A far different man was his grandson, George III. 'Farmer George' is the thought which rises to the mind in looking at the plain sturdy features depicted by Zoffany (464), and by Reynolds (447). Court paraphernalia always seem to stifle art. Even Reynolds is not at his best here; yet that his sweetness of mind was able to lay hold of the smallest touch of natural feeling, is pleasantly shown in the little sketch of the marriage of this king. Pomp, gold plate, and prelates surround the Royal pair; but the sweet look of affection with which the monarch turns to his bride, invests even a state ceremonial with an engaging air. The crayon drawing of Queen Charlotte, by Cotes, is the most pleasant likeness of that queen we ever remember to have seen it gives the idea not so much of a flattered portrait, as of the best side of a person seen by the artist; and the occasion was one to draw out the best side of a young wife's character. The young mother, in early youth, scarce matured into womanhood, is represented with her infant (the Princess Royal) on her arm-raising the other hand as if to check some noise which might disturb the child. Other Royal portraits are to be found on the walls. That of the Prince of Wales, who died in 1751, the father of George III. is noticeable as recalling a now almost forgotten link in the chain of royalty. The picture also curiously shows the deference of the age to literature: the Prince holds a volume of Pope's Homer in his hand. Is it possible that his Royal Highness' acquaintance with that poet was not as entirely a stretch of imagination on the part of the painter as the two Cupids hovering in the air? The understanding and disposition of this prince were overpraised by those in opposition to his father's government, according to H. Walpole, who says of him, His best quality was generosity, his worst insincerity, and indifference to truth.' Another picture represents a pleasant domestic group, with the prince and his sisters engaged in a family concert. A more interesting picture is of the Duke of York (brother of George III.) surrounded by his friends, among whom may be mentioned Topham Beauclerk, who, though most dissimilar in mind and habits, was a friend of Dr. Johnson's. What a coalition' said Garrick, when he heard that Johnson and Beauclerk had made acquaintance; I shall have my old friend to bail out of the round-house: a propensity thither appears, by the way, rather to have marked the prince's friends. Two heavy pictures of the Duke of Cumberland will not fail to be noticed. It does not appear to have occurred to the Royal Duke, if we may judge from the painful records of that most miserable rebellion, that he was engaged in repressing sedition among his own fellow-subjects in a Christian country. Even if

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the records of the manner in which the Highlanders were treated after '45 were lost, these pictures would leave no reason to wonder at this prince being called the 'Butcher' of Culloden. A natural transition leads us to that rejected branch of the Royal Family, which, for more than half a century, disputed the succession to the throne. The flame of loyalty seems, if we may take the number of portraits as any guide, to have burnt with most fervour during the lifetime of the prince, sometimes dignified with the title of James III., sometimes stigmatized as the old Pretender. The claim to the throne is never abandoned on canvas. The boy is represented with the riband and insignia of the garter; as an elderly man, he still appears with the robes and collar of the order. The crown is yet by his side, but the gloomy undecided cast of countenance seems enough to make the most ardent Jacobite abandon the cause. Still, scions of the royal tree abound. The Princess Louisa appears often; a bright child, unconscious that her father has flung away his diadem. At last one sees the hopes of the exiled race sink in the young Chevalier. If the earlier portraits of this prince remind one of the gay lines describing how

'The news from Moidart came 'yestreen

Will soon gar mony ferlie,

That ships of war have just come in,

And lauded royal Charlie,'

the later ones, weak and undecided, enable us to realise the bitter remark, that half England was Jacobite, till the Pretender appeared. This shadowy prince is surrounded by the still more shadowy titles of the Countess of Alberstroff and the Duchess of Albany. The 'Prince Henry' appears also on the walls, first as a boy, afterwards as the priest, the full-blown cardinal, Duke of York. Adherents of the Stuart family appropriately find their places near them. Field-Marshal Keith; the Viscount Kenmure, the bravest laird that ever Galloway saw,' as the contemporary ballad has it; the Earl of Seaforth, also similarly celebrated in the farewell to Mackenzie, High Chief of Kintail.' The Earl of Nithsdale, known more by his wife's courage even than by his own devotion to the cause. The Countess Winifred, the heroine of the story, hangs close by. The simple tale of her efforts to obtain pardon for her husband, failing that, of her resolve to save his life at the risk of her own, has moved, will move many hearts, as long as real nobility of soul finds admirers. Among these higher examples of a true though a mistaken devotion, hangs the portrait of a very dissimilar adherent, Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat. This picture, though slightly sketched in, shows the power of an admirable artist. The celebrated Hogarth painted this miserable old man, not, as is

mistakenly said in the catalogue, in the Tower, but on his road thither. The skill which has given us so many satirical, yet solemn sermons on canvas, has hit off to the life the mean, selfish, proud old man. Yet this bad spirit rose at times to an almost stoical dignity. The painter has expressed the pride which in the last moments of torture could exclaim, 'Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori.' By the veteran's side is an open volume; the top of the page is marked 'Memoirs:' he is counting on his withered fingers the number of men each chief could summon to that last gathering of the clans.

As dissimilar a man as possible is represented close by, the fourth Earl of Chesterfield, whose fame with posterity, little as he would have expected it, rests on his advice to his son, the wellknown 'Chesterfield's Letters.' The blasé man of the world is marked in every line of the intriguing old face. Naval and military heroes of the age are there too, Admiral Edward Vernon, and the first Lord Anson, whose capture of the 'Manilla' galleon, and the efforts and sufferings of his career, read like a page from the life of Raleigh. A very clever picture, by Dance, in the gallery above, preserves the remembrance of another of our naval celebrities, whose career and exploits are also among the well-thumbed pages of our nursery lore-Captain Cook, the last, we may say, of a race of 'discoverers,' of whom, as it has been well said, their profession was the school of their nature, a high moral education which brought out what was most nobly human in them; and the wonders of earth, and sea, and sky were a real intelligible language, in which they heard God Almighty speaking to them. Near him is another portrait of an admiral, perhaps better known to our 'little people.' Every child remembers Cowper's sweet lines, telling how Admiral Kempenfelt met his death, how

'His sword was in its sheath,

His fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfelt went down,

With twice four hundred men.'

Close by is the Marquis of Granby, associated so much with public-house signs that one feels a momentary surprise in looking, not at a mere daub, but at a very clever portrait, by Reynolds. The marquis is likewise represented in another picture, by the same hand, if possible even more jovial and dashing-looking than the other. His popularity is incidentally commemorated in a very inferior picture, not in this exhibition, but in the possession of the Earl of Charlemont, representing the marquis giving alms to a soldier.

But we must for a moment pause in our list of names. However great the attractiveness of merc portraiture may be, there

are pictures in this exhibition well worthy notice, apart from the personages represented. And first, as in duty, so in interest, for some of the works of the greatest president our Academy of Painting has ever known, Sir Joshua Reynolds: loved in his life, honoured after his death; as Goldsmith wrote,

'Still born to improve us in every part,

His pencil our faces, bis manners our heart.'

Sir Joshua's portraits always deserve a careful attention. And in one point he was specially fortunate; he lived at a period when not only lovely faces certainly abounded (and when have they not in the history of our island ?) but at a time, in many ways, of a high standard of female excellence. The period of 'airs and vapours was past; the period of mere household drudgery to any in the easier of circles of life was past; the object of the good feminine education of the day was to refine and polishto develop, not the masculine, but the really feminine qualities. Now, must we not say, that time has brought round an oscillation, if not a reverse of this? That is we must not travel beyond our brief. To return to the gallery, the loveliest group of all the collection perhaps, is that of the Ladies Waldegrave. Few painters have ever been more fortunate in their sitters: few family groups those perpetual difficulties of the artist from the time of the 'Vicar of Wakefield' onwards-have ever been more skilfully arranged. The picture gives a pleasant glimpse into a naturally imagined English home of the period. The young ladies sit round their work-table; Lady Laura winds the silken skein which Lady Maria holds; Lady Horatia gently bends over her tambour frame. The powdered hair sets off the sweet complexions: nothing can be imagined more ladylike or more lovely than the group. Horace Walpole, for whom this picture of his grand-nieces was painted, has recorded that each of these 'charming girls' had at this time 'missed one of the first matches in the country,' one from death, the other two, incredible as it may seem, from the inconstancy of their lovers. Though this picture claims the pre-eminence among Sir Joshua's groups, other very sweet compositions deserve notice. Lady Charlotte and Lord Henry Spencer, in which the girl endeavours to act the fortune-teller, and pretends to foretell her brother's destiny-laughing all the while at the joke. More charming still is Georgina, duchess of Devonshire, dancing her infant on her knee the spring of life in the baby, the look of pleasure in the mother's face, form a brilliant picture. Close by, is a picture of which, in Sir Joshua's own opinion, the boy's head was the finest he had ever done.' It is the portrait of the first Lord Morley and his sister: the pleasant affection of the boy's arm round his sister's waist, the rich glow of the colour,-all is calm and happy. Another family group well may be noticed (847), the

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Countess of Ilchester and two of her daughters-the gleeful children play across the mother's knee. But it is not given even to the highest artists to be uniformly successful. The Angel of Truth' in Beattie's picture, thin-looking and unreal, contrasts unpleasantly with the very material figure of the author of the Minstrel' in his scarlet academic robes; and to array an English duchess successfully as a Diana, which may be seen attempted in No. 855, was scarcely a possible task. We may consider these awkward attempts at allegory as concessions to the conceits of the time forced upon the unwilling Sir Joshua. We turn with increased pleasure to some of the lovely faces of which his skill has preserved a record.

Want of space compels the mention only of a few. The Marchioness of Hertford, the pretty natural attitude of Miss Mary Townshend, the lovely Duchess of Ancaster, the Countess Spencer in the wide Woffington hat, the Countess of Powis, and perhaps loveliest of all, the Lady Dashwood caressing her child. The readers of Boswell's Johnson' may remember, how this lady, when Miss Graham, met the great lexicographer at dinner at Lord Newhaven's, and asked him to have a glass of wine with her. Dr. Johnson, who at that time had given up the use of wine, was rallied by his host at being caught in the dilemma of either drinking the glass or being wanting in courtesy to the lady. His reply shews his consciousness of her charms, Nay, I do not see how I am caught, but if I am caught I don't want to get free again.' Nor must Mrs. Crewe be passed over, who being a distinguished leader of the fashions of the day, is sentimentally painted as a shepherdess with her flock around her. To her we may apply Camillo's speech,

'I should leave grazing, were I of your flock,

And only live by gazing.'

Almost as great a name as Reynolds is that of Gainsborough. Less cultivated, but more powerful by nature, with a more vivid feeling for beauty of landscape, his portraits, though not equal in grasp of character to Reynolds, are of great and varied merit. The portrait of Field-Marshal Conway gives the look of an accomplished soldier, while the lovely Mrs. Graham, and the charming Miss Parsons, show that the painter was at home in works where sweetness and delicacy of handling were required. the first of these, the clouds over the landscape are arranged so as to surround the head of the fair lady with a kind of 'glory,' like that given to saints by the early Italian masters, which in this case looks like a spontaneous tribute of nature. To the latter portrait a sedateness is given, which, though most charming, one would hardly have expected from the character of the

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