on which is engraved 
 the badge of Burgundy (a saltier raguly), with some other device 
 nearly obliterated ; a flaming star is also engraved on the tuiles. 
 In the trophy which follows will be remarked a bear spear, with 
 engraved blade, exhibited by Mr. Pratt, to whom also belongs 
 the adjacent tilting suit of the time of Philip and Mary 
 (1553 1558), illustrating the return to old forms which 
 characterises this short period, and induced Sir Samuel Mey- 
 rick to consider some suits, and portions of suits in his 
 possession, as appertaining to the time of Edward IV. The 
 jambs and sollerets of this suit are rather later in date than the 
 upper portions. 
 
 Before a trophy of partisans, sword, and daggers of the 16th 
 
72 THE AET TEEASUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 century, stands a curious specimen of what has been called waist- 
 coat armour, being a back and breast made in imitation of the 
 doublet of Elizabeth's time, with buttons down the front ; upon 
 it is an engraved morion. (Tower of London.) 
 
 "We have next an Elizabethan suit, gilt and engraved (Tower of 
 London) (22), and an exceedingly fine Italian suit, commence- 
 ment of the 17th century, said to have belonged to Hector 
 Count Oddi of Padua, 1620. It has the very long tassets with 
 genouilleres, mentioned as early as 1544 (tassettes couvrant les 
 (jennoux) ; and the whole suit is engraved profusely with eagles 
 displayed. (Tower of London.) Near this suit will be found a 
 variety of weapons of the close of the 16th century, and amongst 
 them two matchlocks, exhibited by Lord De Lisle, dated 1591 and 
 1595. The stocks are new, the old ones having crumbled to 
 powder. 
 
 "We have now reached the western end of the court, where the 
 chronological series of suits terminates with two of the most 
 interesting in this country. The first was, undoubtedly, made 
 for Henry Prince of Wales, the eldest son of James I., 
 whose early death was so universally lamented. The other 
 is assigned to his ill-starred brother, Prince Charles, afterwards 
 Charles I. 
 
 Prince Henry's suit (against the staircase screen) is the iden- 
 tical one in which he is painted in the well-known full-length 
 portrait, by Von Somers, at Hampton Court, which, it is much to 
 be regretted, is not amongst the historical portraits exhibited from 
 that palace. It is profusely decorated with the royal badges of 
 England, France, and Scotland, the rose, the fleurs-de-lys, and 
 thistle ; as well as with the letters H.P. conjoined under a coronet. 
 The chanfront for the horse's head having the Prince's arms in 
 full, gilt and enamelled. An extra gauntlet for the right hand, 
 belonging to this suit, we have already pointed out in the Meyrick 
 Collection (Glass case), and an extra helmet is placed at its feet, 
 while it is surrounded by a complete set of tilting pieces (pieces 
 de renforf) and an extra vam-plate for the lance. On the left hand 
 of the figure is the long-bridled gauntlet. This chivalric young 
 prince, who is said to have been " in armour frequently five and 
 six times a day," applied, at the early age of ten, to Colonel 
 
THE AEMOUEIES. 73 
 
 Edmonds, to send him a suit from Holland ; and in 1607, the 
 Dauphin, son of Henry IV. of France, sent him a suit well gilt 
 and enamelled, together with pistols and a sword of the same kind, 
 and armour for ahorse. Three years later, 1610, on being created 
 Prince of "Wales, he caused a challenge to be given to all the 
 knights in Great Britain, under the name of Meliades, Lord of 
 the Isles ; and on the day appointed, assisted only by the Duke 
 of Lenox, the Earls of Arundel and Southampton, Lord Hay, 
 Sir Thomas Somerset, and Sir Bichard Preston, his instructor in 
 arms, sustained the combat against fifty-six earls, barons, knights, 
 and esquires ; Prince Henry himself receiving thirty-two pushes 
 of the pike, and about 360 strokes of the sword ; being then not 
 quite sixteen years of age. Sir Samuel Meyrick, who was anx- 
 ious to identify the relic which he had acquired, remarks, that 
 from the above circumstances of most of Prince Henry's armour 
 being sent from abroad, the impression would be that this suit was of 
 foreign manufacture ; but there is in the State-paper Office an 
 original warrant, ordering the payment of the sum of 200Z., the 
 balance of 3407. for a rich suit of armour made for Henry Prince of 
 "Wales, dated July 11, 1614; he having died on the 6th of November, 
 1612. This document is directed by King James I. to the commis- 
 sioners for the exercise of the office of High Treasurer of England ; 
 and states that, " whereas there was made in the office of our ar- 
 moury at Grenwich, by William Pickeringe, our master workman 
 there, one rich armour, with all peaces compleate, fayrely guilt and 
 graven, by the commaundment of our late deere sonne Prince 
 Henry, which armour was worth (as we are informed) the somme 
 of three hundred and forty poundes only, soe as there remayneth 
 due unto him the somme of two hundred poundes ;" therefore, 
 they are ordered to discharge the same forthwith. Now, as the 
 suits sent from Holland and Erance, in 1604 and 1607, were 
 made for Prince Henry at the ages of ten and thirteen, the size of 
 the one before us renders it exceedingly probable that we have 
 here, actually, the t: rich armour, with all pieces complete, fairly "gilt 
 and graven," made by "William Pickeringe, at Greenwich, when 
 the Prince was in his eighteenth year, and which was ordered by 
 him most likely with a view to some chivalric entertainment, in 
 honour of the visit of the Elector Palatine, the affianced husband 
 
74 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 of his sister Elizabeth, whose nuptials, however, he did not live to 
 celebrate. In 1C60 we have, apparently, another notice of this 
 superb suit, which seems to have been amongst those originally 
 kept in the gallery at Greenwich, but afterwards removed to the 
 Tower, for in an inventory taken in that year, by order of a com- 
 mission issued by Charles II., we find, " upon a horse statue of 
 wood, one compleat tilting armour cap-a-pe, richly gilt, part 
 graven, part damasked, made for Prince Henry, with two gaunt- 
 lets, and one guilt grand guard, the horse furniture being one 
 shaffroone of the same sort." The mention of two gauntlets is 
 interesting, because it evidently implies two extra gauntlets, as 
 they are coupled with the grand guard, the armour being pre- 
 viously described as complete cap-a-pied, which it would not be 
 without gauntlets. ~W r e know where the extra right-hand gauntlet 
 is. The other, it is probable, was an extra bridle gauntlet. 
 
 The next suit, said to be that of Prince Charles, does not afford 
 us any internal evidence of that fact. It is evidently of Italian 
 manufacture, elaborately engraved with naval trophies and ocean 
 deities, but has no initials or badges by which we can identify it, 
 nor have we any account, such as there is of his brother's armour, 
 which would correspond with the suit before us. In one of King- 
 James's letters to the Prince, during the famous visit to Spain, 
 he says, " Your officers are already put to the height of their 
 speed to provide the five thousand pounds by exchange ; and now 
 your tilting stuff, which they know not how to provide, will come 
 to three more ; " and further on he adds : " I pray you, my baby. 
 take heed of being hurt if you run at tilt." But Prince Charles 
 was then in the twenty-fourth year of his age, and must have 
 reached his full stature. "We have, therefore, only tradition to 
 rely upon ; but whether regarded as two of the last full suits of 
 ancient armour ever made in Europe, or as the personal relics of 
 two princes whose untimely ends have excited so much sympathy, 
 the interest attached to them is (as we have remarked elsewhere) 
 exceedingly great, and our obligations to the illustrious personages 
 who so promptly and graciously granted our requests that they 
 might be added to the treasures previously ordered for removal 
 to Manchester, must be proportionate. 
 
 Between these two suits is placed a superb half suit of embossed 
 
THE AEMOUEIES. 75 
 
 steel, so manufactured that it might be almost considered silver, 
 belonging to Mr. H. Magniac, and of the time of Charles I. ; and 
 above those memorials of the royal house of Stuart are displayed 
 a fine Highland target and trophies of claymores, some of which 
 are said to have been brandished in the cause of their unfortunate 
 descendants, exhibited by the Marquis of Breadalbane and other 
 contributors. The age of these weapons is uncertain, the same 
 form having long prevailed, and the blade being occasionally much 
 older than the hilt, as is the case with the one with a gilt basket 
 guard from the royal collection at Windsor, and which belonged 
 to His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex. Some fine specimens 
 of Highland broadswords are also displayed in a glass case near 
 the column, from His Royal Highness the Prince Consort's private 
 collection. 
 
 The buff coat of Sir Jacob Astley, Bart., the ancestor of Lord 
 Hastings, and that of Sir Francis de Rhodes, Bart., from Barl- 
 borough Hall, Derbyshire, with a fine specimen of the long buff 
 gauntlet for the bridle arm, sword, belt, swivel for carbine, &c., 
 exhibited by Mr. Hatfield de Rhodes, a descendant of the gallant 
 cavalier ; and a close helmet of the same period (Tower) complete 
 a series of military weapons and equipments from the reign of 
 John to the time of the Commonwealth, on this side of the nave, 
 supplying many links in the chain we have already drawn upon 
 the southern. 
 
 There are three glass cases in this compartment. .Two upright 
 and a long horizontal one in the centre. "We have already dipped 
 into the first of the two upright cases, the front of which is occu- 
 pied by the Doucean collection of ivories from Goodrich Court, 
 and the eastern end by Mr. James's solleret and other rare speci- 
 mens of ancient armour of the 14th and 15th centuries. The 
 wall side of this case contains two embossed shields, exhibited by 
 the Marquis of Breadalbane and Lord Delamere ; the centre por- 
 tion of Lord Breadalbane's of fine cinque-cento workmanship. 
 Between them is one of embossed leather, from the collection of 
 Lord Hastings. In front of them will be found a pair of stirrups, 
 of marvellous beauty, the property of the Earl of Warwick ; a 
 dagger, with finely chased hilt and guard (Mr. H. Magniac), and 
 some other choice specimens of embossed and engraved work of 
 
76 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 the 16th century, from the Tower. In the upper part of the case 
 is a fine masked bourginot, of the reign of Henry VIII., and 
 some casques and morions of the time of Elizabeth ; also a saddle, 
 part leather, part bone, engraved with figures in the costume of 
 the 15th century, and about the same age as the ivory one in the 
 Meyrick Collection. The western end of the case contains various 
 weapons of the 15th and 16th century ; amongst the most 
 worthy of notice a steel mace and wheel-lock pistol combined, 
 richly engraved, of the time of Edward VI. from the Tower, 
 and a magnificent rnartel de fer, the property of the Earl 
 Cadogan. 
 
 The contents of the other upright case, marked L, consist of, 
 on the wall side, two embossed shields from the Tower collection, 
 one made of what is termed gilding metal, and a curious shield, 
 belonging to Lord Hastings, painted on both sides ; on the exterior 
 is the head of a Medusa. In front of them are the swords of state 
 of the cities of York and Lincoln, and a broken one, with fine 
 hilt, from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, exhibited by the re- 
 spective authorities. In the upper compartments are some portions 
 of gilt and engraved armour, finely embossed and engraved hel- 
 mets and morions, a gadded morion, so called from the spikes set 
 round it, exhibited by Mr. Pratt ; and the breast and back of a 
 very small suit of armour of steel, silvered, said to have been 
 made for Charles I. in his early boyhood (Tower). On the side 
 facing the nave is the finely embossed breastplate of Maurice, 
 elector of Saxony, mortally wounded at the battle of Sieverhausen, 
 July 9th, 1553. The hole made by the fatal bullet affords a sad 
 proof of the fact frequently questioned of such magnificent armour 
 being worn in action, as well as of its ineffectual protection from 
 the gradually improving fire-arms of the 16th century. A grand 
 guard of the time of Henry VIII. (Mr. S. Pratt), and a close 
 gauntlet, belonging to the tilting suit of that sovereign, portions 
 of which are exhibited in the centre of this court, from "Windsor. 
 A pair of large-rowelled silver spurs, and the placate or extra 
 breastplate, belonging to Sir Henry Dymoke's suit, mounted 
 in the nave, of which we shall discourse more anon. At the 
 eastern end are various weapons of the 17th century, the latest of 
 which are a sword of the time of James II. and a pair of pistols of 
 
THE AEMOTTRIES. 77 
 
 the reign of "William III. The western end contains a few 
 oriental weapons, from various contributors. 
 
 The long glass case, in the centre, is filled with superb weapons 
 from the royal collection at "Windsor, and the national at the 
 Tower. They are arranged as nearly as possible in chronological 
 order, the earliest being a fine anelace (a species of dagger, 
 evidently of oriental origin), of the time of Henry VII. The first 
 tray contains a cup rapier and dagger, of exquisite workmanship, 
 said to be those of Philip II. of Spain, and consort of Mary, Queen 
 of England; a sword of Charles VI. Emperor of Germany; a 
 sword of an Elector of Brandenburg ; an exceedingly fine sword, 
 the hilt of which is attributed to Benvenuto Cellini ; and some 
 other splendid swords of the 16th and 17th centuries. A beautiful 
 pair of cup rapiers and daggers lie on each side of the tray. Then 
 follow some fine match and wheel lock guns, pistols, &c. from 1509 
 to 1625. The hunting knife, or trousseau de chasse, as the French 
 call it, of the great Swedish hero Charles XII., and another of 
 the time of Louis XV., both from the royal collection. Then we 
 have some magnificently ornamented firelocks, rifles, and pistols ; 
 one rifle, with a spiral barrel and heart-shaped bore, an anticipa- 
 tion of Lancaster's patent. The last tray is filled with superb 
 dress and court swords, of the 18th and present century. Another 
 tray is suspended beneath the Scotch swords, at the termination 
 of the court, with equally fine specimens of cavalry swords and 
 sabres, one of which has a cartouch-box, and enamelled medallions 
 to match, of great beauty. 
 
 Issuing into the nave from this point, we come upon the sixth 
 and latest of the mounted suits, to which we have more than once 
 referred, and which is the property of Sir Henry Dymoke, the 
 hereditary champion of England. We have purposely deferred 
 noticing this suit until the present moment, as it formed no 
 portion of the Meyrick Collection, and could not be arranged in 
 the chronological series in the south court. It is also highly 
 worthy of a separate examination. 
 
 It was presented, we understand, to an ancestor of Sir Henry 
 Dymoke, on the occasion of the coronation of George I. as the 
 customary fee of the champion ; and from the circumstance of its 
 being profusely ornamented with the letter E under a crown, as 
 
78 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 well as, ifc is probable, from the dark colour of the suit, it was 
 assigned without hesitation to Edward the Black Prince, and has 
 always been so esteemed by the family. It is with deep regret 
 we are compelled to dissipate this agreeable illusion ; but we trust 
 to establish for it considerable interest, founded on fact. The 
 form of the breastplate and other portions of the armour was 
 sufficient at once to give it its correct date late Elizabethan. But 
 to set the matter at rest, upon taking off the placate, now in the 
 glass case L, on account of the great weight of the suit (which, 
 even without it, is fully as much as may be trusted upon its 
 wooden charger), there appeared at the bottom of the breastplate 
 the date " 1585 " (28th of Queen Elizabeth), a circumstance 
 giving additional value to the suit. The armour has been 
 originally of blued steel, richly engraved and gilt, with double 
 borders, the exterior one containing roses, and the graceful inter- 
 secting scroll pattern being itself traversed by a broad band, in 
 which occur at regular intervals, between military trophies, an E 
 with its reverse under an imperial crown; and when fresh from 
 the hands of the maker its appearance must have been magni- 
 ficent. The rust has now eaten into the blue, and given to it 
 the appearance of russet ; while a portion of the saddle and the 
 champfront for the horse's head, which was found in the Grand 
 Armoury at Windsor, has been so scrubbed that the blue is 
 entirely obliterated and the steel quite bright. In Skelton's 
 " Engraved Specimens " (plate 130) is the representation of " a 
 steel plate which protected the oft' side of the burr of a war saddle 
 in the time of Queen Elizabeth," and which is described by Sir 
 Samuel Meyrick as having belonged to an officer of her guard. 
 "It was sold," he continues, "as old iron, with other pieces, from 
 the Tower of London, and having been bought by a dealer 
 purchased of him for this collection. The other parts of the 
 same saddle had probably been so disposed of previously, as they 
 are not now to be found. It is of bright steel, with the engraved 
 places gilt, and its principal border is the frequently recurring 
 architectural ornament of the time. The letter E, with its reverse 
 and the crown, completely identify its age." 
 
 It was, therefore, with great gratification that we discovered, 
 at Windsor, "the other parts" of the saddle, which were in Sir 
 
THE AEMOUJIIES. 79 
 
 Samuel's time not to be found, and which not being at the Tower, 
 had fortunately escaped being " sold as old iron " in company with 
 the gauntlet of Henry, Prince of Wales, and Heaven knows what 
 other valuable relics, and on examining the suit sent by Sir H. 
 Dymoke, the identity of the remarkable pattern satisfied us that 
 armour, saddle, and champfront had been made by one hand, and 
 for the same personage, w r hoever he might be, in the year 1585, 
 and that if an officer of Elizabeth's guard (as Sir Samuel Meyrick, 
 who was not aware of the existence of the suit, had imagined), 
 he must have been a very great officer indeed. "We are not 
 without hope that a little research may enable us to name the 
 individual ; in the meanwhile we have the pleasure of putting the 
 right man's armour in the right place, as far as his saddle is con- 
 cerned, if not the saddle on the right horse ; and having, by 
 Colonel Meyrick's permission, temporarily restored the plate in 
 his possession to its original situation, the three scattered pro- 
 perties are reunited, after being separated at least for more than 
 a century, if not since the time of Elizabeth. Must they be' again 
 divided ? 
 
 With the relation of this little incident we close our obser- 
 sations on the two armouries in the Exhibition of Art Treasures 
 at Manchester, the first attempt to make such collections instruc- 
 tive, by familiarising the eye to the gradual progression of form 
 and ornament. The Rust-Kammer at Dresden, the Musee d' 
 Artillerie at Paris, and other similar museums, are merely large 
 storehouses, the valuable contents of which are more or less 
 picturesquely displayed. In the Tower of London, Sir Samuel 
 Meyrick, some years ago, succeeded in obtaining permission to 
 abolish the most glaring absurdities, and to place the mounted 
 suits in the horse armoury in their true order ; but on the singular 
 condition that names of historical personages should be appended 
 to them all, whether with or without any reasonable foundation 
 for such appropriation; and this childish practice is persevered 
 in to the obvious depreciation of the value of such suits as can 
 actually be assigned to their original owners. The chronological 
 arrangement of the armour at Manchester, by showing what can 
 be accomplished despite all the obstacles arising from restrictive 
 pledges, conflicting interests, limited space, and disadvantageous 
 
80 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 position, may happily have some influence on public opinion, both 
 at homo and abroad, and induce those who have the power, to 
 exert it in improving the character of those national collections 
 which, instead of merely gratifying idle curiosity, should be made 
 to afford most valuable information, artistic, historical, and 
 biographical. 
 
 BRADBURY AND EVANS, 
 
 TR1NTEW3 TO THE MANCHESTER ART TREASURES EXHIBITION, 
 WHITEFRIAR8, LONDON. 
 
A HANDBOOK 
 
 TO THE 
 
 WATER COLOURS, DRAWINGS, AND 
 ENGRAVINGS, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 Jrl 
 
 BEING A REPRINT OF CRITICAL NOTICES ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 
 IN "THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN." 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 BEADBUEY AND EVANS, 11, BOUVEEIE STEEET. 
 
 1857. 
 
BRADBURY AND EVANS, 
 
 IIUNTEUS TO THK MANCHESTER ART TREASURES EXHIBITION, 
 WHITEFRIARS, LONDON. 
 
A HANDBOOK 
 
 TO THE 
 
 WATEK COLOUKS, DBAWINGS, AND 
 ENGKAVINGS, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 
 THE WATER COLOURS. 
 
 As the earliest honours of modern painting were won by water 
 colours, one is sometimes tempted to think that its latest glories 
 bid fair to be achieved in the same fascinating material. Let no 
 one suppose, while he elbows duchesses and dowagers, bishops and 
 cabinet ministers, St. James- street club-men and sober citizens, 
 bilious barristers, over-done politicians and out-at-elbows artisans, 
 rosebuds of Belgravia with the nursery dew still on them, and 
 hardened old harridans tough with the sun and storm of fifty 
 seasons, in those pleasant rooms of the old and new water-colour 
 societies in London, that the art which thus levels classes, callings, 
 ranks, and ages, is of yesterday. It goes back further, even, than 
 the monochromatic epoch of Paul Sandby back to the time when 
 Rembrandt drank Rhenish from long-stemmed glasses at the table 
 of Burgomaster Six back further to the simple days when all 
 [Florence burst into rejoicing round the Virgin Mother of 
 Cimabue, so that the streets through which her picture was 
 carried were called, ever after, "The Merry Quarter," back 
 still further to the dark and stormy years when the wild long- 
 beards from the north invaded the Basilicas of Milan, and quiet 
 monks in their cells, absorbed in the delicate labours of the 
 illuminator, scarce heard the din and clash of the barbarian arms. 
 
4 THE ART TREASUBES EXHIBITION. 
 
 Rembrandt's drawings, Cimabue's picture, the monk's illumination, 
 were all in water colours. Down to the middle of the fifteenth 
 century, the mixing of oil with colours for pictures was unknown 
 in Italy. Oil had been first so employed at Bruges, between 
 1410 and 1432, and the practice was many years in spreading to 
 southern Europe. Before the discovery of the Van Eycks, 
 painters wrought exclusively in water colours, using various 
 adhesive mediums to make these colours stick firmly to the 
 wood or vellum, and covering them when dry with a warmly- 
 coloured varnish, which, while it enriched the effect of the colours, 
 preserved them, as by a glass, from the influences of the atmos- 
 phere. Pictures thus executed are with difficulty to be dis- 
 tinguished from oil paintings. Visitors to Manchester may see 
 plenty of them in the gallery of old masters. All the pictures of 
 the Italian schools before Fra Bartolommeo are executed in this 
 way. So are those of the school of Cologne, of which there are 
 here three excellent examples (379, 380, 382). From these 
 pictures it will be seen how vivid and pure water colours, thus 
 prepared and protected, will remain for 450 years. If we go to 
 the illuminator's work in the exquisite missals of the twelfth 
 century, we may add two or three hundred years more to this 
 sum. And by the time we arrive at strictly Byzantine art, we 
 shall find illuminations of which the colours are still as fresh as 
 when they were mixed and applied, more than a thousand \ ai\s 
 ago. In our own time in this its thousandth year, let us say 
 (we give the venerable art the benefit of a few centuries) we 
 have seen water colour rise into a force and fertility of resource, 
 which promise to make it the rival of oil in its age, as it was in 
 its infancy. 
 
 It was well imagined of Mr. Holmes, to whose indefatigable 
 labours in the collection and arrangement of the "Water-colour 
 Gallery at Old Trnfford, must be attributed the illness, neglect of 
 which caused his lamented death, at the moment that thousands 
 were enjoying the fruits of his sadly-closed exertion to begin 
 the series which fills the long gallery behind the o-che.stra, and 
 overflows into smaller rooms beyond, with examples of the 
 Flemish and Dutch masters Jordaens, Bembrandt, Dusart, 
 Moucheron, and Henstenburg. The drawings of Bembrandt 
 
THE WATER COLOURS. 5 
 
 though the one here is a mere pen- wash, tinted with bistre, of 
 "A Girl Leaning over a Grate," (1 a) are almost aa wonderful 
 as his pictures. There are portfolios of them in the British 
 Museum, in which, by the magic of little more than mono- 
 chromatic light and shade, the painter has contrived to convey 
 every variety of colour and expression in the landscape of his 
 native country. 
 
 The "Snake, Lizard, and Butterflies," (8) of Henstenburg 
 (1667-1726) is a good example of the entomological school of 
 painting, formed by John Kessel, of Antwerp, of whom the 
 curious may find specimens including a magnificent monogram 
 in caterpillars in the gallery of ancient masters (1061 and 1062). 
 Besides a pretty little head by Watteau (9), whose most charming 
 little sketches, however, are in chalks, and not in water colours, 
 the Van Huysums (11 to 22) are worthy of notice. John Van 
 Huysum was the most skilful of a whole family of Amsterdam 
 flower painters, and was particularly famous for his taste in arrang- 
 ing his floral groups. These slight, and, at first glance, feeble 
 drawings, if looked at attentively, and when the eye is undebauched 
 by the brilliant hues of the neighbouring gallery, will be found 
 full of harmony and true art, in their combination and balance both 
 of forms and tones. AVe would especially direct attention to the 
 "Vase with Tulips " (12), and the " Poppy Branch " (16). But 
 while we admit the merits of the Dutch artist, we cannot for a 
 moment compare his sketchy bouquets or the contents of his 
 dessert plates with our own William Hunt's melting peaches, and 
 plums, his hawthorn sprigs, and bunches of blossom. Hunt has 
 carried this branch of art farther than it has ever been carried 
 by any painter in oil or water-colour without excepting Van 
 Heem, Eachel Euisch, Van Oss, or any of the many Dutchmen 
 who blossomed so strong upon canvas during the reign of the 
 first two Georges. 
 
 The next specimens in our gallery (23-31) are from the works 
 of Paul Sandby (1725-1809). As the reformer of topographical 
 art and the introducer of aquatint engraving, as well as one of the 
 original members of the lloyal Academy, Paul Sandby deserves a 
 respectful mention, which these drawings of themselves would 
 scarcely enforce from a critic familiar with De Wint, Prout, Copley, 
 
C THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 Fielding, and Turner. In this collection we may read the facts 
 of Sandby's life. His first experience of sketching from nature 
 was acquired during the survey of the north and west Highlands, 
 directed by the Duke of Cumberland, of which Sandby was draughts- 
 man. This period may be said to be here illustrated by the 
 Bothwell Castle (24), though this particular drawing was made 
 nearly twenty years after the artist's Highland tour. On his 
 return from Scotland, in 1752, Sandby lived for some time at 
 "Windsor. Here we have (23) " Windsor Castle, from the Eton 
 Playing Fields," interesting as showing what the castle was 
 before Wyattville laid hands on it. The artist was afterwards 
 employed by Sir Watkin Williams Wynne to design views of the 
 scenery of North and South Wales, a work here abundantly 
 illustrated by the " Caernarvon Castle " (26), the " View of North 
 Wales " (27), and the various "Welsh Views " (29, 30, 31, and 32). 
 The "Hyde Park" (37), is curious for its costume and the 
 arrangement of ground, so different from those of the present 
 day. Sandby frequently drew the different encampments which 
 took place in Hyde Park during the memorable year 1780, when 
 the island was threatened with invasion by the combined fleets of 
 Prance and Spain. Sandby's drawings have little merit as works 
 of art but that of correctness in linear drawing, and a certain 
 unpretending honesty, making the most of very limited means. 
 We have elsewhere spoken of his patronising poor Dick Wilson, 
 by buying his sketches at half-a-crown a-piece. Sandby was a 
 kindly soul, a wag, and a small poet a sort of Academy laureate, 
 who wrote songs for the annual dinners. His drawings deserve 
 notice chiefly as showing the ocean of flat washes out of which 
 modern water-colour art has risen, as bright as Aphrodite, with 
 all her environing splendour of sea-foam, sea-colour, and sea- 
 shell. 
 
 Of that conceited mannerist, Cipriani (1728-1789), there are 
 four drawings (38-41), full of the artificial and affected prettiness 
 which made him the fashionable designer of his day. The Royal 
 Academy (of which he was an original member) sends his design 
 for the diploma, for which the members rewarded the artist with 
 a silver cup. 
 
 Here is an interesting drawing by Sir Joshua who was so- 
 
THE WATER COLOURS. 7 
 
 facile with the brush that he seldom touched the pencil " The 
 Triumph of Sculpture over Painting," a strange subject for the 
 painter of the tragic muse, and the contemporary of Eoubilliac. 
 
 We are glad to see five of Gainsborough's charming sketches 
 here ; sorry only that there are not five times five. The unsought 
 grace of Gainsborough's pencil appears conspicuously in his 
 sketches. Lovely attitudes, exquisite turns of head, agreeable 
 lines of drapery, seem to have cost him nothing. How graceful 
 here is " The Water Party" (45), and with what a true relish of 
 rustic life he has touched in the " Children and Donkey " (47). 
 
 Ten drawings by Cozens, side by side, are a sight not often 
 seen. Cozens was a grandson of Peter the Great. His father, 
 Alexander, was the son of the young Drury Lane actress whom 
 the Czar lived with while working at Deptford, and who is 
 introduced into the left hand group in Maclise's picture of "Peter 
 in the Dockyard," in this year's exhibition at the Koyal Academy. 
 The father of Cozens was an artist. Cozens travelled much in 
 Italy, for an employer who took all he produced ; and is said to 
 have exhibited only once at the Royal Academy. This was in 
 1776, when he sent an oil picture of " Hannibal, from the Alps, 
 showing Italy to his army," as Mr. Leslie informs us in his 
 "Handbook for Young Painters," from which Turner used to 
 say he learned more than from anything he had then seen. 
 Considering that he was about one year old when the picture was 
 exhibited, this " then " requires explanation. The best drawings 
 of Cozens are remarkable for solemnity, serenity, and breadth. 
 The examples here admirably illustrate the power of the painter 
 over these sources of effect, especially the "Windsor Castle" (48), 
 the "Temples in The Campagna" (49), and the " Pic du Midi." 
 At the same time, there is no attempt in them to render the full 
 flush of Italian colour. This was beyond the reach of " flat 
 washes " and vegetable tints; and as yet the draughtman's prac- 
 tice in water colour was confined to the one, and his box to the 
 other. The works of Cozens were passionately admired by 
 Constable, who went so far as to declare, in an enthusiastic 
 moment, that "he was the greatest genius that ever touched 
 landscape." On this estimate, we would only remark that, be the 
 genius of Cozens what it might, water-colour painting as then 
 
8 THE ABT TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 practised did not afford the means of doing more than slightly 
 indicating genius. Constable praises also the modest and unob- 
 trusive beauties of Cozens's drawing, such as "Mature herself 
 shows but coyly." Every visitor to our Exhibition should look 
 closely into works praised in such terms by a painter like Con- 
 stable. We will not, by any more particular comment of ours, 
 rob them of the pleasure of finding out for themselves the many 
 charms of these broad and solemn or serene drawings. 
 
 Cozens leads the way to Girtin (1715-1802), who was a close 
 student of the earlier painter's works, and acquired from them, it 
 is said, something of his ow r n secret of broad and simple effect. 
 Probably the preference of such effect was due to the style of 
 treatment suggested by the nature of the water-colour materials 
 then used, and the received method of employing them, rather 
 than to any conscious imitation. Girtin was broad arid simple, as 
 Cozens had been, because both were men of a large and noble 
 order of conception, working in a manner that required flat and 
 rapid applications of colour, and so was peculiarly favourable to 
 the re-production of some of the grandest and serenest moments 
 of earth and sky the flooding glory of sunset upon distant 
 woods ; the broad evening burst of sunlight on a lake girdled 
 by mountains; the still and serene glow of twilight upon rock and 
 river, meadow, or moorland ; the lurid brooding of the thunder- 
 cloud over summer cornfields, or its rending burst upon the sea ; 
 the mellowing magic of moonlight through the ivy-clad windows 
 of a monastic ruin ; the frowning of a feudal fortalice across the 
 yellow sands, or from the rock that overlooks the river. Of such 
 subjects here are 17 examples, most of them involving elaborate 
 studies of architecture. The shattered keep of Helmsley rises 
 from its embosoming trees above the rapid Rye (72); the pointed 
 west front of Peterborough opens its recessed arches (73) ; Ely 
 and Lichfield lift their fretted pinnacles into the air (76 and 77) ; 
 and Exeter draws out the perspective of its stately aisles (74). 
 Here is Byland (79) (not Ryland, as in the catalogue), loveliest 
 of all the lovely Cistercian abbeys' that nestle in their wooded 
 valleys on either side the range of Hambleton, with its broken 
 rose-window, which must have been one of the finest and largest 
 in England, and its slender lancets, each perfect still, though no 
 
THE WATER COLOTTKS. 
 
 roof has sheltered those walls since the days when Henry the 
 Eighth's commissioners stripped off lead and timber and roof tree. 
 
 As Girtin was linked by kindred style and spirit with Cozens, 
 so Turner, by admiration and common studies, is linked with 
 Girtin. But before dealing with the king of all water-colour 
 painters, let us despatch the inferior masters who are here 
 represented, and who will be found little more than humble 
 treaders in the steps of Sandby, Cozens, and Girtin, succes- 
 sively. 
 
 To this imitative class belong Eooker (1743-1801), Eyrne, 
 Wheatley (1747-1801), a figure painter, and William Hamilton 
 (1757-1801). Of liowlandson, the caricaturist, the Cruickshank 
 of his day, here are three drawings, a "Quay at Amsterdam" 
 (63), "English Tourists at Helvoetsluys " (64), and "Brook 
 Green Eair " (65). Is it defect of humour in the designer, or the 
 transitory nature of all fun that fastens on external fashions, 
 which renders these works so devoid of all power of amusing 
 now-a-days ? Dayes is another imitator of Cozens, of whom here 
 are five views; two of Durham. Thomas Hearue (1744-1817) 
 was a man of more merit, who wholesomely influenced the art 
 of his time by his " Antiquities of Great Britain," brought out in 
 1778, in combination with Byrne. All the examples of his works 
 here are studies of the feudal and cathedral architecture, which 
 he delighted in, and are remarkable for their excellence of 
 arrangement. 
 
 Thomas Heaphy (1811) was, in his time, the popular painter of 
 scenes from low life, till, disgusted with fish markets and pothouses, 
 he turned to the court end of the town, and took to painting 
 princes, princesses, and field-officers. Heaphy was a clever 
 quarrelsome man, full of schemes in and out of his art, and always 
 in hot water. His works, as may be seen from the six specimens 
 in our gallery (88-92), are marked by good qualities of colour and 
 close study of nature. All here are in his best, or St. Giles's, 
 humour. The " Quarrelling at Cards," bating a certain reach 
 after academic character out of keeping with the class of the 
 figures, is a very fine and manly piece of work. Heaphy was one 
 of the earliest members of the old water-colour society. 
 
 Julius Csesar Ibbetson (105) was an honest Yorkshirenian, who 
 
10 THE AET TBEASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 drew rustic groups, and landscapes ; and whose head was rather 
 turned by West christening him the " English Berghem," a name 
 which he merited as Klopstock did that of the " German Milton." 
 John Augustus Atkinson (106-108) is another inoffensive work- 
 man of about the same calibre an average man, unable to help 
 the art a step beyond the point at which he found it. 
 
 With Thomas Bewick (1753-1828) we come upon real origi- 
 nality and love of nature, with the power of expressing itself, 
 here shown in five small works (114-118), "The AVoodpecker," 
 " Sea-shore Eock," " Bamborough Castle," " Stone Quarry," and 
 " Fowling in the Shetlands." It is from his woodcuts, however, 
 that we learn Bewick's power as a designer, no less than as a 
 manipulator of his tools, and a skilful translator from paper to 
 pear-tree block. He always designed his own cuts; and what 
 capital designs they are how full of the sentiment of north 
 country nature ! Excellent as his cuts of British Birds are. his 
 vignettes are his master-pieces. In these he gives the rein to 
 his fertile fancy, and indulges his humour, dashed with a touch 
 of the grim and sardonic. There is even a profound sense of 
 nature in these tiny designs, which stamps them deep on the 
 memory. It is now full a score of years since we looked over a 
 copy of Bewick's British Birds ; but we have still the most vivid 
 recollection of every vignette in the book. And so, we will be 
 bound to say, has every man who ever had access to those plea- 
 sant volumes in his boyish days. 
 
 Of Bonington, six of whose studies of Italian and Flemish sea 
 or river subjects, with shipping, are here shown (132-137) ; of H. 
 Liverseege, whose skill in water colour is here proved by 
 drawings of an " Old Falconer" and " Don Quixote " (139, 140) ; 
 of Stothard, no fewer than 17 of whose graceful, though mannered 
 designs are here hung, among them several of children, in whose 
 grace and innocence the sweet and serene nature of the painter 
 took peculiar pleasure ; and of Constable, Wilkie, Callcot, and 
 Collins, severally illustrated here by sketches, or elaborate 
 drawings, we have already spoken at length in our comments on 
 the pictures of our modern English school. The drawings of 
 Wilkie (185-192) are particularly interesting as showing first 
 thoughts, afterwards worked out in his pictures (as 188, 189, 
 
THE WATER COLOURS. 11 
 
 192). Those of Callcot are much more elaborate ; Sir Augustus 
 used the pencil with almost as much facility as the brush. 
 
 Clennell and George Chambers were also oil painters, whose 
 drawings here (175, 177, and 181-184), meritorious in themselves, 
 afford opportunity for a short record of two men, both memorable 
 as instances of a rise, by simple strength of devotion to nature, 
 from the humblest fortune to considerable repute as painters. 
 Clennell was born in 1781, the son of a small Northumbrian 
 farmer, who, on his son's early manifestation of a strong love of 
 art, wisely bound the boy apprentice to Bewick. As a designer, 
 Clennell soon attracted attention by his scenes from rustic life. 
 His " Baggage Waggon, with Horses Frightened by Lightning,'* 
 in the collection of Lord Durham, one of his early patrons, is a 
 work showing much of the force and spirit of Gainsborough. 
 His picture of the " Last Charge of the Life Guards at Waterloo " 
 is quite original, in the way it renders the weight of that whirl- 
 wind of horse and man, which bore down the Cuirassiers of the 
 Old Guard, cracking them, as a guardsman described it, "like 
 lobsters in their shells." This picture had a great success, and 
 Clennell was selected in consequence to paint the entertainment 
 given by the city of London to the generals who had taken part 
 in the battle. His health and brain gave way under the work, 
 and he passed the rest of his days, till his death in 1840 in the 
 lunatic asylum at Gateshead. We remember to have seen verses 
 of his, written in that dreary confinement, in which the heated 
 brain had sought refreshment in the coolest and sweetest fancies^ 
 as of Arab girls coming to draAv water for their camels at springs 
 in over-arching palm-groves, and like imaginations of shade and 
 silence and still green peace. Chambers, like Stanfield and 
 Boberts, followed the sea originally, as cabin boy in a Whitby 
 coaster. His first essay in colour, we remember hearing him say, 
 was painting the ship's bucket, which he did to the admiration of 
 the captain, in elaborate imitation of different woods. His master 
 had brains and heart to see the lad's bent, and to make room for 
 it to work, by cancelling his indentures. He took some lessons 
 from Bird, a Whitby drawing master, and worked his way up to 
 London as a foremast man aboard a collier, to commence life as a 
 painter. His first work was on the Panorama of London, now in 
 
12 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 the Colosseum. He got this employment on the strength of a 
 vie\v of house roofs and chimney pots, painted out of his grimy 
 back window in Wapping. He was afterwards scene painter at 
 the Pavilion Theatre, where Lord Mark Kerr, seeing some of his 
 scenery painted for a thrilling nautical melodrama, noticed him, and 
 introduced him to William IV., who knew a ship and loved doubly 
 the sailor who could paint one. As marine painter to the King, 
 Chambers painted three sea fights, now in the hall of Greenwich 
 Hospital, and many other marine pictures of great truth to nature, 
 of which the true merit was not appreciated till his death in IS 10. 
 There is a capital example of him in the clock gallery, the " Ferry 
 Boat" (607). 
 
 William Blake (1757-1828) the author of the " Oberon and 
 Titania" (130) and "the Vision of Queen Catherine" (130<) 
 and E. Dadd, the painter of the "Vale of Rocks" (281), the 
 "Dead Camel" (282), and the "Artists' Halt in the Desert" 
 (283), may be classed together as examples of painters in whom a 
 disordered brain rather aided than impeded the workings of a 
 fertile and original fancy. Do not be deterred by the strangeness 
 of Blake's work, or the sadness of Dadd's, from looking closely 
 into both. Both were mad, but the insanity of Blake was of the 
 kind separated by a thin partition from great wit. * It was rather 
 from preponderance of the imaginative faculty that he must be 
 classed among lunatics, than from any ruin of mind such as 
 hurried poor Dadd into parricide. Blake's fancies were lovely, 
 rather than terrible. He was poet and musician as well as 
 painter. If his music was like his verse it must have been 
 jimong the sweetest ever written. Take an example of the latter, 
 written sometime between twelve and twenty, an address to the 
 Muses : 
 
 Whether on Ida's shady brow, 
 
 Or in the chambers of the east, 
 The chambers of the sun, that now 
 
 From ancient melody have ceased. 
 
 Whether in Heaven ye wander fair, 
 
 Or the green corners of the earth, 
 Or the blue regions of the air, 
 
 Where the melodious winds have birth. 
 
THE WATER COLOURS. 13 
 
 Whether on crystal rocks ye rove, 
 
 Beneath the bosom of the sea, 
 Wandering in many a coral grove, 
 
 Fair Nine ! forsaking poesie. 
 
 How have ye left the ancient love, 
 
 That bards of old enjoyed in you 
 The languid strings now scarcely move, 
 
 The sound is forced the notes are few. 
 
 This is surely no common strain to get out of boyish brains, on a 
 hackneyed theme. Blake was apprenticed to an engraver, and 
 lived by his work ; retiring from all, at times, to put his fancies 
 into verse and form. At twenty-six he married the wife who sat, 
 still beloved, by his death-bed, when at seventy-one he passed 
 away, calmly and rejoicingly, only grieving to leave his Katharine 
 behind. Blake had visions. The great dead came to him Milton 
 and Shakspere, Bruce and Wallace, and a greater than all these. 
 All his works were records of these visions ; whether they be the 
 pictures and songs of innocence and experience, the illustrations 
 of Job, or of the grave and Dante, his twelve inventions of man 
 and death, his wild allegories of Urizen, and his prophecies of 
 England and America. His death, as recorded by Cunningham, 
 is one of the loveliest upon record. " He lay chanting songs, and 
 the verses and music were both the offspring of the moment. He 
 lamented that he could no longer commit these inspirations, as he 
 called them, to paper. ' Kate,' he said, ' I am a changing man. 
 I always rose, and wrote down my thoughts, whether it rained, 
 snowed, or shone, and you arose too, and sat beside me this can 
 be no longer.' Arid, in this mood, swan-like, he passed away, his 
 wife's hand in his." One is almost tempted to envy such unreason, 
 which seems to make a man unfit for earth only by lifting him 
 nearer Heaven. 
 
 Yery different were the quaint, freakish, elfish, visitings that 
 betokened the madness of poor Dadd. His visitants were not great 
 men, not sages, heroes, or martyrs; but goggle-eyed gnomes, and 
 malicious fays and tormenting Pucks, and pot-bellied, spindle- 
 shanked brownies. We may see portraits of them, from the 
 brain-lii'e, in his pictures (335 and 4.47). There is no doubt that 
 these spectral illusions were upon him all the time of his Eastern 
 
14 THE AST TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 journey with Sir Thomas Phillips ; that he was only awaiting the 
 message to rise and slay his companion which afterwards came to 
 him, while travelling with his father from Rochester to London. 
 The "Dead Camel" (282), appears to us full of gloomy madness; 
 "The Halt" (283), has all the solemnity which the blue sky, and 
 broad pale moon, and twinkling white stars are calculated to 
 impress on an excited brain, calming its horror and lulling its rage 
 to sleep. 
 
 With the mere mention of Flaxman, whose interesting designs 
 for chessmen (149a) are contributed to our Exhibition by 
 Mr. Wedgwood, by whose firm they were executed in pottery, 
 we pass to the works of the man who changed, in the course of 
 his more than sixty years of working life, the whole character of 
 English water-colour art we allude, of course, to Turner, who 
 shines in this department of the Exhibition with even more 
 conspicuous lustre than in the gallery of English oil pictures. 
 
 The periods and styles into which we have divided Turner's 
 practice in oil, are equally applicable to his work in water colours. 
 Here we may trace the course of that fertilising river, from its 
 fountain, in his first exhibited drawing (296) to its majestic 
 passage into that eternal sea in the last work that employed his 
 dying hand (380). The first represents the ruins of Tynemouth 
 Priory, that storm-beat relic whose red towers look out over the 
 stormy German Ocean; the last represents an Alpine pass, in 
 which the dying fancy seems to have struggled to crowd all the 
 experience of a long life's reverent study of the mountains, with 
 such a result as we might anticipate to the many confusion as 
 of chaos, to the few a crowding together of suggestions beyond 
 the achievements of ordinary men. The many will do well not 
 to scoff at the few for the many things their eyes or brains 
 discover in Turner, which are invisible to common senses or 
 intelligences. Nor should the few be impatient with the many, 
 when they persist in saying that they cannot see in Turner all 
 the few would have them find there. It is always difficult to 
 apportion what a man gets from a picture, and what he brings 
 to it. In the case of every painter who appeals to the imagina- 
 tion, as Turner does, this task becomes almost impossible. We 
 cannot insist on an appreciation, which cannot honestly be given. 
 
THE WATER COLOURS. 15 
 
 All the worshippers of Turner have a right to claim is, a reverent 
 refusal of recognition from those who cannot recognise the truth 
 in their favourite master. They may always find a consola- 
 tion in referring those who deny the truth to nature of "The 
 Wreckers" (330), the "Bamborough Castle" (331), or the 
 "Kussnucht" (379), to the soberer works of the beginning of 
 the century, the "St. Donat's Castle" (306), the "Bridge of 
 Abergavenny" (301), or the "Edinburgh" (323). In this 
 series of six drawings the whole progress of Turner's art is 
 exhibited its beginnings, as Euskin describes them,* " in greyish 
 blue, with brown foregrounds " such as all here, from 296 to 
 304. Then comes the gradual and cautious mingling of these 
 blues, first with delicate green, and then with gold; and then 
 the breaking of local tints into the foreground browns, and 
 the gradual increase of refinement and expressiveness in the 
 touch, till it rises to a delicacy of execution too subtle for the 
 eye to follow. Of this period, which was begun and carried to 
 perfection about 1800, and remained unchanged for 20 years, 
 there are innumerable examples, including, in fact, the bulk of 
 the drawings between 308 and 357. The "Santa Saba" (338), 
 " Florence " (359), and other subjects from Italy and Switzer- 
 land, are records, probably, of his travels in and after 1820 ; the 
 period in which Mr. Euskin supposed that his conception and 
 execution took a new development, under the impression of con- 
 tinental skies. We know of no series of any one man's works 
 that elevate, calm, and impress the mind as these drawings of 
 Turner's do. In the simplest of them there is tke sentiment of 
 the infinity of nature. This, we should say, is the point in which 
 they stand especially distinguished from the works of other men. 
 Turner's distances seem always to stretch away, away ; and his 
 skies are canopies, not of the little space the eye embraces, but 
 of the whole round world. We find our catalogue scored with 
 reference to special and characteristic beauties in almost all these 
 drawings. How Turner knew and loved England ! Every man 
 may find his own county glorified in this collection by some 
 drawing that is, even to him, a revelation of unsuspected beauty. 
 
 * Pre-Raphaelitigm, p. 39. 
 
16 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 The Yorkshireman never thought Leeds would be so lifted out 
 of her smoke cloud, and made so brave as she shows here (312) 
 and even the sweet seclusion and holy peace of Rivaulx are 
 enhanced in Turner's delicious treatment of the grey ruin in its 
 vest of summer green (353). If Lancaster must rest content 
 with "Browsholme Hall" (301), and "Lancaster Castle and 
 Town" (336), the stern heart of ^Northumberland may kindle to 
 the stormy grandeur of the sea that bursts on the castle-covered 
 cliff of Bamborough (331), or the wild shores of Holy Island 
 (338). It is strange enough, however, that the lakes of our 
 island have furnished but one subject to the painter " Llan- 
 berris" (334). Devonshire has been favourite sketching ground. 
 He loved its shores and its shipping, as we may see from the 
 subjects and figures in his repeated drawings of " Plymouth," 
 with the rainbow he so often introduced into that scene, and 
 always with such marvellous aerial effect (329 and 324), the 
 "Dartmouth" (326), "Saltash" (339), and "Okehampton" 
 (351). Cornwall claims as its own, the "Mew Stone" (325), 
 " Launceston" (340), " Carew Castle" (339), and " Pendennis 
 Castle" (349). Dorsetshire contributes " Poole ; " Sussex, to tho 
 cliffs of Hastings, and the swelling downs and flat pastures of 
 " Arundel " (355) ; and the flat midland counties furnish the 
 stately pile that rises over the level of Ely isle (316) ; and Leices- 
 tershire puts in a claim to unsuspected picturesqueness in " Tain- 
 worth Castle" (34.5) ; and the stately towers of Durham rise on 
 the banks of the Wear, red in the evening sun (335) ; and Bucks 
 contributes "Eton" (315), and the Isle of Wight is fairly 
 represented by "Cowes" (342). Here, too, are some of the 
 beautiful series of later drawings the rivers of France, and 
 Vignettes to Milton's Works (377), and the Title-pages to 
 Scott's Poems (364, 367, 368) ; and a drawing of inexpressible 
 repose and loveliness, " On the Rhine " (347) ; and the terror 
 of Alpine glacier (311), and the grandeur of Alpine lake under 
 the moon (o78) all simplicity from " A Clump of Beech Trees" 
 (302), and a "Yard with Pigs and Poultry" (313) all sub- 
 limity from the skeleton of the ruined temple, white under the 
 rnoon that overlooks the black and stormy sea from the headland 
 of Colonna (316), to the wild blending of mountain and inea- 
 
THE WATER COLOURS. 17 
 
 (low, cloud, and stream, and glacier, on which his hand was last 
 employed. We know of no such range of experience, such varied 
 mastery of natural effects, such all-pervading love of natural 
 beauties, such utter forgetfulness in the contemplation of the 
 thing to be represented of the self of the artist, as is recorded 
 in the drawings of which the magnificent specimens here shown 
 are no unworthy sample. 
 
 It seems almost like bathos, and anti-climax, to pass from 
 Turner to any other man, though, it be a Dewint, a Prout, or a 
 Copley Fielding. Of all these masters, who have but lately 
 ceased to work among us, the room which contains the Turners 
 exhibits fine examples. Of Dewint, for example, here are fifteen 
 important drawings (261 to 275), exhibiting the characteristic 
 and peculiarly English qualities of the painter his soft, grey, 
 cloudy skies ; his deep woods pierced by the village spire, or the 
 cathedral towers ; his cool green fields, his rich meadows and 
 yellow cornfields, his purple fallows, and his brimming rivers 
 flowing through lowlands prodigal with grain. The " Brampton 
 "Water Mill" is a fine sample of the bolder manner and wilder 
 subjects with \\hich Westmoreland sometimes inspired the 
 painter, who, however, seems to us always more at home in a 
 flat country, among the rich Lincolnshire levels, for example 
 (267-275), or among the gently swelling bosoms of the green 
 hills of South Wales (269). As Dewint's love for nature took 
 the direction of pastoral and cultivated midland England, Copley 
 Fielding \vas drawn to the open and unfenced beauty of her 
 southern downs, the wildness of her girding sea-shores, or the 
 solemn grandeur of her northern lakes and mountains. He may 
 be studied here in all these, his favourite forms on the steaming 
 and sun-steeped downs at Worthing (390), under the solemn 
 shadow of Ben Cruachan (391), on the placid bosotn of Loch 
 Etive (393) ; or we may watch, by his side, the red sunset 
 tinging, as with the blood of victims, the stones of the weird 
 rock temple of Stonehenge (394) ; or struggle through the 
 storm over the trackless heath (395) ; or steep ourselves in the 
 summer-evening sun on the beach at Hastings (400) ; or hear 
 the song that the sea waves sing on the great basalt organ pipes 
 of Staffa (403) ; and close our pilgrimage, peacefully and placidly, 
 
18 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 on the sweet shores of Keswick (407). Copley Fielding had a 
 genuine and noble love of nature in some of her grandest com- 
 binations of beauty and power. He always sought, by choice, the 
 scenes in which loveliness predominated over terror. 
 
 The three drawings by John Cotman, a conscientious Norwich 
 artist, and illustrator of topographical works, are all sea subjects 
 two of them drawn from the Yarmouth roads. The third, " The 
 Phantom Ship " (180), displays a reach of imagination for which 
 few of those who know this artist, in his usual walk of homely 
 nature, will be prepared. There is something very grand in the 
 white and ghostly vessel, with her accursed canvas set alow and 
 aloft, flying along under the blue, aurora-lit sky. 
 
 George Frederick Kobson (1790-1833), was a true delineator of 
 nature, especially in her moods of serene repose, here represented 
 by four drawings (141-144), of which the " Nantfrangon " is the 
 grandest, and the " Durham " (144) the most beautiful. His 
 views of this, his birthplace one of the most picturesqe in its 
 combination of buildings, and one of the most superb, in point of 
 site, of all tho cities of Great Britain were always drawn con amorc. 
 It was here, on the wooded banks of the Wear, frowned over by 
 the massive walls of the old ensile and the stately towers of the 
 Norman minster, that the boy learnt the rudiments of his art, 
 from watching the painters who sought the place for its beauty. 
 He never had any other teaching. Thus inoculated with the love 
 rather than the knowledge of art, he left his father's house at 
 sixteen, with five pounds in his pocket, for London, and thence- 
 forward supported himself by his pencil. He roamed on foot, year 
 after year, knapsack and sketching materials on his shoulders, 
 through the whole of Scotland, the English lake country, Wales ; 
 and Ireland, and never looked for subjects beyond the confines of 
 Great Britain. He had an intense feeling of the calm, am; 
 and lovely in nature, and has transfused this feeling into all his 
 drawings. He died at forty-three, and his works have since been 
 valued as they deserve. 
 
 The architectural drawings of Charles "Wilde (145-149) are 
 among the most masterly Gothic exteriors and interiors that have 
 ever been produced in water colours. Barrett and Varley the 
 first represented here by nine drawings, the second by eleven 
 
THE WATER COLOURS. 19 
 
 are almost singular examples in our school of masters aiming in 
 water colours at classical compositions in the genre of the two 
 Poussins. There is a fine feeling, especially for grave evening 
 effects, in the drawings of the former. The latter has two distinct 
 manners the earlier reminding of the broad and simple style of 
 Girtin and Turner in his earlier years; the second purely 
 artificial, and depending on a trick of purple colour, on rough 
 paper, with the profuse employment of gum as a vehicle. Novelty 
 and singularity secured a sale for the works thus executed, which 
 drawings in the earlier and simpler manner would probably never 
 have commanded. "We much prefer Varley's drawings in his 
 earlier manner. 
 
 Eobert Hills (1765-1844) was a delineator of cattle and farm- 
 yard scenes, somewhat in the style of Ibbetson. Here are eight 
 of his drawings (222-229), one of which " The Stag in the Pass of 
 Glencoe," is a more ambitious flight than he generally attempted. 
 Cristall and Westhall should be classed together, as draughtsmen 
 once enjoying considerable vogue for figure compositions of an 
 elaborately artificial character, in which every face was tamed to 
 the strictest rules of regularity, and nature was ruthlessly sacri- 
 ficed to conventional and academic grace. Visitors to the gallery 
 must determine the merit of such work from the three examples of 
 the second artist (171-173), and the five of the first (248-252). 
 "We must confess that such grace of form and regularity of feature 
 are, to our thinking, poor substitutes for the force and variety of 
 natural physiognomy and truthful action. 
 
 Samuel Prout, who died at an advanced age in 1852, was a man 
 of very different stamp. A profound student of the principles of 
 his art, and a masterly delineator of architectural details, especially 
 in the crumbling buildings of France, Flanders, and Italy, Prout 
 devoted his pencil to accurate reproduction of whatever was most 
 picturesque in Norman streets, Belgian town-halls, and Italian 
 quays and bridges, arches and logcjie, In the 12 drawings of his 
 here exhibited (284-294) we may track his somewhat mannered 
 hand, and his masterly distribution of light and shade and opposi* 
 tion of colour, through Strasbourg and Venice, Dresden and 
 Verona. In the two large drawings of " Indiamen Ashore " (287, 
 290) he displays a power of ennobling English subjects by his 
 
 o2 
 
20 THE ART TEEA8TJEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 broad, rnanly,and intelligent treatment, which inspires some regret 
 that he did not seek more of his materials at home. As an artistic 
 architectural draughtsman he remains altogether unequalled. 
 
 Of the startling creations of John Martin, in water colour, of 
 which five hang here (416-420), we need not repeat what we have 
 already said in our remarks on this modern British painter. 
 
 William Miiller is the only one of our deceased masters of water 
 colours whom it remains to notice. Eleven of his twelve drawings 
 here (231-242) are records of his Eastern travel, to which we have 
 referred in our remarks on the modern British school. We are 
 prepared to say of Miiller in water, as we said of Miiller in oil, 
 that in these works there is a promise of excellence, and even a 
 developed power of a peculiar kind which we cannot parallel in any 
 of his contemporaries. Nothing can be freer or more rapid than 
 most of these drawings ; but they say more in their dash and 
 slightness than most finished pictures. How full of stormy 
 power are "Burnt Pines on the Eoad to Pinaka" (241); how 
 large and grand the three views of "Xanthus ; " how solemn and 
 sweet the " Philce " (240), and the " Parthenon " (235) ! 
 
 And now, having done our duty, cursorily, as our space compels 
 us, to the dead, let us pass from this side room, where hang the 
 works of the fathers of English water colour, to the long gallery 
 which glows with the bright hues and teeming picturesqueness of 
 their descendants our contemporary draughtsmen. Here are 
 hung the fruits of that branch of British art which most astonishes 
 and humiliates foreigners. They have never conceived, till they 
 visit England that water colours could be made to yield this depth, 
 richness, and force. They do not see how much this branch of 
 art gains in its almost exclusive devotion to nature, whether its 
 dealing be with earth, sea, and sky, or with humanity. We may 
 lament, the lack of evidence of elevated aim in this fine collection, 
 but perhaps, as things go, we shall do well to be content with such 
 effective transcript of all that lies about us as our water-colour 
 artists devote themselves to giving. It would be superfluous to 
 criticise here, where all are yearly critics. We can but rapidly 
 run over the masters, and attempt to sum up the general 
 characteristics of their styles and subjects. To one of these men 
 only, we conceive that all honest and appreciative criticism owes a 
 
THE WATES COLOUES. 21 
 
 liberal and special tribute. To David Cox, as one of the greatest 
 landscape painters of this or any other country as a man who, 
 working on altogether different principles from Turner, yet shows, 
 through all his diversity, a kindred love of nature, and a not 
 inferior or less reverent familiarity with her mysteries, let us 
 confess that we individually owe more gratification, a profounder 
 sense of certain beauties and terrors of earth and sky, a more 
 lasting impression of the solemnities of our mountains, of the 
 summer delight of our meadows, of the wildness of our heather- 
 purpled moors, of the dreary grandeur of our spreading sands, and 
 of the windy majesty of our English oak-woods, than to any man 
 who has ever put colour upon paper. 
 
 Born in the neighbourhood of Birmingham, educated under the 
 stern apprenticeship of the anvil, David Cox puts into his work a sort 
 of Cyclopean strength, whose rudest touches convey their meaning, 
 and whose utmost roughness is never wanting in love. Here are 
 17 drawings of his hand (480-4900), from its period of deftest 
 power to its later achievements of failing eye and less certain 
 touch, but of undiminished insight and unimpaired passion for 
 the nature which he worships. Indeed, whatever the lovers of 
 precise forms and dexterous manipulation may say of even his 
 drawings of the present year, to us the dregs of David Cox seem 
 worth more than the first runnings of less gifted men. Those who 
 study these drawings will have no difficulty in distinguishing the 
 earlier from the later productions ; but they will see no change of 
 affections or vacillation of aim. David Cox is a landscape painter 
 of the broad and indicative school of Eeubens and Titian, not of 
 the minute and elaborate working-out school of Hobbema, and 
 the modern English oil painters of landscape. So subtle is the 
 power of these works, that we despair of conveying our own ideas 
 of it, still more of revealing its secret by any written words. What 
 is it, for instance, that gives their deep and abiding solemnity to 
 those three drawings of "Lancaster Sands" (481, 487, 488) ? Is it 
 the mere expanse of wet sea-bed, or the ominous gathering of the 
 grey clouds, or the sense which hangs upon us of the many who 
 have been overtaken and engulphed by the tide in that treacherous 
 passage ? The windy joyousness of that " Hay Field " (486), and 
 the sad solemnity of that " Welsh Funeral " (496) in the lowly 
 
22 THE ART TEEASUBES EXHIBITION. 
 
 churchyard, which nestles under the purple shadow of the Chief- 
 tain's Crag, can only be due to the fine sense of keeping which 
 has governed the apparently loose masses of flaky white cirrus 
 in the sky of the one, and the heavy grey, cumulous sky, that 
 hangs like a pall over the other. To know that David Cox for 
 nearly fifty summers has sought and studied among the hills, and 
 woods, and by the river at Bettwys-y-Coed, is to get some insight 
 into his penetrating, intense, and persevering courtship of nature, 
 in one of those spots where she has most lavishly displayed both 
 her loveliness and her majesty. This is the key to all his power. 
 He has earned it by the lowliest suit and service. Nothing has 
 been too high for him to attempt nothing too humble for him to 
 kneel to. Bettyws is his home-ground, but the love he feeds by 
 the placid reaches and foaming rapids of the Conway, under the 
 shade of those purple cliffs of Craig-y-Dinas, and amidst the 
 feathery beeches that close in the Beaver's Bridge, he carries away 
 with him to spend in whatever scene may court his pencil, be it 
 the broad woods of Windsor (492), the hop-covered Kentish weald 
 (480, 483), or the lordly demesne of Bolsover (493). David Cox 
 still labours with all of him impaired but the heart into which the 
 beauties of this island have sunk so deep, and the brain in which 
 the impression of a happy and laborious lifetime are garnered. 
 When he passes away, England will number among her living 
 worthies one great artist the fewer. 
 
 And now what is left us but the barest cataloguing ? How 
 shall we class the profusion of treasures that yet remain for 
 acknowledgment ? Our best guide must be the order in which 
 they hang. Here (423-431) is a goodly display of the pretty 
 rustic figures, set in the brightest and most facile landscape, of 
 John Absolon, with three drawings of more imaginative preten- 
 sions, "Evaugeline" (425), the "First Night in a Convent" (426), 
 and the *' Joan of Arc in Prison" (428). Bright is represented 
 by one of his effective drawings (432), " On the Coast of 
 Scotland." George Dodgson, one of our sweetest colourists, 
 with a somewhat weak and mannered execution, is shown by five 
 of those combinations of architecture (433-437) and old-world 
 costume with which his name is so pleasantly associated. Here is 
 Burton's dignified and classical portrait of "Helen Faucifc" (439), 
 
THE WATER COLOURS. 23 
 
 with two of those impressive treatments of subjects from Fran- 
 <?onian life (443, 444), which justify liis sojourn in Munich. 
 George Cattermole, king of chiqtiefor we Lave no English word 
 to express that dangerous mastery of his materials, which leaves a 
 painter satisfied with indicating his whole life long, and condemns 
 him to the subordinate position of an unrivalled sketcher, when 
 one cannot but believe he might, if he chobe, easily rise to a higher 
 rank may be studied, admired, and sighed over in no fewer than 
 thirty of those picturesque and chivalresque compositions, in which 
 he has lavished powers of composition and colour which, concen- 
 trated into finished works, might have lifted him to the first place 
 among English historical painters. Barons and bandits, pilgrims 
 and retainers, masks and marauders, and doddered oak trees, and 
 rough troopers, graceful dames, and portly magnificoes, have been 
 poured out here with bewildering profusion. But, however attrac- 
 tive such slight and indicative mastery may be in the purely 
 picturesque, we desiderate more completeness in illustrations ot 
 imperative master-pieces like " Macbeth" and " Othello," and still 
 more in solemn sacred subjects, such as " Christ Healing the 
 Sick" or "The Woman taken in Adultery." First, perhaps, 
 among these examples of facile skill we should class " Sir Biorn 
 surrounded by the Armour of his Ancestors " (472), from La 
 Motte Fouque's wild tale of Sintram. There is fine imagination, 
 as well as humour, in the hollow hauberks and empty helms aping 
 the action and expression of drunken guests about the rough- 
 hewn banquet board, in the old Norseman's castle near the sea. 
 
 John Gilbert deserves to share the crown of cliique with 
 Cattermole, but Gilbert aims at more solidity of impasto and 
 solemnity of colour. His great practice as a draughtsman for the 
 wood engraver has given him that power of chiaroscuro which 
 reigns through all his drawings, and goes far to make up for 
 much incorrectness of drawing, and the too frequent sacrifice of 
 truth to effect. He imitates all masters, too, in subject and 
 style. Here, for instance, the " Violin" (475) is in the manner 
 of Murillo. The "Drug Market" (476) is an effective presenta- 
 tion of one of those most E-embrandtesque of all scenes of real 
 life, an oriental bazaar, with its women in ferigee and yaslimak 
 its recessed shops with their glorious garniture of carpets 
 
24 TIIE ART TEEASUUES EXHIBITION. 
 
 papooshes, narghilehs, jars, and gallipots, and in the midst of 
 this most picturesque of all chaoses, the bearded owner, calm and 
 cross-legged, waiting for as much custom as it may please Allah 
 to send him, but in no way discomposed if the day pass without 
 a sale. 
 
 C. Bossoli, known by his clever published drawings of Crimean 
 landscape in the midst of which he lived for many years has 
 here a large and elaborate drawing of one of the streets at 
 Baktchi-Sarai (479), crowded with Tartars a spirited and pictu- 
 resque production, but disagreeable in the tone and execution of 
 the sky. Carl Haag and Louis Haghe are two foreign artists, 
 whom popular favour has adopted, and made English. Haag 
 revels in the purple skies and glowing sunshine of Southern 
 Italy. Wherever picturesqueness is natural to a population, Carl 
 JLmg turns it to excellent and effective account in his drawings. 
 "Witness the "Sabine Peasant Woman" (499), the "Italian 
 Peasants" (498, 500, 591), and the more ambitious composition 
 of Dalmatians assembled round an improvisatore among the ruins 
 of Saloua, on the Adriatic (5050). But when the painter has to 
 create his own picturesqueness, as in the larger court compositions 
 of the " Queen and Prince with their family ascending Lochnagar" 
 (504), and the "Evening Scene at Balmoral" (505), he becomes 
 false and offensive by a certain German-cockneyism, than which 
 we know few tilings more intolerable. Louis Haghe never sins 
 by this kind of sham-picturesque. He chooses his architectural 
 subjects among the grand old town halls and guild chambers of 
 Belgium, in Bruges or Ghent, Antwerp or Courtrai, places 
 where, through the 14th and 15th centuries, the pulse of national 
 life beat fullest and fastest, and the struggle between baron and 
 burgher, and between the privileged and unprivileged in the 
 ranks of the city-populations themselves, went on longest most 
 stubbornly. In these magnificent old rooms Haghe always places 
 appropriate figures, commemorative of some event in Low Country 
 history, when costume had all the painter wants of outward 
 wealth of colour and gracefulness of cut, to say nothing of bold 
 outspokenness and violence of act. Such are the subjects of the 
 ten best of his drawings here (508-517). Of these the " Oath of 
 Vargas," and the reception of the Archduchess Margaret by the 
 
THE WATER COLOUES. 25 
 
 members of the Guild, in the Town-hall of Bruges, are the most 
 striking. Louis Haghe is left-banded, indeed one-handed. But 
 no draughtsman has a more rapid or firmer touch. Had he lived 
 in the days of Bubens, he might have been one of the greatest of 
 his scholars. As it is, he is one of the boldest of our water-colour 
 painters, the most powerful in his effects of light and shade, and 
 in his combination of figures and architecture. 
 
 And now back from the Campagna, where Carl Haag is painting 
 the sun-browned herdsman, in his sheepskin coat, or the full- 
 bosomed Sabine matron, sole perusta, with the broad shadow of 
 her panno falling across the square, swart, but Junonian features. 
 Back from the town halls and convent-cloisters of old Flanders, 
 where the burly burghers are discussing the points of their civic 
 charters with Austrian archdukes, or Spanish generallissimos* 
 Back to the homesteads, and streets, and waysides of dear Old 
 England with William Hunt, the truest delineator of the British 
 country boy through all the phases of his joy and sorrow, his 
 shiverings in the winter frost, his warm snooze by the chimney- 
 corner, his terrible onslaught on the meat-pie, his heavy happy 
 sleep after clearance of the enormous dish, in his school sufferings 
 and school sports ; with "William Hunt, the most pathetic 
 painter of the devotion of the English village church or Irish 
 village chapel ; the truest delineator of the weariness of vagrant 
 life, not dressed up in attractively-cast drapery and glowing studio 
 tatters, but given in its own grey, dusty, draggled garb, only with 
 such beauty of youth as survives even in the midst of the sins and 
 sadness of a wandering life ; with William Hunt, the painter of 
 still life, which competes for minute truth with Gerard Dow or 
 Teniers, the fruit and flower painter, whose bunches of blossom 
 and wayside flower, whose glowing piles of plums and peaches 
 surpass immeasurably all that has ever been put upon canvas by 
 Suisch or Van Huysum, by Snyders or Leghers. JN"o fewer than 
 thirty of this admirable painter's works (518-5^7) are here. 
 Painter we may call him, for his work is rather painting than 
 drawing. It is executed entirely in body colour, in. a manner 
 which Hunt has invented for himself, applied entirely with the 
 point, and in touches of pure primitive colour, making up by their 
 various combinations every shade of secondary and tertiary colour, 
 
26 THE AliT TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 and all tones of grey that are required in this whole range of 
 representation. Hunt is with reason one of the most popular of 
 our water-colour masters ; and he takes the very highest rank 
 amongst the English painters of humble life. 
 
 In sharp contrast with Hunt in every particular, both of con- 
 ception and execution, comes F. W. Topham (887-897), the most 
 picturesque master of our water-colour school. In him, for 
 Hunt's body colour, we find washes and rubbings no stippling, 
 except in the faces, hands, and feet, and scarcely a single touch 
 of colour put on unbroken. In representation here is no exact 
 truth, but rather a constant reproduction of a certain wild Celtic 
 type of beauty in the artist's mind soft grey eyes with black 
 lashes, angular faces full of sweetness, and masses of hair growing 
 low upon the brow. Raggedness has never been rendered so 
 attractive as in Topham's drawings, nor has any painter made us 
 feel shoes and stockings such pure superfluities. Topham found 
 his earliest and truest inspirations in Ireland. An Irish witch 
 has haunted him, ever since that Galway tour of his, and keeps 
 him spell-bound with her violet eyes and tangled elf-locks, snooded 
 under bright hood or handkerchief, and the tattered orange 
 jacket, and the blue or green duffel petticoat. He is never so 
 much at home as when he gives us a group of such witches of the 
 Claddagh or the Galtees, telling their beads round the old stone 
 cross, or squatting about the potato-kisli or black pot of stirabout. 
 He has tried Wales and the Highlands for subjects, and lias 
 changed the Celtic grey eye for the Gaelic bright blue, and the 
 black locks of Connemara for the golden ones of Glencoe. Nay, 
 he has travelled to Andalusia and to Brittany, but that Irish 
 witch travels with him, and she is so wildly beautiful her 
 unkempt hair or shrouding hood shades so rich a cheek, and so 
 arch a smile, and so pleading an eye and she mingles so cun- 
 ningly the broken tones of her tattered drapery, and she stands 
 so straight and clean on her bare feet, or kneels so gracefully in 
 her prayer at the holy well, or bends so tenderly over the cradle 
 of her child, that we cannot wish her away. 
 
 Mr. Jenkins (653-601), has been as true to Picardy and 
 Brittany, as Mr. Topham to southern and western Ireland ; but 
 Mr. Jenkins lacks the element of wilduess in his picturesque. His 
 
T1IE WATER COLOURS. 27 
 
 shrimp girls of Portel, and his maidens of Morlaix or Quimper, are 
 always trig and trim, and show little signs of the wear and tear of 
 labour in complexion or in garb. Here is that well-known and 
 graceful allegory, " Going with the Stream," where the boat is 
 floating so pleasantly, with its freight of young love, whose course 
 has not yet been crossed. Mr. Jenkins is always sweet and refined 
 in sentiment ; but before his drawings we ever and anon find 
 ourselves wishing for more of the rough truth of life, more of its 
 weather stains, more of those water-worn channels in cheeks that 
 tell of floods of tears, more of the wrinkles and scars of toil and 
 trouble. To us these things but heighten the charm of the 
 youth and beauty, and affection that shines through and transfigures 
 them all. Lacking these, youth and beauty, and affection may 
 have the unreality, flatness, and insipidity of a fair face painted 
 without shadows. 
 
 Oakley (675-684) is another wooer of the picturesque in figure 
 subjects. He has consecrated himself to the gipsy and the organ 
 boy, as Topham to the Celtic lass, and Jenkins to the Picarde or 
 Bretonne. Oakley deserves one praise, which nobody, we can say 
 with all assurance, has any right to share with him. He has 
 painted gipsy life with truth, both in physiognomy and accessories. 
 Oakley never hangs the gipsy kettle on a tripod, or sticks joined 
 at the top, but always on the genuine fire-stick of the roumanv. 
 Oakley knows how a gipsy tent is pitched, and how its gay carpet 
 is arranged over the divan of straw, and how the blanket-screen 
 which keeps the wind from the fire is set up, and how the 
 tambourine is tossed and the fiddle touched by your true losldngri 
 (fiddler), in the tan (fair), or kellapen-keir (dancing-house). We 
 speak en connaissance de cause ; for we, too, have been a roumany 
 rei (gipsy gentleman) in our young days, and did not learn our 
 roumany rohkerpen (gipsy speech) from Mr. Borrow. In fact, 
 Mr. Oakley has painted the gipsies and their belongings from the 
 life, and many a rinkney rakley (pretty girl), and tiJcnee-chavi 
 (little child), of our acquaintance, among Lees and Bosvilles, 
 Coopers and Shaws, has served as model to Mr. Oakley. Here are 
 few r er of these gipsy subjects, and more Italian street muscians and 
 peasant children. Faithful to facts as Mr. Oakley is in his treat- 
 ment of his subjects, he has not the true grasp of the vagrant 
 
28 THE AET TBEA.SUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 character that Hunt has, nor the relish for the picturesque that 
 guides every touch of Topham's pencil. There is something heavy 
 in his colour, and wooden in his figures. 
 
 In Frederick Tayler the picturesque element has taken a 
 retrograde direction, and has carried away the painter from our 
 own time, into the days when English upper-class life still arrayed 
 itself in bright velvets, and silks, and satins, and wore gold lace 
 on seams, and cuffs, and pocket flaps, and point lace cravats and 
 ruffles, and rode in jack-boots, and carried French horns slung 
 over its shoulder, when it went a-hunting or a-hawking. Never 
 lias any painter made prettier tableaux vivants out of the hunting 
 iield than Frederick Tayler, and there is a relish of bright sun- 
 light and fresh air in his pictures which makes them delighfully 
 exhilarating, an effect which is heightened by the facile handling 
 and free touch of the painter. Besides hunting pieces of the 
 olden time, Tayler has a relish for the picturesque of peasant and 
 wayside life, somewhat akin to Topharn, though not set off by an 
 equally fine feeling for colour. His combinations of dogs and 
 dead game, too, are full of spirit and effect. His large composi- 
 tions of the "Popinjay" (877) and the "Fete Champetre" (888) 
 rise quite to the rank of pictures, and are, indeed, about the most 
 ornamental works that could be hung on the boudoir wall of some 
 coquettish bachelor in May Fair, who likes to play at sporting. 
 "VVe cannot conceive that any man who really liked rough earnest 
 sport would care much for Frederick Tayler's pleasant masquerading. 
 
 Last and first among our figure painters, for artistic resources 
 and energy of patient toil, comes J. F. Lewis, to whom belongs 
 the desert and the divan, as the gipsy tent to Oakfield, Sir Eoger 
 de Coverley's hunting ground to Frederick Tayler, the Boulogne 
 sands to Jenkins, and the Gralway cabin to Topham. J. F. Lewis, 
 after his travels in Italy, and afterwards in Spain and Constan- 
 tinople, which resulted in the large albums of Spanish and Eastern 
 figures and architecture, to which we all owe so much of our 
 impressions of those countries, settled in Cairo, and for years was 
 an Egyptian among Egyptians. In this way he acquired his 
 complete familiarity with eastern life and habits, and found time 
 to execute the exquisitely elaborate studies, of which we see the 
 results in his recent eastern drawings. Here we have examples 
 
THE WATER COLOURS. 29 
 
 of the earlier or freer manner of the artist, and of his latest or 
 miniature manner. His "Fox and Drake" (644) "Dead Game 
 and Keepers" (643) show what he was in his commencements. 
 The Easter-day at Kome, with the people awaiting the papal 
 benediction in the square before the Vatican, is a noble work, full 
 of fine studies of Italian costume and character, grouped with 
 perfect command of all the resources of art, both as regards 
 composition and colour. How he treats Italian subjects now, the 
 "Roman Pilgrims at a Shrine" (641) will serve to show. There 
 is a great question involved in this minute labour. Is it worth 
 the artist's while to spend so much earnest thought and toil on 
 one drawing, certainly perishable, and not enshrining any 
 particularly valuable or elevated thought? Might he not be 
 better employed in expressing more ideas, with less elaboration ? 
 We confess that we incline to think he might; and we cannot 
 but regret, for example, to see such labour as has been put into 
 the forms of the cast shadows in the drawing of the " Pilgrims at 
 the Altar," or into even the most insignificant accessories of the 
 "Encampment in the Desert" (638). It is disagreeable, too, to 
 find in all these drawings that the heads the most important 
 parts are the least satisfactory. "We feel provoked to ask why 
 some of the labour put into the drawing of a Turkish lattice, or 
 the pattern of a shawl, or divan cushion, was not devoted to study 
 of some head that fails of completeness so far as to attract notice, 
 not by its expression or drawing, but by its manifest inferiority in 
 mere imitative truth to all that surrounds it. 
 
 "We must conclude with brief reference to Miss M. Gillies (569- 
 574&), as a painter of serious aims, not always quite attained, but 
 never failing in a certain result of dignified and earnest beauty ; and 
 of Miss F. Corbaux as a pains-taking artist, who has committed the 
 great mistake of aiming at an ideal altogether untrue to nature ; 
 to Mr. E. T. H. Corbould, as a most dexterous manipulator of his 
 materials, who, with great knowledge of the technical parts of his 
 art, great facility in composition, unusual power of drawing the 
 figure, and untiring industry in the painting of details, yet fails 
 to impress the mind deeply, by reason of an ingrained theatrical 
 exaggeration in. his work. The scene from the " Prophete" (696) 
 displays both his defects and his merits. Nothing can be more 
 
30 THE ART TBEASUBES EXHIBITION. 
 
 laborious or more dextrous; nothing, if we may judge by our 
 own feeling, can take less real hold of the mind. 
 
 Two drawings by Werner, the well-known water-colour painter 
 of Borne, of an artist's studio (933, 934), are full of life and 
 character, and executed with great skill. "The Interior of the 
 Arena Chapel at Padua" (935), by the same painter, is a fine 
 example of his skill in the style of work with which his name is 
 most familiarly associated. 
 
 Miss Sarah Setchell is a woman of strong grasp of her subject, 
 a fine feeling for the choice of a moment involving dramatic 
 suspense, and quite enough both of skill and of sentiment for 
 beauty to do justice to any theme she may take up. Here is her fine 
 and impressive drawing of the "Momentous Question" (939), in 
 which the village beauty seeks the cell of her wild lover, awaiting 
 his trial for a poaching affray in which life has been lost, for 
 an answer to her question, whether he prefers to purchase 
 life by giving her up to the rival whose evidence can hang, or the 
 suppression of it save him, or to keep her heart and risk the 
 trial, the rival's evidence, and the chances of the scaffold. Few 
 drawings exhibited in our time have produced such an effect on 
 the public as this did. Miss Setchell has never come up to it 
 since. Until she finds another subject equally full of situation, 
 which is not easy, it can hardly be expected that she can out-do 
 this, her first public success. 
 
 There still remain for comment the great mass of the living 
 water-colour painters of landscape, the class which does more 
 than any other to keep alive the love of the beautiful in nature : 
 for not only do they do this by those charming yearly exhibitions 
 of the old and new societies, in which our coasts, and copses, and 
 cornfields, our lakes and mountains, are annually brought into 
 the hot and dusty heart of the London season, but by the lessons 
 they give at other times of the year, and the host of pretty 
 sketchers they send forth, armed with block-books, and elaborate 
 boxes from Winsor and Newton's, or Roberson's, to ramble over 
 the highways and by-ways of our own islands and the continent. 
 "Who knows not those delightfully blue distances, and slightly 
 woolly foregrounds, and occasionally wooden figures, and that 
 questionable perspective, which does not prevent these amateur 
 
THE WATER COLOUKS. 31 
 
 performances from giving the intensest pleasure in the making, 
 and a real addition to the enjoyment of travel, both in the present 
 and in the retrospect. Most skilful among such teachers are 
 Leitch \vho has the honour of numbering Her Majesty among his 
 pupils, and whose two drawings here (4140, 4146), by no means 
 sufficiently illustrate his rare knowledge of effect and composition, 
 and his mastery of his material and J. D. Harding, who, besides 
 his services as a teacher, is so well and widely known by his 
 publications on landscape art, and on tree drawing. Harding is 
 a real master of landscape, and not in water colours merely, 
 though his style in oils partakes so much of the lightness and 
 rapidity proper to the use of the simpler medium, that he may be 
 more properly judged as a water-colour painter who occasionally 
 resorts to oil, than as an oil-painter condescending to use water 
 colours. His ten-drawings here (572-581) abundantly illustrate 
 his peculiar facility, his familiarity with all the arts of composition^ 
 and his command over some of the finest and most legitimate 
 sources of effect. His " Sunrise on the Bernese Alps " (573), 
 and his "Cirque of G-avarni" (580), may be referred to as 
 showing his command over the sublimer and more savage 
 grandeur of nature, as his " Harvest Landscape at Munden " 
 (578), and his " Chateiguion " (576), illustrate his wide grasp of 
 earth and sky in their more beautiful aspects. And yet, masterly 
 as is the hand, and practised as is the eye of Harding, he seems 
 to us always in danger of falling into that too obviously pictorial 
 arrangement of his subjects, which, in rendering apparent the 
 painter's artifice, destroys for us most of the impressiveness of his 
 picture. 
 
 T. M. Richardson, a water-colour painter of skill scarce inferior 
 to Harding' s, and of whose drawings thirteen adorn this gallery, 
 is the example we should select to show this tendency pushed to 
 a point at which it goes far to destroy the value of much labour 
 and unquestionable command of artistic resources. Bichardson 
 rejoices especially in Highland subjects, of which his " Loch 
 Katrine " (798), his "Scotch Lake " (804), his Highland scenery 
 (806, 808, and 810), are commanding specimens, and he seems to 
 combine the sportsman's and the artist's enjoyment of the 
 heathery hill-side, and tbp brown waters that foam over the 
 
32 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 granite boulders of the linn into the black pool where the big 
 fish lie sulking and sunning their back fins. Even Italy, to Mr- 
 Bichardson's eye, seems to have a smack of the Highlands, or else 
 his Highlands borrow (something of the brightness of their sunshine, 
 and the blue of their mountain-girdled tarns, from the heaven of 
 Italy. We never feel the grandeur of the mountain forms, the 
 terror of their mists, the glory of their far-off purple ranges, the 
 loveliness or majesty of the cloud-piles that mock their outline, 
 sink into our hearts while contemplating one of the finished and 
 dextrous drawings of Eichardson, as we do before the plashy, 
 blotchy, blurred, and rough-hewn compositions of David Cox. The 
 one is hand-painting the other mind-painting. Richardson's 
 drawing impresses you with a feeling of the artist's skill Cox's 
 with a feeling of the nature represented, without suggestion of 
 the artistic medium through which the feeling is conveyed. 
 
 William Evans, who has the important post of drawing master 
 at Eton, combines Richardson's love of Highland scenes and 
 subjects, as may be seen from his drawings here (584-588), with 
 a less obvious parade of artistic resources, and a looser and less 
 certain hand, though he no more approximates to the slovenliness 
 of Cox than he does to his power of grasping the heart of a land- 
 scape, and giving you that overpowering impression which seems to 
 have guided every dash of the old Birmingham blacksmith's brush. 
 Of course, it is no wonder that Mr. Evans paints well and often 
 the JSton playing fields, that lie fair and green under the shadow 
 of their noble elms by the brimming Thames, and the towers of 
 Windsor that rise so stately above the woods across the river. 
 
 George Fripp is one of the honestest and least pretentious of 
 our water-colour painters of landscape. He is peculiarly Eng- 
 lish in his conception of English subjects, as witness here his 
 " Boroughbridge " (958), his "Durdham Downs" (960), and his 
 " Taplow Mill" (902). He loves Yorkshire, and the sweet glades 
 of Hambleton, with their ruins of grand Cistercian priories, 
 embosomed in trees, or the holms by the bright and fast flowing 
 mill stream, and the reedy banks of Thames, with its osier bolts, 
 and lashers, and eel pots ; but he can rise to higher themes and 
 give us the green surf breaking on the Dorsetshire cliffs of 
 Durdle, or the chalky sea wall of Wight, or the sunrise kindling 
 
THE WATER COLOUES. 33 
 
 the granite sides of a "Highland Glen" (964). He has wan- 
 dered on the High Alps too, and has rendered with the same 
 honesty that makes an English landscape so enjoyable, the ghostly 
 glaciers of Chamounix and the terrors of the Tete-noire. As 
 represented here, he is all English, save in two fine drawings of 
 the Lake of Geneva, with the Pic du Midi in the distance (963), 
 and in his noble composition (966) from the Val d'Aosta, near 
 Chatillon. 
 
 Yacher has consecrated himself to the purples of Italian and 
 Sicilian sea and sky. Besides the sweetness and solemnity with 
 which he has reproduced those most magical- of all glamours 
 which the sun at his rising and at his setting works on the 
 horizon and the hills of the south, Mr. Vacher has a fine feeling 
 for composition, and a painstaking care and finish in his fore- 
 grounds which give his drawings (917-922) a high place in the 
 English Water-colour Gallery. 
 
 Mr. Frank Dillon, whose eastern travels have transformed a 
 most promising amateur into a skilful artist, sends four drawings 
 from Nubia, Cairo, and Carnac, in which the grandeur of the 
 desert and the picturesque confusion of the Turkish bazaar are 
 rendered with great fidelity and an honesty that would deserve 
 acknowledgment, even if its attainment of its aim were less com- 
 plete. 
 
 E. Cromek's drawings (927-932 A), principally of church 
 architecture from central Italy, have singular force and fidelity, 
 and are quite worthy to stand by anything of the same kind by 
 Werner, who now holds the highest rank for such work among 
 the artists resident in Italy. Mr. Arthur Glennie sends some 
 meritorious drawings of Homan remains (967-969), in contrast 
 with which we may place the humble English bits of common and 
 roadside nature, by Whimper (947) and Wichelo (941-945). 
 Among painters of English woodland and hedge-row, the highest 
 place is due to Bennett and Charles Davidson, both comparatively 
 young artists. Bennett has three fine woodland drawings here 
 one, " Glen Tilt " (596), of peculiar force, both in the drawing 
 of the rocks and water of the rushing river, and in that of the 
 foliage which dips its leaves in the stream, Charles Davidson 
 has consecrated himself to the Surrey hedge-rows, meadows, and 
 
34 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 cornfields, and never has their rich greenery been grappled with 
 more honestly. Mr. Davidson, without any evidence of imagina- 
 tion, is an intensely truthful Tenderer of the nature he has set 
 himself to master. His range is evidently narrow, but it is in a 
 class of subject the charms of which we can all feel, from the 
 highest to the humblest. Honour to the artist who has 
 given the best service of his head and his hand to the homely 
 beauty of our hedge-row elms, the golden richness of our harvest 
 fields, the knee-deep green of our meadows, and the yellowing 
 swathes of their new-mown hay. Here are four masterly sketches 
 from nature, by James Holland (825-828) ; one of trees over- 
 hanging a pool (826), of peculiar truth and power. 
 
 Collingwood Smith and Rowbotham are both liable to the 
 error of display which we have characterised in T. M. Rich- 
 ardson, but of singular dexterity. The former is by far the 
 superior in power, as is shown here by his "Tell's Chapel" 
 (729), his "Still Pool, Linton," (731), and his "Pass of the 
 Furca" (733). William and John Callow are honest workmen, 
 the latter especially excellent in his studies of coast scenery and 
 shipping. His "East Indiaman Hove Down" (673), is a pecu- 
 liarly fine example of the painter. William Callow's street 
 architecture has great merit. 
 
 Joseph Nash has done for our English manor houses what 
 Louis Haghe has accomplished for the town-halls and guild- 
 chambers of Belgium. Every one knows Nash's delightful volumes 
 of the old English mansions, wherein are rescued from oblivion so 
 many of those magnificent examples of decorative invention which 
 prove the age of the Tudors and the first Stuarts to have been 
 the most fertile in architectural fancy that this island has ever 
 known. Every one knows those low-browed galleries ; those wide 
 withdrawing rooms with their rosaced and richly decorated 
 ceilings, their liberal, fantastically carved fireplaces, their panelled 
 and fretted walls, and their recessed oriels, with emblazoned panes, 
 giving such picturesque break of line, and such play of light and 
 shadow ; those high-timbered halls, with the huge open hearth, 
 whereon a cart-load of logs might blaze at once ; the minstrel's 
 gallery, over the buttery hatch ; the heavy oaken tables, that on 
 the dais for the great man, his family, and guests, those stretching 
 
THE WATER COLOURS. 35 
 
 along the walls, under helm and hauberk, stag's horn and halbert, 
 and holster, pike, and partizan, for lusty retainers, and all the 
 hangers on of a feudal household; those quaint gardens and 
 bowling greens with their pleached alleys and cut yews, and the 
 groups in doublet and jerkin, ruff and round hat, slashed trunks 
 and rapiers, who give such animation and gaiety to the scene. 
 Joseph Nash has really paid a debt to the past of English 
 country life, which is nowhere so picturesquely and vividly 
 recorded as in this noble series of drawings, of which 15 are here ex- 
 hibited (G25-637A), all characterised by the artist's truth of linear 
 perspective and facile indication of elaborate details of decoration, 
 as well as by his lininess of manner, and that rather dry and 
 chalky texture, due to the profuse employment of body colour. 
 
 Records of another still greater illustrative work, are here in the 
 shape of no less than 37 drawings, (734-770), by David Roberts 
 part of the series brought back by him from Spain and Egypt and 
 the Holy Land, and published in those magnificent volumes so well 
 known to most of our readers. Here David Roberts is seen in his 
 height of skill. "We know of few things in art that show greater 
 mastery, greater power of doing much with little expenditure 
 of labour, or elaboration of particulars than these fine and 
 solemn works, especially two from the Holy Land the summit 
 of Mount Sinai (755), and the topmost platform of Mount Hor 
 (757). Here are the scenes most hallowed to our imaginations, 
 where passed the greatest events recorded in the Old and the New 
 Testament Mount Tabor from the plain of Esdraelon (754), the 
 rock city of Petra (758), Bethlehem (770), and Nazareth (766, 
 767), Canaan (765), and Calvary (759). 
 
 To go from Roberts to Duncan, is to pass from scenes which 
 kindle the imagination by all the combined influence of their own 
 grandeur and strangeness, and of association with the most 
 momentous events of human history, to aspects of nature with 
 which we are all familiar, and associations with the homeliest 
 realities of life. And yet who will say that before these seven 
 quiet drawings (856-802), he does not feel profoundly and pleasingly 
 impressed ? Without parade of dexterity, without vivid colour, 
 or startling contrasts of light and shade, by the honest use of 
 natural greys, and the quiet gradations of English atmosphere 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE AET TEEASUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 Duncan produces pictures which quietly make their way to the 
 heart, and once there do not easily leave their hold. The " Har- 
 vest Moon " (862) is a perfect illustration of this quiet charm of 
 simple nature simply conveyed. The "Sands at Calais" (859), 
 the "Sea-weed Gathering in Douglas Bay" (858), are admirable 
 transcripts of sea-side i'act ; the low driving grey cloud of sea- 
 fret in the latter especially, and the cold gusty aspect of shore and 
 sky, are especially deserving of notice for their profound truth, 
 expressed without the least pretension. 
 
 Naftel is another painter of sea-side scenes, which he leaves 
 occasionally for the greenest of green fields, and the most placid 
 of still waters, matted with floating water-lilies. Mr. Naftel is a 
 conscientious and a courageous artist, who does not shrink from 
 that most formidable of all struggles, an up and down fight with 
 a tree, in its suit of midsummer green. The worst of such struggles 
 is that we are very few of us aware Jiow green the trees and the 
 fields are, while the harmonies of earth and sky are such, that 
 tones which, when truthfully caught by the painter, appear hnr$h 
 and crude in his drawing, are, in nature, so harmonised and 
 contrasted as to give us only the most exquisite repose and 
 refreshment of the eye. 
 
 Our limits compel us to conclude with the merest mention of 
 the Chevalier Hildebrandt's dashing views of Madeira and Alex- 
 andria (553-558) ; of young David Cox's Welsh landscapes (-1U7- 
 497s) ; of Scarlett Davis 's Italian interiors (562, 563) ; of Mr. 
 H. Cook's careful and effective rendering of the noble ruin of the 
 Olvmpeion, at Athens (612), and two large drawings of Arran 
 (610, 611), true in mountain form, and fine in aerial efl'ect, though 
 deficient in power in their foregrounds ; of Palmer's daring efforts 
 at imaginative landscape (607-609), marked often by an absurd 
 attempt to render the apparent golden rays which seem to diverge 
 from the sun's disc, but which are really in our optical apparatus; 
 of poor Brockedon's Italian landscapes (612A-612 D); of Pritchett's 
 cold but careful Venetian views (698-700) ; of the water-colour 
 works of many distinguished men already discussed in our 
 remarks on the English oil painters, as Stanfield (834 850), 
 Maclise (705-707), Herbert (701-704), the Landseers (709, 
 784, 785), and Pyne, the last a greater master by far, as it 
 
THE WATER COLOUHS. 37 
 
 seems to us, in water than in oil colours. His peculiar aim at 
 rendering the effects of full sun-light is more compassable in the 
 former material. Of his seven fine drawings here (710-715A), 
 those of the Lago Maggiore (710, 711), bear the palm for beauty, 
 of Mr. S. Head's fine Interior of St. Paul's Antwerp (797) ; of 
 "William Turner's formal but deeply-felt views of Scottish lakes 
 and midland streams, with their floating lilies (903-908B), which, 
 belonging as they do to the past, still speak of a sweet and 
 profound spirit in the painter; of the desert subject of Henry 
 Warren (938), and "W. Lee's smooth-cheeked peasants (910-912), 
 and Welmert's ambitious historical drawings (924-926), meritorious 
 for the labour put into them, and for an elevation and seriousness 
 of aim, so rare among the masters in this material. 
 
 We pass away from the Water-colour Gallery, as every visitor 
 will do, we are very sure, lingeringly, and with regret. But the 
 historical portrait series, and the engravings, and drawings, and 
 miniatures, yet remain to be noticed, and we can give no more 
 space to our workers in water colours, much as we love them. 
 
THE DRAWINGS. 
 
 do not know of any better introduction to this deeply 
 interesting part of the Manchester Exhibition than the following 
 remarks from Dr. "Waagen's work on the Art Treasures of Great 
 Britain : 
 
 " The drawings of the great masters have a peculiar charm. 
 These it is, more than any other works, which introduce the 
 student into the secret laboratory of art, so that he may follow a 
 painting from its first germ, through its various stages and changes, 
 till it attains its perfect form. Von Rumohr, \vith his usual refined 
 sense of art, directs our attention to the true mechanical instinct 
 with which the old masters always employed in their drawings the 
 material best adapted to the object they had in view. If they 
 were desirous of noting down a first thought just as it arose in the 
 fancy, they usually chose the red Italian chalk, with which 
 sketching is so easy, or the soft Italian black chalk. 
 
 " The breadth and softness of the stroke immediately gives to 
 such a first sketch something picturesque and massy ; while, at the 
 same time, the material allowed of ahighdegree of finish, if desirable. 
 But, if they wished to arresta rapidly-passing effect in nature, toseize 
 an accidental, happy, quickly-changing cast of drapery, or to mark 
 sharply and distinctly the main features of some character, the pen 
 was preferred, which allowed them to unite the easy-flowing line 
 with the sure and distinct indication of forms. If, on the other 
 hand, they aimed to express in a portrait or study the most delicate 
 movement of forms, and a fine play of surface within the outline, 
 they generally took a silver point. On a paper covered with a 
 mixture of white lead and pale yellow ochre, verdigris, or some red 
 such a pencil marks but lightly and softly, and therefore allows of 
 alterations and improvements ad infinitum, and by pressing hard, 
 
THE DRAWINGS. 39 
 
 marks decidedly that design which the artist finally prefers. Or 
 if their chief object was the broad distribution of light and shade, 
 the full camel's hair brush, dipped in sepia or Indian ink, with 
 its elastic point and its bold breadth, led most rapidly and surely 
 to their end. In such drawings the outlines of the forms are often 
 not indicated, but result only from the limits of the shadows : 
 when it was required at the same time to indicate the form, the 
 use of the pen was added. Lastly, for a more detailed marking of 
 light and shade, coloured paper afforded them a middle tint, by 
 the help of which they produced, with black chalk in the shadows, 
 and white in the lights, a very delicate gradation, and a great 
 relief of the parts. On account of its many advantages, this 
 mode of drawing has been very commonly used. 
 
 " It is only after having seen a number of such drawings that 
 we can judge how conscientiously a composition has been prepared, 
 and better understand and appreciate the marvellous perfection of 
 the pictures of Raphael and his time, which were the result of a 
 long series of studies by the most highly-gifted minds. 
 
 " Now, if no branch of the study of art is more attractive than 
 that of drawings, certainly there is none more difficult. Nothing 
 but the most intimate familiarity with the feelings of the masters, 
 as they are expressed in every line, can serve as a sure guide in 
 the labyrinth. For there is not only an infinite number of studies 
 made by very eminent artists, for instance, by the Carracci, after 
 the works of Michael Angelo, Raphael, &c. with much spirit and 
 great skill, but both in early and later times, skilful individuals 
 have made it their business to derive a profitable income from 
 imitation of the drawings by the great masters. Hence there is no 
 kind of collections so unequally compared as those of drawings, 
 inasmuch as the most admirable original is often seen side by side 
 with an indifferent copy." 
 
 This concluding caution is, on the whole, less required at 
 Manchester than it would be for most collections of drawings of 
 the same bulk as that here shown. The drawings here have been 
 contributed by comparatively few hands ; and come from collectors 
 who have gathered with extensive knowledge, sound judgment, 
 and ample means three requisites which the amateur of old 
 drawings must unite in a rare degree, if he is to escape the impo- 
 
40 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 sitions of rascally dealers, and the ridicule of rival connoisseurs. 
 Dr. "Wellesley's collection at Oxford is well known for one of the 
 richest in any private hand in this country. He has liberally 
 placed the whole of his treasures at the command of the com- 
 mittee. Sir John Hippesley another of the rare collectors who 
 unites the three requisites above mentioned Professor Johnson, 
 of Oxford, Mr. Richard Eord, the well-known Spauish traveller, 
 Mr. Birchall, the learned Society of Christ Church, Oxford, Earl 
 Spencer, Lord Ward, the Duke of Northumberland, and the 
 Liverpool Royal Institution, are also contributors ; but we owe to 
 Dr. Wellesley nearly five-sixths of this assemblage of 260 interest- 
 ing glimpses into the working of celebrated men. 
 
 It can hardly be expected that this part of the collection will 
 be visited by the crowd. The appreciation of drawings requires 
 more than usual interest in the processes of artistic thought, and 
 something of that delicate insight into the indications of thought 
 which is independent of finish, and can dispense with fulness 
 of detail. But for minds capable of this, there are few artistic 
 enjoyments more exquisite than that which the inspection of 
 fine old drawings is calculated to give. It is like sitting by an 
 artist's side to watch the gradual growth of his composition 
 to note the alterations to enjoy the sudden burst of some 
 overmastering conception, which sweeps away a whole fabric of 
 laboured invention to replace it with the grand birth of a single 
 inspired moment to see the very place where Raphael has torn 
 away a head that dissatisfied him, and to find the amended passage 
 of the sketch flung hastily on quite another part of the paper 
 to mark with wonder the delicate lines traced by that gigantic 
 hand of Michael Angelo, formed apparently only to wield mallet 
 and chisel with that fiery force which is recorded to have sent the 
 marble chips flying in a cloud about the impetuous sculptor 
 to note the wide range of delicate atmospheric effects which a 
 Claude could command out of a sheet of blue paper and a few 
 touches of black and white chalk, or the magic of light and 
 shadow which Rembrandt could evoke with a fine point and a 
 little bistre. 
 
 "We have at hand, while we write, a detailed criticism of every 
 one of these 260 drawings, with learned conclusions, as, for exam- 
 
THE DRAWINGS. 41 
 
 pie : " No. 24 not by Luini, but a fine drawing of Lorenzo di 
 Credi, very Leonardesque in manner." " No. 27 well observed ; 
 a lady with a dish in her hand, seen in profile. Attributed to 
 Fra Bartolemmeo, but more like Andrea del Sarto ; in fact, it 
 reminds one of the female heads by Andrea in his beheading of 
 the Baptist, in the cloister of the Scalzo, at Florence." But we 
 shrink from inflicting too much of this sort of catalogue upon 
 readers who don't care a penny whether every drawing that 
 Bidolfo Ghirlandajo ever made is attributed to Pietro Perugino, 
 or whether Michael Angelo gets the credit of the worst imita- 
 tions of him ever palmed off by an Italian charlatan on the 
 greenest of British tourists. 
 
 It will be more profitable, we apprehend, to direct attention to 
 some drawings which are unmistakably fine and genuine examples 
 of the masters whose names they bear, and to warn visitors 
 against being misled by big names into believing Raphael capable 
 of certain atrocities which have here been allowed to figure under 
 his name. 
 
 For grace and tender beauty, the " Two Angels" (5, 6,) which 
 bear the name of Philippine Lippi, deserve notice. They recall 
 the manner of Perugino, but we know from the history of the 
 picture of the " Deposition from the Cross" in the gallery of the 
 Belle Arti at Florence, begun by Philippine and finished by 
 Perugino, how impossible it may be to distinguish between the 
 work cf these two masters. 
 
 No. 7 is the drawing for one of Grhirlandajo's lovely frescoes, 
 which every visitor to Florence must remember, looming in their 
 dim beauty through the twilight of the chapel behind the high 
 altar of Santa Maria Novella, but visible only in their perfection 
 by an early morning sun. 
 
 12 (Lorenzo di Credi). Two draped figures, almost fine enough 
 to pass for work of Michael Angelo. 
 
 14 (Donatello). Design for one of the statues of the Apostles, 
 on the lovely campanile of Giotto, which rises, in its delicate 
 diaper work of parti-coloured marbles, by the church of Santa 
 Maria of the Flowers, at Florence. 
 
 16. A genuine study by Michael Angelo, for the St. Bartho- 
 lomew of the "Last Judgment." 
 
42 THE AET TEEASUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 19 is a lovely cartoon of the Virgin and Child, but yet a 
 certain coldness in the execution leads one to doubt whether it be 
 from Leonardo's own hand. It may be Luini's. It has suffered, 
 and shows restoration in the head. 
 
 31 is a fine and genuine cartoon of Graudenzio Ferrari, that 
 little-known Lombard master, who, more than any other of the 
 school, combined the best points of the teaching of Leonardo and 
 Raphael. 
 
 32 36. Certainly, in their present state, these cartoons have 
 no right whatever to the name of Raphael. Of some, we may 
 confidently assert that they never knew touch of his hand. Of 
 the best we may say, as certainly, that if ever he touched them, 
 his touches have been effaced by the coarse and clumsy operations 
 of the restorer. 
 
 " Non ragionam di loro ; ma guarda e passa." 
 
 40. This is a genuine work of Perugino, of the date 1494. 
 The hardness and angularity of the draperies are deserving of 
 notice, as indicating his earlier manner. The white lights have 
 disappeared, and the effect of the drawing suffers in consequence. 
 
 44 is a fine and genuine example of Pinturicchio, the friend 
 and fellow-worker with Raphael, at Sienna. Raphael himself exe- 
 cuted the cartoons for some of the series of frescoes, for one of 
 which this drawing was executed. 
 
 46. A lovely, and undoubtedly genuine, work from the hand of 
 Raphael ; probably of about 1505, when he was still filled, without 
 being fettered, by the purity of Peruginesque influence. 
 
 47. This is another apparently genuine work of the youthful 
 Raphael, and recals, in its execution, the drawing of himself in the 
 Taylor collection, at Oxford. It is full of sweet virginal feeling. 
 
 48. Another genuine and beautiful work of Raphael's. 
 
 49. A charming study, by Raphael, for the " Holy Family," at 
 Vienna. On the reverse is a male figure slightly drawn in with 
 the pen. 
 
 51. The reverse of this beautiful drawing of "The Entomb- 
 ment " contains a drawing of three children and three of dead 
 bodies one carried by a man perhaps studies made in one of the 
 
THE DRAWINGS. 43 
 
 hospitals or cemeteries of Rome, with a view to the subject of the 
 picture, for which the design was made. 
 
 55. (Eaphael.) An admirable and unmistakably genuine draw- 
 ing, for all its slightness. The style indicates the date of 1507 or 
 1508 ; that of the smaller of the two Panshanger Madonnas, now 
 at Manchester, for which 55 is the very study. 
 
 57. We may say of this precisely what we said of the other 
 Christ Church drawings 32 and 36. 
 
 58. A genuine piece of work of that confirmed classicalist 
 Gruilio Romano, who is less offensive in distemper than in oil; 
 but even here his inveterate blackness and coarseness peep out. 
 
 61. (Timoteo della Vite.) A genuine work of this early col- 
 lector and pupil of Raphael. 
 
 6lA. (Raphael.) This pen and ink sketch for the " Massacre 
 of the Innocents " should be compared with the engraving by 
 Marc Antonio, and the photograph from a red chalk sketch of the 
 same subject, in Her Majesty's collection, which are hung on the 
 end of the screen facing the stairs. 
 
 It will be seen that the one sketch includes only the figures 
 forming the outside of the composition, leaving the centre a blank. 
 In the other sketch this blank is filled up. Raphael seems to have 
 been satisfied with the central part of his composition, but to have 
 felt that some alterations were wanted in the figures to the sides 
 and at the back ; and by comparing the two sketches, these 
 alterations may be discovered. On looking to Marc Antonio's 
 engraving, a dead child will be seen in the centre of the foreground. 
 On referring to the sketch, it will be seen that Raphael has torn 
 away the paper at the part occupied by this figure, and a sketch of 
 the fore-shortened head, with which he was not content, will be 
 found near the top of the paper. A curious question arises as to 
 these sketches, whether Marc Antonio himself made up, from 
 Raphael's two sketches, the design from which he executed his 
 engraving, or worked from a completed design by Raphael. 
 
 The drawings by Titian (62-85), though they include some 
 doubtful examples, are, on the whole, well deserving of close 
 attention. They show the innate vigour of this great artist ; his 
 rapidity and careless power of hand. 
 
 62 reminds one, in its masterly light and shadow, of Corregio. 
 
44 THE AET TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 66 is a design for a fresco by Titian, which still exists at Padua, 
 not in the scuola of St. Antonio, but in a church near the cathedral. 
 
 09 is one of the figures in a little battle piece, by Titian, now in 
 the Uffizi gallery at Florence. The large picture for which this 
 small one is a study, once ornamented the hall of the great council 
 at Venice, where it was burnt. 
 
 70. One of the very finest and grandest drawings in the whole 
 gallery. 
 
 76 and 80, are interesting examples of the large and yet not 
 careless manner in which Titian executed the tree studies for his 
 unequalled landscape backgrounds. 
 
 The Canalettos (8792, and 94101), are interesting as 
 showing the careful way in which Canaletto got in the lines for 
 his topographical pictures. He is said to have used the camera 
 lucida. There is evidence of the scene painter's use of the straight 
 edge in his firm and continuous outlines. Not a few of the weaker 
 works of his imitator Guardi have found their way into this set of 
 drawings under his name. 
 
 103 and 104 are more like Schidone than Corregio. The 
 drawings of the latter are rare, and even the angels' heads (116) 
 have been doubted by competent judges, though it may be 
 considered heresy to hint as much. 
 
 119 has all the attractiveness which blinds so many to the 
 essentially namby-pamby quality of Carlo Dolce. 
 
 120. Indubitably not by Giorgione, but by some Bolognese or 
 Florentine imitator of a century later. 
 
 121, 122, 123, are genuine works by Guido ; the first, however, 
 a weak example. 
 
 The Murillos (127-131), with the exception of 128, are fine and 
 of undoubted authenticity. The Christ on the Cross (129) is a 
 peculiarly beautiful drawing in red chalk, from the collection of 
 Eichard Ford, Esq. 
 
 Equally genuine appear the four drawings (133-136) ascribed 
 to Albert Diirer, and they show the extraordinary capacity of the 
 man for delicate manipulation. It was this quality which gave 
 his engravings, and indeed the productions of the German burin 
 generally, their groat popularity in Italy. The mechanical work 
 of the Italian engravers was always as far below that of the 
 
THE DRAWINGS. 45 
 
 Germans, as the Italian feeling for beauty was above the 
 Teutonic. 
 
 133, 134, 135, are all signed drawings by Diirer. The last bears 
 the well-known monogram of the painter, and the date 1517. The 
 first has the monogram only ; the second has the signature in full. 
 
 By Rubens we have a chalk profile of his first wife (137), and 
 a free and facile design for the soffits of a ceiling (140). What an 
 architect Rubens would have made, in the flamboyant style of his 
 time ! How his buildings would have overflowed with exuberant 
 ornament and symbolic detail of design! 
 
 143 to 145, 147 to 151 are all good and genuine examples of 
 Vandyck. The last is interesting as a sketch of the painter's 
 mistress, whose portrait may be seen in the Manchester Exhibition. 
 
 We could have wished Rembrandt more worthily represented 
 in this collection than by the two insignificant drawings (154, 
 155), under his name. The same thing may be said of Cuyp and 
 Vandervelde. 
 
 Sir P. Lely had a remarkably free and masterly hand with 
 chalk. It was his practice, as it seems to have been Vandyck's 
 before him, and Kneller's after, to begin with a chalk study from 
 his subject. Here are seven of these studies (161 167), for 
 female heads, including two of Charles's mistresses, Nell Gwynne 
 (161), and Mrs. Middleton (162). 
 
 A few slight but spirited touches from the hand of Kneller 
 preserve for us the imperious face of the " Grand Monarque," 
 with the date 1684. Kneller was the very man to paint 
 Louis XIV. He had a kindred relish for bombast, and an almost 
 equal sense of his own importance. 
 
 The two Janets (169-170) are curious examples of the timid, 
 painstaking manner of the 16th century, seen side by side, as they 
 are, with the free, bravura-like work of Kneller. The portrait of 
 Mary's first husband (170) the husband of a short, happy 
 honeymoon that deepened soon into bloody cloud and black 
 night will be examined with interest by most ; for who but 
 feels a lingering, lurking sympathy with Mary, even after all we 
 have had revealed of her treachery, her stony heart, and her 
 complicity in bloody deeds ? 
 
 In no master's works is the collection so rich as in Claude's. 
 
46 THE AET TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 Here are not fewer than 61 drawings from his hand, most of them 
 beyond question as to authenticity, and many bearing strong 
 testimony against the condemnatory judgment passed upon the 
 master by Kuskin, as one who neglected the study of nature. 
 These drawings give evidence of the most careful observation of 
 that minute kind, too, of which Ruskin would have us believe 
 Claude had no conception. Take, for example (173 and 174), 
 studies of tree tops and way-side vegetation ; or (175) the in- 
 terior of a wood. They show the closest and most careful, and 
 affectionate labour from nature. 
 
 Part of this collection may have been originally comprised in 
 those six collections of drawings, which Claude called his " Books 
 of Truth,'* not because they were faithful studies from nature, but 
 because they testified to the pictures he had executed, their sizes, 
 prices, and possessors. These volumes were intended to guard both 
 the painter and the purchasers from the danger and discredit of 
 having spurious works foisted upon them. One of the volumes, 
 still complete, is in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. 
 The others, we presume, have been broken up, and the drawings, 
 dispersed. 189 is probably one of these drawings. The picture 
 is in the marquis of Exeter's collection. By a commendable 
 arrangement, the drawings for complete compositions have been 
 hung separate in this collection from the studies for parts of 
 pictures. Altogether we conceive it to be impossible for any one 
 who has imbibed the Ruskinesque prejudice against Claude, to 
 examine this series of drawings without an increase of respect for 
 the painter as an observer and labourer from nature. 
 
 Some of Gainsborough's unfailingly graceful chalk studies; 
 cartoons by Eomney, Fuseli, and Dyce, and a few pen drawings 
 by Hogarth, complete this most interesting collection. 
 
THE ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 ALL visitors to Manchester who have opportunity or desire to 
 make a systematic study of the treasures of the Exhibition should 
 devote careful attention to that unequalled series of engravings, 
 which, more than any other department of this collection, deserves 
 to be called "complete." Without a survey of this collection it 
 is impossible to form an adequate notion of the great distinction, 
 in respect of art, between the 15th and 16th centuries, and those 
 that succeeded them. 
 
 Now-a-days engraving is a special craft. Those who follow it 
 rarely combine the command of the brush with that of the graving 
 tool. Although the Royal Academy so far recognises the claim of 
 the engraver to the rank of artist as to admit associates of that 
 profession, and although there have been conspicuous modern 
 examples of men who have combined the callings of painter and 
 engraver, as Hogarth, Martin, Blake, and Barry, the practice of 
 our time has drawn a very wide distinction between the man who 
 paints pictures, and the man who translates them into black and 
 white by lines engraved on wood or metal. The result of this 
 separation has not been a happy one for the subordinate art. 
 
 "Whatever mechanical dexterity may have been attained by the 
 entire devotion of the engraver's time to his special handiwork, his 
 productions have lost all the peculiar qualities of truth, spirit, and 
 sentiment which render the engravings of the first hundred years 
 after the discovery of Finiguerra from 1450 to 1550 still 
 unrivalled in all the highest merits that can belong to a work 
 of art. 
 
 The great distinction of these 100 years is that most of the 
 engravings then produced were either the works of painters, or 
 produced in their schools, and under their immediate and close 
 
48 THE AET TBEASUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 superintendence, by men who combined the knowledge of painting 
 with mastery of their graving tools. 
 
 Until a man has risen to the perception of the peculiar qualities 
 in the early engravings which resulted from this union, he may be 
 assured that his artistic judgment is still incomplete; and yet 
 these qualities are of a kind to which verbal criticism can hardly 
 guide the student. He must ascertain them from study of the 
 works in which they are exhibited, and for this purpose such an 
 opportunity as Manchester now affords has never before been 
 placed within the reach of Englishmen. Mr. Holmes's introduc- 
 tion to the catalogue of the engravings gives a succinct account 
 of the processes of engraving, to which we will content ourselves 
 by referring our readers. They will gather from it how the art of 
 transferring impressions from metal to paper was accidentally 
 suggested, about 1450, in the course of the practice of Tommaso 
 Finiguerra, an engraver of designs in niello (nigrum, nigcllum}i 
 a black composition used to mark the convolutions of orna- 
 mental designs, with which the taste of that time ornamented 
 arms, armour, ornaments of apparel and articles of domestic use. 
 
 Of such nielli now almost priceless the Manchester collection 
 contains some 28 specimens, which begin the series of its examples. 
 The "Adoration of the Magi" (4), with its borders, has been 
 valued, we believe, at 400J. For some time after the discovery 
 of Einiguerra, engraving in Florence seems to have made little 
 progress beyond preserving impressions from nielli. Baccio 
 Baldini is the next great Florentine engraver. He was a pupil 
 and friend of Botticelli, and an ardent disciple of Savonarola, 
 the great ecclesiastical reformer of the last quarter of the 15th 
 century the Wiclif of Tuscany. The collection contains a 
 most valuable series of examples of Baldini's works (30-49), in- 
 cluding one of the illustrations (30) from Lorenzo della Magna's 
 edition of Dante of 1481, probably from the design of Botticelli, 
 to whom also may be attributed the series illustrative of the 
 triumphs of Petrarch (35-40). Very remarkable, also, are the 
 examples of a peculiar description of playing cards, called 
 "Tarocchi" (41), on which the best designers of the time were 
 employed. To Botticelli's well-known bent towards subjects 
 from heathen mythology we may attribute such subjects either 
 
THE ENGRAVINGS. 49 
 
 from his or Baldini's hand as the "Theseus and Ariadne" (43) 
 and the " Cupids in a Vineyard" (44). Similar to the Tarocchi 
 cards is the series of prophets and sibyls, of which three are here 
 exhibited (45-47). The " Preaching of San Marco " (84), and the 
 prints from the curious tract entitled " II Monte Santo di Dio," 
 published at Florence in 1477, point to that reformatory move- 
 ment under the fervent oratory of Savonarola, with which Baldini, 
 Fra Bartolommeo, and many other artists of the period so 
 passionately identified themselves. One of the great sources of 
 Savonarola's unpopularity with the money lenders, who formed so 
 influential a section of the mercantile community of Florence, was 
 his encouragement of the " Monte di Pieta," or public pawn- 
 broking establishments, intended to relieve the poor from the 
 exorbitant interest charged by usurers. One of these estab- 
 lishments may be seen represented symbolically in one of 
 these plates. The "Assumption of the Virgin" (49) is another 
 fine example of the early Florentine devotional school of engraving. 
 
 In all these works may be found glaring technical deficiences : 
 hard outlines, weak and uncertain shadings, and rude printing. It 
 was this lack of mechanical perfection in the early Italian work, 
 probably, which led to such a high value being set upon the much 
 more mechanically perfect productions of the early German school 
 of Diirer, Schon, and Lucas van Leyden, which were extensively 
 sold, and even pirated in Tuscany and Venice. 
 
 But no mechanical inferiority should be allowed to blind us to 
 the immeasurable superiority of the rudest Italian engravings 
 over the most finished German, in feeling, grace, and spirituality. 
 In addition to the works of Baldini, the early Florentine school 
 of engraving is here illustrated by one of the favourite subjects 
 (51), of Pollajuolo, " Hercules combating the Giants," and 
 by six works from the hand of Kobetta (148-153), one of 
 that craft of goldsmiths, which produced so many of the most 
 celebrated Florentine painters and engravers. Besides the 
 school of Florence, that of Northern Italy, including Padua, 
 Verona, and Brescia, with its offshoots, at Modeua and Bologna, 
 and that of Venice, with its collateral branches at Ferrara and 
 Vicenza, claim especial notice before we pass to the great Homan 
 school, of which Marc Antonio is the great engraver, and Kaphae 
 
 E 
 
50 THE AET TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 and Michael Angelo the principal designers. Andrea Mantegna 
 is the leading master of the school of Paduan engravers. He was 
 the pupil of Squarcione, who was the first to base his teaching on 
 the remains of Greek art, of which he made the earliest collec- 
 tion. Mantegna married the sister of Gentile and Giovanni 
 Bellini, and the relationship forms an important link in the 
 chain which so closely connects Paduan with early Venetian art, 
 alike in painting and engraving. None of Mantegna's prints of 
 which this collection contains some seven examples are dated; 
 but the authorities on the history of engraving are inclined o 
 place them before 1488, just before the artist's final return 
 from Rome to Mantun, where he died in 1506. Mantegna's 
 designs are marked by singular firmness of outline, great effect of 
 chiaroscuro, obtained by close working of the shadows, bold 
 foreshortening, and good drawing. Of those here exhibited the 
 "Descent into Limbo" (52) and "The Entombment" (53) rank 
 mong the very finest representations of these subjects in power, 
 variety, and force. Gerolamo Mocetto (1454), though born at 
 Verona, must be classed among the Venetian artists. He was 
 one of the earliest pupils of Gian Bellini, and probably died before 
 1500. He excells Mantegua in richness of effect, due to the dawn- 
 ing glories of Venetian colour, of which he had caught a ray in. 
 the school of Bellini ; and to the use of an ink and a paper suited 
 to enhance the quality of his engravings. The design of his 
 magnificent " Judith" (61) ia attributed to Mantegna. There is 
 great dignity and grandeur in his compositions of the Madonna 
 and Saints (59 and 05*), in which we may trace distinctly the 
 influence of his master, Gian Bellini. Mocetto is the solitary 
 example of the early Venetian manner. In the works of Giulio 
 Campagnola a Ferrarese by birth, but a Venetian in style 
 (179-184) we shall find an altogether different method, more 
 resembling mezzotint, in which a singular richness of chiaroscuro 
 and softness of effect are obtained by a kind of stippling peculiar 
 to the master. His landscapes have a peculiar charm, for an 
 example of which we may refer to No. 181 in this collection. Of 
 his inimitable softness, and beauty of chiaroacuro, as well as of 
 his grace of design, the " Christ and the Woman of Samaria" 
 (179) is an exquisite illustration. Domenico Campagnola, the 
 
THE EtfGBAYINGS. 51 
 
 brother of Giulio, was a pupil of Titian's. His best works date 
 about 1517. In him we may trace a manner almost identical 
 with that of his brother, with even more animation and spirit in 
 action, and a chiaroscuro, if possible, more consummate in its 
 harmony. His " Shepherd and Old Warrior" (187) in an earlier 
 manner, is properly described by Mr. Palgrave as "worthy of 
 Giorgione, not only in design, but in felicitous execution." 
 
 Brescia furnishes two masters in Gian Antonio (170-172) and 
 Gian Maria his brother. The former is, probably, identical with 
 the Zoan Andrea, classed among the Venetian engravers by 
 Eartsch (173 and 174). Gian Antonio has something of the 
 academic character which attained its full expression at a later date. 
 He ranks rather as an engraver from the designs of others than 
 as a designer as well as engraver of his own subjects. The master 
 of the Caducee so called from the caduceus introduced as his 
 mark has been identified by Brulliot with a certain Jacopo 
 Antonio de Barbary, the painter of a picture with the date 1504, 
 seen by Brulliot at Augsburg. Here are five of his engravings 
 (175-178*), illustrating his characteristic qualities of grace, spirit, 
 and brilliancy, with something of a German character in the 
 drawing. The "Judith" (175), and "St. Catherine" (176), are 
 selected by Mr. Palgrave for commendation for "a grace pecu- 
 liarly Grecian ; a statuesque treatment of drapery, modelled to 
 repeat the figure ; a curve and glow of line to which everything, 
 as in Corregio, is subordinate; delicate and truthful study of 
 foliage, a merit in engravers among the very rarest ; and, lastly, 
 power over expression limited, indeed, in range, but within the 
 artist's limits as it seems to me, of peculiar refinement and 
 graciousness." 
 
 The school of Modena is represented by Nicoletto de Rossi 
 (164-169*), whose works date between 1500 and 1512, and who is 
 characterised rather by skill in borrowing than by original power 
 either in design or workmanship. The influence both of Mantegna 
 and Campagnola is apparent in his works, as well as that of 
 Albert Diirer and Martin Schou. The " St. Sebastian " (165), 
 "St. George" (167), and "The Punishment of the Evil Tongue'' 
 (166), are the works of his selected by Mr. Palgrave as best 
 displaying his own manner. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 Benedetto Montagna, of Yicenza (about 1504), like Nicoletto, 
 availed liimself both of German and Venetian models. His small 
 prints are the most, original and best of his compositions. 
 
 Lastly, the school of Bologna furnishes us with the illustrious 
 names of Francesco Francia, and his son Giacomo. Of the latter, 
 few works are known, and most of those ascribed to him are included 
 in this collection. But it is not easy to distinguish the pro- 
 ductions of father and son. Four of the five works of Francesco 
 Francia here (192-196) are marked by all the sweetness and 
 purity of that painter's design, as we know it from his pictures, 
 especially the "Holy Family" (194) and "Female Saint and 
 Four Saints" (192). 
 
 Before passing to the great master of academic engraving, Marc 
 Antonio Kaimondi, the friend and pupil of Raphael, we must turn 
 from Italy to Germany, for the engravers of that country had 
 almost as much influence on Marc Antonio as Raphael himself; and 
 he even devoted himself, occasionally, to elaborate re-productions of 
 their works. In these German works, from the hands of the two 
 Israels von Mecken, of Mechlin and Bocholt, father and SOD, 
 Martin Schon or Schongauer, of Colmar, and Albert Durer, of 
 Nuremberg, we shall find certain general characteristics which mark 
 them out with great distinctness from the contemporary Italian 
 engravings. All combine extraordinary perfection of execution with 
 the national German relish for contorted and angular drapery ? 
 caricature in secondary heads, great fulness and profusion of 
 accessories, and a disposition to carry certain features and facts 
 of low life into the most solemn and dignified incidents. For 
 exquisiteness of workmanship, and brilliancy of effect, no line 
 engravings ever executed can compare with the best examples of 
 Albert Durer, Martin Schongauer, and Lucas von Leyden. All 
 these early German masters are most abundantly exemplified in 
 this gallery Martin Schongauer by twenty very fine examples, 
 the Von Meckens by seventeen, Albert Durer by twenty-seven } 
 including a splendid example of the " Knight of Death"(127), and 
 the "Melancholy" (124), and Lucas vonLeydenby eleven examples, 
 including that almost rarest of all prints, the " Eulenspiegel 
 (280)." It was once thought that only one copy of this existed 
 in the royal collection of France. It is now believed that five or 
 
THE ENGRAVINGS. 53 
 
 six survive. It is very inferior to many others of the engraver's 
 works, but its rarity gives it a value far beyond any of the others. 
 
 Martin Schongauer dates between 1445 and 1499. He was at 
 once painter, engraver, and goldsmith. He was the contemporary 
 of Albert Durer, who reverenced his skill so deeply that he made a 
 journey to Colmar to see him in 1492 the friend and corre- 
 spondent of Pietro Perugino, and an object of admiration to 
 Michael Angelo, who drew and coloured a copy of his engraving 
 of " St. Anthony tormented by Demons" (78). There is often in 
 the works of Schon, besides unrivalled skill with the graver, a 
 peculiar grace and beauty rarely to be found in German designs. 
 Examples of this will be found in " The Six Wise and Foolish 
 Virgins" (88), and in many of his Holy Families. Several of 
 the plates in this collection are from his two famous series 
 of twelve the one representing the "Life of the Virgin," the other 
 the " Passion of our Saviour." The amount of labour in" 1 these 
 crowded compositions is incredible. The Meckens (94-109)' were 
 two, a father and son ; the elder a contemporary of Martin Schon. 
 Like him, they were goldsmiths as well as engravers, and their 
 work will be found characterised by many of the same mechanical 
 qualities as that of Schon, though inferior in delicacy and beauty. 
 
 Albert Durer was the most distinguished and influential German 
 artist of the 15th and 16th centuries, alike distinguished for his oil 
 pictures, his drawings in water colour, his designs for engraving on 
 wood, his designs and engravings on copper, and his carvings in soft 
 wood. Of the vast variety of his subjects, his fertility in compo- 
 sition, his imaginativeness, and his marvellous skill of hand, the 
 fine series of examples of him here exhibited affords abundant 
 evidence (110-136). He was bora in 1471, and died in 1528; 
 and he has left, besides his works, interesting contributions to our 
 knowledge of the artistic life of the beginning of the 16th century, 
 in the journals of his tours to Venice and in the Low Countries, 
 and his letters to his friend Pirckheimer. Eaphael appreciated 
 his merits, and exchanged friendly letters and drawings with him. 
 His engravings were so. popular in Venice and Northern Italy 
 that they were repeatedly pirated. Marc Antonio did not disdain 
 to reproduce his series of the " Life of the Madonna," with such 
 closeness, even to the imitation of the signature, that a lawsuit 
 
54 THE AET TBEASTTEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 was the consequence, and a prohibition from repeating the piracy. 
 Altogether Diirer may be said, for a time, to have influenced the 
 art of Northern Italy little less than that of Germany, and, but 
 for the gradual predominance acquired by the new manner of Marc 
 Antonio, after his intimacy with Raphael, it is probable that this 
 Teutonic influence would have operated still more widely in Italy. 
 
 Lucas van Leyden was a rare example of precocity in art. Born 
 in 1494, he had already engraved plates from his own designs at 
 nine, and by twelve, painted his first picture of St. Hubert. At 
 fourteen he produced his print of "Mahomet drunk after the murder 
 of the monk Sergius." He was the contemporary and intimate 
 friend of Albert Diirer, and rivalled him in his mastery over 
 all branches of art. His engravings shared the popularity of 
 Diirer's in Germany and Italy, and are marked by equal perfection 
 of technical skill, though they are inferior in imaginative power, 
 and in massiveness of chiaroscuro. We have elsewhere narrated the 
 story of Lucas's death, brought about by the excess to which he 
 gave way, in an excursion on board a " trekschuyt," which he had 
 fitted up as a floating house, with John of Mabuse and other 
 joyous companions. His pictures are rare, but of his engravings 
 accounts of not less than 110 are preserved. They comprise 
 subjects from the Old and New Testament, compositions of holy 
 families, saints, &c., moral and mythological subjects, themes 
 from common life, and portraits. The selection here (273-282*) 
 includes examples in all these classes. 
 
 The art of engraving, in the hands of Marc Antonio, may be said 
 to run almost a parallel course to the art of painting in the hands 
 of Raphael. In him it culminated, and in him it began a down- 
 ward progress, which was never afterwards arrested. 
 
 Marc Antonio was born about 1480, and about 1500 was 
 apprenticed to Francesco Francia, not as a painter, but as a 
 goldsmith. He wrought under Francia and his son, Giacomo, and 
 owed to this his early designation, " Marc Antonio de' Franci." 
 Traces of the influence of Francia may be found in his earlier 
 works ; as an example of which, in this collection, we may refer to 
 the fine plate of "St. Catherine and St. Lucia" (232), from the 
 collection of Mr. Hawkins. The spirituality and grace of the 
 figures and gentle cheerfulness of the landscape backgrounds in 
 
THE ENGEAVINGS. 55 
 
 the specimens of tbis, the engraver's earliest manner, are derived 
 from the sweet and elevated school of Francia. But the power of 
 drawing and the mastery over the graver are still imperfect. 
 Prom Bologna, Marc Antonio passed to Venice, where he devoted 
 himself especially to the imitation of Albert Diirer, of which some 
 of the direct fruits may be seen here in the copies from that great 
 German master (271, 272, 272), while the indirect effects are 
 traceable in increased mechanical dexterity and greater perfection 
 of finish. From Venice he proceeded to Florence, and here he is 
 thought to have made acquaintance with the works of Lucas van 
 Leyden, as well as with that great performance of Michael Angelo, 
 the Cartoon of Pisa, then in the Palazzo Vecchio, from which we 
 Lave here a study, " The Bathers " (260). From Florence, about 
 1510 or 1512, he passed to Eome, and there engraved for 
 Raphael as a proof of competent skill in his art the "Lucretia," 
 of which a particularly fine example is included in this collection 
 (234). From this time dates the great productive period of Marc 
 Antonio's life. He lived in Raphael's house, and till the master's 
 death, in 1520, worked under his eye, sometimes from Raphael's 
 designs, and as often, probably, from designs of his own, first 
 submitted to Raphael. The " Lucretia " was followed by the 
 "Judgment of Paris," and the "Massacre of the Innocents," 
 which excited, as Vasari tells us, " the admiration of all Rome," 
 and of which three fine examples, in various states (207-209), 
 with Raphael's original drawing, adorn this inestimable collection. 
 "We have already referred to this composition in an article on the 
 drawings. Baviera, Raphael's colour grinder, assisted in the 
 working off of the plates, and to his co-operation Mr. Palgrave 
 .attributes the brilliancy and admirable taste with which the plates 
 were printed * on their firm and pure paper, and with a clear and 
 mellow ink. Mr. Palgrave divides the works of Marc Antonio, 
 executed at Rome, into three classes. It is worth while to refer 
 to examples of these in this collection, as this will enable all 
 who may be anxious to give close study to the engravings to 
 discover and compare the characteristics of the different manners. 
 
 * See that gentleman's admirable monograph on the first century of Italian, 
 engraving, appended to the "Hand-book of the Italian Schools of Painting," 2 vols. 
 Murray, 1855. 
 
56 THE AET TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 We have already referred to examples of the first, and to our 
 taste the most attractive, of the three. Others in this earlier 
 manner are the "Adam and Eve" (202); the Virgin called from 
 the two states of the print "the Virgin with the naked arm" 
 (215), and "the Virgin with the draped arm " (216), the first being 
 the earliest and rarest ; and the " Triumph of Titus " (237), Marc 
 Antonio's only known engraving from the Siennese painter Razzi. 
 To a later, but transitional, period belong the " Galatea" (251), 
 the " Three Doctors" (255), and the " Judgment of Paris" (249), 
 which Vasar tells us, was, when first produced, the amazement of 
 all Home, and which is unequalled, Mr. Palgrave maintains, by any 
 other work of the engraver, for variety of figure, perfection of line, 
 expression, and force of chiaroscuro. The impression here, from the 
 fine collection of Mr. Johnson, is a peculiarly perfect one. and not 
 inferior to either of the other two, generally referred to as the 
 finest, that in the British Museum, and that in the Imperial 
 Library at Paris. In the works of Marc Antonio executed up to 
 this time, we may trace a perpetually increasing skill, with little, 
 if any, sacrifice of expression and character to mere display of 
 handling or parade of academic dexterity. In the works of the 
 next, or second, period properly so called we find the higher 
 qualities still present, with an evident encroachment, however, of 
 that tendency to the parade of nude form, which led the Roman 
 school more and more towards mythology and away from Christian 
 themes and spirituality of expression. The "Noah" (203), the 
 "Massacre of the Innocents" (207), the various Virgins (218, 
 219, 220, 224, 225), the "St. Cecilia" (230), the "Dance of 
 Cupids" (238), the " Two Fauns" (239), the " Venus and Cupid" 
 (246), the "Philosophy" and "Poetry" (252, 253), two ex- 
 quisite impressions of exquisite designs, "the Pest" (256, 257), 
 the "Amadeus" (267), and the "Portrait of Aretin" (263), said 
 to be from the design of Titian, all belong to this consummate 
 period of the engraver's power. In none does he appear more 
 masterly in his command of handling and effect than in the vision 
 of the glorified Saviour, known by the name of the " Five Saints" 
 (228), of which here are impressions from the unfinished and 
 the finished plate. The last and least satisfactory period of 
 Marc Antonio's working life falls after the death of Raphael. In 
 
THE ENGRAVINGS. 57 
 
 the plates of this period there is a visible decline in the power or 
 will to render feeling and expression, with a constant rise, 
 however, in mere skill and mastery of the graver, and a fuller and 
 fuller command of all the material resources of chiaroscuro. Pine 
 examples of this final manner are " Alexander and the body of 
 Homer" (236), the "Cassolette" (2G2), and, especially, the 
 "Martyrdom of St. Lawrence," here shown in its two states, 
 one exhibiting the figure of one of the executioners with two 
 forks in his hand (226), which the engraver subsequently altered 
 by striking out one fork and lengthening the handle of the 
 other (227). The design of this martyrdom is Baccio Bandinelli's. 
 It has little merit as a composition, and has been, perhaps, rather 
 harshly described by Mr. Palgrave as "placing before our sight 
 a subject of all that can be set before human eyes the most 
 revolting the fiendish cruelty of man, and a death which the 
 artist has been unable to dignify with the glorified expression of 
 triumphant faith or the solemnity of martyrdom." Marc Antonio 
 incurred the censure of Pope Clement VIII. by engraving some 
 indecent designs of Giulio Romano, illustrative of the foul sonnets 
 of Pier Aretin ; and the sack of Rome by the Spaniards in 1527 
 drove him into poverty and exile. He retired to Bologna, and 
 from this moment we know nothing of his life or works. Marc 
 Antonio was the instructor of a large body of pupils, of whom the 
 best known are Agostino de' Musi, commonly called Agostino 
 Veneziano, and Marco Dente, more frequently designated as Marco 
 da Ravenna. Of the former here are eight examples (287-294), 
 including the group from the school of Athens, the "Ananias" 
 and the " Elymas;" of the latter seven examples (295-309), chiefly 
 of those classical subjects which, in the later years of Raphael's 
 life, already furnished so much employment to the master's pencil, 
 and which utterly ousted themes from Christian history in the 
 practice of Giulio Romano and his school. Vico (1520-1570), the 
 elder Ghisi, and Bonasoni (1498-1580), were all celebrated pupils 
 of Marc Antonio, abundantly illustrated in this series. Bonasoni 
 devoted his graver especially to the designs of Michael Angelo 
 and Parmegiano. Giovanni Ghisi, of Mantua, was at once 
 painter, sculptor, architect, and engraver. Here are twelve of his 
 engravings, principally mythological. He instructed a family of two 
 
58 THE AET TEEASUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 sons and a daughter in his art, and the mannerism already apparent 
 in the father is visible more and more clearly in the work of the 
 children. Besides these named engravers, here are works of several 
 of the same period, known only by the symbols with which they 
 marked their plates, as the " Master of the Dye," the " Master of 
 the Crawfish," the " Master of the Unicom," and so forth. By their 
 aid we may follow the art of Italian engraving down to the times 
 of the Carraeci, who were all engravers as well as painters, especially 
 Agostino, who is unrivalled among the engravers of the second or 
 eclectic period for boldness, freedom, and command of the 
 resources of the graver. Here are ten of his works, including 
 the " St. Jerome " in its unfinished state, so rare and valuable. It 
 was afterwards finished by his pupil Villamena. Of Ludovico? 
 whose engravings are rare, and all from his own designs, we have 
 here a " Holy Family" (437), first etched and then worked up by 
 the graver, in his peculiarly free and masterly style. Included in 
 the five examples of Annibale is the very rare " Susannah and the 
 Elders" (452) from the noble collection of St. John Dent, Esq. 
 The method of Annibale closely resembled that of Ludovico. All 
 the works of the Carraeci deserve careful examination, as the latest 
 and finest examples of engravings by painters of translations, 
 by the authors of the work translated, into a language of less 
 copiousness and resource, it is true, than that of the original, but 
 of which the translator is as complete a master. If the paintings 
 of the Carraeci had been as true a product of the spirit of the men 
 and their times, as that of Francia and the youthful Raphael, 
 there would be no reason why their engravings should not be as 
 interesting. It is no wonder, however, that we feel the same 
 lack of real sympathy before both. 
 
 Turning from Italy to Germany, we may here study the school 
 of Albert Diirer, who had an influence not less marked to the 
 north of the Alps, than Marc Antonio exercised in Italy. Among 
 Diirer's pupils, whose works are here profusely exemplified, may be 
 mentioned H. Beham (o74, 380), Aldegrever (382, 387), and Pencz 
 (389, 393), all belonging to the class generally described as "petits 
 rnaitres," and distinguished by much of the same delicacy and 
 perfection of technical skill which marked the work of their great 
 instructor. 
 
THE ENGBAYrffGS. 59 
 
 Contemporary with the school of ISTuremburg, flourished the 
 school of Dutch engraving, which originated with Lucas van 
 Leyden. Coornhort, of Amsterdam (born in 1522), has left few 
 works behind him, and those of no merit, but he was the master 
 of Crispin van der Pass and Goltzius. The former came to 
 England during the reign of Elizabeth, and worked here, as well 
 as his sons Crispin, "William, and Junius. Here are portraits of 
 English worthies by all four (399-413), neat and clear, though 
 stiff, and altogether deficient in the ideality of the earlier Italian 
 work, as well as in the microscopic delicacy of the earlier Dutch 
 and German productions. Goltzius was one of those who most 
 tended to spread a false and exaggerated style, caught from Michael 
 Angelo, the straining of frogs in the vain effort to reach the bulk 
 and stature of the bull. There has never been a more complete 
 master of the graver than Goltzius (462-467), and he imitated, 
 with equal success, the manner of the most dissimilar masters. 
 His series of six plates, here called the master-pieces of Goltzius 
 (462), shows how completely he could ape Albert Diirer and 
 Lucas van Leyden, as well as Uaffaelle, Parmigiano, Bassano, and 
 Baroccio. Here, too, is the "Boy and Dog" (4671), usually 
 ranked as the engraver's master-piece, and the very scarce oval 
 head of Henry IV. of France (4661). Goltzius left behind him 
 not less than 500 plates ; and may be cited as an instance of great 
 but ill-directed powers, running into every form of vicious excess. 
 Jerome Wierix (1552) is another meritorious Dutch engraver of 
 this time, here exemplified by fourteen impressions (416-429). 
 The schools of Kubens and Vandyck produced a host o,f engravers, 
 who reproduced (on the whole, with great fidelity) the works of 
 these great masters. Pre-eminent among these is Bolswaert, the 
 engraver of the landscapes of Rubens, of which there are here 
 very fine examples (484, 485, 486), as well as a magnificent 
 impression (487), of the famous " Lion Hunt," after the same 
 great master, which may be compared with an engraving of the 
 same subject by Soutmann (494). Yischer (1610-1670), a pupil 
 of Soutmann, deserves notice as having engraved as well from his 
 own designs as from the pictures of the Italian and Flemish mas- 
 ters. His works from his own designs, as might be expected, are 
 infinitely the best ; and they have furnished all the examples of 
 
60 THE AUT TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 him here shown (500-509). In clearness and delicacy, and the 
 perfect fusion of the vrork of the etching tool and the graver, he 
 has never been surpassed. Impressions such as these here ex- 
 hibited are of very great value. The " Winius" (500) has been 
 sold for 1660 francs; and the "De Bomna" (501, 509), is hardly 
 less valuable. Of one of his designs, called " The Small Cat," only 
 one impression is known. The "Mousetrap" (508), the " Gipsy 
 Family" (506), and the " Pancake Woman " (503), are all rare, 
 and much sought after in their finest states. The portrait painters 
 about this time furnished the engravers with the great bulk of 
 their subjects ; M tiller, Vosterman (479-481), Droeshout, (517), 
 Elstracke (518-521), Hole, Delaram, Cecil, Vaughan, and 
 Faithorne (534-544 the last five Englishmenare principally 
 known as engravers from the designs of My tens, Jansen, Vansomen 
 Vandyck, and Lely. Blooteling, of Amsterdam (1639), White 
 (1645-1701), Vertue, and Houbraken (1654-1756), followed in the 
 same track, and have perpetuated the English worthies down to the 
 close of the 17th century. Contemporary with these men flourished 
 a numerous school of French portrait engravers Fornazeries, 
 Firens,De Son, Gautier, Lombard, Nanteuil, Larmessin, Boulanger, 
 and Drevet all of whom are here exemplified. Audran, Eoullet, De 
 Poilly, and Dorigny reproduced the works of the Italian masters, 
 and Callot (472-474) stands alone in the region of the fantastic 
 as in his temptation of St. Anthony (472) a very madman's 
 nightmare, and in his subjects from camp and vagrant life. Wille 
 (1717-1809) is the greatest engraver after the Dutch masters of 
 the 17th century, who, however, wisely chose to perpetuate 
 their works by means of etchings from their own hands. Strange, 
 Woollett, and Sharpe, in England ; Raphael, Morghen, Longhi, 
 and Andersoni, in Italy ; Von Miiller in Germany ; and Bervic, 
 Desnoyer, and Eichomme, in France bring the art down to the 
 threshold of our own times. In their hands we may see the 
 utmost of which the engraver is capable, when dissociated from 
 the painter. Our own Hogarth stands unrivalled for the 
 combination of the two arts in modern times. 
 
 It is unnecessary to trace the succession further. The names 
 and works of our contemporary engravers are familiar to us from 
 the shop-windows. 
 
THE ENGEAYINGS. 61 
 
 We must now turn to the collection of etchings, which is not a 
 whit less complete in its links, nor less fine in the quality of its 
 examples, than that of engravings, properly so called, while it has 
 an interest only paralleled by that of the Italian engravings of 
 the 15th and 16th centuries, as exhibiting the painter's work 
 translated by his own hand into black and white. 
 
 The series begins with Albert Diirer. Of his five etchings 
 here (941-945) all rare and fine, the rarest is "The Holy 
 Eamily." An impression in the British Museum cost 100 
 guineas. This one, from the Holford collection, is considered 
 equally fine. The "Eemale contemplating," of Parmigiano, is a 
 remarkably characteristic example of the affected grace of the 
 master. Of the Claudes (950-975) of which here are not fewer 
 than twenty-five admirable impressions all^but one are from 
 the unrivalled collection of Dr. Wellesley. 
 
 There are no etchings better calculated to show the inimitable 
 spirit which the painter can communicate to the etching needle 
 than those of Vandyck, of which the "Ecce Homo" (979), the 
 "Philip le Eoy" (981), and the head of Snyders (984), are 
 examples that cannot be surpassed. We may compare the two 
 latter with the pictures here exhibited. We should startle our 
 readers by a statement of the prices commanded by some works 
 of this class ; and, above all, of the marvellous difference in value 
 created by the presence or absence of some almost imperceptible 
 indication of the exact state of a particular plate, Take, for 
 instance, the portrait of Rembrandt, with a sword, called from 
 this accompaniment, " The Sabre Print." Here are impressions 
 of the plate in three of its states (1000*) the first with the 
 whole figure, the second and third with the figure cut away and 
 only the head left. Of the first state, only four impressions are 
 known; and for the one here exhibited Mr. Holford is said to 
 have paid 400 guineas. The " Christ Healing the Sick " (1007) 
 called " The Hundred Guilder Print," as having once fetched 
 that price, about 10Z., then considered enormous now commands 
 as many guineas as it did guilders a hundred years ago. Even 
 in the present century the value of these works has risen 
 enormously. The father of Mr. Colnaghi was empowered by 
 Sir Abraham Hume to go to an unlimited price for an impression 
 
62 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 of the " Burgomaster Six " (1045), about to be sold by the 
 late Mr. Christie. That gentleman had a similar commission 
 from a rival collector. The two bid against each other till the 
 bids had run up to the then unprecedented sum of 80 guineas, 
 when Mr. Christie, in alarm, stopped the bidding, and, explaining 
 the circumstance to his equally astonished auditory, declared 
 it would be madness to go on, and offered, if Mr. Colnaghi would 
 rise at once to 100 guineas, to surrender him the etching and quit 
 the field. Mr. Colnaghi at once bid the required sum, and bore 
 off the prize, amid the cheers of the excited room. Such a price 
 would be an everyday matter in a London sale-room now-a-days, 
 when a good collection is passing under the hammer. Only three 
 impressions of the first state of this plate are known to exist ; one 
 of them is still in the collection of M. Six, the representative of 
 the burgomaster's family, at Amsterdam. Here are not fewer 
 than sixty of these precious etchings, including some of the very 
 rarest, as the " Ephraim Bonus with the black ring " (1039) the 
 blackness being caused by the burr or little burrow turned up by the 
 etching point, the presence of which shows that the impression is 
 an early one and the same head with the white ring (1040), taken 
 after the burr has been worn off in working the plate. On the 
 question of "black or white ring" in an impression, turns the 
 difference between a value of 150Z. and one of 402. or 50/. for this 
 etching. Here are impressions of the " Gold Weigher " (1041), 
 in all four states ; the first with the face still a blank, the second 
 with the face touched in on the impression by Eembandt's own 
 hand, to try the effect before etching in the head ; the third with 
 the head etched in, and perfect ; the fourth in a still later state, 
 when the plate has been more worked upon and spoiled. It may, 
 indeed, constantly be said that the last state of these plates is 
 worse than the first. Here is " the shell " standing out fresh and 
 bright from its white back ground (101 S), and the same with its 
 brilliancy diminished by the addition of darks behind it. Here are 
 the masterly little landscape etching, known as the " Three Trees" 
 (1024), and the " Wood Landscape" (1020), into which Rembrandt 
 is said often to have washed a little effect of colour, and then dis- 
 posed of the washed etching as a drawing. Here is an unfinished 
 proof of Eembrandt's own mill, at Koukerk, in which he was born 
 
THE ENGEAVIffaS. 63 
 
 and first studied the magic glamour of light and shade in its upper 
 chamber, lighted only by one ray falling from the lofty window- 
 hole. The " Gold Weigher's Field," (1034) on thick India paper, 
 is an exceedingly rare etching, in still rarer state of perfection. 
 
 Of Hollar (1667-1679), that master of mechanical skill with the 
 etching point, here are 24 impressions, including the almost unique 
 James, Duke of York (1060), the Earl of Surrey (1064), in the 
 rare state, before the finishing of the drapery, and the Princess 
 Mary of Orange (1074), absolutely unique in this state of the 
 plate. AVe mention these examples less for any peculiar merit an 
 untrained eye will see in such rare impressions over the other 
 works of the master indeed the value depends on rarity, and not 
 on merit, though the one sometimes implies the other than to 
 show the extraordinary richness of this collection in what collectors 
 call "pieces marquantes." Messrs. Colnaghi and Scott command 
 such confidence among connoisseurs and collectors that the most 
 precious gems of the most jealously-guarded portfolios have been 
 fearlessly entrusted to them, and they have made their selection 
 with consummate judgment. In works of Ostades whose etchings 
 command prices not inferior to Eembrandt's, and who is Eem- 
 brandt's rival in mastery of the etching needle the collection is 
 equally rich, including 29 examples of his most valued plates. The 
 choicest productions of Waterloo, Swanevelt, De Heusch, Berghem, 
 C. du Jardin, Euysdael, Both, Eoos, Bega, Stoop, and Paul Potter, 
 the last the most highly valued here hang side by side. These 
 men have doubly perpetuated the common life of Holland, once 
 in their pictures, and again in their etchings ; and these last 
 furnish incomparably the best examples of translation from colour 
 into black and white. 
 
 The history of mezzotint and wood engraving is as fully 
 illustrated by examples as that of steel engraving and etching. 
 The dashing productions of Prince Eupert (1192-1196), in the 
 former mode of engraving, we do not explain it, assuming our 
 readers to have got that knowledge up from the introductory 
 notice in the catalogue, will be examined with interest. He is 
 often called the inventor of mezzotint, but it was practised in 
 Holland by Louis von Siegen, before his time. Von Siegen was 
 a soldier, and the popular story is that he got the idea of 
 
64 THE AKT TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 mezzotint from seeing an impression of the arabesques on an old 
 gun barrel, which a soldier was cleaning, taken off on the paper 
 he had used for the purpose. This is the parallel in the history of 
 mezzotint to the story of Maso de Finiguerra in that of line- 
 engraving. Here (1184) is the plate of Amelia, landgravine of 
 Hesse, considered to be the first production in the newly-dis- 
 covered method. Impressions in the first state bear date 1642, 
 in the second 1643 ; when Prince Rupert was still harrying 
 the fair fields of England with fire and sword. The prince's 
 " Standard Bearer" (1192) is just such dashing piece of work 
 as one would expect from that beau ideal of gentlemanly swash- 
 bucklers. Mezzotint attained perfection in England, where 
 it was in its prime during the reign of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 whose works have been best rendered in this style by Watson 
 (1213, 1214), Dixon (1220-1225), M'Ardell (1228-1230), John 
 Deane (1234), John Raphael Smith (1242-1246), Green, Fisher, 
 Jones, Ward, &c. Turner and Constable liked this mode of 
 engraving, and Lupton was a favourite engraver with both (1311, 
 1312). Here is a precious collection of proofs from the great 
 master's "Liber Studiorum," touched in by himself, with the 
 etchings and successive impressions, in itself a subject for long 
 and profound study by the artist, and to go into which in detail 
 would occupy more space than we can allot to all the engravings 
 together. Our contemporary, Samuel Cousens, has invented a 
 combination of etching, mezzotint, stipple, and line, which unites 
 the felicities and peculiar secrets of effect belonging to each mode. 
 Thomas Landseer is another engraver who seems to have come 
 into the world with just the gifts necessary to re-produce the 
 works of his illustrious brother Edwin. 
 
 The fourth part of this great collection includes a complete 
 history of wood engraving by examples, from the rude block 
 books of the early part of the 15th century to the magnificent 
 early Italian woodcuts of Gian Andrea (1358, 1359) ; the won- 
 derfully elaborate designs of Albert Diirer (1374-1381), including 
 the triumphal arch, of which only two complete sheets are known 
 to have been set up before, one at Berlin, the other at Bowood 
 and the daring works of the Venetians who wrought on wood 
 after the designs of Titian and Tintoret (1385-1395). It is 
 
THE ENGEAYINGS. 65 
 
 probable that these great masters themselves designed on the 
 wood these unrivalled specimens of manly and large rendering 
 of effect and colour. Their style is like sketching with a 
 tool instead of a pencil ; and we know no better corrective 
 of the tendency to namby-pambyism and prettiness which 
 our present style of wood-engraving is too likely to encourage 
 than study of the early woodcuts of Vecellio and Andreani (1385- 
 1412). Of especial interest are the glimpses some of these 
 works give us into the daily life of magnificent Venice her 
 solemn processions, her joyous festivals, her magnificoes in their 
 scarlet robes, her gilded galleys with their hundred oars, her 
 population of veiled damsels, sturdy gondoliers, frocked priests, 
 and stately merchant princes. The collection of Mr. William 
 Russell is especially rich in this class of works. Equally 
 full of eifect, though differently obtained, are the fine wood- 
 cuts in colour, by Ugo da Carpi, and those who imitated his 
 manner. His works resemble drawings rather than wood 
 engravings, and render the effect of their originals, perhaps, 
 better than any more laboured version. Very curious are the 
 old Venetian and Nuremberg portraits on wood (1418-1422). 
 The four sheets of the "Wise Men's Offering, by Rodii, from 
 Dr. Wellesley's collection, are especially deserving of attention. 
 J. B. Jackson was a not very successful English imitator of Ugo 
 da Carpi. His works (1432-1435) lack the spirit and power of 
 the Roman. Bewick is a genuine glory of our school, and merits 
 on every ground the title of the father of English wood engraving, 
 which till his time scarcely rose above the level of chap-book and 
 penny-ballad illustration. Here (1437-1440) is an unrivalled 
 collection of his works, numbering 167, many very scarce, and in 
 the finest condition. He brings us to our contemporary wood 
 engravers, Thompson, the "Williamses, Llandells, Linton, Jackson, 
 and Dalziel the worthy continuators of British reputation in 
 this branch of the arts. "We miss here examples of the fine wood 
 engravings which Riethel of Dresden has lately produced, espe- 
 cially the "Dance of Death" and the "Death the Friend," and 
 " Death the Destroyer," works in which all that we can desire of 
 expression and delicacy of drawing is combined with a largeness 
 of manner and breadth of effect, recalling the early woodcuts of 
 
 w 
 
66 THE ABT TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 Venice. What we have to desiderate for our modern English 
 school of wood engraving is an infusion of this very largeness, and 
 we feel satisfied that the public taste is ripe for something manlier 
 than now proceeds from the hands of our wood engravers. 
 
 "We must now give up the task we have so inadequately per- 
 formed, with an exhortation to all who have leisure really to study 
 the Manchester collection, not to fail to give due attention to what 
 is certainly not its least valuable department the gallery of 
 engravings. 
 
 BRADBTRY AND EVANS, 
 
 TO THE MANCHKbTER ART TREA-t RL8 KXHJW1ION, 
 WUITETKIABS, LONDON. 
 
A HANDBOOK 
 
 BRITISH PORTRAIT GALLERY 
 
 IX THB, 
 
 llrt 
 
 BEING A REPRINT OF CRITICAL NOTICES ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 
 IN "THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN." 
 
 LONDON: 
 BRADBURY AND EVANS, 11, BOUVERIE STREET. 
 
 1857. 
 
BRADBURY AKD EVANS, 
 
 PRINTERS TO THE MANCHESTER ART TREASURES EXHI1JITION, 
 " IUTEFRIAR8, LONDOX. 
 
A HANDBOOK 
 
 BRITISH POETEAIT GALLEEY 
 
 IN THE 
 
 ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 OF all portions of the Exhibition this is the one which most 
 requires the aid of a catalogue raisonne. These portraits, for 
 those who know the great points of the lives of their originals, 
 have a great interest ; for those who do not, they have little or 
 none. It is impossible within the narrow limits which, in a 
 series of newspaper notices, must be assigned to each part of the 
 Exhibition, to do more than take the most cursory survey of this 
 large gallery. It is, therefore, to be especially regretted that the 
 promised official guide or handbook to the Portrait Gallery is not 
 vet published. We cannot pretend to supply its place in the 
 flying comment on these pictures, which is all we have room for. 
 But we would most respectfully press on the committee, and on 
 Mr. Cunningham, that so long as the promised handbook to the 
 Portrait Gallery is delayed, a public want is left unsatisfied. 
 This is the more necessary because, so far as we can judge from 
 these pictures, no very definite principle has guided the selection 
 of them. "We do not, throughout the series, find grouped under 
 the portrait of the sovereign, the representations of the real 
 notables of the time the men who set their stamp on the reign 
 by statesmanship, arts, arms, or letters. This has, it is true, been 
 done in an imperfect degree for the reign of Henry VIII., 
 Elizabeth, and her successors ; and, no doubt, it was easier to do 
 it for them than the sovereigns who preceded Elizabeth. What 
 there is earlier than Elizabeth is not only fragmentary, with 
 reference to its illustrative value, but is also hung on the walls, 
 
 * 2 
 
4 THE AET TEEASUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 and numbered in the catalogue, without chronological sequence. 
 This throws two additional obstacles in the student's way. We 
 are not aware of the difficulties which have impeded Mr. 
 Cunningham in the collection of his materials. Judging by the 
 collection itself, we should infer that from some houses he 
 has been altogether excluded; from others permitted to take 
 sparingly ; while in others, again, he has been allowed carte 
 Blanche, and would seem almost to have stripped the walls. 
 Cashiobury, Hatfield, and Petworth three of the houses which 
 contain the most valuable treasures of historical art in England 
 contribute nothing. There are here only three pictures from 
 the unrivalled collection at the Grove the remains of the 
 gallery of English worthies formed by the great Lord Clarendon 
 and which still numbers no less than 25 or 26 Yandycks, besides 
 Honthorsts, Jansens, and Lelys, even after all it has suffered by 
 Lord Cornbury's forced sales to pay his debts in the contracting 
 of which, and breaking his promises to pay, he had what Burnet 
 calls " a particular art," and by the dispersion of the collection, 
 which followed on the death of the Duke of Queensberry (" Old 
 Q."), by which so many were transferred to Both well Castle. 
 But en revanche, the Duke of Portland has given Mr. Cunning- 
 ham the fullest liberty at "Welbeck, and the vast historical collec- 
 tions of that huge house have been rummaged not the reception 
 rooms, or bedrooms, or corridors only, but the attics, and still- 
 rooms, and grooms' and coachmen's lodgings over stables and 
 some of the most interesting transferred to these walls. Besides 
 this unexampled liberality in putting the "Welbeck pictures at the 
 service of the committee, the duke has sent here his unrivalled 
 collection of miniatures, which may be seen in the gallery to the 
 left of the orchestra, and which will repay the closest examina- 
 tion. We cannot help thinking it a pity that Mr. Cunningham, 
 in making this collection, should have allowed considerations of 
 art to interfere with those of history. He should not, according 
 to our view of the matter, have hung even a Yandyck if the 
 original had not some historical importance ; still less should he 
 have hung inferior pictures of unknown people by unknown 
 painters, as the " Sir John and Lady Langham " (161 and 162), 
 from Lord Stamford's collection. 
 
IKE BItlTISH PORTRAIT GALLERT. O 
 
 There is no country in the world so rich in historical portraits as 
 England, except Italy. But there is this difference between the 
 countries, the Italian portraits are confined to the galleries in the 
 palaces of great families, and have, many of them, been transferred 
 to collections of pictures all over the world, to aid the needs of their 
 impoverished proprietors. In England, on the other hand, our 
 counties are filled with old families and ancestral houses, many 
 of them dating back to the Tudors, and earlier still; and every 
 one of these old houses is filled with old pictures, some as early 
 as Henry VI. ; but abounding especially from the reign of 
 Elizabeth downward, and becoming still more overpowering in 
 amount when we get to the times of Charles II., Anne, and the 
 earlier Georges. Eor, during the first half of last century, there 
 seems to have been a race of travelling portrait painters, workmen 
 of very fair skill, trained as assistants in the ateliers of Kneller 
 and his Dutch contemporaries, whose practice it was to go from 
 country house to country house transferring to canvas the faces 
 and figures of two generations the setting and the rising 
 sometimes in huge family groups, oftener in separate pictures, 
 The means of historical illustration by portraiture in England 
 may be called almost inexhaustible ; and rich as this historical 
 portrait gallery is, there is no part of the Manchester Exhibition 
 which gives a more inadequate notion of the real value and bulk 
 of the art treasures of the country. This, however, is a way of 
 expressing the wealth of England, and not the poverty of our 
 gallery, which includes far more than we can hope to indicate to 
 our readers in the space at our command, and far more than most 
 visitors of the Exhibition will ever contrive to see. There is 
 nothing earlier than Eichard II., and it would be difficult, except 
 in the shape of monumental effigies, paintings on glass, or illu- 
 minations in manuscript, to find any genuine portraiture of an 
 earlier date. From one or the other of these sources, are derived 
 the traditional portraits of our earlier kings, familiar to us all in 
 the shape of those circular illustrations in the school histories of 
 England. The Eichard II. here (15), from "Westminster Abbey, 
 though Walpole may choose to describe the picture as preserving the 
 person of the king " in the most lively manner," has been reduced 
 by the repaintings of generations to a state in which nothing but 
 
6 THE ABT TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 the contour of the original can be said to survive. It exhibits 
 those regular and handsome but weak and insipid features, of 
 which we see the germs, really well-conveyed, in the curious 
 "Wilton picture (42, Saloon A). If the gallery could have been 
 complete, we should have had the portrait of Chaucer here. The 
 only contemporary likenesses of the poet, however, are two, one by 
 Occleve himself, in a manuscript in the British Museum, and the 
 other, probably also contemporary, not by Occleve, but in a copy 
 of Occleve's poems in the same collection. The greatest figure 
 of Eichard's reign, after Chaucer, is Wicklif the father of 
 protestantism, the opponent of priestcraft and papal tyranny, and 
 the true precursor of Luther. Here he is (4), the plain Yorkshire 
 scholar of Queen's and Merton, who stood against friars and 
 pardons, more than 150 years before Luther nailed his articles 
 on the church door of "Wittemberg, the sturdy controversialist, 
 who was borne down neither by the Anglican episcopacy, when it 
 cited him to answer charges of heresy, in St. Paul's, in 1377, nor 
 by the four papal bulls launched against him in the same year, 
 the parish priest who, iu his quiet parsonage at Luttenvorth, held 
 up to scorn the pretensions of the rival successors of St. Peter 
 by his " Schism of the Popes " in 1381, the scholar who made the 
 first complete translation of the Bible into " the vulgar tongue,'* 
 the reformer who, by the establishment of his order of " Poure 
 Priestes," spread through the land a body of faithful preachers 
 and teachers, preaching the word unbeneficed, in their grey gowns 
 girt about them, a staff in their hands such men as Chaucer 
 has described in his admirable picture of the " poure persone ; " 
 
 He coude in litel thing have suffisance. 
 "Wide was his parish, and houses fer asonder, 
 But he ne left nought fur no rain ne thonder, 
 In sikcnesse and in mischief to visite 
 The ferrest in his parish, inoche and lite, 
 Upon his fete, and in his hand a staf. 
 This noble ensample to his shepe he yaf, 
 That first he wrought, and afterward he taught. 
 Out of the gospel he the wordes caught. 
 
 In this very garb "Wicklif is here painted, whether by a 
 contemporary hand may be doubtful staff in hand, with a mild 
 but firm face, and a venerable white beard. "What was it to 
 
THE BEITISH POETEAIT GALLEBY. 7 
 
 him that Oxford condemned his opinions, deprived him of his 
 divinity professorship, and banished him the university ? He 
 had his work to do and his word to speak. He wrought the one, 
 and wrote and spoke the other, fearlessly and faithfully, and died 
 in 1384 in his parish of Lutterworth, at the age of sixty-four. 
 Porty years later the Council of Constance condemned his doc- 
 trines, and ordered his bones to be dug up and burnt. It was 
 done, and the ashes flung into the Swift, a little brook that runs 
 by the foot of the hill on which Lutterworth stands, and " thus," 
 says quaint Thomas Fuller, " this brook hath conveyed his ashes 
 into Avon, Avon into Severn. Severn into the narrow seas, they 
 into the main ocean. And so the ashes of Wickliff are the emblems 
 of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over." 
 
 Here hangs the shrewd, sad, stern face of Henry IV. (1), " an 
 undoubted original " from the gallery of the Earl of Essex the 
 king whose best historian is Shakspere, in whose reign parliament 
 rose to importance under the influence of the sovereign's pecu- 
 niary embarrassments and defective title, which compelled him to 
 reign by the aid of the Commons. Henry V. is absent ; but here 
 are his two luckless successors, Henry VI. (23) and Edward 
 IV. (5), the Kings of the Roses ; the first in two heads, equally 
 marked by that weak irresolute expression which is reflected in 
 his unhappy life and death; the second handsome and volup- 
 tuous, hanging here, as he did in life, by the side of one of his 
 mistresses, Jane Shore, not represented, however, as the un- 
 happy heroine of the old ballad and Eowe's Tragedy should have 
 appeared, with wan face, and white penitential robe, and the 
 candle of expiation in her hand, or sinking for lack of bread in 
 Shoreditch, but naked, save for the circlet of jewels round her 
 neck. This portrait is sent by Eton College, of which foundation 
 she was an early patroness. This face has no beauty, certainly, 
 nor indeed any of the three expressions we might choose for it 
 from the King's description of his three mistresses, " One the 
 merriest, the other the wittiest, and the third the holiest, for she 
 is always in a church but when he sends for her." The popular 
 myth of Jane Shore's death, under the cruel penance imposed on 
 her by crook-backed Gloucester, is without foundation. She lived 
 many years after, and was seen by Sir Thomas More, in the reign 
 
8 THE ART TEEASCEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 of Henry VIII. in extreme old age, poor, decrepit, shrivelled, 
 and with no trace of the beauty that had won the love of the 
 voluptuous Edward. Here, too, hangs one of the many portraits 
 of Richard III. (7), sent by James Gibson Craig, Esq. ; how 
 proved authentic we know not, but looking as crafty and as cruel 
 as we could desire the bloody king to look. Whether Shakspere 
 was right in his conception of the crook-back, or Walpole in his 
 re-instatement of him as a wise, politic, and rather ill-used 
 monarch, is a " historic doubt " not yet solved. This portrait has 
 the characteristic action of drawing off and on the ring, ascribed 
 to this king in all the extant portraits of him. Beside him hangs 
 the pale ascetic face (8) of the virtuous Margaret, Countess of 
 Richmond, and mother of Henry VII. by her first husband, 
 Edmund Tudor, the foundress of God's House, afterwards Christ's 
 College, and of St. John's College, both at Cambridge. She was a 
 type of all the feminine virtues of her time, distinguished alike, 
 as Fisher, bishop of Rochester, said of her in her funeral sermon, 
 " for nobility of person, discipline of her body, ordering her soul 
 to God, and, fourthly, in hospitality and charity." She had thirty 
 kings and queens within the four degrees of marriage to her, 
 besides dukes, marquises, earls, and other princes. Her father 
 was John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and her mother, Margaret 
 Beauchamp. Thus, as Fuller says in his punning way, "fair fort 
 tiudfair field met in this lady, who was fair body and fair soul, 
 being the exactest pattern of the best devotion those days 
 afforded ; taxed for no personal faults, but the errors of the age 
 she lived in." She died June 29, 1509, not surviving to witness 
 the completion of St. John's College, from whose library this por- 
 trait comes. She saw, however, both her son and grandson on the 
 throne. Of the former there is no portrait here. Of the latter 
 there is one of the Holbein portraits (48) from the Duke of ]\ Fan- 
 Chester, a duplicate of the "Warwick picture which hangs in the 
 gallery of old masters. It is a pity that the personages of Henry's 
 reign have not been hung together. "We should have liked to see 
 the lustful king surrounded by his six ill-fated wives of whom 
 here are only " Anne Boleyn " (10, 11), "Katherinc Parr" (16), 
 "Jane Seymour" (50) and "Anne of Cleves" (the last in minia- 
 ture, in frame 17), and accompanied by his creatures and his victims, 
 
THE BIUTISli POliTBAIT GA.LLEKY. ' 
 
 or the large array of those who began by being the former to end 
 as the latter. Why, for example, is Charles Brandon (14), the 
 luxurious, accomplished, and unscrupulous husband of Mary (14), 
 the wicked widow of Louis of Prance, so far from the master he 
 served but too well? Charles Brandon was one of the most 
 graceful gentlemen and most skilful jousters in the pageant of 
 the Field of the Cloth of Gold a leading member of the odious 
 commission established to raise money for the royal needs, with- 
 out resort to parliament one of the most active and heartless 
 of the persecutors of Queen Catherine the messenger of death 
 to Anne Boleyn, of separation to Anne of Cleves, of disgrace to 
 Wolsey. He commanded the ill-starred invasion to France, and 
 sat in Smithfield to see Friar Forest slowly burned, in the fire 
 which consumed the wonder-working crucifix of David Darvel 
 Gatheren ; and, finally, he was the dexterous conductor of the 
 intrigues which dissolved the rebellion of the north. That the 
 accomplice in so many of the crimes of his royal master should have 
 died quietly in his bed in 1545, two years before the king, shows 
 a dexterity or a good fortune equally rare in those bloody days. 
 
 Here, too, by the side of luckless Anne Boleyn, hangs her 
 eldest sister Mary (12), with whom also the King was accused of 
 having intrigued, apparently not without considerable reason. 
 She is not less fair than her sister, whom she nearly resembles, 
 though fuller in face and fleshier in figure. Those who are in- 
 clined to feel with Mr. Froude, the last historian of the 
 reign of Henry VIII. who has proposed to himself the Her- 
 culean task of cleansing the memory of that sovereign from the 
 foul stain of lust and blood with which it is so deeply encrusted, 
 may try to discover in this fair face of Anne Boleyn the sen- 
 suality and deceitfulness which Mr. Froude finds in it. We 
 confess we see nothing of the kind, but rather the most engaging 
 feminine sweetness and softness. At the same time it is evident 
 that poor Anne was no heroine, but a weak girl, who succumbed 
 to the mixed influence of terror and vanity, though she must have 
 known the ruthless nature of the man into whose hands she was 
 putting her fair and slender neck, and might have anticipated 
 her own dark and dismal future from the fate of the poor queen 
 whom she supplanted. 
 
10 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 There is here no portrait of the Duke of Norfolk, the head of 
 the papist party hi the reign of Henry, who, though he never 
 forfeited his faith for royal favour, seems, in all else, to have 
 been the willing instrument of the King's worst purposes, and 
 inferior in every respect to his noble and accomplished son, 
 Henry Howard, the friend of the King's youth the poet-lover 
 of the fair Geraldine, whose image the great wizard, Cornelius 
 Agrippa, showed to the enamoured youth in a magic mirror, at 
 the court of the Emperor the gallant tilter in the lists, at the 
 jousts given in honour of the King's marriage with Anne of 
 Cleves, in 1540 the wild feaster on flesh in Lent the 
 night brawler and window breaker, committed to the Fleet in 
 1543 a volunteer under his father in 1544, in the army that 
 invaded Erance and took Boulogne governor afterwards of that 
 fortress for England arrested in 1548, by the influence of 
 Hertford, on the same day as his father sent with him to 
 the Tower, on a frivolous charge of having quartered the King's 
 arms in his armorial bearings found guilty and beheaded in his 
 thirtieth year, in 1547, on Tower Hill, that scene of death, which 
 so seldom went a week all through Henry's reign, without 
 its block being baptised with blood. Altogether, Surrey is 
 one of the most interesting figures of that singular time, by 
 his various accomplishments in arts and arms, and by his prema- 
 ture and unhappy fate. Walpole believed this fine portrait of 
 him (17) to be by Holbein, and we know not to what other 
 hand it can reasonably be attributed. 
 
 The visitor should pause before the portrait of Sir John More 
 (51), one of the justices of the Queen's Bench, in the reign of 
 Henry VII., and father of the more illustrious chancellor. Sir 
 John lived to the age of 90, dying in 1533, only two years before 
 his son, who, when he passed as lord high chancellor of England 
 through Westminster Hall to the Chancery, failed not on his 
 knees to ask his old father's blessing, as he sat in his court. 
 There is no portrait of the chancellor here, a grievous want, 
 considering the place he fills in the reign of Henry VIII. 
 
 "William Warham (GO) and Wolsey (49) should have hung side 
 by side, instead of being separated by a whole range of Elizabethan 
 portraits. Such historic " dislocation " materially impairs the 
 
THE BHITISII POETEAIT GALLERY. 11 
 
 interest and instructional value of this gallery. This Wolsey 
 (49) is described in the catalogue as "the earliest contemporary 
 portrait of the founder of any college." But what are we 
 to say to the portrait of the Lady Margaret (8), who surely 
 founded Christ's and St. John's, before 1525, when Wolsey founded 
 Cardinal College ? Wolsey's is a wretched portrait now, what- 
 ever it may have been before it was ruined by repainting, and 
 represents the cardinal in profile, as he would always be painted, 
 to conceal his blind eye. 
 
 Archbishop Warham's portrait (from Lambeth) purports to be 
 a work of Holbein's, and is an inferior repetition of the head in 
 the Louvre. The face has a good deal of the patient shrewdness 
 one might look for in this sagacious opponent of Wolsey's, " the 
 prime advocate," as Fuller calls him, " for Queen Catherine, who 
 carried it so cautiously, that he neither betrayed the cause of his 
 client nor incurred the King's displeasure." He long foiled and 
 eventually survived Wolsey, and was archbishop twenty-eight 
 years, dying in 1533. 
 
 In frame 17, in the transept gallery, is the very miniature of 
 Anne of Cleves which Holbein painted at her father's court, and 
 which was despatched by Cromwell to the King in the same ivory 
 box in which it is still enclosed. This picture precipitated, if it 
 did not cause, Cromwell's downfal. The King decided to con- 
 tract the marriage on the faith of this portrait ; but was so dis- 
 gusted with the original on her arrival, that he broke out in full 
 council at Greenwich, abusing Cromwell for bringing him. a 
 " great Flanders mare," coarse, clumsy, and " unfit to nourish 
 love." This was in January, 1540, and in June of the same year 
 Cromwell was attainted of high treason, without being heard in 
 his defence, and beheaded on Tower Hill. There should have 
 been a portrait of him in this gallery. 
 
 The portrait by Holbein of Sir Henry Guildford (52), the 
 accomplished master of the horse to Henry VIII., is a noble work 
 of the master. 
 
 Here (53) is the portrait of Lady Grey (Margaret Wooton), 
 wife to Sir Thomas Grey, and grandmother, by the father's side, 
 to Lady Jane Grey. Lady Jane Grey's maternal grandmother 
 was the Princess Mary, daughter to Henry VII., the wife, first of 
 
12 T1IE AfiT TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 Louis XII. of France, and afterwards of Charles Brandon, whose 
 portrait (14) we have already referred to. We would willingly 
 have spared the paternal grandmother, at all events, to have had a 
 a portrait of sweet, ill-starred Lady Jane herself. But why four 
 portraits of Edward VI. (54, 55, 55.i, and 56), besides that by 
 Gwillim Street, in the Gallery of Old Masters ? The Holbein (54) 
 would surely have been record enough of this gentle boy-king 
 especially as his reign is otherwise unrepresented. AVe have 
 neither the ambitious protector Somerset, nor the crafty Xortlmin- 
 berland, nor Cranmer, nor Latimer, nor Bonner, nor Gardiner, nor 
 Eidley. 
 
 The reign of Philip and Mary is illustrated only by the curious 
 small full-lengths of the Queen and her consort (58), representing 
 two very ugly and ill-proportioned people. Could not a single 
 portrait of a protestant martyr have been found ? One, at least, 
 of Sir Antonio More's pictures should have been hung here, to 
 represent the art of Mary's reign. The half-length of the bloody 
 Queen, by De Heere (59), is characteristic. To us, that face of 
 Mary's seems full of sadness and perplexity, as of a woman striving 
 at once to satisfy and stifle conscience. 
 
 If, however, the reign of Mary be sparingly illustrated, that of 
 Elizabeth is even profusely represented. All the painters who 
 worked at her court Zucchero, Ketel, De Heere, Marc Gerhard, 
 Hilliard, and the elder Oliver, may be studied here ; the first, in 
 the curious portrait of the Virgin Queen, standing on the map of 
 England (18), with her noblest favourite, the ill-starred Essex (19), 
 at her side. Another picture, still more odd in respect of costume, 
 represents the Queen in a kind of Persian dress, standing in a 
 forest, the trees of which are inscribed with verses and mottoes, 
 the import and application of which it is not easy to discover. 
 Queen Elizabeth was very vain, and loved to be painted, though 
 she would trust her face to none but " special cunniuge painters," 
 and forbade all persons, by royal proclamation (the original draft 
 of which is extant in Cecil's own hand-writing), to attempt the 
 royal physiognomy, until some special person that shall be by her 
 allowed shall have first finished a portraiture thereof. This was 
 in 1563, when she was only 32, and still handsome enough, one 
 would have thought, to have rendered such precautions unnecessary. 
 
THE BRITISH PORTRAIT GALLERY. 13 
 
 We may refer one of these portraits of her by Zucchero (18) to 
 about the date of this proclamation. Both have, however, suffered 
 so much, that it is difficult to say anything in their praise, as 
 pictures, now, whatever they may have been once. Zucchero was 
 an accomplished painter, and may be judged by a better specimen 
 than any of these grotesque likenesses of Elizabeth, his portrait of 
 Don Carlos, when young (226), in the Gallery of Old Masters. 
 Nothing can be more unbecoming than the dress of both these 
 portraits of the Virgin Queen. She was one of the most coquet- 
 tish of women, though her taste in dress, judging by the specimens 
 here, does not seem to have been equal to her love of it. The 
 " Book of the Queen's Wardrobe " is still extant. Exclusively of 
 coronation, mourning, and parliament robes, and of the Garter 
 robes, 99 in all, it enumerates " French gowns, 102 ; round ditto, 
 67; loose ditto, 100: kirtles, 126; fore-parts, 136; petticoats, 
 125 ; cloaks, 96 ; safeguards (query, crinolines) , 13 ; jupes, 43 ; 
 doublets, 85 ; lap-mantles, 18 ; fans, 27 ; pantoufles, 9." But to 
 estimate properly the incredible ungracefulness of the female 
 Elizabethan fashions, we must go to Marc Gerhard's picture of 
 the Queen on her progress to Hunsdon House (64). This picture 
 is of great interest for its likenesses as well as its costume. Henry 
 Carey, created Viscount Hunsdon on the Queen's accession, was 
 Elizabeth's cousin, the son of Mary, sister of Anne Boleyn. The 
 Queen bestowed upon him Hunsdon House, built by King 
 Henry VIII. as a nursery for the royal children, with 4,000 
 a-year in land. He was " a valiant man," says Fuller, " and lover 
 of men of their hands very choleric, but not malicious" a 
 rough, tearing, swearing, honest soldier, " who might have been 
 with the Queen whatsoever he would, but would be no more than 
 what he was." He suppressed the first northern rebellion in 
 1569. He had served the Queen faithfully from boyhood, and 
 she loved and trusted him, addressing him in a letter, under her 
 own hand, as " my Harry." 
 
 Robert Dudley, the first and most unworthy of her favourites, 
 is represented in this picture walking near the royal litter ; Lord 
 Hunsdon carries the sword of state ; Lord Burleigh the white 
 staff as lord treasurer. The character of the cold and cruel 
 Dudley is more clearly written in the portrait (69), which seems 
 
14 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 to us to have a better claim to be called a Zucchero, than most of 
 the pictures here which go under that name. The face wears even 
 a low brutal expression, in spite of the regularity of the features. 
 This might be the murderer of poor Amy Eobsart (to the real 
 facts of whose history Sir Walter Scott has added no circumstance 
 of cruelty), and the deceiver of the scarcely less unhappy Lady 
 Douglas Howard, wife of Lord Sheffield. That lord died suddenly 
 of the mysterious disease then well known as " Leicester's rheum," 
 because it was wont to fall strangely and suddenly on the favou- 
 rite's enemies. Tired of Lady Sheffield, and anxious to clear his 
 way to marriage with Lettice, countess of Essex whose husband 
 also died of "Leicester's rheum" Dudley administered a slow 
 poison to the unhappy Lady Douglas, whom he had wedded by 
 the rites of the church at Esher ; but who, to save her life, was 
 compelled to renounce her wedded rights, and to marry again 
 during Dudley's lifetime. Leicester was hypocrite, too, as well 
 as seducer and poisoner. Amy Eobsart was cold in her grave, 
 and Lady Douglas was pining at Offington, in Sussex ; when, in 
 1575, Dudley received the Queen at Keuilworth, with the magni- 
 ficent hospitality recorded in Scott's novel. He lived to be 
 supplanted in the Queen's affections by his own step-sou, the 
 Earl of Essex (19), a worthier favourite than himself and died 
 suddenly at Cornbury, in 1588, not without suspicion of poison, 
 accidentally administered by his own hand, but prepared by some 
 of his enemies. A more detestable character does not figure in 
 English history. 
 
 We seek in vain, in Ketel's portrait of Sir Christopher Hatton 
 (20), for any indication of the grace which made the Queen single 
 out the briefless young barrister in a court mask " for his stately 
 dancing" though the picture shows the "proper person" for 
 which he was famous, and the face bears the stamp of those great 
 abilities which enabled him to discharge the duties of chancellor 
 without knowledge of the law, in spite of the sullen Serjeants who 
 refused, at first, to plead before him. 
 
 Here hangs Zucchero's Ealeigh (27), with the map of Cadiz at 
 the back of the picture, in allusion to Sir Walter's services, which 
 mainly secured the destruction of the Spanish fleet in that harbour 
 in 1506 ; and by his side his wife, Elizabeth Throgmorton, to 
 
THE BRITISH PORTRAIT GALLERY. 15 
 
 whom he was privately married in 1595, thereby incurring the 
 grave displeasure of the Queen, and a, short imprisonment in the 
 Tower. She was a woman worthy of such a husband. We have 
 always fancied in Raleigh a likeness to Shakspere, and have often 
 imagined that if the latter had pursued a life of action, no likelier 
 parallel could be found for what he might have been than Kaleigh 
 so dextrous in all his undertakings, whether in court or camp, 
 by sea or by land, with sword or with pen, that " he seemed to be 
 born to that only which he went about," and is perhaps the most 
 brilliant figure in that time of great-hearted and large-brained 
 men. "With all its coarseness, and all its crimes, the age of Eliza- 
 beth is one of which the study must fill every English heart with 
 pride. Such statesmen, soldiers, navigators, scholars, merchants, 
 philosophers, poets have never before or since nourished together. 
 Think of a galaxy in which Burleigh, Ealeigh, Drake, Howard, 
 Bacon, Spenser, Shakspere shone at the same time. The only 
 likeness of Burleigh here is an atrocious picture of him (73) riding 
 on a mule, from the Bodleian, destroyed by repainting, and utterly 
 .unworthy of a place here, either as a likeness or as a work of art. 
 The Duke of Bichrnond's picture of Burleigh in the Court of 
 "Wards is interesting, but too small to supply the want of a really 
 satisfactory portrait of the politic Cecil, the man who, for forty 
 years, bore the chief burden of administration in most difficult 
 times, and of whom the historian of his life tells us, that 
 " Besides all business in council or other weighty causes, and 
 such as were answered by word of mouth, there was not a, day in 
 term whereon he received not three-score, four-score, or a hundred 
 petitions, which he read at night, and gave every man an answer 
 the next morning as he went to the hall." Truly, in business, 
 in war, in poetry, in love, in ambition, in craft, and in crime there 
 were giants in those days. The magnificent Howard, the lord 
 high admiral, who conquered the Armada and took Cadiz, should 
 surely have been here, surrounded by a cluster of those gallant 
 captains, Hawkins, Erobisher, Gilbert, Drake, and Grenville, who, 
 with their comrades, made the name of England so mighty upon 
 all seas, and added so much to the known world by their daring 
 voyages of discovery. It is mortifying to find these gallant 
 hearts entirely unrepresented here, except by Sir A. More's por- 
 
1G TI1E A3JT TREASUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 trait called Drake (500), in the Gallery of Old Masters, but not in 
 the least resembling the well-known face of that sea-scourge of 
 the Spaniard. It is much to be lamented that the Gorhambury 
 portrait gallery should have contributed nothing to the Exhibition. 
 To this, we presume, must be ascribed the singular dearth here 
 of portraits of the Verulam family. Here is neither the lord- 
 keeper, Sir Nicholas, nor his more illustrious son, Francis Bacon, 
 Viscount of St. Alban's an irreparable lacuna in such a collec- 
 tion as this. The gallant adventurers who corresponded on land,, 
 to such men as Blunt, Gary, Fennar, and "Willongliby at sea 
 deadly enemies of the Spaniard, and fearing neither man nor 
 devil, when there was gold or honour to be won and who con- 
 stitute so characteristic a feature of the brilliant reign of Eliza- 
 beth, are here represented only by Sir Francis Vere (75), and his 
 younger brother, Horatio (76), who survived him, and was created 
 Baron Vere of Tilbury in 1625. Sir Francis Vere's is a keen 
 sharp face, but with none of the sternness and ruggedness one 
 would expect in the look of one who " served on the scene of all 
 Christendom where war was acted." The Englishmen he com- 
 manded were so ill-provided that they were christened "the 
 ragged regiment." But they did good service against the Spaniard, 
 through the Low Country wars, especially at the battle of Nieu- 
 port, and in the gallant three years' defence of Ostend. Sir 
 Horace "had more meekness," says Fuller, "and as much valour 
 as his brother ; so pious, that he first made his peace with God 
 before he went out to war with man : one of an excellent temper, 
 neither elated nor depressed with success or failure. Had one 
 seen him returning from a victory, he would by his silence have 
 suspected that he had lost the day ; and had he beheld him in a 
 retreat, he would have collected him a conqueror, by the cheer- 
 fulness of his spirit." This is a noble character, and it is reflected 
 in this calm face. 
 
 Here, too, is the noble head of Thomas Howard (6S), which 
 fell on the scaffold in 1572, for its owner's partisanship of the 
 desperate cause of Mary Queen of Scots, into which he was urged 
 by the double motive of love and ambition. And here (61), is 
 that old fox, "William Paulet, who, from a simple knight, rose to 
 be Marquis of Winchester, holding his upward path, without 
 
THE BRITISH POUTKAIT GALLEBY. 17 
 
 once forfeiting favour, under Henry VIII. Edward VI. and Mary, 
 and for 30 years officiated as lord treasurer to Edward VI. and 
 Elizabeth. His own key to his rare success was summed in the 
 words, " I was the willow and not the oak." He lived to be 97, 
 and of his 103 descendants not one died upon the scaffold a 
 remarkable distinction in those bloody days, and which seems to 
 show that something of the ancestor's craft had passed to the 
 stock. He built Basing House, and received the Queen there 
 with a splendour which must have taxed the careful old treasurer's 
 purse severely. Elizabeth was so delighted with her reception 
 that she is said to have declared, " If my lord treasurer were but 
 a young man I could find in my heart to have him for a husband 
 before ever a man in England." The Earl of Lincoln (70 and 71), 
 lord high admiral and K.G. was scarcely a person of such dis- 
 tinction as to entitle him to two portraits, though he was member 
 of the wisest privy council that ever sat round a table. "We must 
 say, generally, that in a gallery where space was so precious, we 
 should have preferred a little less of this sort of reduplication. 
 Two Henry the Eighths, five Edward the Sixths, two Marys, 
 seven Elizabeths, and five Charles the Eirsts is decidedly an over- 
 dose of sovereigns. 
 
 Sir Henry Lee (72) is interesting as an example of the gallant 
 loyalist the ancestral stock of the men who sacrificed life and 
 fortune so cheerfully for Charles the First. One delights to 
 imagine this venerable old gentleman appearing year. after year 
 armed and mounted in the tilt yard at Whitehall to naintain the 
 Queen's honour against all comers. Eor the anecdote which 
 explains the dog and the lines in the picture we refer our readers 
 to the catalogue. As an example of the " Eoyal Merchants,'* 
 who make the reign of Elizabeth not less memorable in the annals 
 of commerce, than in those of literature, war, and statesmanship, 
 we have here Holbein's fine portait of Sir Thomas Gresham (67A), 
 the builder of the first Exchange or Bourse, of which, however, 
 the idea was his father's, Sir Richard Gresham's, who was Lord 
 Mayor in 1537. Sir Thomas was the greatest financier of his 
 time, and was sent for, in 1551, to restore the ruined credit of 
 the King, then in the hands of the Protector Somerset, to whose 
 rapacity, and not to any fault of poor young Edward's, the royal 
 
18 THE AET TBEASUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 embarrassments of that time \vere owing. For this purpose, 
 Gresham went to Antwerp, and most amusing were the shifts he 
 was reduced to to keep up the weekly payments to lenders, and 
 transmit enough to satisfy the cravings of the English court. 
 Most of the fine old church bells in England are said to have been 
 melted down at this time, and transmitted to Gresham to raise 
 money upon. The history of Gresham 's expedients and projects 
 in this business is a summary of all the ludicrous politico-econo- 
 mical blunders of the time. He continued to act in the same 
 capacity for Queen Mary ; for he was a supple courtier, and made 
 small scruple of shifting even his faith to suit court winds. 
 Accordingly, the zealous papist under Mary appears as a zealous 
 protestant under Elizabeth, for whom he continued to negotiate 
 foreign loans. He was made ambassador to the court of the 
 Archduchess governing the ^"vtherlands in 15GO. All this while, 
 however, he kept open his mercer's shop in Lombard-street, with 
 its sign of the Grasshopper, which afterwards figured on the 
 pinnacle of the Exchange, built at his suggestion and under his 
 care, by aid of subscriptions among the merchants of London, 
 between 1565 and 1569. Sir Thomas seems rather to have made 
 "a good thing" out of the Exchange than to have bestowed any 
 gift on the city ; for at his death the rent from the shops outside 
 and above the building was TOO/. AVlicn the Exchange had been 
 finished for more than a year, Sir Thomas, finding that most of 
 the shops still stood empty, procured tenants by the ingenious 
 "dodge," new at that day, but since worn threadbare, of inducing 
 the Queen to pay a visit to the edifice in l.">71. After g* 
 the Queen's intention well noised about, Sir Thomas went round 
 to the few shops that were already let, and promised their occu- 
 piers that they should have rent tree for the year as many shops 
 as they would light up and furnish with goods on the occasion of 
 the royal visit. The Queen came accordingly, and after dining at 
 Gresham's house, in Bishopsgate-srreet, went round the Exchange, 
 admiring especially "The Pawne," or upper storey of shops, 
 "richly furnished "thanks to Sir Thomas's little ruse "with 
 all sorts of the finest wares in the city," and "caused the same 
 Bourse* by a herald and trumpet to be proclaimed the Eoyal 
 xcliuiige, and so to be called from henceforth and not other- 
 
THE BRITISH PORTRAIT GALLERY. 19 
 
 wise." This building was burnt in the great fire in 1666, and its 
 successor shared the same fate in 1838, the statue of Sir Thonias 
 Gresharn, strange to say, escaping on both occasions. 
 
 Sir Thomas, at his death, in 1579, left his great house in 
 Bishopsgate-street, where he long had as his prisoner poor little 
 Mary Grey, sister of Lady Jane, as the seat of a college to be 
 called by his name, with four professorships of divinity, astronomy, 
 music, and geometry almost the old " quadrivium " endowed 
 with the rents of the Exchange. It is a pity, considering the 
 way this bequest has been turned or, rather, not turned to 
 account, that he did not put his money to some better use. Old 
 Puller has his quip as usual, when he describes Sir Thomas " as 
 the founder of two stately fabrics, the old Exchange, a kind of 
 college for merchants ; and Gresham College, a kind of exchange 
 for scholars." Gresham built Osterley House, in Middlesex, 
 where he magnificently entertained the Queen. " Her Majesty,'* 
 says Puller, " found fault with the court of the house as too great, 
 affirming that it would appear more handsome if divided with a 
 wall in the middle. What doth Sir Thomas, but in the night 
 time sends for workmen to London (money commands all things), 
 who so speedily and silently apply their business that the next 
 morning discovered that court double, which the night had left 
 single before. It is questionable whether the Queen, next day, 
 Avas more contented with the conformity to her fancy, or more 
 pleased with the surprise and sudden performance thereof ; whilst 
 her courtiers disported themselves with their several expressions, 
 some avowing ' it was no wonder that he could so soon change a 
 building who could build a ' Change ; ' others (reflecting on some 
 known differences iii the knight's family), affirmed 'that any 
 house is easier divided than united.' " In explanation of the last 
 joke, we are sorry to inform our readers that the good knight's 
 lady was a shrew. 
 
 As records of the ill-starred Mary Queen of Scots, here, we 
 may mention the Cavendish and Harley portrait of her (25), 
 not one of the handsomest, though in truth none bear out Mary's 
 traditional renown for beauty ; the curious full lengths by Lucas 
 de Heere (13) of the unhappy Darnley and his brother Charles 
 Stuart, father of that innocent sufferer Arabella Stuart, whose 
 
 c 2 
 
20 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 touching history must be noticed when we come to the reigu 
 of James I. ; and the very interesting picture (29), contain- 
 ing the cenotaph of the murdered Darnley, with the Earl of 
 Lenox and his wife, Charles, the victim's brother, and Darnley's 
 son James, afterwards King of England, kneeling beside it. In 
 connection, also, with Mary, \isitors should notice here the 
 portrait of Bess of Hardwick (33), the " Building Bess," of Derby- 
 shire tradition, who was for a while gaoler of the Queen of Scots, 
 at her magnificent seat of Hardwick. It is a legend of the 
 Cavendish family, that a fortune-teller prophesied of this mascu- 
 line lady, that she should not die while she was building, so she 
 spent the best part of three great fortunes, inherited from her 
 leash of husbands Sir William Cavendish, Sir William St. Loe, 
 and George Earl of Shrewsbury in erecting the stately mansions 
 of Hardwick, Chatsworth, Bolsover, Oldcotes, and Worksop, but 
 died nevertheless in a hard frost, when the workmen were forced 
 to suspend their building thus saving the gipsy's credit, and 
 immortalising her own weakness for bricks and mortar. Hard- 
 wick still remains furnished as she left it, one of the grandest, 
 and certainly the ghostliest of old English manor houses. It 
 is easy to imagine the ghosts of Elizabeth and Mary still pacing 
 the sixty yards length of that noble old gallery, when the moon 
 shines in at the great windows, and the tattered arras waves 
 along the walls. 
 
 The worthies of the reigns of James and Charles next engage 
 our attention. 
 
 Painting in England during the reign of James was still chiefly 
 in the hands of foreigners. Among the principal artists of this 
 period is Nicholas Hilliard, who deserves special notice as being 
 an Englishman. He was a native of Exeter, born in 1547, and 
 brought up as a jeweller and goldsmith, to which callings he 
 added that of a miniature painter. He rose to the highest repute 
 under Elizabeth and her successor, and imitated, on a minute 
 scale, the individuality of Holbein. Queen Elizabeth sat to him 
 often ; as did Mary Queen of Scots, James I., and Prince Henry. 
 Under James he had a patent, giving him a monopoly of" making, 
 graving, and imprinting any manner of picture," representing the 
 King or royal family. He died in 1619. Works of more than 
 
THE BRITISH POETEA1T GALLEET. 21 
 
 miniature size by him are rare. Here is a head of Sir Oliver 
 "Wallop (60), life size, from his hand, of little merit as a picture. 
 Many of his miniatures will be found in the Duke of Portland's 
 collection, and in frame 8 of the Buccleugh collection. Isaac 
 Oliver a pupil of Nicholas Hilliard, also painted miniatures 
 during the reign of Elizabeth and her successor, dying before 
 his master, in 1617, and leaving a son Peter, who became 
 famous in the same style of art. "Works of both father and son 
 are numerous in the miniature gallery. Vansomer and Mytens 
 were both natives of Antwerp. The first painted here between 
 1606 and 1620. He was an honest heavy painter, who had but 
 little power of imparting vitality to his portraits, and belongs to 
 the school which Rubens superseded. Daniel Mytens painted 
 here till the appointment of Vandyck as painter to King Charles 
 I. is said to have so disgusted him that he begged permission to 
 return to Flanders, and was with difficulty induced to remain 
 by the King's assurance that he would find sufficient employment 
 for both. Mytens was a tame painter in comparison with Rubens 
 or Vandyck ; but his colouring was warmer than that of Van- 
 somer, and he shows more decidedly the influence of the new 
 school of Antwerp, founded by Rubens. 
 
 Cornelius Jansen was a native of Amsterdam, who painted in 
 this country between 1618 and 1648, when he retired, under 
 protection of a speaker's warrant, first to Middleburgh, and 
 finally to Amsterdam, in which city he died in 1665. We read also 
 of two English painters Peake and Marquis during this reign, 
 but their works cannot now be identified. There are two portraits 
 of James I. here, the one a small full length seated (80), the 
 other in armour, by Mytens. " The wisest fool in Europe," as 
 Sully called the British Solomon, has just that vague, round cha- 
 racterless face we might expect in one whose vices even were 
 mean and petty. Inconstant, pusillanimous; slobberingly tender 
 in his unmanly affections ; implacable in his groundless hates ; 
 a bigot, without genuine beliefs ; a pedant, in whom scholarship 
 served only to make learning contemptible ; a profligate, without 
 the excuse of strong passions ; a lover of pleasure, without grace 
 or gallantry ; mean, vindictive, and false, history has few more 
 hateful figures than James I. who, as he was first of the Stuarts, 
 
22 THE ABT TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 summed up the worst faults of the race, with none of their 
 redeeming qualities. 
 
 Here are no fewer than three portraits of his noble son, Henry 
 Prince of "Wales (38, 38A, and 39) another instance of the 
 useless reduplication to which we have already referred. Prince 
 Henry was the idol of the popular affections ; but the splendid 
 promise of his youth was nipped by premature death not without 
 suspicion of poison in his 19th year, in 1612. Good, gay, gal- 
 lant ; full of martial fire, yet not averse to letters ; generous, yet 
 not profuse; as noble in his friendships as his father was nauseous; 
 the staunch friend of Ealeigh, of whom he said, " none but his 
 father would keep such a bird in a cage," and who, while a pri- 
 soner in the Tower, wrote for the prince's reading, his noble 
 History of the World, Prince Henry seems really to have de- 
 served the character which the popular favour has affixed to his 
 memory. 
 
 There is no likeness here of Charles in his youth. His portrait 
 is said to have been painted by Velasquez in 1623, during that 
 romantic visit to the court of Spain, of which a record is to be 
 seen here in the picture of the Infanta (97), said to be the very 
 one brought back by the prince. Howell's description of her 
 " as of a fading flaxen hair, big-lipped, and somewhat heavy-eyed," 
 hardly does her justice. She is by far the prettiest infanta whose 
 portrait has come down to us. Here is no portrait of the most infa- 
 mous of the King's minions Carr, Earl of Somerset though there 
 is one (24) of his almost equally infamous wife, the beautiful Frances 
 Howard. Married at thirteen, to the son of Elizabeth's favourite, 
 Earl of Essex, she was soon after her marriage seduced by Carr, 
 then Lord Rochester. His friend, Sir Thomas Overbury, though 
 he aided him in the seduction, opposed the favourite's project for 
 a divorce of the countess, in order to a marriage with Carr. 
 Overbury, by this beautiful devil's contrivance, was sent to the 
 Tower, where, the day before the divorce was obtained, he died 
 by poison. This was in September, 1614, and before the year 
 was out the King's favourite, now Earl of Somerset, and Frances 
 Howard were man and wife. But Somerset never held up his 
 head after the murder of his friend. Eager to overthrow the 
 favourite, his enemies at court, headed by Abbot, Archbishop of 
 
THE BRITISH PORTRAIT GALLERY. 23 
 
 Canterbury, threw George Yilliers into the King's way. What 
 lie was in looks, the visitor to Manchester may judge by no fewer 
 than three portraits one by Mytens, representing him when 
 young (44) ; another, by Jansen, a full length, in black, more 
 advanced in years (46) ; and a third, by the same hand, with the 
 date 1624 (98), near the Infanta. There is no darker or more 
 disgusting tale in all that evil reign than the whole story of 
 Somerset : his favour with the King; his marriage; the murder 
 of Overbury ; the loathsome secrets, by virtue of which both the 
 miserable minion and his bloody wife were allowed to escape 
 their just doom, and retire to the country, where they are said to 
 have spent the rest of their guilty lives, in mutual hate, recrimi- 
 nation, and remorse, abandoned by all, in spite of the 4000Z. 
 a-year which the earl wrung from the master whose foul secrets 
 were his safety. Their only child was the mother of the Lord 
 William Russell, who died on the scaffold in the reign of Charles 
 II. ; strange ancestry for such a man. Carr's predecessor in 
 the King's favour, Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery (99), 
 took a blow on Croydon race-course from Viscount Hadding- 
 ton, a Scotch rival in the King's good graces, without offer- 
 ing to return it; a piece of cowardice which was felt at the 
 time as a national disgrace. The mother of this poltroon was 
 Mary Sidney, Sir Philip's sister, celebrated in Ben Jonson's 
 famous epitaph : 
 
 " Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother, 
 Death, ere thou hast slain another, 
 Learn' d, and fair, and good as she, 
 Time shall throw a dart at thee." 
 
 Her portrait hangs here (74), as she would have wished it to 
 hang, far from that of her unworthy son. She is said to have 
 torn her hair with rage when she heard of her boy's baseness. 
 And yet it should not be forgotten that Philip Herbert, with 
 his nobler brother, was the friend and patron of Shakspere. 
 "With too many of those who rejoiced in the King's infa- 
 mous favour, here are some who pined under his cruelty. Chief 
 among such sufferers is the ill-fated Arabella Stuart (37). This 
 most unhappy victim of the royal jealousy was the daughter of 
 
24 THE AET TBEASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 the King's uncle, Charles Stuart, brother to Darnley. Her ele- 
 vation to the throne was said to have been one object of the plot 
 for which B&leigh, Cobham and Grey narrowly escaped death on 
 the scaffold in 1603. But it is certain that she was not privy to 
 such a design, if ever it was really entertained. The charge, 
 however, was enough to excite the cowardly fears of James, to 
 whom this lady was, from the first moment of his English reign, 
 an object of dislike and suspicion. She loved and was beloved 
 by William Seymour, son of Lord Beauchamp, in whose veins 
 flowed the blood of Henry VII. They were privately married in 
 defiance of the royal prohibition. On discovery of the marriage 
 Seymour was sent to the Tower, and Lady Arabella was con- 
 signed, first to the custody of Sir Thomas Parry, at Lambeth, and 
 afterwards to that of the Bishop of Durham, at Highgate, whence 
 she fled in male attire, with the view of joining her husband, who 
 had also contrived to elude his gaolers. Their escape was soon 
 discovered. They missed the appointed rendezvous. The ship 
 in which the Lady Arabella had sailed for France was overhauled 
 and captured by an English ship of war in mid-channel, and the 
 lady taken and re-committed to the Tower. Her husband had 
 effected his escape into Flanders. The Lady Arabella remained 
 a prisoner for four years, in spite of the most piteous appeals to the 
 King's mercy, and the state of her health, which soon sank under 
 captivity and despair. She died a broken-hearted maniac in 1615. 
 Of Greorge Villiers, to whose numerous portraits we have 
 already referred, everyone knows that his beauty won for him the 
 maudlin tenderness of the King, and secured his rise, from the 
 low estate of a Leicestershire squire's young person, first to 
 the post of cupbearer to the King (1613) ; and thence, by 
 quick steps, to the dignities and offices of knight and gentleman 
 of the bedchamber (1615) ; master of the horse, knight of the 
 garter, baron and viscount (1616) ; Earl of Buckingham (1616- 
 17) ; Marquis of Buckingham (1617 18) ; high admiral, chief 
 justice in Eyre, master of the King's Bench Office, high steward 
 of Westminster, and constable of Windsor Castle (1617-18). The 
 King nick-named him " Steenie," from his supposed resemblance 
 to some picture of Saint Stephen, the proto-martyr. He accom- 
 panied Prince Charles on his romantic journey to Spain in 1623, 
 
THE BETTISH POETBAIT GALLERY. 25 
 
 and was created Duke of Buckingham during his absence on that 
 occasion. In 1625, he went to Paris to bring over Queen 
 Henrietta Maria. Buckingham retained over Charles almost as 
 absolute an empire as he had established over his father. It was 
 owing mainly to his pernicious counsels that the young King met 
 with haughty denial the prayers of his first three parliaments for 
 redress of grievances and limitation of the prerogative, and plunged 
 England into wars with France and Spain. The knife of Felton 
 exhibited at Manchester on the 23d of August, 1628, ridded 
 the country of one of whom Warburton not undeservedly describes 
 as " a minister the most debauched, the most unable, and the 
 most tyrannical that ever was." Not far from Villiers the vainest 
 hangs Cecil (84) the craftiest, if not wisest of the councillors of 
 James, nick-named by James his " little beagle ; " a name well- 
 earned by the lord treasurer's keenness, sureness of scent, and 
 power of patiently following up his object. It is rare that such 
 a father as William Cecil, the great Lord Burleigh, has been suc- 
 ceeded by a son so nearly his father's equal, in all that shrewdness 
 and sagacity can supply of statesmanship or rather statecraft. 
 [Robert Cecil died in May, 1612, worn out with disease, mortified 
 by the unexpected resistance of the parliament of 1611 to the 
 encroachments of the royal prerogative, and apprehending the 
 worst consequences from what he called " the desperate hardness 
 of the prejudiced people." He seems, at the hour of his death, 
 to have had some foreshadowing of the struggle between king and 
 commons which reached its consummation 30 years later on the 
 scaffold at Whitehall. 
 
 Here, too, conspicuously among the nobler figures of the reign, 
 is Henry Wriothesley (31), the Earl of Southampton, and his 
 wife, Elizabeth Vernon (32). This earl was the friend and first 
 patron of Shakspere. To him the poet dedicated his " Venus and 
 Adonis," in 1593, and his " Rape of Lucrece " the year after, in 
 language betokening both gratitude and affection. Imprisoned 
 for his participation in the mad rising of his friend Essex, in 1606, 
 Southampton remained a prisoner in the Tower, till released by 
 James. He made a friend of his cat during his imprisonment, 
 and the cat figures in this picture. 
 
 Yansomer's full-length portrait of Henry Carey, the first Lord 
 
20 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 Falkland (411) appointed lord deputy of Ireland iu 1620, and 
 father of the great Lord Falkland, which belonged to Horace 
 Walpole, is celebrated as the picture which suggested to him the 
 incident of the portrait walking out of the frame, in the " Castle 
 of Otrauto," as he writes to Cole, in March, 1759. Does any- 
 body read the " Castle of Otranto," no\v-a-days ? We remember 
 the impression made on our own youthful imagination by the 
 gigantic armour, the helmet dropped in the courtyard, the 
 huge mailed hand seen on the balusters of the great staircase. 
 It was a dream of such an apparition of a gigantic hand that 
 suggested the romance, so Walpole tells his correspondent Cole, 
 and he sat down and wrote on that hint, without plot or plan, 
 getting more and more engrossed with his story as he went on. 
 Poor Horace Walpole nattered himself that in the tale he was 
 " retracing with some fidelity the manners of ancient days." In 
 truth the life described in his " Otranto " is about as like the 
 life of feudal times as Strawberry Hill is like Carnarvon Castle. 
 Here, by Mytens, are the founders of the fortune of the Cavendish 
 family Sir Charles and his wife Lady Ogle (42 and 43), father 
 and mother of the first Duke of Newcastle, whose portrait we 
 shall notice in his proper place, as a notable of the reign of 
 Charles I. 
 
 And near them, of more interest for ninety-nine Englishmen 
 out of a hundred than all these lords and courtiers, are a batch 
 of worthies, glories of the reign of James, and inheritors of fame 
 for all time, Camden (34), Shakspere (85), Ben Jonson (86) ? 
 Fletcher (86A), and Harvey (165). The last, the discoverer of 
 the circulation of the blood, was born in 1598, and died in 1657. 
 He was appointed physician extraordinary to James in 1623, five 
 years before his great discovery was given to the world. In 
 1630, he was named physician to Charles, whose fortunes he 
 followed, having been appointed by him warden of Merton in 
 1645. He always maintained that his discovery ruined his prac- 
 tice. It was lucky it did not cost him his professorship of 
 anatomy in the Royal College of Physicians. 
 
 Camden, the most learned and sagacious of antiquarians, whose 
 " Britannia" still remains a model for all topographical histories, 
 was born in 1551, and died in 1623. His portrait here (34), 
 
THE BRITISH PORTRAIT GALLERY. 27 
 
 comes from the Paper Stainers' Company, of which his father 
 was a member, and to which he bequeathed a silver cup and 
 cover, out of which, every St. Luke's Day, the old master of the 
 Company drinks to the new one. Whether as St. Paul's boy, 
 servitor at Magdalen, student at Christ-church, second master of 
 Westminster school in 1575, or head master from 1593 to 1598, 
 Camden employed all his leisure in amassing the materials for 
 his great work, the " Chorographical Description of Britain," 
 iirst published in 1586, of which no less than six editions ap- 
 peared in this country during the author's lifetime, to say nothing 
 of foreign reprints. Up to this day, within the limits which 
 Camden himself assigned to his work, his " Britannia " is un- 
 rivalled for accuracy and sagacity. Camden was the pearl of 
 antiquarians. Good sense is as prominent in him as love of the 
 past, and he seems to value facts and objects really according 
 to their importance, not their antiquity. As a piece of scholarship 
 his book deserves the highest credit, both for range of research 
 and purity and force of style. In 1598 Camden gave up the 
 head mastership of Westminster for the less laborious office of 
 Clarenceux King of Arms. He died beloved and honoured as a 
 noble type of the scholar, in 1623, and was buried in Westmin- 
 ster Abbey. 
 
 Here is our own Shakspere the Chandos portrait (85) 
 surrounded by a cluster of contemporaries, and fellows in his 
 art of the stage Burbage (87), the actor, his fellow-townsman, 
 his predecessor in the theatre, and afterwards joint shareholder 
 with him in the Blackfriars and Globe, his friend through life, 
 and the first actor of Hamlet, Lear, and Othello, and no doubt 
 the other principal tragic parts of Shakspere's plays Ben Jonson 
 (86), with his sturdy, stubborn, honest face, scarcely visible 
 through the smoke and soot which have been allowed to blacken 
 this interesting portrait John Taylor, the waterman poet (91), 
 the "gentleman-like sculler," as he was called, who must 
 often have answered Shakspere's hail of " Oars, oars," from the 
 Blackfriars stairs, when the play was done, and pulled him over 
 to the Falcon, on the Bankside, for a merry supper with his 
 fellows, Dekker and Chapman, Jonson and Donne, Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, Drayton and Daniel. Who knows how often those 
 
28 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 meetings may haye been graced by the statelier presence of 
 Essex and Southampton, Raleigh and Spenser ? 
 
 Here, too, are portraits of Nathaniel Field and John Lowen, 
 both known to have been actors in Shakspere's plays, and the 
 portrait of Fletcher from the Clarendon Gallery at the Grove, 
 inscribed " Poet Fletcher." Evelyn, in his catalogue of the 
 Clarendon Gallery, mentions portraits of Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 " both in one piece ;" but this picture has disappeared, and there 
 is now no portrait of Beaumont at the Grove. 
 
 Shirley (90) belongs chronologically to a later date ; but as he 
 closes the great gallery of the dramatists, of which Shakspere is 
 the central figure, he is perhaps most fitly placed among them. 
 "With Dryden opens a new and baser epoch in the dramatic art, 
 when the muse of the theatre puts on a dress tagged with rhyme, 
 bedizened with French finery, and bedaubed with French filth, 
 from the entanglement of which she has never since quite extri- 
 cated herself. The Chandos portrait of Shakspere, of the many 
 so-called likenesses of the poet, is perhaps the one possessing most 
 claims to authenticity after the portrait prefixed to the edition of 
 1823, the accuracy of which is vouched by Ben Jonson's lines : 
 
 " The figure that thou here seest put 
 Was for the gentle Shakspere cut ; 
 "Wherein the graver had a strife 
 \Vith nature to outdo the Life. 
 Oh ! could he have drawn his wit 
 As well in brass, as he hath hit 
 His face, the print would then surpass 
 All that was ever writ in brass. 
 But since he cannot, reader, look, 
 Not on his picture, but his book." 
 
 The Chandos picture, here shown, is now the property of the 
 nation, having been the first gift to the trustees of the National 
 Portrait Gallery by the late Earl of Ellesmere. It was well that 
 the foundation of the gallery of national portraits should have 
 been laid with Shakspere. This picture belonged to Davenant, the 
 successor of Ben Jonson as poet laureate, and afterwards to the 
 great actor Betterton ; from whose hands it passed to those of 
 Mrs. Barry, and subsequently, by marriage, became the property 
 of the Duke of Chandos. It was bought at the Stowe sale by Lord 
 
THE BRITISH POBTBAIT GALLEET. 29 
 
 Ellesmere. We may surely presume that Davenant, as one who 
 knew Shakspere, would not have kept a portrait of him unless it 
 had considerable claims to be considered a good likeness. 
 
 This portrait was copied for Dryden by Kneller, and the poet, 
 in return, sent to the painter these lines : 
 
 " Shakspere, thy gift, I place before my sight, 
 With awe I ask his blessing as I write ; 
 With reverence look on his majestic face, 
 Proud to be less, but of his godlike race. 
 His soul inspires me, while thy praise I write, 
 And I, like Teucer, under Ajax fight : 
 Bids thee, through me, be bold, with dauntless breast, 
 Contemn the bad, and emulate the best : 
 Like his, thy critics in the attempt are lost, 
 When most they rail, know then they envy most." 
 
 It is a pity Dryden did not stop at the end of the second couplet- 
 It was not worth invoking the inspiration of Shakspere' s portrait 
 to pay a roundabout compliment to Kneller. It must not pass 
 without a kindly word, by brave, burly old Ben Jonson ; the honest 
 man who, between 1574 and 1637, fought his way roughly 
 upwards through a rough life, from bricklayer's boy to poet 
 laureate ; who was to the comedy of manners what Shakspere is 
 to the comedy of character ; the richest of all mines for illustra- 
 tion of Elizabethan manners and humours ; the independent 
 spirit who, in all his struggles with hard fortune, even when 
 reduced to four-pound loans from prosperous Philip Henslow, 
 that most money-making of Elizabethan managers, still held his 
 head high, and guarded it, at need, with his rapier, with which he 
 killed Gabriel, the actor, in a duel, in Hogsden Fields ; the king 
 of good fellows, who ruled the roast at the Apollo room, in the 
 Devil Tavern, by Temple Bar, where every well-bred town wit 
 was sealed of the tribe of Ben, and was proud to call Jonson 
 " father ; " and author of the noblest lines that have been 
 written commemorative of Shakspere, including that ever to be 
 remembered one, 
 
 " He was not for an age, but for all time/' 
 
 The concise epitaph on his tombstone in "Westminster Abbey, 
 " 0, rare Ben Jonson," we owe to the accidental kindness 
 of " Jack Young, afterwards knighted," as Aubrey tells us, " who, 
 
30 THE AttT TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 walking there when the grave was covering, gave the fellow 
 eighteenpence to cut it." It has often struck us that there is 
 more than one point of striking resemblance between Ben Jonson 
 and his namesake of a century later the great Samuel. When 
 we read Aubrey's account of the pitted face, " punched full of 
 holes like the cover of a warming-pan," he, himself, speaks of his 
 " mountain belly and his rocky face," of the eyes one lower than the 
 other, and bigger, and the huge coat, like a coachman's, with slits 
 under the armpits and add to it other contemporary accounts 
 of Ben's blustering, overbearing manner, his good-fellowship at 
 bottom, his clubableriess, his power of conversation, his learning, 
 and his love of canary, we have recalled to us at almost every point, 
 some closely corresponding trait of the immortal lexicographer. 
 
 Not the least remarkable among the worthies of James the 
 First's reign whose portraits are here exhibited, are Sir Hugh 
 Myddleton (104), the public-spirited and bold projector, who 
 brought the New Eiver to London in 1613, to his own ruin, but 
 the benefit of the capital for ages to come a service cheaply 
 purchased by a baronetcy. And lastly, Sir Henry "VVotton, the 
 learned and accomplished foreign ambassador who served James 
 so well in many of the European courts, and to whom we owe 
 the celebrated definition of an ambassador, " Vir lonus perecjre 
 missus ad menticndum reipuUica causa" ("A good man sent 
 abroad to lie for the sake of his country"). There is an acute- 
 ness and sly humour in the face of his portrait (103) which fits 
 the authorship of this well known mot, which was written in a 
 friend's album at Augsburg, but which, reaching the King's ears, 
 very nearly cost "Wotton the royal favour for the rest of his life. 
 
 Before dismissing from the stage the actors in that miserable 
 tragi-comedy, the reign of James I., we must call attention to the 
 portraits of two more of those magnificent minions, who, like 
 Carr, Herbert, and Buckingham, owed their advancement to 
 beauty and not to brains. These are, James Hay, the Earl of 
 Carlisle (120), and Henry Eich, the Earl of Holland (126), whose 
 portraits, if the historical gallery had been arranged with attention 
 to sequence, should hang rather among the figures which illustrate 
 the reign of James than among those personifying the struggle 
 between King and Commons, under his successor. James Hnv 
 
THE BRITISH PORTRAIT GALLEltY. 31 
 
 was a fair-haired, regular-featured, good-tempered young Scotch- 
 man, a gentleman of the Scotcli body guard, which had been 
 maintained in the French court since the time of Louis XI. 
 Presented to James by the French ambassador, by his good 
 looks, graciousness, and affability, he rapidly rose to rank, first as 
 Lord Hay of Sawley, afterwards as Viscount Doncaster and Earl 
 of Carlisle. In 1616, he was selected for the embassy to Paris, to 
 convey the congratulations of James to the King of France on 
 his marriage with the Spanisli Infanta. Here the magnificence 
 for which Hay was noted had full scope. Besides providing his 
 retinue with the most slendid liveries, he had his horse shod 
 with silver shoes, so slightly fastened on, that as he curvetted 
 from his lodgings to the Louvre, ever and anon one of these silver 
 plates would be cast loose, and left for the crowd to scramble for ; 
 while one of his footmen, from a tawny velvet bag, replaced it with 
 another, to be in like manner flung off and fought for. In 1619, 
 on an embassy to Germany, Hay displayed equal splendour. It 
 was on this occasion that the Prince of Orange, on being told of 
 the necessity of doing something to rival the splendour of his 
 magnificent visitor, called for the bill of fare for the day when 
 Lord Carlisle was expected at the Hague, and finding only one 
 pig in the bill, magnanimously ordered his steward to put down 
 another. Hay was in Spain during the wild scamper of Prince 
 Charles in 1623, and in Paris on the conclusion of the match 
 with Henrietta Maria. For missions of state and ceremony he 
 was, probably, not ill selected, provided James were able and 
 willing to pay the bill when Carlisle's means ran short. 
 
 His honest and admiring historian, Andrew AVilson, tells us 
 that "the meanest of his suits was so fine as to look like romance," 
 and there are curious examples recorded of such fantastic luxuries 
 at his entertainments, as pies of ambergrease, that cost ten pounds 
 a piece, and fishes " brought from Muscovy, so huge that dishes 
 had to be made to contain them," like the famous turbot of 
 Tiberius. James did his best to supply the means for this mad 
 extravagance, by finding rich wives for his favourite ; Lady Denny 
 first, and afterwards the lovely Lucy Percy, daughter of the stern 
 and straightforward Earl of Northumberland, whose proud 
 stomach resisted even a life's imprisonment in the Tower, for 
 
32 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 suspicion of his privity to the gunpowder plot. He refused to 
 consent to his daughter's marriage with a " beggarly Scot," though 
 he knew his own liberation would be the first consequence of it. 
 James is believed, on Clarendon's estimate, to have given this 
 favourite not less than four hundred thousand pounds. But 
 James Hay was far from the worst of the King's minions. Henry 
 Eich added to frivolity and folly a baseness of ingratitude to which 
 Hay's career furnishes no parallel. Eaised rapidly by his beauty, 
 within a few years, to the knighthood of the Bath, the captaincy 
 of the King's Guard, and an office in the bedchamber to the 
 Prince of Wales ; created successively Viscount Fenton in Scot- 
 land, Baron Kensington and Earl of Holland, Eich accompanied 
 Hay on his embassies, and rivalled even his splendid follies. For 
 him, too, James found a rich wife, in Isabella, daughter and 
 heiress of Sir Walter Cope, who brought him the manor and 
 house at Kensington, built by her father in 1607, and still known 
 as Holland House. Eich was sent to Paris in 1624, with Hay, to 
 negotiate the marriage of Henrietta Maria with Charles, and 
 there is little doubt that on this occasion he won the affections of 
 the beautiful young princess, and that this passion of hers led to 
 those outbreaks of aversion to her husband which rendered the 
 earliest years of Charles's wedded life so unhappy. Eich was the 
 basest of men. When the King's star began to wane in 1641, 
 he joined the party of the opposition, carrying with him the 
 secrets of the court. In 1642, the Queen, now despising as much 
 as she had ever loved him, insisted on his dismissal from the post 
 of first gentleman of the bedchamber. In 1643 Eich turned traitor 
 to his new friends and joined his royal master at the siege of 
 Gloucester, but afterwards deserted again to the parliament from 
 Oxford. In 1648 he was guilty of his last act of apostasy, if it 
 should not rather be called of remorse, drawing the sword for the 
 King, when his cause was hopeless, at Nonsuch House. His 
 defeat, flight, and arrest were followed by his death on the 
 scaffold, before Westminster Hall, in March, 1619, in company 
 with the Duke of Hamilton and the gallant Lord Capell, who 
 neither of them deserved so base a companion in their deaths. 
 
 And now the stage is clear for the actors in a very different strife 
 from that of rival minions in the ante -chamber for the dark and 
 
THE BRITISH PORTRAIT GA.LLERT. 33 
 
 earnest men Strafford and Falkland, Hampden, Pym, Eliot, 
 Fairfax, and Cromwell who in the terrible struggle of the Great 
 [Revolution decided the question between the prerogative of the 
 King and the liberties of the people. As if that this mighty 
 political drama might be pictorially set forth as it deserved, 
 Vandyck is the painter of its principal personages. 
 
 Though Rubens visited England in 1629, and painted, during 
 that visit, the picture called " Peace and War," now in our 
 National Gallery, he was here in the character of a diplomatist, 
 not a painter. The knighthood which he received from the hand 
 of Charles in 1630, before his return to Spain, was the reward for 
 his negotiation of a treaty, not for the decoration of Whitehall 
 The ceiling of the banquetiug-bouse was commissioned during 
 this visit, but not painted till some years after, and sent over 
 finished from Antwerp. The portrait of the Earl of Arundel, the 
 great collector of objects of art and antiquity (107), is the only- 
 English portrait here from the hand of Rubens, and this may- 
 have been painted during his nine months' residence in this 
 country. He had already painted a picture of the earl and his 
 countess, at Antwerp, in 1620, but the two portraits were on 
 the same canvas. Thomas Howard, first Lord Arundel, was 
 born in 1586, and was made earl marshal in 1621. He incurred 
 the displeasure of Charles, and an imprisonment of some duration 
 in the Tower, by the marriage of his son, Lord Maltravers, with 
 the Lady Elizabeth Lennox, sister of the Duke of Richmond, 
 without the King's consent, in 1626. He was general of the 
 army sent to Scotland by Charles in 1639, presided as earl 
 marshal at Strafford's trial in 1640, accompanied the Queen and 
 her daughter to Holland in 1641, and died in exile at Padua in 
 1646. He employed agents on the continent collrcting whatever 
 was rarest in the way of pictures and antiques, whether statues, 
 gems, or medals, and was instrumental, probably, in bringing 
 about Yandyck's second visit to this country. To him we owe 
 that fine collection of marbles now at Oxford, known as the 
 Arundelian marbles. To this portrait of him (127), we may apply 
 the words employed by Clarendon in describing his character: 
 " He had in his person, in his aspect and countenance, the 
 appearance of a great man, which he preserved in his gait and 
 
34r THE AET TEEASUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 motion." At the same time, Clarendon tells us " this was only 
 his outside, his nature and true humour being much disposed to 
 levity." 
 
 Vandyck was the true painter of the cavaliers. That quality 
 in his work which justifies the description of him as "pittore 
 cavalieresco" peculiarly fitted him to delineate those stately 
 figures, set off by the most graceful of all dresses that have 
 ever been worn in England ; those proud and regular faces, with 
 their flowing lovelocks ; those high-bred hands, strong only for 
 the sword-hilt ; those proud, self-possessed, yet easy attitudes. 
 
 Vandj'ck had risen to an eminence only second to his master, 
 Rubens, in 1620, the year before he paid his first visit to 
 England. He stayed but a few months in England on that occa- 
 sion, and we cannot point to any work of his executed during 
 these few months. Between 1621 and his next visit to England 
 in 1632, Vandyck had travelled through Italy, studying and 
 leaving'numerous records of his pencil in Venice, Genoa, Rome, 
 Plorence, and Turin, and had spent five years in diligent and 
 successful labour at Antwerp, while Rubens was more engrossed 
 by his diplomatic employment at Madrid and London, than by 
 his painting. The Earl of Arundel and Sir Kenelin Digby were 
 the earliest and warmest English protectors of Vandyck. He 
 rapidly* displaced from favour Jansen and Mytens, and soon 
 secured a monopoly of court employment living luxuriously and 
 profusely during the winter in the Blackfriara, and during the 
 summer in a suit of apartments fitted up for him by the king in 
 the old palace at Eltham. He left England for a short visit to 
 Paris in 1640, and returned in broken health to witness the 
 outbreak of civil war. He did not long survive the execution of 
 his friend^ and patron, Strafford; dying at the close of 1641. 
 His works are characterised by very unequal degrees of merit. 
 Immeasurably the best, are those of his period of Italian travel, 
 and his five years at Antwerp, from 1626 to 1631. To this 
 period belong the fine pictures of the Hertford collection (6 and 
 7), and the portraits of Snyders and his wife (662, 663), in the 
 gallery of old masters, which are worthy of the painter of that 
 masterpiece of portraiture the " Gevartius " of the National 
 Gallery, and his group of the three children from Earl de Grey's 
 
THE BRITISH PORTRAIT GALLERY. 35 
 
 collection (660). No work of his painted in England can for a 
 moment stand comparison with these admirable productions. 
 Among the best here are the portraits of Charles I. the half 
 length (661), and the full length on horseback (736). The " Killi- 
 grew and Carew" (667), and the " Boyal Family" (683). To the 
 secondary order of merit belong all his pictures in the historical 
 portrait gallery. They vary in excellence, but in no case reach 
 the highest range of the painter's power. Besides Vandyck we 
 may mention, as contemporary painters, Sir Balthazar Gerbier 
 though he early abandoned the art for diplomacy and Dobson, 
 an Englishman, and pupil of Vandyck's. Dobson's picture (106), 
 representing Gerbier, Sir Clement Cotterill, and the painter 
 himself, shows the pupil little inferior to his master. King 
 Charles used to call Dobson " the English Tintoret." Vandyck 
 found him labouring in a garret, and recommended him to the 
 King. Like Vandyck, Dobson was profuse in his habits, and 
 died at thirty-six, in the year 1646. 
 
 And now, let us turn from these painters to their works. 
 Here we may find most of the conspicuous names of the greatest 
 struggle of English history. Of the royal party here are the 
 King, his three arch-evil councillors, Buckingham, already 
 noticed, Straiford (110), and Laud (94), besides a long list of 
 the beauties, captains, wits, and courtiers, who marked the few 
 festive years of that troubled reign, and its long continued civil 
 discords. Of the heroes on the side of the parliament here are 
 Cromwell, Hampden, and Pym, Selden, Hollis, and Eliot; but 
 neither Bradshaw, Strode, nor Hazelrigge, Ereimes, Vane, nor 
 Grhnston; and the parliamentary generals, Fairfax, Essex, and 
 Manchester; but neither Ireton, Ludlow, nor Harrison. To 
 comment on every one of these pictures, at the length to which 
 their importance tempts us, would be to write a volume and not 
 an article. 
 
 "We shall probably best prepare visitors for appreciating this 
 part of the gallery by a rapid survey of the principal incidents of 
 the great rebellion in their succession ; noticing, as we proceed, 
 the portraits of the chief actors in the drama here represented. 
 King Charles I. (96, 109, 186, &c.) was born with the century, 
 and succeeded to the throne in March, 1625 ; marrying, in the 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE AllT TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 May of that year, his beautiful queen, Henrietta Maria (108, 
 116). All through the preceding reign, the strife between king 
 and parliament had been going on ; but Charles, by the perni- 
 cious influence of Buckingham, had been blinded to the lessons 
 which that confii'-t should have taught him. His first p-irliameut 
 met in June, 1625. Hampden (131) sat in that parliament 
 for Wendover. The King wanted money to carry on the war 
 with Spain. The parliament, instead of voting supplies, arraigned 
 the conduct of Buckingham ; and, refusing all subsidies, \vas 
 dissolved, after three weeks' sitting. In February, 1626, the 
 second parliament met, and appointed committees for religion, for 
 redress of grievances, and for secret affairs. In May, articles of 
 impeachment were exhibited against Buckingham, when Sir 
 Dudley Dirges and Sir John Eiiot, who brought up the articles, 
 were committed to the Tower; and in June this second parlia- 
 ment, still stubborn, was dissolved without passing a single act. 
 "Wentworth was among the leaders of opposition in this parlia- 
 ment, and was committed to prison for his conduct in that 
 capacity. Ilampdeu shared his captivity, for resistance to the 
 payment of illegal taxation. In the yame month was published a 
 royal declaration of the causes of the dissolution of these two 
 parliaments; and an order for the levying of tomnge and 
 poundage, by means of which, with arbitrary loans and ship 
 money, the King endeavoured to raise the supplies which his par- 
 liament refused him. The third parliament of 1628 "ranted five 
 subsidies; but with them passed the celebrated petition of right, 
 against taxation without consent of parliament, imprisonment 
 without legal process, the billeting of soldiers on people against 
 their wills, and commissions of martial law. The parliament was 
 prorogued in Juno. In August, the Dnke of Buckingham was 
 murdered by Feicon; and in March, 1629, the King dissolved his 
 third parliament, in a speech in which he called the patriot 
 members, Hollis (177), Pym (W2 A), Eliot (13.!), Selden (H9), 
 and their supporters, " common vipers." For eleven years after 
 this no parliament was called, and the King carried on the 
 government by the unconstitutional exercise of his royal prero- 
 gative. Hollis, Eliot, and Valentine were sent to the Tower in the 
 same year, where Eliot, the bosom-friend of Hampdeu, remained 
 
THE BRITISH PO11TRAIT GALLERY. 37 
 
 till he died. In 1633 the King held a Scotch parliament in 
 Edinburgh. In 1634, the first writ of ship money was issued ; 
 Wentworth restored order as Lord-deputy in Ireland ; and in 
 1636 John Hampden refused to pay his assessment of thirty-six 
 shillings for ship money now extended to the inland part of the 
 kingdom on the plea that the tax was illegally imposed. The 
 influence of Laud was all this time in the ascendant. He was 
 with the king in Scotland in 163 J. During the same year he 
 was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, on the death of Abbott, 
 his old enemy, (93) ; in 1(535, he was of the foreign committee of 
 the privy council, and in 1(536, he got his creature Juxon, Bishop 
 of London, appointed Lord High Treasurer. The tyrannical pro- 
 ceedings of Wentworth, as president of the Northern Council, 
 were of earlier date ; but down to his creation as Earl of Straft'ord 
 in 1630, he was the chief prompter of the royal resistance to the 
 Commons. In 1638 had been passed the order in council prohi- 
 biting emigration to New England without royal license, which 
 arrested in the river the ship, on board of which Hampden 
 and Cromwell had taken their departure for North America. In 
 1638, too, the solemn league and covenant was subscribed in 
 Edinburgh, under the provocation of Laud's efforts to force 
 the episcopal liturgy on the church of Scotland, and in 1639 
 broke out the war with Scotland, the King giving Strafford the 
 chief command of the army destined to oppose his rebellious 
 Scottish subjects. In 1640, by advice of Laud and Wentworth, 
 the King, in desperate want of resources to carry on the war, 
 determined to summon a parliament \\hich met in April, after 
 eleven years continued silence of the Commons, and uninter- 
 rupted tyranny of the King. Of this parliament Hampden (131), 
 Pym, St. John, Denzil Llollis (177), Cromwell, Hyde (afterwards 
 Earl of Clarendon, 175), Falkland (173), and Digby (123), were 
 leading members. 
 
 The King asked for an immediate supply of money, promising, 
 if it were granted, to give up the prerogative of ship money. But 
 be had deceived his third parliament which coupled the subsidies 
 it gave with the Petition of Right, and it was Jelt unsafe to trust 
 him afresh. Besides, the Commons denied the existence of the 
 very prerogative the King offered to surrender. Hampden moved 
 
38 THE AET TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 the question " "Whether the house would consent to the King's 
 offer ? " Hyde moved the question " Whether the house would 
 grant or refuse a supply ? " If the first motion had been carried 
 against consent, the court would have been defeated ; by carrying 
 the grant on the second, the court would have gained a victory. 
 The house separated without voting. Next day the King dis- 
 solved the parliament in an angry speech. 
 
 By this dissolution the die was cast. The royal tyranny became 
 more active than ever. Ship-money was extracted more rigorously 
 than before. Forced loans were again resorted to. There was 
 even a project entertained for debasing the currency. In August 
 the King marched a second time against the Scots, while the 
 leading members of the opposition invited them southwards. The 
 royal army was disaffected, and gave way before the enemy. No- 
 shift remained even for the shifty Kiug. He made a truce with 
 the Scots, and summoned a parliament. This was the long par- 
 liament which met on the 3rd of November, 1610 a day never 
 to be forgotten by Englishmen. The minds of the opposition 
 were embittered. The tone of the House of Commons was very 
 different from that of the short Parliament of the year before, 
 when, with honesty and moderation, the King still had the game 
 in his own hands. The gulf had widened now was rapidly 
 becoming impassable and yet there was still a hope, had the 
 King's eyes not been, as it were, judicially blinded. In the first 
 session of the long Parliament, Stratford and Laud were im- 
 peached and imprisoned. The Lord Keeper fled to Prance. The 
 instruments of royal oppression, even the judges who had 
 decided for the legality of the writ of ship-money, Bramston 
 (176), chief justice of the King's Bench, at their head, were 
 summoned to answer for their conduct : the Court of Star Cham- 
 ber, the Court of High Commission, and the Northern Council 
 were dissolved as arbitrary and unconstitutional tribunals ; Laud's 
 victims were released from prison ; the old feudal jurisdictions 
 of the King were abolished; it was provided that Parliament 
 should not be prorogued or dissolved without its own consent, 
 and that parliaments would be held at least once every three 
 years. Laud and Strafford were beheaded, after condemnation, 
 by bill of attainder, the former in January, the latter in March, 
 
THE BRITISH PORTRAIT GALLERY. 39 
 
 1641. Both executions were clearly justifiable on the strongest 
 of all pleas the necessities of public safety. 
 
 On the faces of these two great prompters of all that was most 
 fatal in the conduct of their master, in church and state, we quote 
 the well-weighed remarks of Macaulay : " JSTever were faces more 
 strikingly characteristic of the individuals to whom they belonged 
 than those of Laud and Strafford, as they remain pourtrayed, by 
 the most skilful hand of the age. The mean forehead, the pinched 
 features, the peering eyes, of the prelate, suit admirably with his 
 disposition. They mark him out as a lower kind of St. Dominic, 
 differing from the fierce and gloomy enthusiast who founded the 
 Inquisition, as we might imagine the familiar imp of a spiteful 
 witch to differ from an archangel of darkness. When we read his 
 grace's judgments, when we read the report which he drew up, 
 setting forth that he had sent some separatists to prison, and 
 imploring the royal aid against others, we feel a movement of 
 indignation. "We turn to his diary, and are at once as cool as 
 contempt can make us. . . . But Wentworth who ever 
 names him without thinking of those harsh, dark features, ennobled 
 by their expression, into more than the majesty of an antique 
 Jupiter ; of that brow, that eye, that cheek, that lip, wherein as in 
 a chronicle are written the events of many stormy and disastrous 
 years; high enterprise accomplished, frightful dangers braved, power 
 unsparingly exercised, suffering unshrinkingly borne ; of that fixed 
 look, so full of serenity, of mournful anxiety, of deep thought, of 
 dauntless resolution, which seems at once to forebode and defy a 
 terrible fate, as it lowers on us from the living canvas of Vandyck." 
 During the autumn of 1641 the long parliament adjourned. Be- 
 fore it re-assembled in November of the next year, the Irish 
 rebellion had broken out, and had been generally attributed by the 
 Puritans to indirect encouragement afforded to the rebels by the 
 King. When the House met, the breach, not only between the 
 Court and the Commons, but between the more moderate and 
 more thorough-going oppositionists in the House itself, was wider 
 than ever. In the debate on the remonstrance setting out all the 
 grievances of the last fifteen years, and calling on the King to 
 employ no ministers in whom the parliament could not confide, 
 which lasted from nine in the morning of November 21 to two of 
 
 O 
 
40 THE AHT TBEASURE8 EXHIBITION. 
 
 the following morning, party feelings were so exasperated that 
 "but for the sagacity and calmness of Mr. Hampthn," says au 
 eye-witness, "we had sht-nthed our swords in each others bowels." 
 The remonstrance was carried by a majority of nine only, and at 
 this the eleventh hour, by honestly and heartily joining with 
 Falkland (173), Hyde (175), Digby (123), and Colepepper, the 
 leaders of the moderate constitutionalists, in the Commons, and 
 with Bedford (125) in the Lords, Charles might still have rallied 
 the nation to his cause. Negotiations were actually on foot for 
 nominating these men to important posts of the Government, 
 under Bedford ; but again the suicidal councils of the supporters 
 of the prerogative prevailed, and the fatal attempt to arrest the 
 five members Pym, llampden, Hollis, Sir Arthur Hazelrigm':, 
 and Strode iu January, 1042, was, in effect, a declaration of civil 
 war. Charles left London for York, and after this mouth never 
 visited his capital again but as a prisoner. 
 
 On March the 2nd, the Commons resolved to embody the 
 militia without the royal assent; and ordered the Duke of Nor- 
 thumberland (124), as Lord High Admiral, to equip the navy for 
 the service of the Parliament. This was war, however disguised 
 by constitutional forms. In this gallery we shall find most of the 
 heroes who took part on either side in that war a war such as no 
 other country has ever witnessed : in which the noblest qualities 
 of courage and conduct were displayed on both sides; where the 
 patriotism of the parliamentary party was balanced by the loyalty 
 and devotion of the partisans of the King; and where, in the very 
 fiercest heat of an internecine struggle, the power of law and the 
 principles of social order were never once suspended. 
 
 Taking, as the first overt act of the struggle, the raising of the 
 royal standard, at Nottingham, in August, 1642, we may divide 
 the conflict into two great acts. The first ends with the defeat cf 
 the royal army of the west at Stow-on-the-\Vold, and the taking 
 of Harlech Castle, early in 161-7. This division includes the 
 battles of Edgehill and Brentford, the storm of Cirencester, by 
 Rupert; the skirmish in Chalgrove Field, the taking of Bristol, 
 the sie^e of Gloucester, the battle of Hound way Doon, the siege 
 of Hull, the actions of jNantwich (in which Monk, then an officer 
 in the royal army, was made prisoner), Cheriton Down, and 
 
THE BRITISH PORTRAIT GALLERY. 4 
 
 Selby ; the more decisive battles of Marston Moor, Newbury, and 
 Naseby. each of which decided the fate of the royal cause in its 
 own quarter of the island ; the taking of Lathom House, Welbeck, 
 Bolsover, Bletchington, Basing, and numerous other manorial 
 strongholds. The war was waged for the King in the north 
 by the Earl of Newcastle, in the west by Rupert, G-oring, Gren- 
 ville, and Hopton, and in the midland counties by Lord On pel; 
 and by Essex, Manchester, and Fairfax, successively for the par- 
 liament. Cromwell, during this period does not rise above a, 
 secondary command of cavalry, under all three generals. During 
 this period the King's head quarters were first at York, after- 
 wards at Oxford. He paid a visit to Bristol, and moved about 
 the west, and up and down the southern and midland counties 
 towards its close. 
 
 The second great division of the civil war includes the events 
 between the rendering up of the King to the commissioners of 
 parliament, by the Scots, at the beginning of 1647, and his execu- 
 tion in January, 1649. He was all this time a prisoner, or a 
 fugitive, at Holmb}', Hampton Court, Newport, and Carisbrooli, 
 returning to London only for his trial and execution. 
 
 Of the chief actors in the first division of the war, we have here 
 besides the parliamentary notabilities already mentioned, as 
 Hampden, Eliot, Pym, Denzil Hollis, and Cromwell Sir John Pen- 
 nington (133), the admiral of the fleet, appointed by Charles, in 
 lieu of the Earl of Northumberland (124), who had been named to 
 the same post by the parliament ; Sir John Byron (141), a black- 
 browed, coarse-featured cavalier, with a slash across his nose, a 
 malignant of the most hard-riding, hard-swearing, hard-drinking, 
 harti-hitting kind, to whom, as constable of the tower in 1641, 
 the King mainly trusted for arming the forces with which he 
 then hoped to overcome the parliament ; but who was forced by 
 the parliament to give up that most important post, when he 
 joined his royal master at York. Sir John commanded a reserve 
 of horse at Edgehill, the first important action of the war, on the 
 23d October, 1642. Essex was the parliamentary general in that 
 battle, which might have been a victory for the King but fur the 
 impetuosity of Prince Rupert (115), who, breaking the parlia- 
 mentary horse, pursued them so far, besides allowing his men to 
 
42 THE ART TBEASUBES EXHIBITION. 
 
 turn aside from fighting to plunder, that the tide of the battle 
 had turned decisively in favour of the parliamentarians before he 
 reappeared on the field. Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice (114), 
 the King's nephews, sons of Elizabeth, daughter of James I. 
 Princess Palatine and Queen of Bohemia, are characteristic types 
 of the dashing, daring cavalier ; with all the courage, and 
 impatience of control, that distinguished their class : irresistible 
 in a charge, but incapable of improving an advantage. Trained 
 in the bloody wars of the Palatinate, they carried on hosti- 
 lities, not with the fierce religious fervour of the roundhead 
 captains, or with that sad sense of a terrible duty which weighed 
 upon such royalists as Falkland, but with the wild license of 
 partisans, plundering, burning, and slaughtering, more like chiefs 
 of condottieri than like captains of a king in arms within his own 
 dominions against a parliament resisting his authority. These 
 princes move athwart the bloody scenes of the civil war, like 
 bright but baleful meteors, perpetually winning unavailing advan- 
 tages, but unsuccessful in every decisive encounter, and, indeed, 
 the main cause of the loss of every action in which they held hi/M 
 command, witness Edgehill, Marston Moor, and Naseby, by 
 their impetuosity and incapacity to obey. To Rupert, also, was 
 due the surrender of Bristol, in 1645, one of the last and one of 
 the heaviest blows to the royal cause. Of all the servants of the 
 King, these two princes most widened the breach between him 
 and his people, by their reckless forays and harryings of the 
 country. Reduced at last to take refuge on board the fleet, 
 Rupert long kept up a desultory piratical warfare under the royal 
 flag, in both hemispheres, survived the war, and saw the Restora- 
 tion, dying quietly in 1684, in his 63d year, at his house in 
 Spring Gardens, where, for the last ten years of his life, he 
 had been busying himself with chemistry and mechanics. He 
 invented the art of mezzotint, but did not discover the philo- 
 sopher's stone, though he wasted the best part of his fortune 
 in looking for it. Prince Maurice, like, but less than, his 
 brother in all things, carrying on the same piratical warfare, 
 went to the bottom in the West Indies ; none knows precisely 
 when, where, or how. 
 
 The Earl of Bedford (123) was the first commander of the 
 
THE BEITISH POETSAIT GALLEEY. 43 
 
 cavalry, for the parliament, under Essex. After a brief defection 
 to the King in 1643, he returned to the cause of the parliament, 
 and abided by it for the rest of his life. 
 
 Lord Brook (134) was another peer who adhered to the par- 
 liamentary cause, and was killed at the siege of Lichfield in 
 March, 1613. 
 
 When Essex, by his slackness, and evident want of hearty zeal 
 in the parliamentary cause, had roused the suspicions of the par- 
 liament, the Earl of Manchester (172) who, as Lord Kimbolton, 
 had been the leader of the opposition to the King in the house of 
 lords, and, as such, had shared the danger of the five members of 
 the commons, was appointed serjeant-major of the associated coun- 
 ties in 1643, with Colonel Cromwell for his second in command. 
 Under them the army of the commonwealth was remodelled 
 substantial yeomen and sober citizens being substituted gradually 
 for " drunken tapsters and decayed serving-men," till at length a 
 force was created composed, as Carlyle says, " of men that had 
 the fear of Grod, and gradually lost all other fear." Manchester 
 commanded the parliamentary army of the north, which, in 1644, 
 fought the decisive fight of Marston Moor, where the King's 
 northern array, under the brave Marquis of Newcastle (121), was 
 shattered never to unite again. Lord Fairfax, and his son, then 
 Sir Thomas Fairfax (138), afterwards commander-in-chief for the 
 parliament, led the Torkshiremen in that action. The victory 
 of the parliamentary army was due, mainly, to the rashness of 
 Rupert, who, as usual, broke the force opposed to him, and, as 
 usual, pursued it so far that he gave time to the enemy thanks 
 chiefly to Cromwell and his Ironsides to retrieve the fortunes of 
 the day, From that date, however, Manchester began to fall 
 under the same suspicion of " slackness " which had led to Essex's 
 gradual retirement from command. Cromwell, in November, 
 1644, exhibited before the commons a charge against the earl " of 
 indisposition and backwardness to engagements, and the ending 
 of the war by the sword," which, though the earl made a sufficient 
 answer to it for the time, was one main motive of the self-denying 
 ordinance of 1644, by which the members of both houses declared 
 themselves ineligible to all offices, civil and military, during the 
 war. In pursuance of this ordinance, both Essex and Manchester 
 
44 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 disappeared from command under the Parliament, which from this 
 time fell into the more vigorous hands of Fairfax and Cromwell, 
 in whose favour the selt-denying ordinance was suspended. 
 Between 1042 and 1644, the latter had been rising, step by step, 
 in power and influence. By his admirable organisation of the 
 Eastern Counties Association, \vhicli included Norfolk, Suffolk, 
 Essex, Cambridge, Herts, and afterwards Huntingdon and Lincoln- 
 shire, these parts of England were kept free from civil war. 
 Hampden (131), fell early in the struggle, in a skirmish with 
 Rupert, on Chalgrove Held, in June, 1043. Less th;in three 
 months Inter, the King's party had to lament the death of Falk- 
 land (173), who, in despair at the prospects of the country, rather 
 threw away than lost his life, in the battle of Newbury. Aubrey, 
 however, attributes his recklessness of life less to public griefs 
 than to sorrow at the death of Mrs. Moray, a handsome lady at 
 court, whom he loved tenderly. Among the cavalier captains of 
 this first epoch of the war, of whom here are portraits, we may 
 mention Sir Charles Goring (166), who, after a short period of 
 hesitation between the cause of King and parliament in 1041 
 during which he alternately played traitor to both parties 
 redeemed his credit afterwards by strenuous service under Charles, 
 and showed himself one of his bravest and best captains, especially 
 in the war of the west. He ultimately escaped beheading, by the 
 Speaker's casting vote, when Hamilton, Capel, Holland, and Owen 
 perished on the scaffold in 1049. 
 
 The Earl of Digby (123) is another of those who, at the com- 
 mencement of the struggle, sided with the parliament, but went 
 over to the King when he found that civil war \\as inevitable. It 
 was he who formed, and offered to execute, a plan for seizing the 
 five members, when under the protection of the city ; and he was, 
 throughout the war, the most dexterous and daring of the King's 
 political advisers, and one of the boldest of his captains. He 
 escaped over the sea, after the battle of Worcester, and lived to 
 see the Restoration. 
 
 The gallant Sir Jacob Astley represented here not by his 
 portrait only (148), but by his breast-plate, butf coat, and sword, 
 exhibited in the collection of armour was one of the staunchest 
 of the King's friends. He was major-general at the battle of 
 
THE BRITISH POUT BAIT GALLERY. 45 
 
 Edgehill, under the gallant Lindsay, who, though he held the 
 command, was so disgusted with the overbearing petulance of 
 Rupert, that he declared his post only a nominal one, and carried 
 a pike in the action at the head of his own regiment. Sir Jacob 
 took active part in the war, till he was defeated and taken prisoner 
 as the lust distinguished royalist in arms, on the 22d of March, 
 1645, in the buttle of Stow-on-the-Wold. The force he com- 
 manded was the last that kept the field for the King in England. 
 As he surrendered, he said to his adversaries, " You have now 
 done you'' work, and may go play unless you will fall out among 
 yourselves." Lord. John and Lord Bernard Stuart, sons of 
 Lodowick Stuart, the first Duke of Richmond, kinsman to the 
 King, look a gallant pair of brothers (117) on Vandyck's canvas, 
 and fell, as loval gentlemen were wont to fall in. those days, 
 fighting for King Charles, Lord John at Cheriton Downs, near 
 Winchester, in March, 1644, when Sir William Waller defeated 
 the King's army under Lord Hopton; and Lord Bernard at 
 llowton Heath, in 1645. We should notice, too, among the 
 most gallant and characteristic illustrations of this sad but stirring 
 time, two ladies, who held, the one her husband's, the other her 
 father's, house for the King, as stoutly as husband or father could 
 have done. These are Jane Cavendish (150), eldest daughter of 
 the brave Duke of Newcastle, who, as befitted the daughter of 
 such a father, kept garrison at Welbeck, until it was taken by 
 the parliamentary army under Manchester, in August, 1614; and 
 Charlotte de la Tremouille, the noble Countess of Derby, and 
 Queen of Man, whose sad and stately figure all the readers of 
 Scott must remember in " Peveril of the Peak." While her 
 husb uid (140) defended his territory of Man, she stood the siege 
 of Fairfax, in Lathom House, for three months of hard fighting, 
 from February to May, 1644, when Fairfax was fain to draw off 
 his baffiVd leaguer to Boltou, leaving two thousand dead under 
 those well-defended walls. The house was surrendered by the King 
 in December 1615, when the heroic countess joined her good and 
 loy;il husband in his kingdom of Man. His answer to a summons to 
 surrender the island from Cromwell, is worth quoting : " I 
 scorn your proffers, I disdain your favours, I abhor your treasons, 
 and am so far from surrendering this island to your advantage, 
 
46 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 that I will keep it to the utmost of my power to your destruc- 
 tion. Take this final answer, and forbear any farther solicitations ; 
 for if you trouble me with any more messages on this occasion, I 
 will burn the papers and hang the bearers." The royal standard 
 still waved on the battlements of Peel Castle, till, after the loyal 
 earl's death on the scaffold at Bolton, in 1651, Major Christian 
 basely betrayed the island to the parliament. The countess was 
 taken and thrown into prison, where she languished till the Resto- 
 ration. Charles refused to this noble woman his consent to a 
 bill which had passed both houses for the restitution of the family 
 estates ; and then " her great heart," which had borne up against 
 danger, treachery, a husband's loss, and the sufferings of a pro- 
 tracted imprisonment, " overwhelmed with grief and endless 
 sorrow, burst in pieces." In these terms the family historian of 
 the Stanleys describes her death at Knowsley, where the loyal 
 services of the earl and his countess, and the base ingratitude 
 of the King, were commemorated on a tablet, subsequently placed 
 in the front of the house. 
 
 It would have been well could the portraits of Winchester 
 and Worcester, the staunch defenders of Basing House and 
 Raglan Castle, have been hung near the Stanleys. Those sieges 
 of mansions and manor-houses, held generally for the King 
 of which twenty were taken by the parliamentary avenger in 
 the summer of 1645 alone are among the most exciting and 
 picturesque incidents of our civil war, and gave occasion for some 
 of the noblest among its many manifestations of loyalty, endur- 
 ance, and daring. 
 
 The Earl of Northampton (146) is another cavalier general, 
 killed at Hopton Heath. 
 
 Here, too, are not wanting some of the beauties of the graver 
 court of Charles, and the poets and artists who celebrated or 
 handed down their graces, or invented opportunities for the display 
 of them. Here is Henrietta Maria herself (108), in one picture 
 with her favourite dwarf, Sir Geoffrey Hudson, by Vandyck ; again 
 in a family group with the King and their children, by the same 
 painter (116) ; and again in Lord Gal way's interesting picture 
 by My tens, representing the King and Queen, dressed, and about to 
 mount for a ride. This beautiful woman, there is reason to believe 
 
THE BRITISH PORTRAIT GALLERY. 17 
 
 was not true wife to the King, whom her counsels did much to 
 encourage in that Jesuitical policy with his parliament, which ren- 
 dered all faith in him impossible. There seems little doubt that 
 she loved the magnificent Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, who was 
 the King's proxy at the celebration of the marriage; and that still 
 later, when the royal fortunes had become desperate, she found 
 consolation at Paris in the arms of Henry Jermyn, afterwards 
 Lord St. Albans, who is said to have treated her harshly and 
 contemptuously. Madame de Baviere describes him as " keeping 
 a good fire in his chamber, and a sumptuous table, while she had 
 not a faggot to warm herself with." Henrietta Maria was very 
 beautiful. Howell writes to his brother-in-law in raptures with 
 this " most gallant new Queen of England, who in true beauty is 
 beyond the long-wooed Infanta for she is of a fading flaxen 
 hair, big-lipped and somewhat heavy-eyed : but this daughter of 
 France, this youngest branch of Bourbon, is of a more lovely and 
 lasting complexion a dark brown; she hath eyes that sparkle 
 like stars ; and for her physiognomy, she may be said to be a 
 mirror of perfection." Even grave, sour Symonds D'Elwes, 
 going to see her dine at Whitehall, describes her as "a most 
 absolute, delicate lady ; her face much enlivened by her radiant 
 and sparkling black eye. Besides, her deportment amongst her 
 women was so sweet and humble, and her speech and looks to 
 her other servants so mild and gracious, as I will not abstain 
 from divers deep-fetched sighs, to consider that she wanted the 
 knowledge of the true religion." And yet these radiant eyes 
 could flash angry fire too. " With one frown," writes an eye- 
 witness, " divers of us being at Whitehall to see her, being at 
 dinner, and the room somewhat overheated with the fire and 
 company, she drove us all out of the room ; I suppose none but a 
 queen could have cast such a scowl." The King had great dif- 
 ficulties at first with her imperious temper, and sometimes appears 
 to have almost despaired of procuring from her the respect 
 due from a wife to a husband. At last, when he had summarily 
 dismissed all her huge French household, she was brought into a 
 more manageable frame of mind, or perhaps the quick-witted 
 woman saw she had mistaken the road to empire over the King, 
 and from that moment changing her tactics from those of self-* 
 
48 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 assertion to those of management, guided her weak husband at 
 her will to the scaffold. And yet, even after this change of 
 tactics, she knew well when to apply the spur pretty sharply to 
 the lagging sides of the royal intent. " Go, coward," she is 
 reported to have said to Charles, when he shrunk from seizing 
 the five members, " and pull out these rogues by the ears, or 
 never see my face again." Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle, is 
 the authority for the story. Henrietta Maria fled to Holland in 
 1642 with the crown jewels, which she employed in the purchase 
 of arms and ammunition for the King's service. In 1043 she 
 landed at Burlington Bay, through imminent dangers. The house 
 she slept in was bombarded. {She had to leave it " barefoot and 
 bareleg" and take shelter in a ditch behind the town. While 
 here, discovering that her favourite hip-dog had been left behind, 
 she ran back through the fire and returned in triumph with her 
 pet. The Earl of Newcastle conveyed her to Y'rk, where, so 
 long as she remained, her intelligence, no less than her grace 
 and beauty, greatly helped the progress of the royal cause. She 
 subsequently separaied from the King, and fled to France, return- 
 ing to England in 16 JO, after suffering neglect and even privation 
 at the court of her nephew, Louis XIV. She left this country 
 for the last time at the breaking out of the plague in 1665, and 
 died at the castle of Colombe, near Paris, in 1669. Of her 
 dwarf, Geoffrey Hudson, the readers of " Peveril of the Peak" 
 need no description. 
 
 Here from Vandyck'shand, is one of the loveliest women (16 1), 
 who over inspired poet, or turned lover's head Lucy Sidney 
 the wife of the magnificent Lord Carlisle him of the silver 
 horse's shoes, mentioned in our last article but one whom War- 
 burton calls " the Erinuys of her time." To youth, beauty, rank, 
 and wit, she was determined to add political influence, and reck- 
 less how it was acquired, she was successively the mistress of 
 Strafford, even before her husband's death in 1636, and after- 
 wards of Pym, his deadliest enemy. It was to her secret infor- 
 mation that the five members owed their timely intelligence of 
 the King's intentions ; and as she betrayed this, go she betrayed 
 every secret of the mistress who loved and trusted her. Alter- 
 nately the gayest beauty of the court be-rhymed by Davenaut, 
 
THE BRITISH PORTRAIT GALLERY. 49 
 
 Suckling, Carew, and Waller or in Puritan hood and pinners, 
 taking notes of a conventicle discourse by Pym's side she 
 is one of the most unstable figures of that eventful time, 
 so fertile in apostasies and treasons. She just lived to see the 
 Kestoration, dying in November, 1660, at Little Cashiobury 
 House. 
 
 The wife of Lord Mandeville (169), is gayer than beseems the 
 lady of a Puritan generalissimo. But she wears her wedding 
 dress. 
 
 Mrs. Kirk (118), was the most faithful and the most trusted, 
 by her muster as well as her mistress, of the Queen's bedchamber 
 women. The picture has an artistic interest. It was bought at 
 Sir Peter Lely's sale, and those who are conversant with his colour 
 will see how much use he made of the feuille morte satin dress 
 of this picture. 
 
 The charming Henrietta, youngest daughter of Charles, after- 
 wards the ill-fated Duchess of Orleans (111), belongs to the suc- 
 ceeding reign. 
 
 Lady Ootterill (145), a fine head by Dobsou, hangs by the side 
 of her husband, Sir Charles, master of the ceremonies to the 
 King, in the times that preceded the civil war, while there still 
 were ceremonies to marshal at Whitehall one of the most 
 decently and nobly ordered courts in Europe while it lasted. The 
 Countess of Oxford (142), and Lady Betty Sidney (157), are t\vo 
 of its not very conspicuous ornaments. More conspicuous is 
 (147), the Duchess of Richmond, Frances Howard, who, though 
 the fairest and proudest woman of her time, with the blood of 
 Howards and Statfords in her veins, by some strange and un- 
 explained chance, married as her first husband one Trai nell, a 
 London vintner's son. On his death, in 1599, after Sir John 
 Rodney had killed himself for love of her his farewell letter, 
 written in his own blood, still may be read in the British Museum 
 she married the Earl of Hertford. Left a second time a widow, 
 she was wooed and won by the first Duke of Kichmond ; wooed in 
 disguise, however, and in all manner of romantic accompaniments. 
 After her third husband's death she is said to have aimed at the 
 tough old heart of James himself, but in vain. We hear of her 
 in 1634, drooping very much, " but still keeping her state of 
 
50 THE ABT THEASUBES EXHIBITION. 
 
 sermons and white staves ; " for she had private preaching in her 
 household till Laud put it down in her third widowhood. Slve 
 vowed never to sit at table with a subject, and used to seat herself 
 in public alone, with crowds standing around, at a table spread 
 with costly silver dishes which, if the covers had been lifted, 
 would have been found empty ! 
 
 Of the poets of the court here are Sir Jobn Suckling (83 
 there is a portrait of his friend Carew, in the gallery of old 
 masters), Waller (151), and Lovelace (146), Cowley (143), and 
 Butler (155), the author of "Hudibras." Suckling was a true 
 court poet, and preludes in his loose, easy, flowing love \erses, 
 the more licentious strains of Rochester and Dorset; while 
 Carew, a gentleman of the chamber, love poet and dramatist, is 
 the more graceful forerunner of the Sedleys and the Ethereges. 
 Sir John Suckling's "Lines on a Marriage" \\ill live as long as 
 English poetry, for their sweet and artless description of a rustic- 
 English beauty. Every one knows the description of the bride' 
 cheek : 
 
 " The streak s< of red were mingled tht 
 Such as are on EtttherfM pear 
 
 The side that's next the sun." 
 
 And that tempting picture of her mouth 
 
 " Her lips were red, and one was thiu, 
 Compared with that was next her chin, 
 Some bee had stung it newl\." 
 
 And the pretty homely comparison of the feet 
 
 " . That 'ueath her petticoat* 
 
 Like little mice, stole in and out, 
 As if they feared the light." 
 
 Suckling seems to have been a worthless fellow a gambler, and 
 card-sharper, and worse still, a coward, who, with his ^ay regi- 
 ment, ran away from the Scots in 1631), and pocketed a beating 
 from Sir John Digby, for maligning a lady. He waa found guilty 
 of treason, for his participation in a plot for the release of 
 Stratford from the Tower, and died in France, whither lie had 
 made his escape, in 1641. Carew, a poet of the same light, 
 graceful, amatory wit, did not live to see the commencement of 
 
THE BEITTSH POETBAIT GALLEET. 51 
 
 civil war, having died in 1639. His masque of " Cesium Britan- 
 nicurn " was prepared ab Whitehall in February, 1639, by the 
 King, the Duke of Lennox, the Earls of Devonshire, Holland, 
 Newport, Elgin, and others, when hiigo Jones contrived the 
 scenery and machinery, and Henry Lawes, the friend of Milton, 
 composed the music. Carew's song 
 
 " He that loves a rosy cheek, or a coral lip admires," 
 
 is sti'l popular, and indeed the short and troubled beginning of 
 Charles J.'s reign, has produced the best love songs in the language. 
 Lovelace (146) was one of the most brilliant of these poetic triflers, 
 well born, beautiful, accon plished, and brave, the perfect model 
 of the cavalier. His sonnet to Althea from prison, begin- 
 ning 
 
 " When love with, unconfined wings 
 Hovers within my gates/' 
 
 is a sweet, almost heroic embodiment of the cavalier's religion, 
 which, all compact of love and loyalty, leaves a higher reverence 
 and deeper devotion to the puritan. The last stanza 
 
 " Stone walla do not a prison make, 
 Kor iron bars a rage ; 
 Minds innocent and quiet take 
 That for a hermitage. 
 If I have freedom in my love 
 And in my soul am fixe, 
 Angels alone that soar above 
 Enjoy such liberty," 
 
 will long be quoted by many who know nothing of the writer. 
 
 Lovelace's Lucas to Lucy Sacheverell will go down to posterity 
 vvitli Waller's Sacharissa the fair Lady Dorothy Sidney. When 
 Lovelace, after serving the King in both his expeditions against 
 the Scots, left England, he raised and commanded an English 
 regiment in the service of Prance. He was desperately wounded 
 at Dunkirk, and the news of his death being generally believed, 
 his Lucastii married on the strength of the report, and 
 poor Lovelace returned to England to find her the wife of 
 another. Reckless and broken-hearted, he fell into melancholy 
 and misery, was long imprisoned, and after his release died in 
 abject wretchedness, at the age of forty, in 1659. 
 
THE AKT TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 Waller (Ifri) is a political as well as a poetical personage of 
 the period. Born in 1603, he was a member of Charles's first 
 parliaments, and though originally a courtier, inclined from his 
 first conspicuous appearance in public life in the parliament of 
 1639, to the cause of the Commons, greatly to the annovance of 
 the King, who had relied on his support. In the long parliament 
 he was one of the members chosen to conduct the prosecution of 
 the ship-money judges. But lie afterwards fell away from the 
 Parliament, as the breach between parties widened. He sent 
 1000 broad pieces to the King, when he set up his standard at 
 Nottingham in 1042; and when appointed as one of the par- 
 liamentary commissioners to treat with Charles for peace, after the 
 battle of Edgehill, he was already in heart a traitor to the Parlia- 
 ment. Immediately afterwards he engaged in the plot, known by 
 his name, and, when it was discovered, basely purchased his own 
 life by turning informer. He was expelled from the house, and, 
 after spoiulii.g the best part of his fortune in bribes, obtained a 
 commutation of his sentence of death, to one of perpetual banish- 
 ment, and a fine of ten thousand pounds. He returned to 
 England by permission of Cromwell, in 1652, and employed on 
 panegyrics of the Lord Protector the same pen which after the 
 restoration was as active in fulsome adulation of Charles II. I It- 
 died in 1C87, after serving in the only parliament summoned by 
 James. 
 
 Of the second epoch of the civil war, among the most conspicuous 
 personages here is the gallant and loyal Duke of Richmond (lliSJ, 
 who t : tood by his dying master on the scaffold, and was one of 
 the scanty band that followed the body of Charles, through the 
 falling snow, to his hurried and irreverent interment at Windsor. 
 Here, too, is the Duke of Hamilton (129), the leader of the Presby- 
 terian party in Scotland, who invaded England iu 1648, at the head 
 of the Scottish forces, which took up in arms against the inde- 
 pendent party. Defeated by Cromwell in the battle of Preston, 
 he was beheaded on the same scaffold with the brave Lord Capei 
 and the inconstant Holland. Capel was captured by Fairfax, 
 along with Lord Norwich (formerly Sir Charles Goring), Sir 
 Charles Lucas (130), Sir George Lisle, and Sir Bernard Gascoyne, 
 after their heroic defence of Colchester, in August, IGiS. Lucas 
 
THE BRITISH PORTRAIT GALLERY. 53 
 
 and Lisle were shot, the officers having surrendered without con- 
 ditions for their personal safety. Lord Capel and Lord Norwich 
 were tried for high treason, and their original sentence of banish- 
 ment having been reversed by the commons without the concur- 
 rence of the lords, they were again tried by a high court of justice 
 specially erected for the purpose, after the execution of the King. 
 Cnpel had escaped from the Tower before the trial, but was re- 
 taken and suffered death with Hamilton and Holland, on March 
 the 9th, 1649. His closing hours were marked by admirable 
 courage, unflinching loyalty, and Christian resignation. Of the 
 many noble deaths of that terrible time, there is none nobler than 
 Capel's. One cannot but lament that the casting vote of the 
 Speaker, which saved Goring, was not sufficient to turn the scale 
 for Capel, w r hose sentence was confirmed but by three or four 
 voices. Had it not been for the stern determination of Ireton 
 and Cromwell, all would probably have been spared except 
 Hamilton, for whom, as an invader of the kingdom, there was no 
 pardon to be expected. There can be no question that these men 
 were all traitors against the Parliament, the only de facto autho- 
 rity in the kingdom at that time. 
 
 To this second epoch belongs the great rise of Cromwell from 
 his post of commander of the Parliamentary cavalry under Fairfax, 
 to the chief command in the Scotch and Irish campaigns, and, 
 later still, to the lord-generalship of all the armies of the Parlia- 
 ment, and finally, to the lord protectorate of Great Britain. Of 
 his efficient instruments Ireton, Fleetwood, Hammond, Pride, 
 Whalley, and the other major-generals formed under his eye 
 there are no portraits in our gallery. Only Blake (151), the great 
 sea general, is here ; a bluff, burly man ; of such a lion-like port 
 as we might look for in the unwearied assailant of the Dutch and 
 Spaniards ; a worthy right hand for Cromwell on the sea, where 
 he died, worn out by scurvy, in sight of Plymouth, after his vic- 
 tory of Santa Cruz, in 1657. The omission of a portrait of George 
 Monk is serious. Altogether, we could have wished that in this 
 part of the collection had been included more portraits of the 
 earnest and resolute men who composed the court which con- 
 demned Charles, and those who so stoutly supported Cromwell in 
 his troubled protectorate. Mr. Peter Cunningham seems to have 
 
54 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 laid under contribution the galleries rather of royalist than of 
 roundhead families ; at all events, the leading figures of the pro- 
 tectorate are altogether wanting, as well as the fifth monarchy men, 
 Vane and his followers, Cromwell's most hitter and dangerous 
 antagonists. Nor is there even a portrait of Milton, Latin 
 secretary to the Parliament, who wore his eyes out in that 
 service. 
 
 We have now exhausted our illustrations of the civil wars and 
 the protectorate, and must pass to a very different stage,- the 
 gay and dissolute court of the Restoration. 
 
 \Ve have but to cross the nave of the Old Trafford Gallery, and 
 we are in a KCW historical world. The period of the Protectorate, 
 which lies between the first and second Charles, is comparatively 
 unrepresented, as we have said, and thus there is nothing to 
 weaken the force of the contrast between the physiognomies of 
 the two reigns. Instead of the noble Charlotte de la Tremouille, 
 and the heroic Jane Cavendish women who encouraged the 
 defenders of their castle walls against the cannon and pikes of 
 Fairfax and Cromwell we must be content, now, with a luxurious 
 Louise de Querouaille (ISO- 198), a full-blown Barbara Villiers 
 (1S4.-185A), or a roguish Nell Gvvynne (197) heroines of the 
 matted gallery and the alcove, whose warfare was with nothing 
 nobler than a rival favourite, and whose best-fought field of battle 
 was the basset table. Prom the sad, sober, resolute heroes of the 
 mighty struggle between King and commons, we must descend 
 to the intriguers of the Cabal, the titled pensioners of the French 
 King, the sharpers of Whitehall, the sots, bullies, and rake-hells 
 of Covent Garden and Drury Lane to such ignoble parodies of 
 the statesman as Bennet (186), or Brouncker (230) such apes 
 of the poet as Rochester (227 A) such scholars as Busby (228A) 
 and such divines as Spratt (228 u). If we have here but two 
 of the five members of the Cabal, the politic and versatile Shaftes- 
 bury (229), and the plausible and pretentious Arlington (186), 
 have we not en revanche personages whose influence was lor that 
 vile reign beyond the power of ministers Jacob Hall, the rope 
 dancer (22(5), the favourite of the favourite, and a whole covey 
 of. royal mistresses Madame Carwell (1SO-198), and La Belle 
 Sfcuart (181), in the costume of Britannia, as she may have been 
 
THE BRITISH PORTRAIT GALLERY. 55 
 
 attired when the King imagined that delicate compliment of 
 taking her handsome face and figure for the representation of 
 the national nymph, on the copper coinage of the realm the 
 impetuous imperious "Bab Villiers" (184, 185), better known 
 by her first title of Lady Castlemaine than by her later addition 
 of Duchess of Cleveland, and "pretty witty Nell" (197), the 
 most loveable or, rather, likeable of that wanton troop of brazen 
 beauties. A royal mistress in the costume of Britannia, is the 
 aptest symbol of that reign. It typifies the life of Charles II. (182), 
 in little. His mistress was ever to him more than his kingdom ; 
 and all he loved and cared for in the royal dignity was the means 
 it afforded of an easier and more liberal supply of money to 
 squander on the pimps and prostitutes by whom he loved to 
 surround himself. He would have sold his rights to Cromwell 
 for a good round sum. He did sell himself to the French King, 
 and became the hired servant of Louis XIV. to escape the 
 annoyance of a parliament that was always making difficulties 
 about money. 
 
 It was natural in Mr. Cunningham to represent this reign 
 mainly by the lazy, loose-draped, luxurious beauties with whose 
 memory its ignominious annals are most closely interwoven. 
 Besides those we have enumerated, here are, of De Gram- 
 mont' s heroines, La Belle Hamilton (216) herself one of the 
 most respectable of that briliant bevy and the Countess of 
 Southesk (217), the Lady Carnegie of Antony Hamilton's lively 
 memoir. Of the former, the story is well known, that, after she 
 had been wooed and won by the lively Philibert Chevalier De 
 Grammont, that worthy, having received his pardon from Louis 
 XIV. was in such a hurry to return to his beloved Versailles, that 
 he forgot poor Elizabeth Hamilton, vows, marriage promise, and 
 all. Luckily, the lady had brothers, who followed and overtook 
 De Grammont, at Dover, just as he was going to embark. They 
 entered the room where he was with stern faces, " Chevalier de 
 Grammont," they said, " have you forgotten nothing in London?" 
 The witty Frenchman read British earnest in the looks, which 
 gave point to the question. " I beg your pardon," was his reply, 
 "I forgot to marry your sister." They returned together, and 
 Elizabeth Hamilton became Madame, afterwards Countess de 
 
56 THE AKT TKEASUBES EX11IBXT1OV. 
 
 Grammont. The story of Lady Carnegie, and the revenge taken 
 by her brutal, bull-baiting, cock-fighting husband, for her infidelity 
 to him with the Duke of York, is too foul to Bully our columns. 
 Here, too, is Anne Hyde (206), daughter of Lord Chancellor 
 Clarendon, whose secret marriage with the Duke of York, at 
 Breda, so discomposed her father and so disgusted the royal 
 family, when, in 1660, the pregnancy of the lady rendered longer 
 concealment impossible. The Duke of Gloucester used to leave 
 the room when she entered it, swearing " she smelt so strong 
 of her father's green bag ;" and the impetuous Queen Dowager 
 declared "whenever that woman should be brought to Whitehall 
 by one door, she would instantly quit it by another, and never 
 enter it again." Anne Hyde, however, was a woman of much 
 sounder sense, and more good qualities, than ninety-nine out of 
 a hundred in that blackguard court. There is not an incident in 
 all the clironiquc scandalise of Whitehall in which one can more 
 completely sympathise than the duchess's triumph over Sir George 
 Berkeley and the other libertines who had maligned her as the 
 duke's mistress, when the duke presented her to them as his wife. 
 To conceal their surprise and astonishment, Clarendon tells us, 
 "they fell upon their knees to kiss her hand, which she gave them 
 with as much majesty as if she had been used to it all her life." 
 Her daughters Mary and Anne were successively queens of 
 England. The duchess died a Roman catholic. That is a striking 
 anecdote in Burnet, of her deathbed, when Blandford, Bishop of 
 Rochester, entering the room suddenly, found Queen Catherine 
 of Braganza sitting by the dying woman. " Blandford," says 
 Burnet, " was so modest and humble that he had not presence of 
 mind enough to begin prayers, which probably would have driven 
 the Queen out of the room ; but that not being done, she pre- 
 tended kindness, and would not leave her. He happened to say, 
 ' 1 hope you continue still in the truth ; ' upon which she asked, 
 * What is truth ? ' and then, her agony increasing, she repeated 
 the word, 'Truth! truth! truth!' often; and so died." She 
 was but thirty-four when she expired, with that awful question 
 on her lips. 
 
 No personage of that reign has so good a claim on our sympa- 
 thies as poor Catherine of Bragan/a, who sits here (215) by the 
 
THE BRITISH PORTRAIT GALLERY. 
 
 57 
 
 side of La Belle Stewart, as she must often have done sorely 
 against her will, while she lived. The letter in which Charles 
 gives Lord Clarendou an account of the first impression she made 
 on him is preserved in the British Museum, and id, on the whole, 
 favourable to the Queen. But to his intimates Charles held a 
 very different language, telling Colonel Legge, that when he first 
 saw her, he " thought they had brought him a bat instead of a 
 woman." We may fancy the poor little shy secluded foreigner, 
 standing timidly in the midst of those flaming favourites, sur- 
 rounded by her only friends, her Portuguese women, with their 
 olive faces, and huge fardingales, as Lord Dartford's harsh pen has 
 described her "short and broad, of a swarthy complexion; one of 
 her fore teeth standing out which held up her upper lip ; exceed- 
 ingly proud, and ill-favoured." Those nearer her person, however, 
 give a very different account of her, both as to face and character. 
 Her portrait here does not at all bear out Lord Dartford's repul- 
 sive word-painting. She appears in it in the Portuguese costume, 
 A\hich the ridicule of her husband afterwards persuaded her to 
 change for the loose Jow gown, showing the bare bosom and naked 
 urms, which did not suit her swarthy skin quite so well as it did 
 the alabaster charms of La Belle Querouaille, or the healthy red 
 and white of pretty Nelly, Every manly heart must feel fur this 
 poor Queen, when she read the name of Lady Castlemaine, in the 
 list of her ladies of the bedchamber, and indignantly drew her pen 
 through it. But she was not to be spared even a worse insult, 
 when, a little later, her husband shame on him led up the 
 flaunting favourite to Catherine, at Hampton Court, and formally 
 presented the acknowledged mistress, to the young, strange, 
 unfriended wife. Catherine first grew pale ; then burst into 
 tears; then the blood gushed from her nose, and she fainted. 
 It is sad to follow the gradual breaking down of this natural 
 disgust, under the combined influence of the King's coldness, the 
 open neglect of the Court, the solicitations even of Clarendon, the 
 most respectable of the royal advisers, and stronger than all the 
 recklessness of despair. We may conceive what we will of the 
 bitter struggles that must have wrung that lonely and friendless 
 heart, in the interval between that fainting-fit at Hampton Court 
 and her sharing the same coach with Charles and Lady Castle- 
 
58 TE AET TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 maine. "We shall net easily surpass the reality of Catherine's 
 suffering. Almost more touching than even the thought of these 
 sorrows, are her awkward little efforts to win some place in her 
 husband's cold and callous heart, by acts and arts such as he loved 
 by dressing loosely, and low ; by breaking out into rude frolics, 
 and practical jokes and excesses, which, however they might 
 become La Belle Jenning?, or Winifred \\Y-lls, must have looked 
 strangely out of place on the part of the grave, dark-browed, sad- 
 eyed Portuguese. And what a past of suppressed sorrow is 
 revealed in that reply to the Duchess of Cleveland, when, entering 
 the Queen's closet while Her Majesty was under the hands of the 
 hairdresser, she expressed her surprise that the Queen could sit so 
 long. " I have had so much reason to exercise my patience, that 
 I can bear it very well." She must have learnt to bear most 
 indignities than can be laid on a woman. La Belle Stewart was 
 one of her maids of honour; but the Queen never ventured into 
 her dressing-room, it is said, without listening to hear if the King 
 were there. 
 
 The distance that separates the England of the Protectorate 
 from the England of the Kestoration is not ill measured by 
 the difference between the first and the second Duke of Albe- 
 marle ; between George Monk, the stern, silent, thoughtful 
 soldier, never wasting a word, or doing an act, without ulterior 
 meaning ; the sturdiest assertor of English glory on the sea ; the 
 rescuer of his country from the perils of anarchy, tit the risk of 
 his own head; and Christopher Monk, the second and last duke, 
 known only by his extravagance, his amours, and his love of the 
 bottle, to which he fell a victim, for he is s:ii<l to have died drunk 
 in 1688, the year after he had realised 00 ; 000/. of the 300 5 OOOZ. 
 fished up by Captain Phipps, from the wreck of a Spanish 
 galleon off Hispaniola. "When he died he held the governor- 
 ship of Jamaica, the conquest of which was so largely due to 
 the prestige and power which his father and Blake had given to 
 the British navy. There must have been in the second duke 
 more of his mother, the coarse, tipsy, foul-mouthed Anne Clarges, 
 the ex-laundress and farrier's daughter, than of his sagacious, 
 silent father. Let us record, at this point, one anecdote of the 
 first duke. "When the plague of 1666 reached its height, and all 
 
THE BRITISH PORTRAIT GALLERY. 59 
 
 that could hud fled from the doomed city to the pleasures of the 
 court at Oxford, three men staid behind, visiting the pest-houses, 
 guarding deserted property, comforting and aiding the sick. 
 These three were George Monk, Sheldon Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, and Lord Craven (125), who deserved notice in our article 
 on the reign of Charles I. as one of the most chivalrous of cava- 
 liers, and t.he devoted and noble lover of the Queen of Bohemia. 
 Lady Ogle (212), afterwards the contracted bride of Thomas 
 Thynne, and eventually Duchess of Somerset, deserved a place 
 here, as the greatest heiress of her time, the heroine of a bloody 
 romance, and the wife of Charles Seymour, the proudest member 
 of the proudest family of the British peerage. She was heiress 
 of Jocelyn Percy, the eleventh Earl of Northumberland, and was 
 left a " virgin widow," in 1680, by Henry Cavendish, Earl of 
 Ogle, son and heir of Henry, the second Duke of Newcastle (187). 
 She was contracted by her mother to Thomas Thynne, of Long- 
 leat, better known as Tom of Ten Thousand, from his great 
 wealth, the bosom friend of Monmouth, the Issachar of Dryden's 
 Absalom and Achitophel. In consequence of the bride's extreme 
 youth her mother interposed a year's delay between the contract 
 and the marriage. In that interval the young bride expressed a 
 strong distaste of the inchoate union, and .this, and her wealth, 
 encouraged Count Konigsmark, the most brilliant type of the 
 courtly adventurer, who, for this age, replaces the knight-errant 
 of the days of chivalry to remove Thynne, in order himself to 
 secure the young bride and her vast possessions. He employed 
 three foreign assassins in his service Vratz, Boroski, and Stern 
 who shot Thynue in his coach in Pall Mall, near the corner 
 where the Opera colonnade now stands, on the night of Tuesday 
 the 12th of February, 1682. Konigsmark was tried for the 
 murder, but acquitted. The three bravos were hung on the scene 
 of the deed. It was the younger brother of this Konigsmark who 
 was the lover of the ill-fated Dorothea, Princess of Zell, the wife 
 of our first George. The younger Konigsmark was waylaid and 
 murdered, b}' the Elector's orders, while on his way from an 
 assignation in the Electress's apartments ; and the guilty wife 
 was consigned to the prison in which she spent the rest of her 
 life. Lady Ogle afterwards married Charles Seymour, the proud 
 
60 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 Duke of Somerset, so long chancellor of the University of Cam- 
 bridge, and one of the principal agents in bringing over the 
 Prince of Orange, after his dismissal from the post of lord of the 
 bedchamber by James, for his refusal to assist at the public 
 reception of the Count d'Ada, the Pope's nuncio. He told the 
 King he could not serve him on this occasion, being assured it 
 was contrary to law. The King asked him if he did not know he, 
 the King, was above the law? The Duke replied that, if the 
 King was above the law, he himself was not; and so retired 
 from his office with all the dignity of a Somerset. 
 
 The portrait of Antony Ashley Cooper is one which, if physio- 
 gnomy were a perfect science, ought to find us long employment, 
 in deciphering the puzzling lines in which such a character should 
 be written on the lace. One of the most active and valued mem- 
 bers of parliament under the Protectorate he was the centre 
 figure in Oliver's great council; the principal agent in upsetting 
 Kichnrd Cromwell, and bringing back Charles II. ; the soul of the 
 Cabal, and the most unscrupulous of the court party, as he was 
 afterwards the most daring and determined leader of the opposi- 
 tion. No hand less masterly than Dry den's should be called in to 
 unravel the twisted threads of one of the most checkered webs of 
 character ever woven in a human soul : 
 
 ' ' For close designs and crooked counsels fit, 
 Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit : 
 Restless, uufixed in principles and place, 
 In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace 
 A fiery soul, which worketh out its way, 
 Fretted the pigmy body to decay, 
 And o'er informed the tenement of clay. 
 A daring pilot in extremity ; 
 
 Tle.-ised with the danger, when the waves went high 
 He sought the storms ; but, for a calm unfit, 
 "\Vould steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit. 
 Great wits are sure to madness near allied, 
 And thin partitions do their bounds divide; 
 Else, why should he, with wealth and honour bl:-st, 
 Refuse his age the needful hours of rest, 
 Punish a body which he could not please, 
 Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease ? 
 And all to leave what he with toil had won, 
 To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son. 
 
THE BRITISH PORTKAIT GALLE11Y. Gl 
 
 In friendship ialse, implacable in hate, 
 
 Resolved to ruin, or to rule the state; 
 
 To compass this, the triple bond he broke, 
 
 The pillars of the public safety shook, 
 
 And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke ; 
 
 Then seized with fear, yet still affecting lame, 
 
 Usurped a patriot's all -atoning name. 
 * * * * * 
 
 Held up the buckler of the people's cause 
 Against the crown, and skulked behind the laws." 
 
 The cool unprincipled nature of the man is well illustrated by his 
 reply to Charles, who said to him. one day, " Shaftesbury, 1 
 believe thou art the wickedest fellow in my dominions." " For a 
 subject, sire," replied the earl, " I believe I am." The one bright 
 point in his career is his having been the main instrument in 
 passing the Habeas Corpus Act, in 1679, at the height of the 
 dangerous days of Popish, Meal-tub, arid Rye House plots, 
 
 Here, too, by the ignominious figures of Arlington (238), 
 Brouucker (230), and Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (227A), 
 appropriately painted as crowning his monkey with a laurel 
 crown, in scorn of poetry, hangs one of the two noblest 
 examples, which even that reign affords, of patriotism and public 
 virtue, William Lord Russell (227), who, with Algernon Sidney, 
 expiated on the scaffold the crime of loving liberty in slavish 
 times. For the sake of the protest involved in such lives and 
 deaths, against the baseness of their contemporaries, Sidney 
 should have been here, and Russell's noble wife, to remind 
 us that all the statesmen of the Restoration were not Shaftes- 
 burys and Lauderdales, and all its women not Castlemaines and 
 Querouailles. 
 
 The short and troubled three years of the reign of James IT. are 
 scarcely illustrated here, save by portraits of James and his ill-fated 
 Queen, Mary of Modena, and the brilliant, shallow Monmouth 
 who is represented in the Clarendon picture (174) listening to 
 the pernicious counsels of the arch-plotter Ferguson. Nor is the 
 reign of William much more fully illustrated by the full-lengths 
 of that king and his wife (195 and 19(5) the very portraits given 
 by the monarch to his favourite Bent i nek, who is himself 
 represented in a bad picture of Kneller's (23lE), of which nothing 
 but the authenticity can excuse its stiffness and lack of vitality. 
 
62 THE ABT TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 Iii common with the literature of Charles II., our quaint old 
 friend, Pepys (224), will be welcome to all. Here he is in 
 the original picture, by Hales, who, after painting Mrs. Pepys, 
 " poor wretch," to Samuel's satisfaction, " a most pretty picture, 
 and mighty like my wife," his price being first duly ascertained 
 by the cautious clerk of the Acts, had the honour of painting 
 Samuel himself. "To Hales's" writes Pepys, in that most 
 inimitable of all diaries of his, under the date of March 17, 
 1606 "and paid him 1 47. for the picture, and I/. 5*. for the 
 frame. This day I began to sit, and he will make me, I think, 
 a very fine picture. He promises it shall be as good as my 
 wife's, and I to sit to have it full of shadows, and do almost break 
 my neck, looking over my shoulder, to make the picture for him 
 to work by. Home, having a gre:t cold ; so to bed, drinking 
 butter-ale." Here is the very Indian gown which he hired to 
 be drawn in, and in which he had many a pleasant half hour at 
 the painter's, with Mrs. Pierce the sly old rogue and the 
 " niusique," Samuel's own song," Beauty retire," in the hand, 
 "painted true," as the diary duly records. By the aide of Pepys 
 hangs his correspondent and brother diarist, the amiable, pedantic 
 Evelyn (225). Here, too, are Newton (222-240), and Locke 
 (223), and Wren (229E) ; and, further off, among the kit-cat 
 portraits, Dryden (265), Vanbrugh (260), and Congreve (267) 
 all names too great in their respective walks of philosophy, art, 
 didactic poetry, and wit, to be profaned by comment of ours. 
 
 The reign of Anne is like one of those meetings of tidal waters 
 where the voyager is tossed in the hurly-burly of the opposing 
 forces till he is sickened and confused, and only discovers the 
 overmastering strength of the dominant current \\hen it has borne 
 him out of the broken water of the tide-way. In this reign 
 struggled for the last time, as equal antagonists, the claims of 
 prerogative and the powers of constitutionalism. It is an inter- 
 regnum between the arbitrary rule of the Stuarts and the law- 
 limited government of the house of Hanover. It is true that the 
 former was put down by the revolution of 1688, but William's 
 whole reign was a struggle at once with those who repented of 
 the share they had taken in the convention, with the non-jurors 
 and Jacobites who regarded all the convention had done as deadly 
 
THE BEITISH PORTRAIT GALLEBY. 63 
 
 sin, and with the rival ambitions which the Revolution had let 
 loose. The strong will and iron self-control of the Dutch prince 
 kept these enemies dawn > but during the reigu of this weak 
 woman who succeeded him the monarch disappears from the 
 scene as a iarce, and holds a place only as a puppet, the mastery 
 of whose strings is the object of contention, between the leaders 
 of rival parties. Anne's reign was the hey-day of bed-chamber 
 women and back-stairs influence. If under Charles II. and 
 James II. we see a race of statesmen corrupted by the demora- 
 lising influences of a revolutionary time, we find under Anne a 
 set of politicians whose baseness was engendered by the tempta- 
 tions and opportunities which a disputed right to the throne 
 opened to men in office, and for which the peculiar weaknesses of 
 a woman left a field open which, under the stern hand of William, 
 had been closely barred from access. Here is Anne herself 
 (230D) fat, placid, irresolute alternately the slave of the in** 
 perious Sarah Jennings. Duchess of Marlborough, or of the more 
 insinuating Mrs. Masham (why are neither of them here ?) the 
 puppet at one time work, d by the whig hands of Corners (2G3) 
 and Godolphin ; at another by the tory fingers of Harley (260), 
 St. John, and Harcourt (216). In spite of the absence from the 
 gallery of those central figures of the time, the two favourites, 
 fierce Duchess Sarah and supple Mrs. Abigail : of such pro- 
 minent politicians as Godolphin, Nottingham and Bolingbroke, 
 of such partisans as Sacheverell, of such generals as Mordaunt, 
 Earl of Peterborough, the reign of Anne may be said to be tfeU 
 illus: rated here, in comparison at least with that of William 
 which precedes, and that of the first George which follows it. 
 
 Knrller's half-length of the great Duke of Marlborough (242) 
 gives but a faint image of that model of manly beauty. Tet, even 
 on this canvas, we may trace something of that serene and sweet 
 expression, which it is so difficult to reconcile with the current 
 theory of Marlborough's character for baseness, sordid love- of 
 money, and utter lack of truth and honour. There is no historical 
 hero about whom we find it so impossible to satisfy ourselves as 
 Marlborough. That he \VHS one of the greatest generals and most 
 profound masters of statecraft England has ever had, is univer- 
 sally admitted, ,But every other conclusion, on the subject of him 
 
64 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 is not only open to, but invites, dispute. We know of no 
 romance equal to the facts of his life II is career as court page, 
 his intrigues with the Duchess of Cleveland, his hair-breadth 
 'scopes from his royal rival ; his dexterous use of his sister 
 Arabella's influence over her lover the Duke of York, by which 
 he obtained his pair of colours in the Guards; his nice 
 playing f or a lead in the Revolution, when he held the issue of 
 the conflict in his own hand; his disgrace under William; his 
 restoration to favour ; his magnificent series of vi lories in the 
 war of the Succession Blenheim, Bamiliiee, Oudenarde, and 
 Malplaquet; l.is downfall before the conclusion of the peace of 
 Utrecht ; his complete triumph in less than three years after,- 
 all combine to make up a picture unequalled for brilliance of 
 colour, complexity of action, sharpness of contrast, variety and 
 magnificence of incident. The court, the council-room, and the 
 camp Itnd to it all they have of the brightest, subtlest, and most 
 stirring. The life of Marlborough still remains to be written. 
 AYe wish a biographer no better subject. 
 
 By Marlborough's side hangs the Duchess of Buckingham 
 (2-13), daughter of James by Catherine Sedley, the one of his 
 mistresses who said pleasantly of her royal lover, " I wonder why 
 he chooses us. We are none of us beautiful : and if we have wit 
 he is too dull to ficd it out." The Duchess of Buckingham 
 affected royal state, and "never ceased," says Wai pole, "labouring 
 to restore the House of Stuart, and to mark her filial devotion to 
 it." !She was, in fact, the very centre of the Jacobite intrigues all 
 her life long. Through her, the Pretender transmitted letters, even 
 to Sir Kobert Wai pole himself. He always carried them to the 
 King, who used coolly to read, endorse, and return them. The 
 Duchess of Bih kingham hated Sarah Duchess of Marlborough with 
 a perfect hatred ; Sarah, we can well believe, returned the feeling. 
 AY hen the former, about to bury her son, wrote to Sarah for the 
 loan of the funeral car, which had carried the great duke to the 
 grave, "It carried my Lord of Marlborough," replied the Marl- 
 borough, " and shall never be used for anybody else." I have con- 
 sulted the undertaker," was the Buckingham's rejoinder, "and he 
 tells me I may have a finer for twenty pounds." It is said that Pope, 
 after writing his celebrated character of Atossa, communicated it 
 
THE BRITISH PORTRAIT GALLERY. 65 
 
 to each duchess, pretending it was levelled at the other. "The 
 Buckingham believed him," says Walpole ; " the Marlborough had 
 more sense, and knew herself, and gave him a thousand pounds 
 to suppress it ; and yet he left the copy behind him." Our 
 readers should turn to the passage in the second epistle of the 
 Moral Essays. The lines deserve to be remembered : 
 
 ' ' Offend her, and she knows not to forgive ; 
 
 Oblige her, and she'll hate you while you live. 
 * * * * 
 
 Strange ! by the means defeated of her ends, 
 , By spirit robbed of power, by warmth of friends, 
 By wealth of followers without one distress, 
 Sick of herself through very selfishness 
 Atossa, cursed with every granted prayer, 
 Childless, with all her children, wants an heir, 
 To heirs unknown descends the unguarded store, 
 Or wanders, heaven directed, to the poor." 
 
 The absence of a portrait of the fiery Duchess of Marlborough is, 
 as we have said, a serious deficiency in the illustrations of the 
 reign of Anne. 
 
 Here, however, is one of the allies of the Marlboroughs, during 
 the most eventful part of the great duke's career, Somers (263), 
 as venerable a figure among the whig heroes of the robe as Lord 
 "William Russell is among whig parliamentary worthies one of 
 the counsel for the seven bishops, the foremost of the framers 
 of the declaration of rights, the most stainless of all the mem- 
 bers of the convention, impeached for his share in the par- 
 tition treaties in 1701, and owing his escape less to the ground- 
 lessness of the charges against him than to the quarrels of the 
 lords and commons. Here is another of the whig " glories of the 
 gown," Oowper (234), twice chancellor. He presided as lord 
 steward at the trial of the rebel lords in 1715, and stands only 
 second to Lord Somers among the judicial notables of his party. 
 
 We may as well complete our leash of lord chancellors by 
 Harcourt (246), as determined an assertor of divine right as 
 Somers and Cowper were of Magna Charta ; the opposer of the 
 attainder of Sir John Fenwick for his share in the assassination 
 plot, when Cowper was the foremost advocate for 'attainder ; the 
 attorney-general who conducted the prosecution before the jury 
 
6G THE ABT TBEASUBES EXHIBITION. 
 
 which sentenced Defoe to the pillory ; the counsel of Dr. Sach- 
 everell ; the lord keeper on the return of the tories to power in 
 1711, and chancellor in 1713. He was a stately but amiable man, and 
 a lover of letters. His face bespeaks refinement and high breeding. 
 
 Robert Harley (260) is more agreeably remembered as the 
 friend of Swift and Pope, Gay and Arbuthnot as the minister 
 who could slip away from the cares and quarrels of the council 
 board, to make a merry fifth in the concoction of a chapter of 
 ' Martinus Scriblerus," than as the fellow-plotter for power 
 with the brilliant but unprincipled St. John, the head of the tory 
 administration of 1710, and afterwards the Jacobite intriguer at 
 the bedside of the dying Queen. There is no doubt that the 
 party of which Harley was the head really contemplated the pro- 
 clamation of the Pretender, as soon as the Queen's breath was 
 out of her body. But they knew they risked their heads in the 
 game, and they cared more for their heads than for the rights of 
 the house of Stuart. Atterbury (262), bishop of Eochester, the 
 would-be LAUD of the expected grandson of Charles I. was for 
 proclaiming James Edward at Charing Cross ; and said, bitterly, 
 when he found his bold counsel unseconded, " There is the best 
 cause in England lost by want of spirit." Atterbury died in 
 that exile from which the mistaken and ill-rewarded leniency of 
 Walpole allowed St. John to return. 
 
 And here are some of that bright cluster of wits, which shone 
 around Harley and St. John, with a lustre which has invested 
 that turbulent, intriguing, ignoble age of Anne with a certain 
 Augustan air. We may not be disposed to go the length of our 
 grandfathers in our estimate of the men who ate Kit Cat's 
 mutton pies in Shire Lane, or of their rivals round the more aristo- 
 cratic board of "The Brothers" at the Thatched House. But 
 still Addison (269), Pope (271, 273), Swift (272), Prior (270, 279), 
 Gay, Arbuthnot, and Steele (268), among didactic poets and 
 essayists; Vanbrugh (266), Congreve (267), and Wycherley, 
 among comic wits, are names not likely soon to be ousted from 
 the front rank of their respective divisions in English literature. 
 These six portraits (263-269) are interesting memorials of that gay 
 and witty whig society which met at Eat Cat's, the mutton pie- 
 man, in the unsavoury region of Shire Lane, while the high-flying 
 
THE BBITISH POKTEAIT GALLEBT. 67 
 
 tories were drinking " The King over the water" at the October 
 Club, in King Street, Westminster. We owe the Kit Cats two 
 things the use of the word " toast," as applied to a reigning 
 beauty, and the name of a canvas of the particular dimensions 
 used for these portraits. Kneller, as one of his last public works, 
 painted forty of this club in this uniform size, for worthy old 
 Jacob Tonson, Pope's first publisher, whom we see here (264), in 
 his character of secretary of the club looking very pompous and 
 patronising, with " Paradise Lost " in his hand, in everlasting 
 memory, perhaps, of the ten pounds, which is all, as far as we know 
 by certain evidence, that the poem brought in to its author from 
 the booksellers. The kit-cat club was at once convivial, literary, and 
 political. Its glasses were inscribed with the names of celebrated 
 beauties, and verses in their honour. In a room in that blind 
 alley " now tenanted by abandoned women, or devoted to the 
 sale of greengroceries Halifax has conversed, and Somers unbent, 
 Addison mellowed over a bottle, Congreve flashed his wit, Van- 
 brugh let loose his easy humour, Garth talked and rhymed." * 
 The leaders of the whig party, as well as its wits and poets, were 
 members of the Kitcat Club. 
 
 Swift (272) had forsaken the whigs in disgust, when the 
 ministerial revolution of 1710 brought Harley and the tories to 
 the top of the wheel. The portrait of the Dean of St. Patrick's 
 here exhibited represents him, not in one of those frequent savage 
 fits of his when his dark blue eye, " rolling resentment," had 
 something terrific in its intense fierceness and scorn but in one 
 of those milder moods, in which he exercised such fatal empire over 
 the hearts of his poor victims, Stella and Vanessa. Thackeray, in 
 his " Lectures on the Humourists," has painted Swift powerfully, 
 but with a pencil dipped in unmixed gall and lamp-black. Swift's 
 was a much more checkered character than Thackeray makes out. 
 Much as he loved a lord, there was one thing Swift loved better, 
 and that was power. Eor power, or in the exercise of power, he 
 would snub and bully any lord that ever wore a ribbon. That he 
 was foul and fierce in his invectives must be laid to the coarseness 
 of the time rather than of the man. But he was firm in his 
 private friendships, unselfish, and fond of doing kind acts, of which 
 
 * " National Review," No. VIII. April, 1857, "The Clubs of London." 
 
68 THE ART TREASUEES EXHIBITION. 
 
 many are recorded, with more self-contempt than self-praise, in 
 his journal to Stella. As for his relations with the other sex t u>\ 
 involve a mystery, under which two passionate hearts broke. But 
 who shall say that Swift was not all his life conscious of the 
 dark malady that " crept like darkness through his blood." 
 He certainly anticipated madness long before it came, in his 
 sad prophecy, " I shall die like a tree at the top first." He 
 may well have shrunk from involving a loving woman in the 
 shndow of that black cloud. This has always appeared to us the 
 kindest interpretation of his aversion from marriage, and at least 
 as probable an explanation of his peculiar relation to Stella as any 
 that has yet been offered. 
 
 Of the figures around which the statesmen and wits of 
 the first half of the 18th century intrigued and plotted, squibbed 
 and lampooned the son and grandson of James II. the 
 first is wanting here. Of the second, and his morganatic wife, 
 the Countess of Albany, here are the portraits from Gopsal, the 
 home of that sturdy old Jacobite, Charles Jennens, Esq., who kept 
 a bedroom always fitted up for the true heir to the throne, and 
 who was known besides by his friendship for Handel. The 
 Messiah was composed in three weeks, at Gopsal, in a room 
 for which Hudson painted the portrait of the mighty composer 
 (238), exhibited here. 
 
 But the young Pretender belongs to the date of the second 
 George. Of the first King of the House of Hanover, there is no 
 portrait here, except a picture of him in infancy, as a Cupid, bow 
 in hand (244), by his clever mother, Sophia, electress of Hanover, 
 } oungest daughter of the Queen of Bohemia, and a pupil of 
 Honthorst's. Though a Jacobite in early life, Sophia became a 
 staunch whig, when the crown was, by the act of settlement 
 secured to her descendants, failing issue of Queen Anne. The pic- 
 ture is bad enough for a royal amateur. Of the celebrities of this 
 rtign here is Earl Stanhope (245), who succeeded the meteoric 
 Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, as general of the English army 
 in Spain, in the war of the succession, and was subsequently the 
 niosii influential minister of George I. "We should have wished 
 for a portrait of that strange compound of craziness and genius, 
 Mordaunt the friend of Swift and Pope, the stormer of Barce- 
 
THE BEITISH PORTRAIT GALLERY. 69 
 
 lona, the general who, at the head of 1,200 men, drove the armies 
 of France and Spain before him from Barcelona to Madrid, and 
 who, had he not been thwarted by his impracticable allies, would 
 have seated Charles on the throne of Spain, in the teeth of odds 
 w r hich it seemed past human skill and courage to struggle against. 
 Nor is there here a portrait of Sunderland, Stanhope's rival for 
 power under the first George nor of Craggs nor of any other 
 of the politicians and projectors, who were implicated in the South 
 Sea scheme, which exploded in this reign nor, a more serious 
 omission still, of Walpole, that most English of all ministers, who, 
 iu spite of ^the taint which participation in the work of parlia- 
 mentary corruption has left upon his name, may safely be pro- 
 nounced by far the most patriotic and clear-sighted statesman 
 between Cromwell and the great Lord Chatham. The absence of 
 his portrait is ill supplied by the presence of that of his first wife, 
 Catherine Shorter (287), the sensible and amiable mother of 
 Horace Walpole. 
 
 Under this reign, too, we may place Lady Mary "Wortley 
 Montague, here represented (274) by the Chevalier Husca as the 
 beauty who laughed Pope's love proposals to scorn, and not as the 
 slatternly blue-stocking of her later years; though the date of the 
 portrait, 1739, shows that the painter must have been representing 
 rather what Lady Mary was twenty years before, than what she 
 was when she sat to him. It was between 1718 and 1720 that her 
 intimacy with Pope began and ended. The principal beauty of 
 this face is in the bright black eyes so celebrated in their time 
 by Pope, and Prior, and Gray : 
 
 "What lady's that to whom he gently bends ? 
 Who knows not her ? Ah those are Wortley's eyes : 
 How art thou honoured, numbered with her friends, 
 For she distinguishes the good and wise." 
 
 Of all Lady Mary's titles to be remembered, -one at least deserves 
 still to be borne in mind, the introduction by her from Turkey 
 of the practice of inoculation for the small-pox, which, though 
 now displaced by the greater discovery of Jenner, was not the less 
 in its time a mighty blessing to Europe. At some distance from 
 Lady Mary hangs the portrait of her luckless, dare-devil, spend- 
 thrift son (254) in a Turkish dress, by Eomney. His adventures 
 
70 THE ABT TBEASUBES EXHIBITION. 
 
 make one of the richest romances of rascality something between 
 Ferdinand Count Fathom, Cassandra, and Barry Lyndon. The 
 portraits of Pope (171-273), which hang near that of Lady 
 Mary, are by Eichardson and Kneller. Pope's friend and 
 master in art, the painter Gervas, is here represented by his 
 portrait of the pleasant and amiable Duchess of Queensberry, 
 the sweet Kitty of Prior, and the true friend and guardian 
 angel of jolly, good-humoured, devil-may-care Gray. Of honest 
 Mat. Prior here are two portraits one by Rigaud, of interest 
 for its date (1699), painted in Paris when Mat. was diplomatically 
 busy in arranging the partition treaty. They made diplomatists 
 of poets in those days ; Gay was secretary of embassy in 
 Hanover, Prior filled the same office at the Hague, and after- 
 wards rose to be ambassador at Paris, till Queen Anne's 
 death unseated his friends in the ministry, and lost him his post. 
 Of all the stars of that literary Pleiad, Prior and Gay are perhaps 
 the pleasantest. Wit, good-fellowship, and easy temper in them 
 were not dashed by coldness as in Addison, nor by fierceness as in 
 Swift. Prior's own character of himself well sums up the man : 
 
 " Not to business a drudge, nor to faction a slave, 
 
 He strove to make interest and freedom agree ; 
 In public employment industrious and grave, 
 
 And alone with his friends, Lord, how merry was he I 
 
 " Now in equipage stately, now humbly on foot, 
 
 Both fortunes he tried, but to neither could trust ; 
 And whirled in the round, as the wheel turned about, 
 
 He found riches had wings, and knew man was bat dust.' r 
 
 The reign of George II. is represented by his own portrait, 
 and that of his shrewd and excellent Queen Caroline, whose rare 
 qualities we of this generation have learnt to appreciate from the 
 Memoirs of Lord Hervey, recently published. Backstairs influ- 
 ence was still potent in this reign. Sir Robert Walpole was not 
 too proud to profit by it. He owed his power quite as much to 
 the wise favour of the Queen, as to any appreciation of his 
 patriotism and good sense of which the King was capable. The 
 second Lord Harley (249), to whom we owe the Harleian library 
 and collections, may stand as an illustration of the Mecaenas-ship of 
 this period of titled patronage; but Lady Sundon (275)^ better 
 
THE BRITISH PORTRAIT GALLERY. 71 
 
 known as Mrs. Clayton, the all-powerful bed-chamber woman of 
 the Queen, is a more characteristic type of the time. This woman 
 owed her influence not to the weakness of her royal mistress's 
 will like Sarah Jennings or Abigail Hill but to her possession 
 of the secret of a bodily infirmity which Queen Caroline was so 
 anxious to conceal, that she dared refuse nothing to the person 
 who might have revealed it. Poor Caroline bore her tortures like 
 a Spartan, and the secret till her death was confined to the King, 
 Lady Sundon, the Queen's German nurse, and Sir Robert Wai- 
 pole, who found it out by the Queen's questioning him so closely 
 on the death of his first wife about rupture, which he thus dis- 
 covered to be the Queen's mysterious malady. Among the lite- 
 rary celebrities of this time here represented, we may distinguish 
 Thomson, the author of "The Seasons" (278) just the fat 
 sensual face we might expect in that lazy poet, who loved a soft 
 bed and good table better than aught in the world besides 
 and Young, the pompous mitre-hunting author of the " Night 
 Thoughts " (277). The military glories of the reign find their fit 
 representative in "William, Duke of Cumberland (252), whose 
 genuine good qualities are somewhat obscured to us by the recol- 
 lections of his stern persecution of the adherents of the Pretender, 
 and in his aide-de-camp, Earl Stair (253) of the family so painfully 
 connected at an earlier date with the bloody massacre of G-lencoe. 
 And now we reach the long and eventful reign of George III. 
 To do more here than to note, in the briefest catalogue fashion, 
 the many illustrations of that reign here presented, is out of the 
 question. Besides the King and Queen (288-289), full-lengths 
 from the hand of Reynolds, here are the King's early favourite and 
 most unpopular minister Lord Bute (290) ; his more glorious 
 servant, Lord Chatham (281) ; the good Lord Lyttleton (282) ; 
 and his unworthy successor (239), whose memory is embalmed 
 for futurity by his addition " the bad," and by the ghost story 
 connected with his death ; Lord Chancellor Camden (314) ; 
 "Warren Hastings (291) ; and Chatham's greater son, William 
 Pitt (319). Of the captains of that age, on land and sea, here 
 are Wolfe (315) ; the Duke of Wellington and Lord Hill (292, 
 293) ; St. Vincent and Howe (298, 299). The art of the reign is 
 represented by Reynolds's own portrait by himself (307) ; by Gains- 
 
72 THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION. 
 
 borough's, also from his own hand (310) ; by those of West and Law- 
 rence (301,302) ; Raeburn, Wilson, and Hoppner (303, 311, 312) ; 
 by Garrick and his wife (284, 285) ; charming heads, by Grains- 
 borough ; and by Mrs. Siddons at 29, and John Kemble (308, 309), 
 less satisfactory examples of Lawrence. Its men of letters may 
 fittingly be ranked under the noble presidency of Samuel Johnson 
 (304), who hangs by the side of his faithful Bozzy (305), in the 
 not very congenial neighbourhood of Gibbon (306) ; Hume (313) 
 is not far off his brother sceptic. Gilbert West (295), and Mason 
 (276), ought to have had the company of their friend and Magnus 
 Apollo, Gray, of whom here is no portrait. Coming nearer 
 to our own times, we may salute such familiar great ones as Burns 
 (317), Scott (329), Byron (339), Crabbe, Southey, Coleridge, 
 and Keats (331, 332, 333, and 337). Only Wordsworth and 
 Campbell are wanting to the glorious group ; Rogers (336) links 
 these poets to the social life of yesterday. Gifford and Lockhart, 
 successive editors of the "Quarterly," hang side by side (334, 
 335), their quarrels ended, their warfare done, their critic pens 
 blunted, and the gall in their ink stinging no longer : while the 
 science of the last half century is nobly recorded in Smeaton (296) 
 and Stephenson (294), in Priestley (321) and Dalton (323), 
 Davy (324), and Wollaston (325), and Banks (322). Lingering 
 on these last links of the glorious past, of which we are the in- 
 heritors, we feel proud to think that there were giants in our 
 fathers' time also ; and that whether we test their generation in 
 arts or arms, in science or in letters, it can boast as great a trea- 
 sure of memorable names as any period that has gone before. 
 
 Let us turn from the historical gallery of Old Trafford with the 
 thought of the American poet : 
 
 " Forms of great men,, all remind us 
 
 We may make our lives sublime ; 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 Footsteps on the sands of time." 
 
 BRADBVRY AND EVANS, 
 
 PIUNTKIIS TO THE MANCHESTER ART TREASURES KXHIBIT1OX, 
 WHITEFRIARS, LONDON. 
 
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