Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/anecdotesofpaintOOwalp ANECDOTES OF PAINTERS, ENGRAVERS, ETC. A CAREFUL REPRINT OF AN EXCELLENT WORK.— A. M. A NECDOTES OF PAINTING IN ENGLAND. BY HORACE WALPOLE. REPRINT OF THE EDITION OF 1786. LONDON : ALEXANDER MURRAY, 30, QUEEN SQUARE, W.C 1871. Butler 6c Tanner, The Selwood Printing Worl{S t Frome, and London, CONTENTS. PAGE Preface .... 1-6 Chap. L — The earliest Accounts of Painting in England • 6-18 Chap. II. — State of Painting from the Reign of Henry III. to the end of the Reign of Henry VI 18-31 Chap. III. — Continuation of the State of Painting to the end of the Reign of Henry VII. ...... 32-37 Chap. IV.— Painters in the Reign of Henry VIII. . . 37-68 Chap. V. — State of Architecture to the End of the Reign of Henry VI 1 1 68-76 Chap. VI.— State of Painting under Edward VI. and Mary . 76-84 Chap. VII. — Painters in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. . 84-110 Chap. VIII. — Painters and other Artists in the Reign of James I j 10-136 Chap. IX.— Charles I. His Love and Protection of the Arts. Accounts of Vanderdort and Sir Balthazar Gerbier. Disper- sion of the King's Collection, and of the Earl of ArundePs . 136-159 Chap. X. — Painters in the Reign of Charles I. . . . 160-214 Chap. XI. — Artists during the Interregnum .... 215-216 Chap. XII.— Painters in the Reign of Charles II. , . . 217-264 Chap. XIII. — Statuaries, Carvers, Architects, and Medallists, in the Reign of Charles II 264-275 Chap. XIV.— Artists in the Reign of James II. 276-279 Chap. XV. — Painters in the Reign of King William . . 280-303 Chap. XVI.— Painters and other Artists in the Reign of Queen Anne 303-3 1 5 Chap. XVI I. —Painters in the Reign of King George I. . 316-338 Chap. XVIII.— Architects and Artists in Reign of George I. 338-344 Chap. XIX. — Painters in the Reign of King George II. . 344-357 Chap. XX.— Painters in the Reign of King George II. . . 357-370 Vl CONTENTS. PAGE Chap. XXI. — Painters in Enamel, in Miniature, Statuaries, and Medallists in the Reign of George II 3 7°~3 73 Statuaries 374-377 Medallists 377~37% Chap. XXII.— Architects in the Reign of George II. . . 3 78-39 1 A Catalogue of Engravers who have been born or re- sided in England . . 39 T- 454 Reign of Queen Anne 454-461 Reign of George I. and II 461-468 The Life of Mr. George Vertue . 468-483 Appendix 484-522 NOTES BY LOWNDES AS TO THIS WORK. 1st Edition, Strawberry Hill, 1762-71, 5 vols., 4to. At sale in 1842, the Author's own copy was sold for ^33 12s. to Mr. Beckford. 2nd Edition, Strawberry Hill, 1765-71, 5 vols., 4to. Brought ,£10 at the sale in July, i860. 3rd Edition, London, 1782, sm. 8vo, 5 vols., 4to. At Strawberry Hill Sale, sold for £2 10s. 4th Edition, London, 1786, 5 vols., sm. 8vo. 5th Edition, Dallaway's, London, 1826-8, dy. 8vo, 5 vols. 6th New Edition, Bonn's, 3 vols., 27^. BRIEF MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. Horace Walpole, the third and youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole, first Earl of Orford, was born in 171 8, educated at Eton, and afterwards at King's College, Cambridge. While there he wrote a memoir of Henry VI., founder of the college, dated February 2, 1738, and his first literary effort. In same year he was made Inspector-General of Ex- ports and Imports, a post he soon after exchanged for that of Usher of the Exchequer, Comptroller of the Pipe, and Clerk of the Extracts, appointments he held until his death. Disinclined to enter parliament, his father sent him to travel, his companion being Gray, the poet, who had been a schoolmate at Eton. He left England in the spring of 1739 f° r France and Italy. The friends parted in July 1741 ; the fault afterwards acknowledged being that of Walpole. In 1750, Gray dedicated his 1 Elegy in a Country Churchyard/ to his former friend, who did much to promote its successful sale ; employing, in 1758, Bentley to have it illustrated, the designs being got up at his private press at Strawberry Hill. On his return to England, Horace Walpole became M.P. for Calling- ton, and proved no ' silent member/ denouncing the opposition raised against the character and conduct of his relative, Sir Robert Walpole. In 1747, he was chosen for Castle Rising, and for King's Lynn, in 1754 and 1 761; the tenor of his way was an even one, the incident of an escape from the pistol of a foot-pad excepted, the details of which he related in one of his publications. He was a contributor to periodicals named the World, Dodslefs and the Museum, and early gave indication of that love for the fine arts which culminated in the volume now reprinted. Vlll BRIEF MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. In 1757, he set up his printing press at Strawberry Hill, whence issued most of his other works, his first production being the odes of his friend Gray, followed by 6 Hentzman's Travels/ * Whitworth's Authors, and i Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury/ the latter forming one of the same series of reprints as this volume. The works thus produced were given as presents, and thus, being scarce, have been not the less prized. In 1 761, the 6 Anecdotes of Painters' first appeared, professedly com- piled from the MSS. of George Vertue, and all justice was done them. In 1763, the companion volume on 1 Engravers/ appeared, and in 1771 the set was completed. In 1765 appeared the ' Castle of Otranto/ a romance which still holds its place in the library. In 1766 he took part in the controversy be- tween David Hume, the historian, and Jacques Rousseau, doing little to mend the breach between the friends. In 1768, Walpole retired from parliament, publishing in that year his ' Historic Doubts on the Life and * Reign of Richard III/ a work pronounced by critics of the day to be more injurious than solid, which dicta gave no small offence to the author, provoking him to withdraw his name from the Society of Anti- quaries. The sad fate of Chatterton has been in part attributed to the neglect he experienced from Walpole. In 1768 appeared the * Mysterious Mother/ a tragedy, privately cir- culated, and a piece not over fit for representation. It was reproduced in 1783, in Woodfall's Advertiser, to the expressed annoyance of its author. In 1791, Horace Walpole, by death of his nephew, became Earl of Orford, but his access of position and fortune made little change in his general habits of life. He died March 2, 1797. The splendid edition of his works appeared in 1 798, and found rapid sale, the parts most esteemed being the volumes now reprinted, and the original production of which did not a little conduce to the advance- ment of a taste for art in this country. ANECDOTES OF PAINTING IN ENGLAND. BY -HORACE WALPOLE. PREFACE. WHEN one offers to the public the labours of another person, it is allowable and precedented to expatiate in praise of the work. Of this indulgence, however, I shall not make advantage. The industry of Mr. Vertue was sufficiently known ; the antiquarian world had singular obligations to him. The many valuable monuments relating to our history, and to the persons of our monarchs and great men, which he saved from oblivion, are lasting evidences of his merit. What thanks are due to him for the materials of the following sheets, the public must determine. So far from endeavouring to prepossess them in favour of the work, it shall be my part fairly to tell them what they must expect. In Italy, where the art of painting has been carried to an amazing degree of perfection, the lives of the painters have been written in num- berless volumes, alone sufficient to compose a little library. Every picture of every considerable master is minutely described. Those biographers treat of the works of Raphael and Correggio with as much importance as commentators speak of Horace or Virgil ; and indulging themselves in the inflated style of their language, they talk of pictures as works almost of a divinity, while at the same time they lament them as perishing before their eyes. France, neither possessed of such masters, nor so hyperbolic in their diction, contrives however to supply by vanity what is wanting in either. Poussin is their miracle of genius ; Le Brun would dispute precedence with half the Roman school. A whole volume is written even on the life and works of Mignard. Vol- taire, who understands almost everything, and who does not suspect that judgment in painting is one of his deficiencies, speaks ridiculously In commendation of some of their performers. This country, which does not always err in vaunting its own produc- tions, has not a single volume to show on the works of its painters. In truth, it has very rarely given birth to a genius in that profession. Flanders and Holland have sent us the greatest men that we can boast. This very circumstance may with reason prejudice the reader against 2 PREFACE TO THE WORKS BY WALPOLE. a work, the chief business of which must be to celebrate the arts of a country which has produced so few good artists. This objection is so striking, that instead of calling it ' The Lives of English Painters/ I have simply given it the title of ' Anecdotes of Painting in England.' As far as it answers that term, perhaps it will be found curious. The indefatigable pains of Mr. Vertue left nothing unexplored that could illuminate his subject, and collaterally led him to many particularities that are at least amusing. I call them no more; nor would I advise any man, who is not fond of curious trifles, to take the pains of turning over these leaves. From the antiquary I expect greater thanks ; he is more cheaply pleased than a common reader ; the one demands to be diverted, at least instructed — the other requires only to be informed. Mr. Vertue had for several years been collecting materials for this work; he conversed and corresponded with most of the virtuosi in England ; he was personally acquainted with the oldest performers in the science; he minuted down everything he heard from them. He visited every collection, made catalogues of them, attended sales, copied every paper he could find relative to the art, searched offices, registers of parishes and registers of wills for births and deaths, turned over all our own authors, and translated those of other countries which related to his subject. He wrote down everything he heard, saw, or read. His collections amounted to near forty volumes, large and small; in one of his pocket-books I found a note of his first intention of com- piling such a work; it was in 1 713 ; he continued it assiduously to his death in 1757. These MSS. I bought of his widow after his decease; and it will perhaps surprise the reader to find how near a complete work is offered to him, though the research was commenced at so late a period. I call it commenced ; what little had been done before on this subject was so far from assistance, it was scarce of use. T-he sketch called 6 An Essay towards an English School/ at the end of the translation of Depiles, is as superficial as possible ; nor could a fact scarce be borrowed from it till we come to very modern times. In general I have been scrupulous in acknowledging both Mr. Vertue's debts and my own. The catalogue of the works of Hollar and Simon, and those of the collection of King Charles I., King James II., and the Duke of Buckingham, were part of Mr. Vertue's original plan, which is now completed by this volume. The compiler had made several draughts of a beginning, and several lives he had written out, but with no order, no connection, no accuracy; nor was his style clear or correct enough to be offered to the reader in that unpolished form. I have been obliged to compose anew every article, and have recurred to the original fountains from whence he drew his information ; I mean, where it was taken from books. The indigested method of his collections, registered occasionally as he learned every circumstance, was an additional trouble, as I was forced HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 3 to turn over every volume many and many times, as they lay in con- fusion, to collect the articles I wanted ; and for the second and third parts, containing between three and four hundred names, I was reduced to compose an index myself to the forty volumes. One satisfaction the reader will have, in the integrity of Mr. Vertue, it exceeded his industry; which is saying much. No man living, so bigoted to a vocation, was ever so incapable of falsehood. He did not deal even in hypothe- sis, scarce in conjecture. He visited and revisited every picture, every monument, that was an object of his researches ; and being so little a slave to his own imagination, he v/as cautious of trusting to that of others. In his memoranda he always put a quaere against whatever was told him of suspicious aspect ; and never gave credit to it till he received the fullest satisfaction. Thus, whatever trifles the reader finds, he will have the comfort of knowing that the greatest part at least are of most genuine authority. Whenever I have added to the compiler's stores, I have generally taken care to quote as religiously the source of my intelligence. Here and there I have tried to enliven the dryness of the subject by inserting facts not totally foreign to it. Yet upon the whole I despair of its affording much entertainment. The public have a title to whatever was designed for them. I offer this to them as a debt— nobody will suspect that I should have chosen such a subject for fame. If the observation of a dearth of great names in this list should ex- cite emulation, and tend to produce abler masters, Mr. Vertue, I believe, and I should be glad to have the continuation of the work do greater honour to our country. It would be difficult perhaps to assign a physical reason, why a nation that produced Shakespeare, should owe its glory in another walk of genius to Holbein and Vandyck. It cannot be im- puted to want of protection. Who countenanced the arts more than Charles L ? That prince, who is censured for his want of taste in pensioning Quarles, is celebrated by the same pen for employing Bernini. But want of protection is the apology for want of genius. Milton and Fontaine did not write in the bask of court-favour. A poet or a painter may want a equipage or a villa> by wanting protection ; they can always afford to buy ink and paper, colours and pencils. Mr. Hogarth has received no honours, but universal admiration. But whatever has been the complaint formerly, we have ground to hope that a new era is receiving its date. Genius is countenanced, and emulation will follow. Nor is it a bad indication of the flourish- ing state of a country that it daily makes improvements in arts and sciences. They may be attended by luxury, but they certainly are produced by wealth and happiness. The conveniences, the decorations of life are not studied in Siberia, or under a Nero. If severe morality would at any time expect to establish a thorough reformation, I fear it must choose inhospitable climates, and abolish all latitude from the 4 PICTURES ARE BUT SCENERY OF DEVOTION. laws. A corporation of merchants would never have kept their oaths to Lycurgus of observing his statutes till he returned. A good govern- ment, that indulges its subjects in the exercise of their own thoughts, will see a thousand inventions springing up ; refinements will follow, and much pleasure and satisfaction will be produced, at least before that excess arrives which is so justly said to be the forerunner of ruin. But all this is in the common course of things, which tend to perfection, and then degenerate. He would be a very absurd legislator who should pretend to set bounds to his country's welfare, lest it should perish by knowing no bounds. Poverty will stint itself ; riches must be left to their own discretion; they depend upon trade, and to circumscribe trade is to annihilate it. It is not rigid nor Roman to say it, but a people had better be unhappy by their own fault, than by that of their government. A 6 censor moriim' is not a much greater blessing than an ' arbiter elegantiarum." The world, I believe, is not at all agreed that the austerities of the Presbyterians were preferable to the licentious- ness under Charles II. I pretend to defend the one no more than the other; but I am sure that, in the body politic, symptoms that prognos- ticate ill, may indicate well. All I meant to say was, that the disposi- tion to improvements in this country is the consequence of its vigour. The establishment of a society for the encouragement of arts will pro- duce great benefits before they are perverted to mischiefs. The boun- ties bestowed by that society for facilitating the necessaries of life to the poor, for encouraging the use of own drugs and materials, or for naturalizing those of other countries, are bestowed on noble principles and with patriotic views. That society does not neglect even the elegancies of life. Arts that are innocent in themselves, and beneficial to the country, either by adding value to our productions, or by drawing riches, as they invite strangers to visit us, are worthy the attention of good citizens ; and in all those lights that society acts upon a national and extensive plan. The art that is chiefly the subject of these pages is one of the least likely to be perverted ; painting has seldom been employed to any bad purpose. Pictures are but scenery of devotion. I question if Raphael himself would ever have made one convert, though he had exhausted all the expression of his eloquent pencil on a series of popish doctrines and miracles. Pictures cannot adapt themselves to the meanest capacities, as unhappily the tongue can. Nonsense may make an apprentice a Catholic or a Methodist; but the apprentice would see that a very bad picture of St. Francis was not like truth, and a very good picture would be above his feeling. • Pictures may serve as helps to religion, but are only an appendix to idolatry, for the people must be taught to believe in false gods and in the power of saints before they will learn to worship their images. I do not doubt but if some of the first reformers had been at liberty to say exactly what they thought, and HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 5 no more than they thought, they would have permitted one of the most ingenious arts implanted. in the heart of man by the Supreme Being to be employed towards His praise. But Calvin, by his tenure, as head of a sect, was obliged to go all lengths. The vulgar will not list but for total contradictions ; they are not struck by seeing religion shaded only a little darker or a little lighter. It was at Constantinople alone where the very shopkeepers had subtilty enough to fight for a letter more or less in a Greek adjective 1 that expressed an abstract idea. Happily at this time there is so total an extinction of all party animosity, both in religion and politics, that men are at liberty to propose whatever may be useful to their country without its being imputed to them as a crime, and to invent what they mean should give pleasure without danger of displeasing by the very attempt. At this epoch of common sense, one may reasonably expect to see the arts flourish to as proud a height as they attained at Athens, Rome, or Florence. Painting has hitherto made but faint efforts in England. Our eloquence and the glory of our arms have been carried to the highest pitch. The more peaceful arts have in other countries gene- rally attended national glory. If there are any talents among us, this seems the crisis for their appearance ; the throne itself is now the altar of the graces, and whoever sacrifices to them becomingly, is sure that his offerings will be smiled upon by a prince, who is at once the example and patron of accomplishments. The institution of a school of statuary in the house of a young nobleman (Charles, Duke of Rich- mond; died 1806) of the first rank, rivals the boasted munificence of foreign princes. When we abound with heroes, orators, and patrons, it will be hard if their images are not transmitted to posterity under graceful representations. This is by no means said to depreciate the artists we have, but to inspire with emulation those arising. Rysbrack, Roubiliac, Scheemaker, Wilton, would do honour to any country; but hitherto their skill has been in a manner confined to private monuments. When we have subjects for history, the people should read on public edifices the actions of their ancestors and fellow-citizens in bas-reliefs ; busts and statues should reward the gallant behaviour of the brave, and exhibit them as models. What made Rome more venerable than every street being an illustration of Livy ? Painting has been circumscribed within as selfish bounds as statuary ; historic compositions totally neglected. Reynolds and Ramsay have wanted subjects, not genius. There is another artist, who seems born for an age of naval glory, and is equal to it, — Mr. Scott. Architecture, the most suitable field in which the genius of a people arrived at superiority may range, seems reviving. 1 In the decline of the empire there were two sects who proceeded to the greatest violence against each other, in the dispute whether the nature of the second person was 'O/xoOJJJLOSy co-essentialis; or o/jlolovclos, simiiis essentia?. 6 PLEASING TO EXPATIATE ON PRAISE OF ONE'S COUNTRY. The taste and skill of Mr. Adam is formed for public works. Mr. Chambers's treatise (On Civil Architecture: folio, 1759) * s the most sensible book, and the most exempt from prejudices, that ever was written on that science. But of the works that distinguish this age, none perhaps excel those beautiful editions of Balbec and Palmyra — not published at the command of a Louis Quatorze, or at the expense of a cardinal nephew, but undertaken by private curiosity and good sense, and trusted to the taste of a polished nation. When I endeavour to do justice to the editions of Palmyra and Balbec, I would not con- fine the encomium to the sculptures ; the books have far higher merit. The modest descriptions (by Mr. Wood) prefixed are standards of writing; the exact measure of what should and should not be said, and of what was necessary to be known, was never comprehended in more clear diction or more elegant style. The pomp of the buildings has not a nobler air than the simplicity of the narration — but I must restrain myself; though it is pleasing to expatiate on the just praise of one's country ; and they who cannot perform great things themselves, may yet have a satisfaction in doing justice to those who can. If Juvenal was honest in his satires, he would have been happy if he could have lived to write the panegyric of Trajan. 1762. CHAPTER I. The earliest Accounts of Painting in England. They who undertake to write the history of any art, are fond of carrying its origin as far back as possible. When this tends to show the improvements made in it, by comparing latter works with the first rude inventions, it may be of service ; but it often happens that the historian thinks the antiquity of a discovery reflects honour on his country, though perhaps his country has been so careless, or has wanted genius so much, as to have refined very little on the original hints. Some men push this farther, and venerate the first drawings of an art more than its productions in a riper age. The inventor may have had more genius, but the performances of the improver must be more perfect. Mr. Vertue had taken great pains to prove that painting existed in England before the restoration of it in Italy by Cimabue. If what we possessed of it in those ignorant times could be called painting, I suppose Italy and every nation in Europe retained enough of the deformity of the art to contest with us in point of antiquity. That we had gone backwards in the science farther almost than any other country, is evident from our coins, on which there is no more of HORACE WALPOLE S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 7 human similitude, than an infant's first scrawl of the profile of a face ; and so far therefore as badness of drawing approaches to an- tiquity or ignorance, we may lay in our claim to very ancient posses- sion. As Italy has so long excelled us in the refinement of the art, she may leave us the enjoyment of original imperfection. However, as Mr. Vertue's partiality flowed from love of his country, and as this is designed for a work of curiosity, not of speculation and reasoning, I shall faithfully lay before the reader such materials as that laborious antiquary had amassed for deducing the History of English Painting from a very early period. The 1 first evidences in favour of the art are drawn from our records, 2 which Mr. Vertue had carefully consulted. There he found the follow- ing entries 3 : — 6 A.D. 1228, A° 12 Hen. III. m. s. Rex thes. et earner, suis salutem. ' Liberate cuidam pictori 20i*. ad cameram magni scaccarii depin- i gendam.' This does not express the kind ; whether the chamber was to be painted with figures, ornaments, etc., or whether the ■ quidam pictor' was not a mere house-painter ; probably an artist of higher rank, as twenty shillings would have been a great price in that age for painting wainscot. However, the next record is more explicit, and ascertains the point in question : 1 A.D. 1233. Liberate A° 17 Hen. III. m. 6. Mandatum est vicecomiti 'Southton. quod cameram regis lambruscatam 4 de castro Winton. 6 depingi faciat eisdem historiis et picturis quibus fuerat prius depicta. ' Et custum, etc. computabitur. Teste rege apud Kideministr. iii die < JunhV There are more remarkable circumstances than one in this vener- able scrap : as, the simplicity of the times ; the king sending a precept 1 Dr. Thorpe, M.D., when writing his History of the Town and Diocese of Rochester, discovered at the west end of that cathedral two busts of Henry I. and his queen, in stone, which had never been observed before. 2 Since the first edition of this work, I have been informed, that the earliest place in a cata- logue of English painters is due to St. Wolstan, Bishop of Worcester in 1062, or at least to Ervenius or Erwen, his master. Will, of Malrhesbury, who wrote the Life of Wolstan, in three books, gives the following account : ' Habebat tunc (Wolstanus) magistrum Ervenium ' nomine, inscribendo et quidlibet coloribus effingendo peritum. Is libros scriptos, sacramen- ' tarium et psalterium, quorum principales litteras auro effigiaverit, puero Wolstano delegandos ' curavit. Ille preciosorum apicum captus miraculo, dum pulchritudinem intentis oculis ' rimatur, scientiam litterarum internis hausit medullis. Verum doctor ad saeculi spectans ' commodum, spe majoris premii, sacramentarium regi, tunc temporis Cnutoni, psalterium ' Emma? reginse contribuit. Perculit puerilem animum facti dispendium, et ex imo pectore ' alta traxit suspiria.' If this passage is not sufficient authority, as I think it is not, to prove St. Wolstan a painter, at least it is decisive for Ervenius, who was certainly an illuminator of MSS. 3 There are two records more ancient than any that follow, but they relate to architecture, not painting ; however, as not foreign to this work, I shall insert them here : they are both of the reign of King John : — *a.d. 1209, vicecomites Lond. et Midi, allocaverunt Elya? ingeniatori x marcas, ad repa- { rationem domorum regis apud Westmonast. per breve H. archiep. Cantuar.' *a.d. 1210, Willelmus Puintellus redd. comp. de 1216/. 13s. 6d. quos recepit de thesauro ' ad operationes turris Londonise.' William Puintell might be only a surveyor, but Elyas was certainly an architect. * ' Lambruscatam wainscoted, from the French ' lambris* 8 EARLY PATRONAGE OF PAINTING IN ENGLAND. to the sheriff of Hampshire to have a chamber in the royal castle painted; and his majesty, like the Roman general, who threatened his soldiers if they broke any of the antique Corinthian statues, that they should pay for having others made, giving orders to the same sheriff to have the chamber repainted with the same pictures and histories with which it had been adorned before ; and which, by the way, im- plies that history painting had been in use still longer than this date, which was the earliest Mr. Vertue could discover. 1 6 Liberate A° 17 Hen. III. m. 10. Mandatum est custodi domorum 6 regis de Wudestok quod in rotunda capella regis de Wudestok bonis 6 coloribus depingi faciat majestatem Domini et iiii Evangelistas, et ' imaginem sancti Edmundi ex una parte, et imaginem sancti Edwardi . 'ex alia parte, et ibi fieri faciat duas 2 verimas novas/ 6 Rot. Claus. 20 Hen. III. m. 12. Mandatum est thesaurario regis, ' quod magnam cameram regis apud Westm. bono viridi colore depingi ' faciat ad modum curtanae et in magno gabulo ejusdem cameras juxta 6 hostium (ostium) depingi ludum ilium ( Ke ne dune ke ne tine, ne pret ke desire; 3 ' et etiam parvam garderobam regis viridi colore ad modum curtanae ' depingi faciat : ita quod rex in primo adventu suo illuc inveniat 'predictas cameram et garderobam ita depictas et ornatas, sicut i predictum est/ ' Rot. Claus. A° 20 Hen. III. m. 12. Mandatum est H. de Pateshull ' thesaurario domini regis, quod borduram a tergo sedis regis in ' capella sancti Stephani apud Westm. et borduram a tergo sedis reginas 'ex alia parte ejusdem capellae interius et exterius depingi faciat de ' viridi colore : juxta sedem ipsius reginae depingi faciat quandam ' crucem cum Maria et Johanne ex opposito crucis regis, quae juxta 6 sedem regis depicta est. T. vii die Febr. ? The next record, which has been mentioned by Stowe, gives direc- tions for repairing the granary under the Tower, and all the leaden gutters, and for leading the whole thoroughly on that side, 'per quas ' gentes videre possint/ and for whitewashing the chapel of St. John, and for making three glass windows in the same chapel, in which were to be represented, a little Virgin Mary holding the Child, and the Trinity, and St. John the apostle. It gives orders too that (patibulum) a cross should be painted behind the altar, 6 bene et bonis coloribus and wherever it could be done mcst conveniently, there were to be drawn in the same chapel two images of St. Edward holding out a ring and delivering it to St. John the evangelist. ' Et dealbari faciatis 1 Some have ascribed the introduction of painting into this island to the Venerable Bede. 2 ' Verimas] a barbarous word, not to be found even in Dufresne's. Glossary. One cannot help observing the absurdity of those times, in couching orders in a language which they could not write, and addressed to persons by whom it was not understood. 3 ' Qui ne donne ce qu'il tient, ne prepd ce qu'il desire or, as it is expressed in anothci record, ' Qui non dat quod habet, non accipit ille quod optat.' HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 9 (adds the record) totum veterem murum circa sepedictam Turrim i nostram. Et custum quod ad hoc posueritis, per visum et testimo- 6 nium legalium hominum, computabitur vobis ad scaccarium. Teste 4 rege apud Windesor. x. die Decembr.' It is evident from this and some following passages, that as painting on glass 1 was then known, the art of painting in general could not be at a very low ebb. Then follows another, regarding the same place : ' Rex eisdem 6 salutem. Praecipimus vobis quod cancellum beatse Marias in ecclesia ' sancti Petri infra ballium turris nostras London, et cancellum beati ' Petri in eadem ecclesia, et ab introitu cancelli beati Petri usque ad 6 spatium quatuor pedum ultra stallos ad opus nostrum et reginae ' nostrae in eadem ecclesia factos bene et decenter labruscari faciatis, 'et eosdem stallos depingi, et Mariolam cum suo tabernaculo et 6 ymagines beatorum Petri, Nicolai et Katerinae, et trabem ultra altare ' beati Petri, et parvum patibulum cum suis ymaginibus de novo c colorari, et bonis coloribus refrescari, et fieri faciatis quandam ' ymaginem de beato Petro in solempni apparatu archiepiscopali in 1 parte boreali ultra dictum altare, et de optimis coloribus depingi ; et ' quandam ymaginem de sancto Christofero tenentem et portantem 'Jesum, ubi melius et decentius fieri potest, et depingi in prasdicta ' ecclesia. Et fieri faciatis duas tabulas pulcras et de optimis coloribus 'et de historiis beatorum Nicolai et Katerinae depingi ante altaria ' dictorum sanctorum in eadem ecclesia ; et duos cherumbinos stantes ' a dextris et a sinistris magni patibuli pulcros fieri faciatis in prasdicta 6 ecclesia cum hilari vultu et jocoso ; et praeterea unum fontem mar- 'moreum cum colompnis marmoreis bene et decenter incisis. Et 6 custum, etc. Teste ut supra.' The next again specifies the sum to be expended on paintings at Westminster: 'Rot. Liberat. A° 21 Hen. III. m. 5. Rex thesaurario ' et camerariis suis salutem. Liberate de thesauro nostra Ocloni auri- 1 fabro custodi operationis nostrae Westm. quatuor libras et undecim ' solidos ad picturas faciendas in camera nostra ibidem. Teste rege i apud Westm. ii die Augusti.' The next contains the first mention we have of a star-chamber. * Liberat. A° 22 Hen III. m. 3. Mandatum est vie. Southampt. quod ' cameram apud Winton. colorari faciat viridi colore, et slellari auro, in i quibus depingantur historiae veteris et novi testamenti.' The next precept is very remarkable, as implying the use of oil colours, 2 long before that method is supposed to have been discovered. It is dated in his 23d year, 1239, and runs in these words : i Rex thesaurario et camerariis suis salutem. Liberate de thesauro 1 In Aubrey's MS. Survey of Wiltshire, in the library of the Royal Society, he says, on the authority of Sir W. Dugdale, that the first painted glass in England was done in King John's time. Vol. ii., p. 85. 2 John ab Eyck, the supposed inventor of painting in oil, which he was said to discover in IO ROYAL PRECEPTS FOR WORKS OF NATIONAL INTEREST. ' nostro Odoni aurifabro et Edwardo filio suo centum et septemdecem ' solidos et decern denarios pro oleo, vernici, et coloribus emptis, et 6 picturis factis in camera reginae nostrae apud Westm. ab octavis sanctae ' trinitatis anno regni nostri xxiii usque ad festum sancti Barnabae 6 apostoli eodem anno, scilicet per xv dies.' There is another mandate of his 25th year, for two windows with pictures in the hall, and with the motto above mentioned, of which I do not know that any of our antiquaries have taken notice. The two following precepts are so connected with the foregoing, that, though relating onlji to building not to painting, I shall insert them here, as their most proper place. ' A 28 Hen. III. Mandatum est vice-comiti Kanciae quod sub omni i qua poterit festinatione emi faciat et cariari usque Wes^mon. 100 6 navatas grisiae petrae ad operationes quas ibi sine dilatione fieri rex ' praecepit : et talem et tarn festinantem diligentiam ad hoc mandatum ' regis exequendum ponat, quod se inde rex commendare debeat : et ne ' W. de Haverhull thesaurarius et Edwardus, quibus operationes prae- c dictas rex injunxit faciendas, culpam dilationis in se refundere possint, ' si praedictae operationes contra voluntatem regis differantur. , 1 Rex dedit et concessit Deo et beato Edwardo et ecclesiae Westmon- ' asterii ad fabricam ipsius ecclesiae 2591 libras, in quibus regi tenetur 6 Licoricia, quae fuit uxor David de Oxonio Judaei. Et rex vult quod 'pecunia ilia reddatur ad novum scaccarium,quod rex ad hoc constituit 6 apud Westmonasterium, archidiacono Westmonasterii, et Edwardo 'de Westminstre, quos ejusdem scaccarii thesaurarios assignavit. 6 Teste rege apud Windsore/ The miserable Latin of these orders is not the most curious part of them. The hundred barge loads of grey stone to be purchased by the sheriff of Kent might be either from a Kentish quarry, or to be imported from the coast of France. The king's great impatience about his new works, and the large fine from a Jew's widow which he bestows on his new edifice, are very observable. But the most memorable is the origin of the Exchequer, which seems by this precept to have been instituted solely for the carrying on the new building at Westminster. The next is in the year 1248. 'Rex vicecomiti Southamtoniae salu-* c tern. Prsecipimus tibi quod de exitibus comitatus tui depingi facias ' in capella reginae nostrae apud Wintoniam super gabulum versus occi- a search for varnish, died in 1441. In the record before us, both oil and varnish are men- tioned, and the former might indeed be only used in the composition of the latter. Mr. Raspe, in his curious treatise published in 1781, has proved that oil-painting was known long before its pretended discovery by Van Eyck. And Governor Pownall, in the ninth vol. of the Archseo- logia, pp. 151-154, has produced from the Sacristy of Ely some accounts that are as explicit as possible, that oil was used in the mixture of colours. The first says, ' In tres lagenis et ' dimid. olei pro ymaginibus super columnas depingend.' The next, 'In 31 lagenis et dimid. ' olei empt . . . pro color, temperand.' (for mixing colours, which is distinguishing it from varnish.) And the third, 'In oleo empt. pro picture faciend. in capella.' Could oil- painting be more exactly described at this day? 1. Oil for painting images on columns, 1325. 2. Oil for mixing colours. 3. Oil for making pictures in the chapel. Note too, that the first is dated in the reign of Ed. II., the last in that of Ed. IV. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 'dentem ymaginem Christoferi, sicut alibi depingitur; in ulnis suis 6 deferat Christum ; et ymaginem beati Edwardi regis, qualiter tradidit ' annulum suum cuidam peregrino, cujus ymago similiter depingatur. ' Teste rege apud Windesore vii die Maii.' Another. ' Rex custodi manerii de Wudestoke prascepit, ut inter ' alia fieri faciat duas fenestras de albe vitro, et fenestram aulas versus ' orientem, similiter cum pictura ejus aulse emendari faciat. Quoddam ' etiam scaccarium fieri faciat in eadem aula, quod contineat hunc ver- 6 sum, Qui non dat quod habet, non accipit ille quod optat.' 'Claus. 33 Hen. III. m. 3. Rexinjunxit magistro Johanni de sancto c Omero quod garderobam cameras regis apud Westm. perpingi faceret 6 sicut pictura illius garderobas inchoatur, et quod faceret unum lectri- 6 num. ponendum in novo capitulo Westm. ad similitudinem illius quod 6 est in capitulo sancti Albani, vel decentius et pulcrius, si fieri poterit ; 6 et ad hsec facienda colores et maeremium et necessarias liberationes ' usque ad adventum regis London, ei inveniri faceret. Et custum ad 'hasc appositum, cum rex illud sciverit, reddi faciet. Et mandatum ' est abbati Westm. Edwardo filio Odonis, et Philippo Luvel, quod 6 liberationes et alia necessaria supra inveniri fac. Teste rege apud 6 Windesore xxiii die Septembr.' In Henry's 34th year, Edward of Westminster is ordered to have painted in the chapel of St. Stephen, the images of the Apostles round about the said chapel, by the following precept ; ' Claus. 34 Hen. III. m. 7. Mandatum est Edwardo 1 de Westm. quod 'in capella beati Stephani depingi faciat imagines Apostolorum in cir- ' cuitu ejusdem capellas; et judicium in occidentali parte- ejusdem ; et ' iconem beatae Marias virginis in quadam tabula similiter pingi faciat ; 6 ita quod hasc parata sint in adventu regis. Teste rege apud Brug- 1 wauter xiii die Augusti.' The next, dated in the same year, exhibits a donation of three oaks for making images. 1 This Edward of Westminster is the same person with Edward Fitz-Odo mentioned in the preceding order, and I suppose son of Odo Aurifaber, recorded above. It appears by Dart's History of the Abbey that he was master of the works ; and Dart quotes the records in the Tower on the authority of Strype. The whole passage is worth" transcribing, as it shows the passion of Henry for adorning his new foundation there, called then, The new work at Westminster.* ' In the 28th of his reign he commanded Edward Fitz-Odo to make a dragon, in manner of ' a standard or ensign, of red samit, to be embroidered with gold, and his tongue to appear, as ( though continually moving, and his eyes of sapphire, or other stones agreeable to him, to be ' placed in this church against the king's coming thither. ' And the queen set up in the feretry of St. Edward the image of the blessed Virgin Mary ; ' and the king caused the aforesaid Edward Fitz-Odo, keeper of his works at Westminster, to * place upon her forehead for ornament an emerald and a ruby, taken out of two rings which * the Bishop of Chichester had left the king for a legacy.'— Dart, vol. i., p. 26, edit. 1742-!" * Duchesne, Antiq. France, vol. i., p. 145, says the Louvre was so called from Tceuvre/ the new work. t The Fitz-Othos were Germans, brought over by Henry I. ; and the family rose to such eminence, that Thomas, son of William, married a daughter of W. Beauchamp, Baron of Bedford, etc. Of William is a curious seal, as Mint-master, in Nichols's Biblioth. Topo- graph., No. xx., p. 63. 12 THE TOWER AND THE ANTIOCH-CH AMBER PAINTED. ' Claus. 34 Hen. III. m. 7. Mandatum est custodi parci regis de ' Periton quod in eodem parco faciat habere sacristse Glaston. tres 6 quercus ad imagines inde faciendas et ponendas in ecclesia sua Glas- 6 ton. de dono regis. Teste rege apud Glaston. xv die Augusti.' The following is not less curious : ' Claus. 34 Hen. III. m. 12. Mandatum est R. de Sandeford magistro ' militias templi in Anglia quod faciat habere Henrico de warderoba, ' latori presentium, ad opus reginae 1 quendam librum magnum, qui est ' in domo sua London. Gallico ydiomate scriptum, in quo continentur 4 gesta Antiochiae et regum aliorum, etc. Teste rege apud Westminster 'xvii die Maii.' The two next specify the use that was to be made of the above-men- tioned book, which I conclude contained an account of the Crusade, 2 the history of which the king orders to be painted in the Tower and at Westminster in a low chamber in the garden near what in the writ is named the King's Jewry, 3 and which room his majesty orders to be thenceforward called the Antioch-chamber ; the origin probably of what is now styled the Jerusalem-chamber. 6 Claus. A° 35 Hen. III. m. 11. Mandatum est Edwardo de Westm. ' quod depingi faciat histoiiam Antioch. in camera regis turris London. ' sicut ei dicet Thomas Espernir, et custum, quod ad hoc posuerit, rex ' ei faciet allocari. Teste rege apud Winton. v. die Junii.' 6 Ibid., m. 10. Mandatum est Edwardo de Westm. quod Judaismum 1 regis apud Westm. et magnum 4 cellarium vinorum regis lambruscari c et bassam cameram in gardino regis, et parvam turellam ultra capel- ' lam ibidem depingi, et in eadem camera unum caminum fieri faciat, ' quam quidem cameram Antioch volumus appellant 1 The beauty of Eleanor of Provence, queen of Henry III., is thus celebrated by Langtoff in his Chronicle, published by Hearne, vol. i., p. 213. ' Henry king, our prince, at Westmynster kirke * The erlys douhter of Province, the fairest may o lif, ' Her name is Helianore, of gentille norture, ' Bizond the se that wore was non suilk creature.' 2 The Emperor Frederic II. had sent to King Henry a large account of his war in the Holy Land, in a letter under his. own seal. See note to Tindal's Rapin under the year 1228. 3 This Judaism, or Jewry, was probably an exchequer or treasury erected by Henry for receiving the sums levied on the Jews, from whom he extorted a third part of their substance to carry on the war with France. Rapin ubi supra. 4 There are two records among the foregoing, which, though not relating to my subject, but to the wine-cellar, and even to the composing of wines for his majesty, are so curious that I am persuaded the reader will be glad to see them. ' Claus. A° 34 Hen. III., m. 19. De potibus delicatis ad opus regis faciendis. Mandatum * est custodibus vinorum regis Winton. quod de vinis regis quae habent in custodia sua, libe- 'rent* Roberto de Monte Pessulano tanta et talia, qualia et quanta capere voluerit, ad potus * regis pretiosos delicatos inde faciendos. Teste rege apud Lutegareshall xxvi die Novembr.' 'Claus. 36 Hen. III., m. 31. Mandatum est custodibus vinorum regis de Ebor. quod de ' melioribus vinis regis quae sunt in custodia sua faciant habere Roberto de Monte Pessulano 'duo dolia albi vini et garhiofilacum, et unum dolium rubri vini ad f claretum inde faciend. ' ad opus regis contra instans festum Nativitatis Dominican. Et mandatum est Rob. de Monte ' Pessulano quod festinanter accedat ad Ebor. et garhiofilac. et claret, predict, faciat sicut * annis preteritis facere consuevit.' * See more of him in Pegge's Life of Roger Weseham. t A composition of wine and honey. Vide. Hist, de 1'ancienne Chevalerie, vol. i., p. 49. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. *3 These that follow all relate to various paintings : ' Ibid., in. 5. Mandatum est Simoni Capellano et aliis custodibus ' operationum Windesor. quod claustrum regis in castro Windesor. ' paviri et lambruscari, et Apostolos depingi faciant, sicut rex ei et raa- ' gistro Willielmo pictori suo ibidem injunxit. Teste rege apud Have- 4 ring, xx die Augusti.' 'Liberat. 36 Hen. III. m. 15. Rex vicecomiti Nottinghamias salutem. ' Praecipimus tibi quod in camera reginas nostras apud Nottingham c depingi facias historiam Alexandri circumquaque ; et custum quod ad ' hoc posueritis computabitur. Teste rege apud Nottingham xv. die ' Januarii.' 'Liberat. 36 Hen. III. m. 15. Mandatum vie. Northampton, quod ' fieri faciat in castro North, fenestras de albo vitro, et in eisdem histo- ' riam Lazari et Divitis depingi.' 6 Claus. 36 Hen. III. m. 22. Mandatum est Radulpho de Dungun, ' custodi librorum 1 regis, quod magistro Willielmo pictori regis habere ' faciat colores ad depingendum parvam garderobam reginas, et emen- ' dandum picturam magnae cameras regis et cameras reginae. Teste rege ' apud Westm. xxv die Febr. . Per regem.' The six next precepts appertain to various arts, not to painting in particular. 4 Claus. 36 Hen. III. m. 31. Mandatum est Edward de Westm. c quod cum festinatione perquirat quendam pulcrum gladium, et scau- 6 berg, ejusdem de serico, et pomellum de argento bene et ornate coop- 6 eriri, et quandam pulcram zonam eidem pencli faciat, ita quod gladium i Hum sic factum habeat apud Ebor. de quo 2 rex Alexandrum regem ' Scotias illustrem cingulo militari decorare possit in instanti festo ' Nativitatis Dominicae. Teste rege apud Lychfeld xxi die Novembr. 'Per ipsum regem/ 'Claus. 36 Hen. III. m. 30. Mandatum est J. de Somercote 3 et 6 Rogero Scissori, quod sine dilatione fieri faciant unum lectum pretio- i sum, ita quod illud decenter et ornate factum habeat apud Ebor. ad ' dandum illud Alex, regi Scotiae illustri in instanti festo Nativitatis 6 Dominicae/ 6 Ibid. Mandatum est J. de Somercote et Rogero Scissori, quod de ' melioribus samittis quos invenire poterunt sine dilatione faciant i quatuor robas, duas videlicet ad opus regis, et duas ad opus reginae, 6 cum aurifraxis semilatis, et varii coloris, et quod tunicas sint de mol- 6 lioribus samittis quam pallia et supertunicas ; et quod pallia furrentur ' cum ermino, et supertunicas de minuto vario ; ita quod rex habeat 1 It would be a great curiosity if we could recover a list of his majesty's library. It probably contained some illuminated MSS., as the librarian had the keeping of the colours too. _ The original copy of Matthew Paris with miniatures, in the British Museum, was certainly a present to this king from the author. 2 Alexander III., King of Scotland, married Margaret, daughter of Henry, at York. 8 In the same year J. de Somercote had a patent to be Warden of the Mint : Custos cambii per totum regnum. 14 ROYAL PRECEPTS FOR THE WORKS OF PAINTERS. ' prasdictas robas ornate factas apud Ebor. ad hoc instans festum 1 Nativitatis Dominicas. Teste rege apud Lychfeld xxi. die Novembr.' i Ibid. Mandatum est J. de Somercote et Rogero Scissori, quod preter ' illas duas robas quas rex fieri precepit ad opus suum, fieri faciant ad ' opus regis tres robas de queintisis, videlicet unam robam de meliori 6 samitto violaceo, quam invenire poterunt, cum tribus parvis 1 leopardis ' in parte anteriori, et aliis tribus parte posteriori ; et duas de aliis me- ' lioribus pannis qui inveniri poterunt ; ita quod robas illas decenter et 4 ornate factas rex promptas habeat apud Ebor. in festo Nativitatis ' Domini.' i Claus. 39 Hen. III. ^ex concessit magistro Johanni de Gloucestre 6 cementario suo, quod toto tempore vitas suae quietus sit de omnimodo c tallagio et thelonio ubique per totam potestatem regis/ ' Claus. 43 Hen. III. m. io. Mandatum est magistro Johanni de ' Glouc. cementario suo, et custodibus operationum Westm. quod 6 quinque imagines regum incisas in franca petra, et quandam petram 1 ad supponendum pedibus unins imaginis beatas Marias, faciatis habere 1 custodibus operationum ecclesiae sancti Martini London, ad easdem ' operationes, de dono regis. Teste rege apud Westm. xi die Maii.' Then comes a record entitled 6 Pro rege de coloribus ad picturam 1 Windesor/ ' Claus.. A 44 Hen. III. m. 6. Mandatum est Edwardo de Westm. ' quod colores et alia ad picturam necessaria sine dilatione faciat habere ' fratri Willielmo monacho Westm. pictori regis, ad picturas regis apud ' Windsor inde 2 renovandas, prout idem frater Willielmus predicto ( Edwardo dicet ex parte regis. Et hoc sicut regem diligit, non omittat ; ' et cum rex sciverit custum quod ad hoc posuerit, rex breve suum de ' liberate sibi habere faciet. Teste rege apud Windsor xiii die Augusti/ The next is inscribed c De pictura Rap. Guldef./ and contains the following orders : ' Liberate A° 44 Hen. III. m. n. Rex vicecom. Sum salutem. ' Precipimus tibi quod exitibus comitatus tui picturas magnas aulas e nostras de Guldeford, prout necesse fuerit, sine dilatione emendari, et ' in magna camera nostra ibidem ad caput lecti nostri super album { murum quoddam pallium depingi, et tabulas et fruntellum altaris 6 magnas capellas nostras ibidem sine dilatione fieri facias, prout injunxi- c mus Willielmo Florentino pictori ; et custum quod ad hoc posueris ( per visum et testimonium proborum et legalium hominum conf. etc. 6 Teste meipso apud Westm. xxx die Octobr.' I conclude that master William, William the monk of Westminster, and William of Florence were the same person. What arts we had, 1 The lions in the arms of England were originally leopards. In the romance of Richard Cceur de Lion ' Upon his shoulders a scheld of stele ' With the lybbards painty d wele.' 2 Hence it appears that Windsor had been a place of note even before the reign of Hen. III., consequently long before it was beautified by Edw. III. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. IS as well as learning, lay chiefly among the religious in those ages. One remark I am surprised Mr. Vertue did not make, when he was assigning greater antiquity to painting in England than in Italy, that this William of Florence was an Italian. The two following are little remarkable, except that in the last we find the name of another painter. 6 Liberate A° 49 Hen. III. m. 7. Rex thes. et camerariis suis salutem. 1 Liberate de thesauro nostro pictoribus cameras nostras apud Westm. t septem libras et decern solid os ad picturas ejusdem cameras capellas ' nostras retro lectum nostrum ibidem faciend.' 6 Liberate A° 51 Hen. III. m. 10. et 8. Rex ballivis civitatis London. 1 salutem. Mandamus vobis quod de firma civitatis prasdictas habere * faciatis magistro Waltero pictori nostro viginti marcas ad picturas c cameras nostras apud Westm. inde faciend. et hoc nullo modo omittatis. ' Et computabitur vobis ad scaccarium. Teste rege apud Westm. vii c die Januar.' Among these records I find the following curious memorandum of the sums expended on the king's building at Westminster to the forty- fifth year of his reign : 1 Summa cust. operationum West, ab inceptione usque in die clomi- 6 nica proxima post festum divi Michaelis anno regni regis Henrici ' xlv t0 . Et CCLX libras restant solvendas pro stipendiis alborum cissorum 4 et minutorum operariorum, et pro franca petra et aliis emptionibus 1 quae non computantur in hac summa ; xxix millia, CCCXLV /. 'xixj-. viii d. J The last piece I have to produce relates to works to be done for the prince and his consort Eleanor ; with the addition of the salary of master William, who was allowed sixpence a day, as surveyor of the works at Guilford : 4 Liberate 52 Hen. III. m. 11. Rex vicecom. Suit, et Suss, salutem. 6 Precipimus tibi quod de exitibus com. prasdictorum infra curiam 6 nostram manerii nostri de Guldeford quandam cameram cum stadio 6 et camino, garderoba, et camera forinseca, et quandam capellam ad * caput ejusdem cameras, cum stadio et fenestris vitreis, easdem i cameram et capellam decentibus, ad opus karissimas fllias nostras ' Alianoras consortis Edvvardi primogeniti nostri, et unam cameram * cum stadio et camino camera forinseca, et fenestris vitreis eandem * cameram decentibus, ad opus militum karissimas consortis nostras ' Alianoras reginae Anglias, et quoddam (Sic originale) appenticm. * ibidem de novo sine dilatione fieri, et herbarium ejusdem reginae * nostras reparari et einendari facias, secundum quod Willielmo Floren- * tino pictori nostro injunximus, et idem Willielmus plenius tibi scire 'faciet ex parte nostra; et custum, etc. per visum, etc. computabitur. , ' Rex eidem vicecom. salutem. Precipimus tibi quod de exitibus * com. prasdictorum facias habere Willielmo Florentino custodi opera- 1 6 PETER CAVALINI, THE INVENTOR OF MOSAIC. ' tionum nostrarum manerii nostri de Guldeford singulis diebus sex 6 denarios pro stipendiis suis, quam diu fueris vicecomes noster eorun- 'dem comitat. et praedictus Willielmus custos fuerit operationum 6 prsedictarum, sicut eos temporibus retroactis ante turbationem habitam ' in regno ibidem^ percipere consuevit : et custum, etc. Teste rege apud ' Westm. xxix die Jan.' Besides the palaces above mentioned, this prince laid out, too, large sums in repairing and beautifying Kenilworth Castle, ceiling the chapel with wainscot, painting that and the queen's chamber, and rebuilding the wall on the outside, as it remained to the time of Sir William Dugdale. 1 I cannot pass over the Princess Eleanor, so much celebrated by our legendary historians for sucking the poison out of her husband's wound, without mentioning the crosses erected to her memory, which Vertue with great probability supposed were built on the designs of Peter Cavalini, a Roman sculptor, and whom from various circumstances he discovered to be the architect of the shrine of Edward the Confessor. The reader, I am persuaded, will be pleased to see how ingeniously my author traced out this hitherto unknown fact. The original inscription on the tomb ran thus : Anno milleno Domini cum septuageno Et bis centeno, cum completo quasi deno, Hoc opus est factum, quod Petrus duxit in actum Romanus civis: Homo, causamnoscere si vis, Rex fuit Henricus, sancti praesentis amicus. The words ' Petrus duxit in actum Romanus civis ' were discernible till very lately. Some old authors ascribe the erection of the shrine to Henry himself ; others, to Richard de Ware the abbot, elected in 1260. It is probable that both were concerned. The new abbot repaired to Rome immediately on his election to receive consecration from Urban IV. At that time, says Vasari, flourished there Peter Cavalini, a painter and the inventor of mosaic, who had performed several costly works in that city. About four years before the arrival of Abbot Ware, that is in 1256, had been erected a splended shrine 2 for the martyrs Simplicius and Faustina, at the expense of John James Capoccio and his wife, adorned with twisted columns and inlaid with precious mar- 1 See his Warwickshire, p. 244. In the same reign John of Hertford, Abbot of St. Albans, made great additions to his convent, and in one of the chambers placed a noble picture. See Willis's Mitred Abbies, vol. i., p. 21. One Lambirt, builder or repairer of the same church, heaped his own rebus, a lamb and a bird, among the ornaments. Alen Strayler was illuminator to that abbey. 2 A draught of it by Mr. Talman in the proper colours is preserved in the first volume of the drawings belonging to the Society of Antiquaries. A sketch of it I have among Vertue's MSS. Great part of that identic shrine which stood originally in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, and was removed of late years, on making a new pavement to the church„ is now at Strawberry Hill, in a chapel erected on purpose to receive it ; being sent to Mr, Walpole by Sir William Hamilton, envoy to Naples, who purchased it on its removal. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 17 bles exactly in the taste, though not in the precise form, of that of St. Edward. Nothing is more probable than that a rich abbot, either at his own expense, or to gratify the taste of his magnificent master, should engage a capital artist to return with him and undertake the shrine of his master's patron-saint, and the great patron of his own church. Weaver says expressly that the abbot brought back with him from Rome workmen and rich porphyry stones for Edward the Confes- sor's feretory, and for the pavement of the chapel. 1 This abbot was lord treasurer to his death in 1283, and was buried on the north side of the great altar : over him was anciently this epitaph confirming the circumstances above mentioned : Abbas Richardus de Wara, qui requiescit Hie, portat lapides, quos hie portavit ab urbe. Vasari's silence on Cavalini's journey to England ought to be no objec- tion ; he not only wrote some hundred years after the time, but con- founds his own account so strangely as to make Peter Cavalini scholar of Giotto, who was twenty years younger. If it may be imagined that Richard Ware could not have interest enough to seduce so capital a workman from the service of the Pope, it might still be accounted for by higher authority. Edward I. returning from the Holy Land, was conducted by the King of Sicily to Rome to visit Gregory X. who had been Edward's companion and friend in the holy war. An artful Pope would certainly be glad to furnish a young king with artists who would encourage him in raising shrines and temples. The monument of Henry III., erected by his son, is beautified in the same taste with porphyry and mosaic ; and the first brazen statue known to have been cast here, lies upon it. The old paintings round the chapel of St. Edward, and those in a very beautiful and superior style, though much decayed, over the ragged regiment, Vertue ascribes to the same Cava- lini. This painter and sculptor probably, as I have said, gave the de- signs for the crosses erected by Edward to his beloved Eleanor. 2 Ver- tue had drawn them, with a design of engraving ; I have his original drawings. I must not omit, that it was no small part of the fame of 1 Before Henry III. began the present church, there had been a rich shrine for the Confessor erected by William I. as the latter says expressly in his charter. Edward had bestowed Windsor on the Abbey of Westminster ; the Conqueror, on his accession, prevailed on the abbot and convent to restore Windsor in exchange for other lands, being delighted with the site. ' Maxime utilis et commodus est visus propter contiguam aquam et silvam venationibus * aptam,' says he ; and after naming the lordships he gave them, he mentions the gift of a hundred pounds of silver to complete and finish the building of the abbey, and then adds, ! Ob reverentiam nimii amoris quern ego in ipsum inclitum regem Edwardum habueram, turn- * bum ejus et reginae juxta eum positae, ex auro et argento fabrili opere artificiosi decoris * mirifice operiri feci.' 2 I have some suspicion that a son of Peter Cavalini is the person called Peter le Orfever, mentioned in a precept of Ed. II. He is there entitled of Stanford, and brougkt an action against certain persons for assault and battery. As one of Queen Eleanor's crosses was erected there, it is not improbable that a son of Cavalini might marry and settle in that town. Peck's Stanford, lib. x., sect. 13. 3 l8 HENRY III. A GREAT ENCOURAGER OF THE ARTS. Peter Cavalini, that he made the crucifix that spoke to St. Bridget (Felibien, vol. i., p. 172). From all the testimonies above recited, Henry III. appears in a new light from what has hitherto been known of him. That he was a weak prince in point of government is indisputable. That he was a great encourager of the arts, these records demonstrate. When historians talk of his profusion, they evidence only in what he dissipated on his favourites. But it is plain that the number and magnificence of his buildings and palaces must have swallowed great part of the sums, maliciously charged to the single article of unworthy favourites. It matters not how a prince squanders what he has tyrannically squeezed from the subject : if he exceeds his revenue, it is almost as ill spent on edifices as on ministers. But it is perhaps no more than justice to make some allowance for partial or exaggerated relations* Henry was not a wise prince — may I venture to say more — he was not a martial prince. Even in these more sensible ages, one illustrious defect in a king converts all his other foibles into excellencies. It must have done so much more in a season of such heroic barbarism as that of Henry III., and the want of an enterprising spirit in that prince made even his patronage of the arts be imputed to effeminacy, or be overlooked. The extravagance of Louis XIV. in his buildings, gardens, water-works, passed for an object of glory under the canon (if I may say so) of his ambition. Henry III. had no conquests to illuminate his ceilings, his halls, his bas-reliefs. Yet perhaps the generous sentiment implied in his motto, c Qui non dat quod habet, non accipit ille quod ' optat/ contained more true glory than all the Fast couched under Louis's emblem of the sun, and his other ostentatious devices. But let us compare Henry with one nearer to him. Henry's reign is one of the most ignominious in our annals ; that of Edward I., of the most triumphant. Yet I would ask, By which of the two did the nation suffer most ? By sums lavished on favourites and buildings ; or by sums and blood wasted in unjust wars ? If we look narrowly into Edward's reign, we shall scarce (Pari. Hist.) find fewer representations against the tyranny of the son than against the encroachments of the father. Who will own that he had not rather employ Master William and Edward of Westminster to paint the gestes of the kings of Antioch, than imitate the son in his barbarities in Wales and usurpations in Scotland ? CHAPTER II. State of Painting from the Reign of Henry III. to the End of Henry VI. From the reign of Hen. III. Mr. Vertue could discover no records relating to the arts for several reigns. I shall endeavour to fill this HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 19 hiatus by producing an almost entire chronologic series of paintings from that time to the reign of Hen. VII., when Mr. Vertue's notes recommence. » During the reigns of the two first Edwards, I find no vestiges 1 of the art, though it was certainly preserved here, at least by painting on glass. No wonder that a proud, a warlike, and ignorant nobility encouraged only that branch which attested their dignity. Their dungeons were rendered still darker by their pride. It was the case of all the arts ; none flourished but what served to display their wealth or contributed to their security. They were magnificent without luxury, and pompous without elegance. Rich plate, even to 2 the enamelling on gold, rich stuffs, and curious armour were carried to excess, while their chairs were mere pedestals, their clothes were incumbrances, and they knew no use of steel but as it served for safety or destruction. Their houses, for there was no medium between castles and hovels, implied the dan- gers of society, not the sweets of it ; and whenever peace left them leisure to think of modes, they seem to imagine that fashion consisted in transfiguring the human body, instead of adding grace to it. While the men wore shoes so long and picked, that they were forced to sup- port the points by chains from their middle ; the ladies erected such pyramids on their heads, that the face became the centre of the body; and they were hardened to these preposterous inconveniencies by their priests, who, instead of leaving them to be cured by the fickleness of fashions, or by the trouble of them, denounced God's judgments on follies against which a little laughter and a little common sense had been more effectual sermons. It was not far distant, I think, from the period of which I am speaking, that the ladies wore looking-glasses about the same height of their bodies, with that on which the men displayed such indecent symbols. 3 The representations of these ex- travagances (as we see them collected by Montfauconinhis Antiquities of France) demanded Japanese and Indian painters ; were not likely to produce Vandycks and Titians. While we are curious in tracing 1 Except that in the reign of Edward I., Bishop Langton built a palace and hall at Lich- field, in which was painted the ceremony of the coronation, etc. Brown Willis's Cath., vol. i., p. 17. 2 Bishop Wickham's crosier at Oxford is an instance how well the pomp of prelacy was served by ingenious artists. It is certain that in the reigns of the two first Edwards, there were Greek enamellers in England, who both practised and taught the art. ^ In Dugdale's Warwickshire, pp. 397, 403, are mentioned enamelled cups very near that period ; and some ancient pieces are still extant. The beautiful cup of gold, enamelled with figures in the habits of the time, given by King John to the corporation of Lynn in Norfolk, and still preserved there, gives a very favourable idea of the taste and artisans of an age a little antecedent to that I am speaking of. King Alfred's jewel, found at Athelney in Somersetshire, and of which there is a print in Camden's Britannia, is of much more ancient date, but of workman- ship far more rude. I call it a jewel because it seems to have been used as jewels were after- wards^ appendent to ribbands. By the cut I should take it for engraven gold. Camden, which is extraordinary, does not describe the materials, but calls it a picture, which would make one think it was enamelled. 8 La Bruyere has expressed this with the happiest decency : lis avoient trouve* le secret de paroitre nuds tout habiilez.' — Vol. ii., p. 234. 3 * 20 PORTRAITS OF EDWARD III., BLACK PRINCE, AND RICHARD II. the progress of barbarism, we wonder more that any arts existed, than that they attained no degree of perfection. Of the third Edward, says Mr. Vertue, 1 many portraits are preserved, at Windsor, in illuminated MSS. and elsewhere. As he has not marked where these limnings exist, I can give no account of them myself, nor refer the reader to the inspection of them. But there is a portrait taken from a bust of the same age, the face of which is far from being executed in a contemptible manner. It represents that artist and patron of arts, William of Wickham, Bishop of Winchester, and prime minister to Ed. III., a prelate whose magnificent charities yet exist, both in the benefits he calculated for posterity, and in the edifices erected on his own designs for perpetuating those pious bounties. The portrait has been engraven by Houbraken among the heads of illus- trious men ; a noble memorial, which I am sorry to say was forced to be dropped (though exhibited at the trifling expense of five shillings for four beautiful prints), the moment the novelty of it was exhausted. The Black Prince 2 was represented on glass in a window at the west end of Westminster Abbey, but the image is now almost defaced. Mr. Maurice Johnson, the antiquary of Spalding, had a MS. of Ralph Higden's Polychronicon, written in 1340, wherein was an illumination of the author. It was shown to the Society of Antiquaries in 1735. The person of Rich. II. is still preserved in the most lively manner, in two different pictures. The first a whole length in the abbey of Westminster ; the other, 3 at the Earl of Pembroke's, at Wilton, a small piece consisting of two tablets, on which are represented the king kneeling, accompanied by his patron saints, John the Baptist, St. Edmund the King, and Edward the Confessor, before the Virgin and Child, attended by angels. Hollar engraved it. To the bottom of this picture are affixed these words, 6 Invention of painting in oil, 1410. 'This was painted before in the beginning of Rich. II., 1377/ etc. These words, which are very equivocal, started a question with me, which I found nobody that could resolve. Do they imply that this piece was painted in oil before John ab Eyck discovered that secret in 1410? So one should think; for, what news did the inscriber tell, if he only meant that painting in water- col ours or miniature was prac- tised before painting in oil? Every illuminated MS. antecedent to that date was a proof of that. The short quaere would be, With what is the picture in question painted ? To that I can only reply, that it is covered with glass, and is too great a curiosity to have experiments made upon 1 See an account, in folio, prefixed to his prints of the Kings of England. 2 Mr. Onslow, the late speaker, had a head of the Black Prince, which there is great reason to believe was painted at the time. It is not very ill done ; it represents him in black armour embossed with gold, and with a golden lion on his breast. He has a hat with a white feather, and a large ruby exactly in the shape of the rough ruby still in the crown. He appears lean and pale, as he was towards the end of his life. This very curious picture came out of Betchworth Castle in Surrey. 3 See a full description of it in the accounts of the curiosities at Wilton, by Gambarini, Cowdry, or Kennedy. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 21 it. It is painted on a bright golden ground, the colours of the utmost freshness, and not grown black as oil-colours would be, and is, as I have said, guarded by a glass, all which indicate that it is miniature. Yet I do not pretend to decide ; the inscription I have mentioned and some other circumstances seem to leave a doubt whether John ab Eyck was really the first person who mixed his colours with oil. We have seen by a record reported above, that long before this period oil was at least used as a varnish, and it is difficult to conceive how it was possi- ble to varnish with oil either water-colours or colours mixed with size. It occurred to me to inquire with what the painters antecedent to John ab Eyck mixed their colours : even in this country there are a few pictures extant, and painted on board, before oil-painting can be sup- posed to have been introduced here. Not to mention the picture at Wilton, the other of Rich. II. at Westminster, and an undoubted original of Hen. IV. at Hampton-court, in Herefordshire, who died within two years after John ab Eyck ; s discovery, must be allowed to have been drawn before the new art arrived here. The picture at Westminster has indeed been repainted ; 1 therefore no conclusion can be drawn from it. This question, easy as I thought it, I found had been passed over without consideration, and, though proposed to a very learned body of men (The Soc. of Antiquaries), arrived at no solution. After turning over several books of painting, all treating of John ab Eyck's invention, but without one word of the method which his secret dispossessed, I at last found what I sought. Sandrart put an end to the difficulty by these words : ' Quia autem metuebant ne muri scissuris diffinderentur, hinc eosdem ' linteo, prius glutine mediante, induxerunt, desuperque applicito gypso, 6 postmodo demum picturas suas effigurarunt, qui modus dici solet alia tempera," id est, temperaturse aquaria?. Hancautem temperaturam 6 ita praeparabant : effracto prius ovo gallinaceo, in ejusdem liquore i frondem teneram flculneam de ficu juniore discutiebant : ubi e lacte 1 istius frondis, eque vitello ilia nascebatur temperatura: qua mediante, ' postmodum loco aquae vel gummi, vel tragacanthse, colores suos ' subigebant, quibus dehinc opera sua periicd'enr/ (Acad. Pictur.,p. 15). When they painted on walls, lest their work should crack, they pro- ceeded in this manner: they glued a linen cloth upon the wall, and covered that with plaster, on which they painted in distemper. This was thus prepared : they dropped into the yolk of an egg the milk that flows from the leaf of a young fig-tree, with which, instead of water, gum, or gumdragant, they mixed their last layer of colours. It is pro- bable from the last words of this passage that they laid their first colour with water or gum only. I shall be told perhaps, that this method was only used for painting 1 By one Capt. Brome, a printseller near the Parliament House; but this was after Mr. Talman had taken his drawing from whence the print was engraved. 22 THE INVENTION OF USING OIL IN PAINTING. on walls ; but, leaving out the plaster, I see nothing to hinder the same preparation from being used on board. Of what mixture Cimabue, the restorer of the art, made use, we are told by the same author. ' Multae- F que illius manu confectae non historise minus, quam imagines, in tabulis ' ligneis, colore ovis vel glutine temperato (Academ. Pictur., p. 94). Cimabue used yolk of egg or glue, which I suppose means size. Still the much more ancient use of oil, were it but as a varnish, leaves a doubt whether John ab Eyck's discovery was entirely his own. The remarkable record which I have so often mentioned, dates above a hundred years before the common era of painting in oil. John ab Eyck is allowed to have found it in searching for a varnish. Might he not have heard that such a varnish or composition was in use in England ? 1 The very pictures I have mentioned as still extant, and under all the appearances of being painted in oil, seem to say even more. The painters employed by Henry III. appear to have been Italians ; and yet it is easy to vindicate the secret from them ; at least I can prove that they must have found the practice here, not have brought it over with them, for we are told expressly that in Italy they knew of no such method. When some of John ab Eyck's pictures were carried to Alphonso, King of Naples, the Italian painters were surprised, says Sandrart, 2 'quod aqua purgari possent, coloribus non * deletis.' I must beg not to have it supposed that I am setting up any novel pretensions for the honour of my own country. Where the discovery was made I do not pretend to guess ; the fact seems to be that we had such a practice. Curious facts are all I aim at relating, never attempt- ing to establish an hypothesis, which of all kind of visions can nourish itself the most easily without any. The passion for systems did not introduce more errors into the old philosophy than hypothesis has crowded into history and antiquities. It wrests all arguments to the favourite point. A man who sees with Saxon eyes sees a Saxon building in every molehill: a Mercian virtuoso can discover king, lords, and commons in the tumultuary conventions of the Witten- agemot ; and an enthusiast to the bards find primeval charms in the 1 I cannot help hazarding a conjecture (though unsupported by any of the writers on paint- ing). There is an old altar table at Chiswick, representing the Lord Clifford and his lady kneeling. Van Eyck's name is burnt in on the back of the board. If Van Eyck was ever in England, would it not be probable that he learnt the secret of using oil here, and took the honour of the invention to himself, as we were then a country little known to the world of arts, nor at leisure enough from the confusions of the times, to claim the discovery of a secret which soon made such fortune abroad? An additional presumption, though certainly not a proof of Van Eyck's being in England, is a picture in the Duke of Devonshire's collection, painted by John ab Eyck in 1422, and representing the consecration of St. Thomas Becket. The tradition is that it was a present to Hen. V. from his uncle the Duke of Bedford, regent of France; but tradition is no proof; and two pictures of this author in England, one of them of an English family and the other of an English story, are at least as good evidence for his having been here., as tradition for one of them being painted abroad. However, I pretend to nothing more in all this than mere conjecture. 2 P. 105. Massei indeed in his Verona Illustrata is of a different opinion, and thinks oil- painting was known in Italy before John ab Eyck. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 23 rudest ballad that was bawled by the mob three or four hundred years ago. But the truths we antiquaries search for, do not seem of import- ance enough to be supported by fictions : the world in general thinks our studies of little consequence ; they do not grow more valuable by being stuffed with guesses and invention. The painters of these portraits of King Richard 1 are still more uncertain than the method in which they painted. I can find no names of artists 2 at that period. Nor is this extraordinary. In countries where the science flourished more, our knowledge of the professors is very imperfect. Though Cimabue restored the art as early as 1250, yet the number of his successors on record is extremely small, till Antonello of Messina carried the secret of painting in oil into Italy; and for Flanders, where it was invented, the biographers of the masters of that country, as Carl Vermander, Sandrart, etc., professedly begin their lists with John ab Eyck. We must leave therefore in the dark what we find irrecoverably so. Two of the artists employed on the tomb of Richard are recorded by Stowe. That prince hai prepared it for himself and his queen. B. and Godfrey, of Wood Street, goldsmiths, made the moulds and cast the images of the king and queen [still extant in the abbey] : ' the charges ' of gilding of them cost 400 marks ' (Annals, p. 342). The next picture of the same age is a portrait of John of Gaunt, painted on glass, with other portraits of that time, in the college of All Souls at Oxford. His son Hen. IV. is extant, as I have said, at Hampton-court, in Herefordshire, formerly his palace; 3 a copy or duplicate of this piece is at Kensington. In a book called Studio di Pittura, Scoltura, etc., di Filippo Tito, is a coin of Char. VI. of France, with exactly the same extraordinary headdress as was worn by this king. 1 Another representation of this king is exhibited by Montfaucon from a MS. Froisard in the library of the King of France. There is another illuminated edition of that author in the British Museum, in which is a miniature of the young monarch sitting on his throne and attended by his uncles. In the same place is an historic poem in old French, written by a person of condition in the service of Rich. II. and an eyewitness of all that he relates. It has sixteen curious illuminations, in which that king is eight times represented in different situations.* There are also the portraits of Henry of Lancaster (four times), of Archbishop Arundel, the dukes of Surrey and of Exeter, the earls of Northumberland, Salisbury, etc. Part of this curious piece was translated by George Carew, Earl of Totnes ; the translation was published with ten other tracts in a thin folio called Hibernica, by Walter Harris ; Dublin 1747. 2 Except of John Sutton a carver, who was employed by Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of War- wick, to alter a statue of the famous Guy Earl of Warwick, standing in the choir of the church there, and to cut the arms of the ancient earls on it. It was from the spoils of this family that Rich. II. granted to his half brother Thomas Duke of Surrey a suit of arras wrought with the story of the same Guy. Dugdale's Warwickshire, pp. 402, 431. The city of London made presents to Richard and his queen, among other curiosities, of pictures of the Trinity valued at 800/. An enormous sum for that time ! Description of London and the Environs, vol. iv., p. 30. 3 This is the common report. Others say that Hampton-court was built by Sir John Lenthall, from the profit of spoils taken in the French war under Henry V. ; consequently Henry IV. could not have lived there. * Strutt has engraved them for his Regal and Ecclesiastical Antiquities, 24 THE ILLUMINATIONS OF THE MISSALS. Vertue met with a fine illuminated MS. of this age, a missal for the use of Salisbury : in the beginning was the figure of John, Lord Lovel, receiving the book from Frater Johannes Sifernas, who was probably the illuminator. It is now in the British Museum. The fine east window in the cathedral of York was painted in this reign, at the expense of the dean and chapter, who contracted with John Thornton, glazier, of Coventry, to execute it. He was to receive for his own work four shillings a week, and to finish the whole in less than three years. The indenture, still preserved, adds, that he was to receive an hundred shillings sterling, each of the three years ; and if he executed his work truly and perfectly, he was to have ten pounds more. Another indenture of 1338, for glazing some of the west windows, articles that the workman should have sixpence a foot for white glass, and twelvepence for coloured. The great window evidences how able an artist John Thornton was (Drake's York, p. 527). The painted effigies of Chaucer remained till within these few years on his tomb at Westminster; and another, says Vertue, on his print of that poet, is preserved in an illuminated MS. of Thomas Occleve, painted by Occleve himself. D'Urry and Tanner both mention such a portrait, which places Occleve in the rank of one of our first painters as well as poets. 1 Hen. V. is likewise on board at Kensington, and on vellum in some MSS., as Vertue says in his account prefixed to the heads of our kings, but he does not mention where those MSS. are preserved. But a most curious picture of this king and his family is still extant in the collection of J amies West, Esq., secretary of the treasury (now at Strawberry-hill). This piece is evidently painted in oil-colours ; and though the new art might have reached England before the death of that prince, which happened in 1422, yet there are many circum- stances that lead me to think it of a later date. It was an altar-piece at Shene, and in all probability was painted by order of Hen. VII. for the chapel in his palace there. His fondness for the house of Lan- caster is too well known to be dwelt on ; the small resemblance of the portrait of Hen, V. to genuine pictures of him, and the great resem- blance of all the other personages to one another, make it evident that it was rather a work of command and imagination than of authenticity. Add to this, that on the tents (which I shall mention presently) port- cullises are mixed with red roses : the portcullis (see Sandford) was the cognisance of the illegitimate branch of Beaufort, and was never that I can find borne by the house of Lancaster; 2 but when Hen. VII. 1 I find by Montfaucon that the use of crayons was known in this age in France ; but nothing of that kind appears to have been practised in this country. Se? his account of the portraits of John Duke of Berry and Louis Duke of Orleans, the uncle and the brother of Charles VI. 2 The red rose is another proof that this picture was not painted in the reign of Henry V as the red and white roses were not adopted as distinctions of the two houses till the reitrn of Henry VI. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 25 gave himself for the heir of that royal line, no wonder he crowded the badges of his own bastard blood among the emblems of the crown. However, the whole piece is so ancient and so singular, that I shall be excused inserting the description of it in this place. It is painted on several boards joined, and is four feet three inches high, by four feet six wide. On the left hand is the king in dark purple robes lined with ermine, the crown on his head. He is kneeling before a desk on which is a missal, and the sceptre and globe. Behind him on their knees are his three brothers, Thomas, Duke of Clarence ; John, Duke of Bed- ford; 1 Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. They are dressed in robes like the king's, and wear golden coronets ; over them is a tent, striped with white and gold, on which are red roses crowned ; and the valance, of the same colours with red 'roses and portcullises. A small angel flying holds the top of the tent. The queen is opposite, under another tent exactly in the same manner, except that there is no sceptre on her desk. Behind her are four ladies dressed like her and with coronets. The two first are probably Blanche, Duchess of Bavaria, and Philippa, Queen of Denmark, the king's sisters; who the other two are is more difficult to decide, as they are represented with dishevelled hair, which in pictures of that time is a mark of virginity. It has been supposed that the two elder were the wives of the Dukes of Clarence and Bed- ford, and the two younger, their sisters ; but this clashes with all history and chronology. Blanche and Philippa were both married early in their father's reign ; and to suppose tjie two younger ladies the brides of Clarence and Bedford would be groundless; for Margaret Holland, the wife of the former, was a widow when he married her. As all the portraits are imaginary, it does not much signify for whom the painter intended them. A large angel standing, holds the cloth of the two tents together. On a rising ground above the tents is St. George on a brown steed striking with his sword at the dragon, which is flying in the air, and already pierced through the forehead with a spear, on which is a flag with the cross of St. George. Cleodelinde, with a lamb, is praying beneath the dragon. On the hills are Gothic buildings and castles in a pretty taste. This curious picture, after it was taken from Shene, was in the Arundelian collection, and was sold at Tart-hall in 1 719. In the long gallery at Lambeth is an ancient portrait of Queen Catherine, of Valois, and another of Archbishop Chicheley. Richard Frampton had a gift of five marks from Henry V. for illuminating a book of grants in the office of the duchy of Lancaster. An original portrait of John, Duke of Bedford, above mentioned, is extant 2 in a fine illuminated Prayer-Book presented by him to Henry 1 This is extremely unlike the miniature of him which I shall mention presently, and which is too remarkable a face not to have had much resemblance. 2 It is now in the collection of her grace the Duchess of Portland ; the Duke of Bedford's head was engraved by Vcrtue with those of the kings. 26 PAINTING OF HENRY VI., HIS QUEEN, AND COURTIERS. VI. The duke and his first wife, Anne of Burgundy, are represented with their arms and devices. Of that indiscreet but amiable and unfortunate Prince Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, I know 1 no memorial; nor will I mention him but to make one remark, sufficient alone to detect the malice of his enemies, if it had not been detected. What probability was there that the wife of a man illustrious for exposing impostors, who encouraged learning, 2 and founded the divinity school at Oxford, should have dared under his roof to dabble with witches and necromancers? His first wife Jaqueline, the amorous Countess of Holland, is known by more than one monument. Two fine prints of her, and her last husband, were published in 1753, by Folkema, from pictures painted by Mostert, at Harlem. William Bridges, the first garter king at arms, instituted by Hen. V., set up in the windows of the church of St. George at Stanford, the portraits of the first knights of the garter ; it was from these paintings that Hollar etched the plate of them published in Ashmole's history of the order (Peck's Annals of Stanford, book ii., chap, xviii.). In the reign of Hen. VI., our field begins to grow less barren. Many portraits of the king himself are preserved, as on board at Kensington and on glass in the chapel of King's College. In my possession is a remarkable piece, which so many circumstances affix to the history of this prince that I cannot hesitate to believe it designed for him, though I imagine it was painted after his death. It is the representation of his marriage. There are eleven figures, of which all the heads are well painted ; the draperies are hard and stiff. The king in rich robes, but with rude dishevelled hair, as are all the men, stands before the portal of a magnificent church, giving his hand to the queen, who is far from being a lovely bride, and whom the painter seems satirically to have insinuated by the prominence of her waist not to have been so perfect a virgin as her flowing hair denotes. Kemp, Archbishop of York, and afterwards of Canterbury, and one of her chief counsellors, is performing the marriage rites by holding the pallium over their conjoined hands. It is remarkable that the prelate wears thin yellow gloves, which are well represented. Behind the king in robes of state stands the Duke of Gloucester, and seems reproving a nobleman, 3 whom I take for the Marquis of Suffolk. Behind the queen is a lady in a kind of turban or diadem, probably designed for her mother, the titular queen of Naples and Jerusalem. Beyond her, another in a widow's dress, opposite to whom is a comely gentleman. This pair I conclude is Jaqueline, Duchess of Bedford, widow of Duke John, and her second husband. Our historian says, 1 1 have since the first edition of this work authenticated two portraits of that prince, as will be mentioned presently. 2 He had a valuable library for that time, and gave 129 volumes to the university, Hearne. 8 He has a hawk on his fist ; a mark of nobility in old paintings. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING, 27 that pretty suddenly after the duke's death she married Sir Richard Woodville, a goodly young knight. They were the parents of Eliza- beth, queen of Edward IV. 1 On the foreground opposite to the Marquis of Suffolk, stands a noble virgin, whom I take for Margaret of Richmond, mother of Hen. VII. One of the charges against the Marquis of Suffolk was, that he endeavoured to marry his son to this Lady Margaret, a princess of the blood. Near the archbishop is a cardinal, who is certainly Winchester, the king's great uncle. The face is very like the image on his tomb at Winchester ; nor can one account for his not performing the ceremony, but by his dignity of prince of the blood, which did not suffer by the ministration of an inferior prelate. Behind the Queen of Naples is an abbess, and at a distance a view of a town, that must be Tichfield, from whence the queen was led to be married at Southwick. Besides the seeming pregnancy of the queen, there is another circumstance, conclusive for this picture being painted after the death of Henry. Round his head is the nimbus or glory: an addition that was as posterior to his marriage, as the painter seems to intimate the queen's fruitfulness was anterior to it. Round the hem of the queen's robe are some letters, 2 which are far from being so intelligible as the other incidents. The words are involved in the folds ; what appear, are Vol salv Regin m — one knows that Salve Regina mater ccelorum is the beginning of a hymn — but I know not what to make of Vol — the painter probably was no Latinist— and indeed the first letter of Regina he has drawn more like to a B than an R. On the abbess's girdle is, Vel ave — as little to be decyphered as her majesty's Vol. But it is to Sir William Dugdale that I am indebted for the great discoveries I have made towards the history of our ancient artists. In that collection of various treasures which he has saved from oblivion [saved the more luckily, as he wrote but the instant before it became piety to commit devastation], he has incidentally preserved some memorials of the state of painting in the reigns of our earliest princes. I have found some names of the professors, and even the rates of their work. I call them professors, agreeably to modern estimation ; but our ancestors seem to have treated them without any distinction from other mechanics. If Hen. III. bespoke pictures by the intervention of the sheriff, under Hen. VI. we were still so unpolished, that a peer of the first nobility going into France on an embassy, contracted with his tailor for the painter's work that was to be displayed in the 1 The portraits of Duke Humphrey and Archbishop Kemp have been authenticated by two others of the same persons which formed part of an altar-piece at St. Edmondsbury, and are now at Strawberry Hill. 2 This was a fashion as early as the reign of Richard II. When Edward, Earl of Rutland, the Lord Spencer, and others, accused the Earl of Arundel of treason, they appeared before the king at Nottingham in red gowns of silk, garded and bordered with ' white silk and embroi- 'dered wi$fc letters of gold/ Peck's Annals of Stanford, 12, 39. The Lady Margaret in this picture is m a green gown bordered with white silk. 28 HERALD PAINTING WAS AN OLD ART. pageantry of his journey. The bill itself is so curious that I shall transcribe part of it. 'Thes be the parcels that Will. Seburgh, citizen and peyntour of ' London, hath delivered in the month of Juyll the xv yeer of the reign ' of king Harry the sixt, to John Ray, taillour of the same citee, for the 1 use and stuff of my lord of Warwyk. ' Ferst, cccc pencils bete with the raggidde staffe of silver, pris the ' pece v d. 08/. 6 s. ood. Item, for the peynting of two paveys for my 6 lord, the one with a gryfon stondying in my lordis colours rede, white ' and russet, pris of the pavys oo 06 08. Item, for the other pavys ' peyntid with black and a ragged staffe bete with silver occupying all 6 the felde, pris oo 03 04. Item, one coat for my lordis body, bete with i fine gold, pris 01 10 00. Item, for a grete stremour for the ship of ' XL yerdis length, and VIII yerdis in brede, with a grete bere and ' gryfon holding a ragidd staffe, poudrid full of raggid staves ; and for i a grete crosse of St. George, for the lymmyng and portraying 01 06 08., There are several other articles*which the reader may find at length in the original from whence I have copied these (Sir W. Dugdale's Warwickshire, p. 408). If it is objected to me, that this was mere herald's painting, I answer, that was almost the only painting we had. The art was engrossed by and confined to the vanity or devotion of the nobility. The arms they bore and quartered, their missals, their church- windows, and the images of their idols, were the only circumstances in which they had any employment for a painter. Even portraits, the object of modern vanity, seem not to have been in fashion. I know not one, except of the blood royal or of a bishop or two, painted during the period of which I am writing. Devout subjects were held in sufficient estimation. Isabel, Countess of Warwick, in 1439, bequeathed her tablet with the image of our Lady, to the church of Walsingham, and it is even mentioned that this tablet had a glass over it. I cannot pass over this magnificent lady without taking a little notice of some other particulars of her will. She was daughter and at length sole heiress of Thomas le Despenser, Earl of Gloucester, widow of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Worcester, and afterwards by dispensation married to his cousin that potent and warlike peer, Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. Their portraits on glass with others of their lineage, were long extant in the church at Warwick. 'Her great ternplys 1 with 'the baleys sold to the utmost, she gave to the monks of Tewksbury, so 'that they grucht not with her burial there, and what else she had 'appointed to be done about the same. To our Lady of Walsingham, 'her gown of green alyz cloth of gold with wide sleeves, and a taber- 'nacle of silver like in the timbre to that over our Lady of Caversham, 1 Jewels hanging on the foreheads of ladies by bodkins thrust into their hair. See Dug dale's Warwickshire, p. 413. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 2 9 and ordered that her great image of wax, then at London, should be offered to our Lady of Worcester. To the abbey of Tewksbury she gave her wedding gown, and all her clothes of gold and clothes of silk without furs, saving one of russet velvet which she bestowed on St. Winifrede. But having thus disposed of her wardrobe for the use of the saints, she seems to have had very different thoughts about herself, ordering that 6 a statue of her should be made all nakyd with her hair ' cast backward, according to the design and model that one Thomas 1 Porchalion had for that purpose/ This extreme prohibition of all covering, I suppose, flowed from some principle of humility in this good lady, who having divested herself of all vain ornaments in favour of our Lady and St. Winifrede, would not indulge her own person even in the covering of the hair of her head. And it looks, by the legacy to the monks above, as if she had some apprehensions that they would not relish or comprehend the delicacy of such total rejection of all superfluities. I was willing to mention this testament too, because it seems to record even the name of an ancient statuary. Other statu- aries and founders are mentioned in the cost bestowed on the tomb of the earl her husband. Dugdale has preserved the covenant between the executors and the artists. There I find John Essex, marbler, William Austin, founder, Thomas Stevens, coppersmith, John Bourde of Corffe Castle, marbler, Bartholomew Lambspring, a Dutch gold- smith ; they agree on all the particulars for the image on the tomb, and the little images and escutcheons round it. The tomb with the image still extant in polished brass of the highest preservation wit- nesses that the artists were excellent enough to deserve this memorial. John Pruddle, of Westminster, called simply glazier, appears to have painted the windows of the chapel ; and it was particularly stipulated that 'he should employ no glass of England, but with glass beyond 6 the seas, and that in the finest wise, with the best, cleanest, and 6 strongest glasse of beyond the sea that may be had in England, and ' of the finest colours of blew, yellow, red, purpure, sanguine, and 1 violet, and of all other colours that shall be most necessary and best 6 to make rich and embellish the matters, images and stories that shall • be delivered and appointed by the said executors by patterns in 6 paper, afterwards to be newly traced and pictured by another painter i in rich colour at the charges of the said glazier/ By all these circum- cumstances it is plain that the executors thought that the magnificence of the intended monument must consist in the value and show of the materials, rather than in any excellence of the workmanship. This covenant carries us still farther, and has even brought to light a history-painter of that time. John Brentwood, citizen and steyner of London, engages ' to paint on the west wall of the chapel the dome of ' our Lord Jesus and all manner of devises and imagery thereunto t belonging, of fair and sightly proportion, as the place shall serve for, 30 WEALTH AND GRANDEUR OF THE WARWICK FAMILY. i with the finest colours and fine gold and Kristian Coleburne, another painter dwelling in London, undertakes to paint ' in most fine, fairest 1 and curious wise four images of stone, of our Lady, St. Gabraell the 6 angel, St. Anne, and St. George ; these four to be painted with the € finest oil colours, in the richest, finest and freshest clothings that may ' be made of fine gold, azure, of fine purpure, of fine white, and other 1 finest colours necessary, garnished, bordered and poudered in the ' finest and curiousest wise.' This singular record contains too the prices stipulated for the several performances. The tomb was to cost 125/. sterling; the image 40/. ; the gilding of the image and its appurtenances, 13/. The glass- painter was to have 2s. for eveiy foot of glass, and so for the whole 91/. is. lod. The scripture-piece on the wall was to cost 13/. 6s. &d., and the painting of the four images 12/. The whole expense of the chapel and monument, which were not completed under one and twenty years, amounted to 2481/. 3^. yd. The wealth and splendour of that family was so great, that Henry Beau champ, son of Richard and Isabel, was at the age of nineteen created premier Earl of England, and three days after he was made Duke of Warwick, with precedence next to the Duke of Norfolk, and before the Duke of Buckingham — an act of power so destructive of all the vanity of nobility and blood, that the Duke of Buckingham could not digest it; it occasioned such animosity, that the king was obliged to qualify his grant, by establishing between the contending parties a rotation of seniority, each to take place alternately for a year, the survivor to precede for his life the heir of the other, and . so in perpetuum. A senseless jumble, soon liquidated by a more egregious act of folly : the king with his own hand crowning the young Duke of War- wick King of the Isle of Wight — nor can one easily conceive a more ridiculous circumstance, than a man who had lost the kingdom of France amusing himself with bestowing the diadem of the little Isle of Wight. But to return to our artists : I find the name of another sculptor at the same era, not employed indeed in any considerable work, and called only Richard the carver; he and one brother Rowsby, a monk, were engaged on some repairs in the church of St. Mary at Stanford (Peck's Antiquities of Stanford, lib. xiv., cap. v.). But the most valuable artists of that age were the illuminators of of manuscripts. Their drawing was undoubtedly stiff, but many of the ornaments, as animals, flowers and foliage, they often painted in a good taste, and finished highly. To several missals were added por- traits of the princes and princesses to whom they belonged, or for whom they were designed as presents. The dresses and buildings of the times are preserved, though by frequent anachronisms applied to the ages of Scripture; and the gold and colours are of the greatest brightness and beauty. Several receipts for laying these on are extant, HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 3 1 particularly in the British Museum. 1 Dugdale from some of these illuminations has given cuts of two remarkable combats or tourna- ments performed in the 15th year of King Hen. VI. (Warwick., p. no), in which the designs are far from unworthy of a better age, and the customs and habits delineated with great accuracy. Henry himself, I suppose, had no taste for the arts — the turbulent ambitition of his queen left her as little — yet she was the daughter of a prince, who was not only reckoned the best painter of his age, but who would really appear no mean performer in the present : this was Rene* of Anjou, King of the two Sicilies, Duke of Lorrain and Count of Provence, much known from having lost almost all his dominions ; yet it has been little remarked that he was one of the very few princes who did not deserve to lose them, having merited from his subjects the title of i The Good/ His own picture painted by himself is still extant in the chapel of the Carmelites at Aix, and the print from it in Montfau con's Antiquities of France will justify what I have said of this prince's talents. In this age was finished the cloister adjoining the old church of St. Paul : it was built round a chapel in Pardon Church Hawgh, a place situated on the north side of the church, where Thomas More, Dean of St. Paul's, in the reign of Hen. V., restored an ancient chapel; but dying before he had accomplished it, it was finished by his executors, by license from Hen. VI. On the walls of this cloister was painted, at the charge of Jenkyn Carpenter, a citizen of London, the Dance of Death, an imitation of that in the cloister adjoining to St. Innocent's churchyard at Paris. Underneath were English verses (to explain the paintings), translated from the French, by John Lidgate, the famous poetic monk of Bury. Dugdale has preserved the lines, and Holbein by borrowing the thought ennobled the pictures (Dugdale's St. Paul's, p. 134, and Stowe, 354). In this reign, John de Whethamsted, Abbot of St. Albans, a man of great learning and merit, adorned the chapel of our Lady there with various paintings, as he did the sides of the church and his own lodg- ings, under all which paintings he caused mottos and inscriptions to be placed. At his manor of Tittenhanger he had pictures in the church of all the saints of his own name (Chauncy, 445). I shall close my notes on the state of painting under Hen. VI., with observing that the portraits on glass in the windows of the cottage of All Souls, at Oxford, were painted in his reign. 3 Catal. Harl. MSS., No. 273, art. 34, where is also a receipt for painting on glass. In that collection is a MS. in which Henry VI. is represented looking out of a window in the Tower. In Dufresne's Greek Glossary are three .receipts for illuminating, under the article xpvcro- ypCMpLa. There are two others in Montfaucon's Palseographia Graeca. 32 PORTRAIT OF JANE SHORE, AT ETON. CHAPTER III. Continuation of the State of Painting to the End of Henry VII. Whether it was owing to the confusions of his reign, or to his being born with little propensity to the arts, we find but small traces of their having flourished under Ed. IV. Brave, aspiring, and beautiful, his early age was wasted on every kind of conquest ; as he grew older, he became arbitrary and cruel, not less voluptuous, nor even 1 more refined in his pleasures. His picture on board, stiff and poorly painted, is preserved at Kensington — the whole length of him at St. James's, in a nightgown and black cap, was drawn many years after his death by Belcomp, of whom an account will be given hereafter. A portrait, 2 said to be his queen, in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, conveys no idea of her loveliness, nor of any skill in the painter. Almost as few charms can be discovered in his favourite Jane Shore, preserved at Eton, and probably an original, as her confessor was provost of that college, and by her intercession recovered their lands, of which they had been despoiled, as having owed their foundation to Edward's competitor. In this picture her forehead is remarkably large, her mouth and the rest of her features small ; her hair of the admired golden colour: 3 a lock of it (if we may believe tradition) is still extant in the collection of the Countess of Cardigan, and is marvellously beautiful, seeming to. be powdered with golden dust, without prejudice to its silken delicacy. The king himself, with his his queen, eldest son and others of his court, are represented in a MS. in the library at Lambeth, from which an engraving was made, with an account of it, and prefixed to the Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors. It was purchased of Peacham by Sir Robert Cotton. Rich. III., the successor of these princes, appears in another old picture at Kensington. In the princess dowager's house at Kew, in a chamber of very ancient portraits, of which most are imaginary, is one very curious, as it is probably an original, of the Duke of Norfolk, killed at the battle of Bosworth. 1 His device, a falcon and fetter-lock, with a quibbling motto in French, had not even deli- cacy to excuse the witticism. 2 There is another at Queen's College, Cambridge, of which she was second foundress ; it seems to be of the time, but is not handsome. 3 This picture answers to a much larger mentioned by Sir Thomas More ; who speaking of her says, 4 her stature was mean, her hair of a dark yellow, her face round and full, her eyes ' grey ; delicate harmony being betwixt each part's proportions, and each proportion's colour ; 1 her body fat, white, and smooth ; her countenance cheerfull, and like to her condition ; the ' picture which I have seen of her was such as she rose out of her bed in the morning, having ' nothing on but a rich mantle, cast under one arm and over her shoulder, and sitting in a ' chair on which one arm did lie.' The picture at Eton is not so large, and seems to have been drawn earlier than that Sir Thomas saw ; it has not so much as the rich mantle over one shoulder. There is another portrait of Jane Shore to below the breasts, in the provost's lodge at King's College, Cambridge ; the body quite naked, the hair dressed with jewels, and a necklace of massive gold. It is painted on board, and from the meanness of the execution seems to be original. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. Names of artists in these reigns, of which even so few authentic records exist, are not to be expected — one I have found, the particulars of whose work are expressed with such rude simplicity, that it may not be unentertaining to the reader to peruse them. They are ex- tracted from a book belonging to the church of St. Mary Ratcliffe, at Bristol. i Memorandum. — That Master Cumings hath delivered the 4th day ' of July, in the year of our Lord 1470, to Mr. Nicholas Bettes, Vicar of 'Ratcliffe, Moses Couteryn, Philip Bartholemew, and John Brown. ' procurators of Ratcliffe beforesaicl, a new sepulchre well-gilt, and ' cover thereto, an image of God Almighty rysing out of the same c sepulchre, with all the ordinance that longeth thereto ; that is to say, ' A lath made of timber and iron work thereto ; item, thereto longeth 1 Heven, made of timber, and stained cloth ; item, hell, made of ' timber and iron work, with devils, the number, thirteen ; item, four ' knights armed, keeping the sepulchre, with their weapons in their ' hands, that is to say, two spears, two axes, two paves ; item, four pair 1 of angePs wings, for four angels, made of timber and well painted ; 1 item, the fadre, the crown and visage, the bell with a cross upon it 1 well gilt with fine gold ; item, the Holy Ghost coming out of heven ' into the sepulchre ; item, longeth to the angels four chevelers.' 1 Henry VII. seems never to have laid out any money so willingly as on what he could never enjoy, his tomb 2 — on that he was profuse ; but the very service for which it was intended, probably comforted him with the thought that it would not be paid for till after his death. Being neither ostentatious nor liberal, genius had no favour from him ; he reigned as an attorney would have reigned, and would have pre- ferred a conveyancer to Praxiteles. Though painting in his age had attained its brightest epoch, 3 no taste reached this country. Why should it have sought us? The king penurious, the nobles humbled, what encouragement was there for abilities? What theme for the arts? Barbarous executions, chicane, processes, and mercenary treaties, were all a painter, a poet or a statuary had to record — accordingly not one that deserved the title (I mean natives) arose in that reign. The only names of painters that Vertue could recover of that period were both foreigners, and of one of them the account is indeed exceedingly slight; mention being barely 1 This memorandum is copied from the minutes of the Antiquarian Society under the year 1736. 1 Two paves : ' A pave (in French, pavois or talevas) is a large buckler, forming an angle in front like the ridge of a house, and big enough to cover the tallest man from head to foot. 'The bell with the cross;' probably the ball or mound. 'Four chevelers:' chevelures or perukes, 2 The whole chapel called by his name is properly but his mausoleum, he building it solely for the burial-place of himself and the royal family, and accordingly ordering by his will that no other persons should be interred there. See Dart's Antiquities of Westminster Abbey, vol. i., p. 32. The tomb was the work of one Peter a Florentine, as one Peter a Roman made the shrine of Edward the Confessor. 3 Raphael was born in 1483. 4 34 ABSURDITY OF PAINTING THE HIEROGLYPHIC CATTLE. made in the register's office of Wells, that one Holbein lived and died here in the reign of Hen. VII. Whether the father of the celebrated Holbein, I shall inquire hereafter in the life of that painter — but of this person, whoever he was, are probably some ancient limnings 1 in a cabinet at Kensington, drawn before the great master of that name could have arrived here. Among them is the portrait of Hen. VII. from whence Vertue engraved his print. The other painter had merit enough to deserve a particular article ; he was called JOHN MABUSE or MABEUGIUS, And was born at a little town of the same name in Hainault, 2 but in what year is uncertain, as is the year 3 of his death. He had the two defects of his contemporary countrymen, stiffness in his manner and drunkenness. Yet his industry was sufficient to carry him to great lengths in his profession. His works were clear and highly finished. He was a friend rather than a rival of Lucas 4 of Leyden. After some practice at home, he travelled into Italy, where he acquired more truth in treating naked subjects than freedom of expression. Indeed Raphael himself had not then struck out that majestic freedom, which has since animated painting, and delivered it from the servility of coldly copying motionless nature. M abuse so far improved his taste, as to introduce among his countrymen poetic history ; for so I should understand (P. 234) Sandrart's Varia Poemata Conficiendi, if it is meant as a mark of real taste, rather than what a later 5 author ascribes to Mabuse, that he first treated historic subjects allegorically. I never could conceive that riddles and rebuses (and I look upon such emblems as little better) are any improvements upon history. Allegoric personages are a poor decomposition of human nature, whence a single quality is separated and erected into a kind of half deity, and then, to be rendered intel- ligible, is forced to have its name written by the accompaniment of symbols. You must be a natural philosopher before you can decypher the vocation of one of these simplified divinities. Their dog, or their bird, or their goat, or their implement, or the colour of their clothes, must all be expounded, before you know who the person is to whom they belong, and for what virtue the hero is to be celebrated, who has all this hieroglyphic cattle around him. How much more genius is there in expressing the passions of the soul in the lineaments of the countenance! Would Messalina's character be more ingeniously 1 Two miniatures of Hen. VII., each in a black cap, and one of them with a rose in his hand, are mentioned in a MS. in the Harleian collection. 2 Le Compt says it was in Hungary. t 3 Le Compt and^Descamps say it was in 1562; a print of him, published by Galle, says, Fuit Hanno patria Malbodiensis ; obiit Antwerpiae anno 1532, in cathedrali sede sepultus :' but Vertue thought part of this inscription was added to the plate many years after the first publication ; and Sandrart, whom I follow, says expressly that he could not discover when Mabuse died. Vertue conjectured that he lived to the age of fifty-two. 4 Lucas made an entertainment for Mabuse and other artists that cost hiin sixty florins of gold. 5 Descamps, Vies des Peintrees Flamands, p. 83. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 35 drawn in the warmth of her glances, or by ransacking a farm-yard for every animal of a congenial constitution? A much admired work of Mabusewas an altar-piece at Middleburgh, 1 a descent from the cross : Albert Durer went on purpose to see and praise it. Indeed their style was very like. A picture of Mabuse now at St. James's is generally called Albert's. The piece at Middle- burgh was destroyed by lightning. A great number of Mabuse' s works were preserved in the same city in the time of Carl Vermander. M. Magnus, at Delft, had another descent from the cross by this master. The sieur Wyntgis (Mint-master of Zealand) at Amsterdam had a Lucretia by him. But one of his most striking performances was the decollation of St. John painted in the shades of a single colour. The Marquis de Veren took him into his own house, where he drew the Virgin and Child, borrowing the ideas of their heads from the marquis's lady and son. This was reckoned his capital piece. It afterwards passed into the cabinet of M. Frosmont. While he was in this service, the Emperor Charles V., was to lodge at the house of that lord, who made magnificent preparations for his reception, and among other expenses ordered all his household to be dressed in white damask. Mabuse, always wanting money to waste in debauchery, when the tailor came to take his measure, desired to have the damask, under pretence of inventing a singular habit. He sold the stuff, drank out the money, and then painted a suit of paper so like damask, that it was not distinguished, as he marched in the procession between a philosopher and a poet, other pensioners of the marquis ; who, being informed of the trick, asked the emperor which of the three suits he liked best. The prince pointed to Mabuse's, as excelling in the whiteness and beauty of the flowers ; nor did he, till convinced by the touch, doubt of the genuineness of the silk. The emperor laughed much, but, though a lover of the art, seems to have taken no other notice of Mabuse, whose excesses some time after occasioned his being flung into prison at Middleburgh, where, however, he continued to work. Vermander had seen several good drawings by Mabuse in black chalk. At what time Mabuse came to England I do not find ; Vermander says expressly that he was here, and the portraits drawn by him are a confirmation. The picture of Prince Arthur, Prince Henry, and Princess Margaret, when children, now in the china-closet at Windsor, was done by him. A neat little copy of, or rather his original design for it, in black and white oil-colours, is at the Duke of Leeds', at Kiveton. 2 Sandrart speaks of the pictures of two noble youths drawn by him at Whitehall. Over one of the doors in the king's antechamber at St. James's is his picture of Adam and Eve, which formerly hung 1 Painted for the Abbot Maximilian of Burgundy, who died 1524. 2 There is another of these in small in Queen Caroline's closet at Kensington ; another, very 4* 36 THE WORKS OF JOHN MABUSE. in the gallery at Whitehall, thence called the Adam and Eve gallery. 1 Martin Papenbroech, formerly a famous collector in Holland, had another of them. It was brought over as a picture of Raphael in his first manner, in the time of Vertue, who by the exact description of it in Vermander discovered it to be of Mabuse. It was sold, however, for a considerable price. 2 In a MS. catalogue of the collection of King Charles L, taken in the year 1649, and containing some pictures that are not in the printed list, I find mention made of an old man's head by Mabuse; Sir Peter Lely had the story of Hercules and Deianira by him. 3 The only 4 work besides that I know of this master in England, is a celebrated picture in my possession. It was bought for 200/. by Henrietta Louisa, Countess of Pomfret, and hung for some years at their seat at Easton Neston, in Northamptonshire, whence it was sold after the late eaiTs death. The Earl of Oxford once offered 500/. for it (I gave 84/.). It is painted on board, and is four feet six inches and three quarters wide, by three feet six inches and three quarters high. It represents the inside of a church, an imaginary one, not at all resembling the abbey where those princes were married. The perspective and the landscape of the country on each side are good. On one hand on the foreground stand the king and the Bishop of Imola who pronounced the nuptial benediction. His majesty 5 is a trist, lean, ungracious figure, with a downcast look, very expressive of his mean temper, and of the little satisfaction he had in the match. Opposite to the bishop is the queen, 6 a buxom well-looking damsel, with golden hair. By her is a figure, above all proportion with the rest, unless intended, as I imagine, for an emblematic personage, and designed from its lofty stature to give an idea of something above human. It is an elderly man, 7 dressed like a monk, except that his habit is green, his feet bare, and a spear in his hand. As the frock of no religious order ever was green, this cannot be meant for a friar. good, at Wilton ; and another in Mr. Methuen's collection. One of these pictures, I do not know which of them, was sold out of the royal collection during the civil war for ten pounds. The picture that was at Kiveton is now in London, and is not entirely black and white, but the carnations are pale, and all the shadows tinged with pure black ; but that was the manner of painting at the time, blues, reds, greens, and yellows, not being blended in the gradations. 1 Evelyn, in the preface to his Idea of the Perfection of Painting, mentions this picture, painted, as he calls him, by Malvagius, and objects to the absurdity of representing Adam and Eve with navels, and a fountain with carved imagery in Paradise. The remark is just. 2 It is now at the Grange in Hampshire, the seat of the Lord Chancellor Henley. 3 See catalogue of his collection, p. 48, No. 99. 4 I have since bought a small one of Christ crowned with thorns by him, with his name Malbodius on it ; and Mr. Raspe mentions another at Rochester. Essay on Oil Painting, P- s6 * 5 He is extremely like his profile on a shilling-piece. 6 Her image preserved in the abbey, among those curious but mangled figures of some of our princes, which were carried at their interments, and now called the ragged regiment, has much the same countenance. A figure in Merlin's cave was taken from it. In a MS. account of her coronation in the Cottonian library mention is made of her fair yellow hair hanging at length upon her shoulders. 7 This allegoric figure seems to agree with the account of Descamps mentioned above ; and Mabuse might have learned in Italy that the Romans always represented their Divine personages larger than the human, as is evident from every model whereon are a genius and an emperor. / HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 37 Probably it is St. Thomas, represented, as in the martyrologies, with the instrument of his death. The queen might have some devotion to that peculiar saint, or might be born or married on his festival. Be that as it may, the picture, though in a hard manner, has its merit, independent of the curiosity. John Schorel studied some time under Mabuse, but quitted him on account of his irregularities, by which Schorel was once in danger of his life. Paul Van Aelst excelled in copying M abuse's works, and John Mostart assisted the latter in his works at Middleburgh. In the library of St. John's college, Cambridge, is an original of their foundress, Margaret of Richmond, the king's mother, much damaged, and the painter not known. Mr. West has a curious missal (the painter unknown) which belonged to Margaret, Queen of Scotland, and was a present from her father Henry VIII. His name of his own writing is in the first page. The queen's portrait praying to St. Margaret appears twice in the illuminations, and beneath several of them are the arms and matches of the house of Somerset, besides representations of the twelve months, well painted. In this reign died John Rous, the antiquary of Warwickshire, who drew his own portrait and other semblances, but in too rude a manner to be called paintings. CHAPTER IV. Painters in the reign of Henry VIII. The accession of this sumptuous prince brought along with it the establishment of the arts. He was opulent, grand and liberal — how many invitations to artists ! A man of taste encourages abilities ; a man of expense, any performers; but when a king is magnificent, whether he has taste or not, the influence is so extensive, and the example so catching, that even merit has a chance of getting bread. Though Henry had no genius to strike out the improvements of latter ages, he had parts enough to choose the best of what the then world exhibited to his option. He was gallant as far as the rusticity of his country and the boisterous indelicacy of his own complexion would admit. His tournaments contracted, in imitation of the French, a kind of romantic politeness. In one 1 which he held on the birth of his first child, he styled himself Cceur Loyal. In his interview with Francis I. in the vale of Cloth of Gold, he revived the pageantry of the days of Amadis. He and his favourite, Charles Brandon, were the prototypes of those illustrious heroes, with which Mademoiselle Scuderi 1 See a description and exhibition of this tournament among the prints published by the Society of Antiquaries, vol. i. 38 HENRY VIII. AND FRANCIS h FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD. has enriched, the world of chivalry. The favourite's motto on his marriage with the monarch's sister, retained that moral simplicity, now totally exploded by the academy of sentiments : ' Cloth of gold do not despise, Though thou be matched with cloth of frize ; Cloth of frize, be not too bold, Though thou be matched with cloth of gold.' Francis I. was the standard which these princely champions copied. While he contended with Charles V. for empire, he rivalled our Henry in pomp, and protection of the arts. Francis handled the pencil him- self; I do not find that Henry pushed his imitation so far; but though at last he woefully unravelled most of the pursuits of his early age (for at least it was great violation of gallantry to cut off the heads of the fair damsels whose true knight had been, and there is no forgiving him that destruction of ancient monuments and Gothic piles and painted glass by the suppression of monasteries ; a reformation, as he called it, which we antiquaries almost devoutly lament), yet he had countenanced the arts so long, and they acquired such solid foundation here, that they were scarce eradicated by that second storm which broke upon them during the civil war — an era we antiquaries lament with no less devotion than the former. Henry had several painters in his service, and, as Francis invited Primaticcio and other masters from Italy, he endeavoured to tempt hither Raphael 1 and Titian. Some performers he did get from that country, of whom we know little but their names. Jerome di Trevisi 2 was both his painter and engineer, and, attending him in the latter quality to the siege of Boulogne, was killed at the age of thirty-six. Johannes Corvus was a Fleming. Vertue discovered his name on the ancient picture of Fox, Bishop of Winchester, still preserved at Oxford. It was painted in the beginning of the reign of this king, after the pre- late had lost his sight. The painter's name, Johannes Corvus Flandrus faciebat, is on the frame, which is of the same age with the picture, and coloured in imitation of red marble with veins of green. 3 Others of Henry's painters are recorded in an office-book 4 signed monthly by the king himself, and containing payments of wages, presents, etc., probably by the treasurer of the chambers, Sir Brian Tuke. It begins in his twenty-first year, and contains part of that and the two next years complete. There appear the following names : ■ 1 Raphael did paint a St. George for him, which has since been in Monsieur Crozat's col- lection. See Recueil des plus beaux Tableax qui sont en France, p. 13. 2 He is mentioned by Ridolphi in the Lives of the Painters. Some sketches of sieges at that time, probably by his hand, are preserved in a book in the Cotton library. 3 There are two or three pictures of the same prelate in the college, but this is probably the original ; is flat, and a poor performance. * It was in the collection of Mrs. Bridgman of Hanover-square, HORACE WALPOLES ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 39 ' An reg. xxii. Nov. 8. Paid to Anthony Toto and Barthol. Penne, ' painters, for their livery coats, xlvs.' ' An° reg.. xxiii. Jan. xv day. Paid to Anthony Toto paynter, by the ' king's commandment, xx/.' In another book of office 1 Vertue found these memoranda: * March 1538. Item to Anthony Toto and Bartilmew Penn, painters, ? 12 pounds 10 shillings, their quarterly payments between them; also • presents on new-years' day 1539/ 'To Anthony Toto's servant that brought the king at Hampton-court ' a depicted table of Colonia 7 shillings and 8 pence.' ' Feb. An° reg. xxix. Gerard Luke Horneband painter 56 shillings and ' 9 pence per month.' 4 Toto was afterwards serjeant painter, and in Rymer are his letters * of naturalization under this title.' 'An° 30 Hen. VIII. 1539. Pro pictore regis de indigenatione' (Fcedera, vol. xiv., p. 595). Felibien mentions this painter and his coming to England (torn, ii., p. 158); speaking of Ridolphi, fils de Dominique Ghirlandaio, he says, 6 Chez luy il y avoit Toto del Nuntiato, qui depuis s'en alia en Angle- 1 terre, ou il fit plusieurs ouvrages de peinture et d'architecture, avec 'lequel Perrin fit amitie, et a Fen vie Tun de l'autre s'efforgoit a i bien faire.' But Toto's works are all lost or unknown ; his fame, with that of his associates, being obscured by the lustre of Holbein. Penne or Penn, mentioned above, is called by Vasari, not Bartholo- mew, but Luca Penni ; he was brother of Gio. Francesco Penni, a favourite and imitator of Raphael. Luca, or Bartholomew (for it is undoubtedly the same person) worked some time at Genoa and in other parts of Italy, from whence he came into England, and painted several pieces for the king, and for some merchants here. 2 In a small room called the confessionary near the chapel at Hampton-court, Vertue found several scripture stories painted on wainscot, particularly the passion. He and Sir James Thornhill agreed that they were much in the style of Raphael, particularly the small figures and landscapes in the perspective, and not at all in the German taste. These Vertue concluded to be of Luca Penni. To some of these painters Vertue ascribes, with great probability, the battle of the spurs, the triumphs of the valley of cloth of gold, and the expedition 3 to Boulogne, three curious pictures now at Windsor 4 1 In the library of the Royal Society. a Vasari adds, that Luca Penni addicted himself latterly to making designs for Flemish engravers. The mark on his prints is a monogram made by combining L P and R in written characters, that is, Luca Penni Romana. 3 It is not very surprising, that a prince of seemingly so martial a disposition should make so little figure in the roll of conquerors, when we observe by this picture that the magnificence of his armament engaged so much of his attention. His ships are as sumptuous as Cleopatra's galley on the Cydnus. 4 This bad judgment was made even by Mr. Evelyn in his discourse on medals. 40 ANDREW WRIGHT, SERJEANT-PAINTER TO HENRY VIII. commonly supposed by Holbein, but not only beneath his excellence, but painted (at least two of them) if painted as in all likelihood they were on the several occasions, before the arrival of that great master in England. Of another painter mentioned in the payments above, we know still less than of Toto. He is there called Gerard Luke Horneband. Vermander and Descamps call him Gerard Horrebout, and both men- lion him as painter to Hen. VIII. He was of Ghent, where were his principal works, but none are known in England as his. 1 In the same book of payments are mentioned two other painters, Andrew Oret, and one Ambrose, painter to the Queen of Navarre. The former indeed was of no great rank, receiving 30/. for painting and covering the king's barge ; the latter had twenty crowns for bringing a picture to the king's grace at Eltham. Henry had another serjeant-painter, whose name was Andrew Wright; he lived in Southwark, and had a grant of arms 2 from Sir Thomas Wriothesly, garter. His motto was, 'En Vertu Delice;' but he never attained any renown : indeed this was in the beginning of Henry's reign, before the art itself was upon any respectable footing;- they had not arrived even at the common terms for its productions. In the inventory in the augmentation-office which I have mentioned, contain- ing an account of goods, pictures, and furniture in the palace of West- minster, under the care of Sir Anthony Denny, keeper of the wardrobe, it appears that they called a picture, 'a table with a picture;' prints, 'cloths stained with a picture;' and models and bas-reliefs, they termed 6 pictures of earth;' for instance, — ' Item, One table with the picture of the Duchess of Milan, being her ' whole stature. Item, One table with the history of Filius Prodigus. ' Item, One folding table of the passion, set in gilt leather. Item, One c table like a book, with the pictures of the king's majesty and Queen 4 Jane. Item, One other table with the whole stature of my lord prince ' his grace, stained upon cloth with a curtain. Item, One table of the i history of Christiana Patientia. Item, One table of the passion, of c cloth of gold, adorned with pearls and rubies. Item, One table of ' russet and black, of the parable of the 18th chapter of Matthew, raised ' with liquid gold and silver. Item, One table of the king's highness, ( standing upon a mitre with three crowns, having a serpent with seven i heads going out of it, and having a sword in his hand, whereon is i written, Verbum Dei. Item, One cloth stained with Phcebus riding 1 Susanna, the sister of Luke Horneband, painter in miniature, was invited, says Vasari, into the service of Henry VIII. and lived honourably in England to the end of her life. In the north aisle of the church of Fulham is this epitaph : ' Hie jacet domicilla Margaretta ' Svanders, nata Gandavii Flandrie, quse ex magistro Gerardo Hornebolt Gandaviensi pictore ' nominatissimo peperit domicillam Susannam uxorem magistri Johannis Parker archarii regis. ; Quae obiit anno Domini M°cccccxxix, 26 Novemb. Orate pro anima.' ? From a MS. in the possession of the late Peter Leneve Norroy. In the British Museum, am ng the Harleian MSS, is a grant of arms and crest to the craft of painters dated in the first year of Henry VIII. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING, 4 I ' with his cart in the air, with the history of him. Item, One picture of i Moses made of earth, and set in a box of wood/ 1 Another serjeant-painter in this reign was John Brown, 2 who, if he threw no great lustre on his profession, was a least a benefactor to its professors. In the 24th of Henry, he built Painter's Hall for the company, where 3 his portrait is still preserved among other pictures given by persons of the society. Their first charter in which they are styled Peyntours, was granted in the sixth of Ed. IV., but they had existed as a fraternity long before. Holme Clarenceux, in the first of Hen. VII. granted them arms, viz. azure, a chevron, or, between three heads of phoenixes erased. They were again incorporated or con- firmed by charter of the twenty-third of Queen Eliz, 1 581, by the title of Painter-stainers. In this reign flourished LUCAS CORNELII (Sandrart, p. 232), who was both son and scholar of Cornelius Engelbert, but reduced to support himself as a cook, so low at that time were sunk the arts in Leyden, his country. He excelled both in oil and miniature, and hearing the encouragement bestowed on his profession by Hen. VIII., came to England with his wife and seven or eight children, and was made his majesty's painter. Some of his works in both kinds are still preserved at Leyden ; one particularly, the story of the woman taken in adultery. His chief performances extant in England are at Penshurst, as appears by a mark on one of them, compounded of L C and P, that is, Lucas Cornelii pinxit. They are a series, in 4 sixteen pieces, of the constables of Queenborough Castle from the reign of Ed. III. to Sir Thomas Cheyne, knight of the garter, in the third of Hen. VIII. Tho gh not all originals, they undoubtedly are very valuable, being in all probability painted from the best memorials then extant ; and some of them representations of remarkable persons, of whom no other image remains. Of these, the greatest curiosities are, Robert de Vere, 1 I . an old chapter-house at Christ-church, Oxford, I discovered two portraits, admirably painted, and in the most perfect preservation, which certainly belonged to Henry VIII., the one an elderly, the other a young man, both in black bonnets, and large as life. On the back of the one is this mark, N°. Hi 22 ; on the other, N°. FR 25. In the catalogue of King Henry's pictures in the augmentation office, N°. 25 is Frederic Duke of Saxony, N°. 26 is Philip Arch- duke of Austria ; in all probability these very pictures. They have a great deal of the manner of Holbein, certainly not inferior to it, but are rather more free and bold. Frederick the Wise, Duke of Saxony, died in 1525, about a year before Holbein came to England, but the Archduke Philip died when Holbein was not above eight years of age. Holbein might have drawn this prince from another picture, as a small one of him when a boy, in my posses- sion, has all the appearance of Holbein's hand. Whoever painted the pictures at Oxford, they are two capital portraits. 2 His arms were, argent, on a fess counter-embatteled, sable, three escallops of the first ; on a canton, quarterly gules and azure, a leopard's head caboshed, or. 3 Camden, whose father was a painter, in the Old Bailey, gave a silver cup and cover to the Company of Painter Stainers, which they use on St. Luke's-day at their election, the old master chinking out of it to his successor elect. Upon this cup is the following inscription : 'Gul. Camdenus Clarenceux, filius Samsonis, pictoris Londinensis, dedit.' Maitland. 4 One of them, I have heard, was given by Mr. Perry, the last master of Penshurst, to Mr. Velters Cornwall. It was the portrait of his ancestor Sir John Cornwall. 42 THE FATHER OF HANS HOLBEIN, THE PAINTER. the Duke of Ireland, and George, the unfortunate Duke of Clarence. Harris, in his History of Kent (p. 377), quotes an itinerary by one Johnston, who says, that in 1629, he saw at the house of the minister of Gillingham, the portrait of Sir Edward Hobby, the last governor but one, who had carefully assembled all the portraits of his prede- cessors, and added his own ; but at that time they were all lost or dispersed. He did not know, it seems, that they had been removed to Penshurst; nor can we now discover at what time they were transported thither. Many more of the works of Lucas Cornelii were bought up and brought to England by merchants who followed Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, into the Low Countries, and who had observed how much this master was esteemed here. However, none of these performers were worthy the patronage of so great a prince ; his munificence was but ill bestowed till it centred on HANS HOLBEIN (Born 1498— died 1554), Few excellent artists have had more justice done to their merit than Holbein. His country has paid the highest honours to his memory and his labours. His life has been frequently written ; every circum- stance that could be recovered in relation to him has been sedulously preserved ; and, as always happens to a real genius, he has been com- plimented with a thousand wretched performances that were unworthy of him. The year of his birth, the place of his birth, have been con- tested; yet it is certain that the former happened in 1498, and the latter most probably was Basil. His father was a painter of Augsburg, and so much esteemed, that the Lord of Walberg paid a hundred florins to the monastery of St. Catherine for a large picture of the salutation painted by him. He executed too in half figures the life of St. Paul, on which he wrote this inscription, * This work was completed 'by J. Holbein, a citizen of Augsburg, 1499.' John Holbein the elder, had a brother called Sigismond, a painter too. Hans, so early as 15 12, drew the pictures of both, which came into the possession of Sandrart, who has engraved them in his book, and which, if not ex- tremely improved by the engraver, are indeed admirable performances for a boy of fourteen. I have said that in the register's office of Wells there is mention of a Holbein, who died here in the reign of Henry VII. Had it been the father, it would probably have been mentioned by some of the bio- graphers of the son ; but I find it nowhere hinted that the father was ever in England. It is more likely to have been the uncle, who we have seen was a painter, and do not find that he was a very good one. He might have come over, and died here in obscurity. Holbein's inclination to drawing appeared very early, and could not . m HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 43 fail of being encouraged in a family 1 so addicted to the art. His father himself instructed him ; and he learned besides, graving, cast- ing, modelling, and architecture: in the two latter branches he was ex- cellent. Yet, with both talents and taste, he for some time remained in indigence, dissipating with women what he acquired by the former, and drowning in wine the delicacy of the latter. At that time Eras- mus was retired to Basil, a man, whose luck of fame was derived from all the circumstances which he himself reckoned unfortunate. He lived when learning was just emerging out of barbarism, and shone by lamenting elegantly the defects of his cotemporaries. His being one of the first to attack superstitions which he had not courage to relin- quish, gave him merits in the eyes of Protestants, while his time- serving had an air of moderation; and his very poverty, that threw him into servile adulation, expressed itself in terms that were beautiful enough to be transmitted to posterity. His cupboard of plate, all presented to him by the greatest men of the age, was at once a monu- ment of his flattery and genius. With a mind so polished, no wonder he distinguished the talents of young Holbein. He was warmly recommended to employment by Erasmus and Amerbach, 2 a printer of that city. He painted the picture of the latter in 15 19, who showing him the Moriae Encomium of the former, Holbein drew on the margin many of the characters described in the book. Erasmus was so pleased with those sketches that he kept the book ten days — the subsequent incidents were trifling indeed, and not much to the honour of the politeness of either. Holbein, rudely enough, wrote under the figure of an old student, the name of Erasmus. The author, with very little spirit of repartee, wrote under a fellow drinking, the name of Holbein. These are anecdotes certainly not worth repeating for their importance, but very descriptive of the esteem in which two men were held, of whom such anecdotes could be thought worth preserving. 3 Supported by the protection of these friends, Holbein grew into great reputation. The Earl of Arundel 4 returning from Italy through Basil saw his works, was charmed with them, and advised him to go into England. At first Holbein neglected this advice; but in 1526 his family and the froward temper of his wife increasing, and his business declining, he determined upon that journey. At first he said he should quit Basil but for a time, and only to raise 1 Holbein had two brothers, Ambrose and Bruno, who were also painters at Basil. 2 See an account of him in Palmer's History of Printing, p. 218. 3 In the Moriae Encomium, published at Basil by M. Patin, 1656, with cuts from Holbein's designs, there is a large account of him collected by Patin, and a catalogue of his works. On those drawings were written the following lines :. Rex Macedon Coo tumidus pictore, cani se Mseonise doluit non potuisse sene. Stultitiae potior sors est ; hanc alter Apelles Pingit, et eloquium laudat, Erasme, tuum. Seb. Feschius Basil. 4 Others say it was the Earl of Surrey, who was travelling into Italy ; and that Holbein not recollecting his name, drew his picture by memory, and Sir Thomas More immediately knew it to be that lord. THE GROWING FAME OF HANS HOLBEIN. the value of his works, which were growing too numerous there ; yet before he went, he intimated that he should leave a specimen of the power of his abilities. He had still at his house a portrait that he had just finished for one of his patrons — on the forehead he painted a fly, and sent the picture to the person for whom it was designed. The gentleman, struck with the beauty of the piece, went eagerly to brush off the fly — and found the deceit. The story soon spread, and as such trifling deceptions do, made more impression than greater excel- lencies. Orders were immediately given to prevent the city being deprived of so wonderful an artist — but Holbein had withdrawn him- self privately. Erasmus had given him recommendatory letters to Sir Thomas More, with a present of his own picture by Holbein, which he assured the chancellor was more like than one drawn by Albert Durer. 1 Holbein stopped for a short time at Antwerp, having other letters for P. /Egidius, a common friend of Erasmus and More. In those letters the former tells ^Egidius, that Holbein was very desirous of seeing the works of Quintin Matsis, the celebrated blacksmith- painter, whose tools, it is said, Love converted into a pencil. Of this master Holbein had no reason to be jealous : with greater truth and greater labour, Quintin's pictures are inferior to Holbein's. The latter smoothed the stiffness of his manner by a velvet softness and lustre of colouring ; the performances of his cotemporary want that perfecting touch ; nor are there any evidences that Quintin could ascend above the coarseness or deformities of nature. Holbein was equal to digni- fied character — he could express the piercing genius of More, or the grace of Ann Boleyn. Employed by More, Holbein was employed as he ought to be : this was the happy moment of his pencil ; from paint- ing the author, he rose to the philosopher, and then sunk to work for the king. I do not know a single countenance into which any master has poured greater energy of expression than in the drawing of Sir Thomas More at Kensington; it has a freedom, a boldness of thought and acuteness of penetration that attest the sincerity of the resem- blance. It is Sir Thomas More in the rigour of his sense, not in the 1 At Lord Folkston's, at Longford in Wiltshire, are the portraits of Erasmus and ^Egidius, said to be drawn by Holbein ; they belonged to Dr. Mead, and while in his collection had the following lines written on the frames, and still remaining there : on that of Erasmus, E tenebris clarum doctrinse attolere lumen Qui felix potuit, primus Erasmus erat. On ^Egidius, ./Egidium musis charum dilexit Erasmus : Spirat ab Holbenio pictus uterque tuo. The latter is far the better ; that of Erasmus is stiff and flat. However, this is believed to be the very picture which Erasmus sent by Holbein himself to Sir Thomas More, and which was afterwards in the cabinet of Andrew de Loo, and from thence passed into the Arundelian collection. But I should rather think it is the picture which was in King Charles's (see his catal. No. 13, p. 154.), where it is said to have been painted by George Spence of Nuremberg. Quintin Matsis too painted ^Egidius, with which Sir Thomas More was so pleased, that he wrote a panegyric on the painter, beginning, Quintine, o veteris novator artis, Magno non minor artifex Apelle. iEgidius held a letter in his hand frorn Sir Thomas, with his hand-writing so well imitated, that More could not distinguish it himself. Quintin too, in the year 1521, drew the picture of the celebrated physician Dr. Linacre. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 45 sweetness of his pleasantry ; here he is the unblemished magistrate, not that amiable philosopher, whose humility neither power nor piety could elate, and whose mirth even martyrdom could not spoil Here he is rather that single cruel judge whom one knows not how to hate, and who in the vigour of abilities, of knowledge and good humour, persecuted others in defence of superstitions that he himself had exposed ; and who capable of disdaining life at the price of his sincerity, yet thought that God was to be served by promoting an im- posture ; who triumphed over Henry and death, and sunk to be an accomplice, at least the dupe, of the holy maid of Kent. Holbein was kindly received by More, and was taken into his house at Chelsea. There he worked for near three years, drawing the portraits of Sir Thomas, his relations and friends. The king, visiting the chancellor, saw some of those pictures, and expressed his satis- faction. Sir Thomas begged him to accept whichever he liked, but he inquired for the painter, who was introduced to him. Henry imme- diately took him into his own service, and told the chancellor that now he had got the artist he did not want the pictures. An apart- ment in the palace was immediately allotted to Holbein, with a salary of 200 florins, besides his being paid for his pictures : the price of them I nowhere find. Patin says, that after three years Holbein returned to Basil to display his good fortune, but soon returned to England. It is not probable that he lived so long with Sir Thomas More as is asserted. He drew the king several times, and I suppose all his queens, though no portrait of Catherine Parr is certainly known to be of his hand. He painted too the king's children, and the chief persons of the court, as will be mentioned hereafter. The writers of his life relate a story, which Vermander, his first biographer, affirms came from Dr. Isely, of Basil, and from Amerbach ; yet in another place, Vermander com- plaining of the latter, to whom he says he applied for anecdotes relating to Holbein and his works, after eight or ten years could get no other answer, than that it would cost a great deal of trouble to seek after those things, and that he should expect to be well paid. The story is, that one day as Holbein was privately drawing some lady's picture for the king, a great lord forced himself into the chamber. Holbein threw him down stairs; the peer cried out; Holbein bolted himself in, escaped over the top of the house, and, running directly to the king, fell on his knees, and besought his majesty to pardon him, without declaring the offence. The king promised to forgive him if he would tell the truth ; but soon began to repent, saying he should not easily overlook such insults, and bade him wait in the apartment till he had learned more of the matter. Immediately arrived the lord with his complaint, but sinking the provocation. At first the monarch heard the story with temper, but broke out, reproaching the nobleman 46 HOLBEIN SENT TO DRAW PORTRAIT OF ANNE OF CLEVES. with his want of truth, and adding, ' You have not to do with Holbein, ' but with me ; I tell you, of seven peasants I can make as many ' lords, but not one Holbein. Begone, and remember, that if you ever ' pretend to revenge yourself, I shall look on any injury offered to the - painter as done to myself/ Henry's behaviour is certainly the most probable part of the story. 1 After the death of Jane Seymour, Holbein was sent to Flanders to draw the picture of the Duchess Dowager of Milan, 2 widow of Francis Sforza, whom Charles V. had recommended to Henry for a fourth wife, but, afterwards changing his mind, prevented him from marrying. Among the Harleian MSS. there is a letter from Sir Thomas Wyat to the king, congratulating his majesty on his escape, as the duchess's chastity was a little equivocal. If it was, considering Henry's temper, I am apt to think that the duchess had the greater escape. It was about the same time that it is said she herself sent the king word, ' That she had but one head ; if she had two, one of them should be at 4 his majesty's service.' 3 Holbein was next dispatched by Cromwell to draw the Lady Anne of Cleve, and, by practising the common flattery of the profession, was the immediate cause of the destruction of that great subject, and of the dis- grace that fell on the princess herself. He drew so favourable a like- ness 4 that Henry was content to wed her; but when he found her so inferior to the miniature, the storm which really should have been directed at the painter, burst on the minister, and Cromwell lost his head, because Anne was ' a Flanders mare,' not a Venus, as Holbein had represented her. Little more occurs memorable of this great painter, but that in 1538 the city of Basil, on the increase of his fame, bestowed an annuity of fifty florins on him for two years, hoping, says my author, that it would induce him to return to his country, to his wife and children. How large soever that salary might seem in the eyes of frugal Swiss citizens, it is plain it did not weigh with Holbein against the opulence of the court of England. He remained here till his death, which was occa- sioned by the plague in the year 1554, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. ( 1 Lovelace, in his collection of poems called Lucasta, has an epigram on this subject, but it is not worth repeating, 3 Christiana daughter of Christiern King of Denmark." Lord Herbert says, that Holbein drew her picture in three hours, p. 496. m 3 Vertue saw a whole length of this princess at Mr. Howard's in Soho-square. Such a picture is mentioned to have been in the royal collections. * This very picture, as is supposed, was in the possession of Mr. Barret, of Kent, whose collection was sold a few years ago, but the family reserved this and some other curiosities. The print among the illustrious heads is taken from it ; and so far justifies the king that, he certainly was not nice, if from that picture he concluded her handsome enough. It has so little beauty, that I should doubt of its being the very portrait in question — it rather seems to have been drawn after Holbein saw a little with the king's eyts. I have since seen that picture in the cabinet of the present Mr. Barrett of Lee, and think it the most exquisitely perfect of all Holbein's works, as well as in the highest preservation. The print gives a very inadequate idea of it, and none of her Flemish fairness. It is pre- served in the ivory box in which it came iver, and which represents a rose so delicately carved as to be worthy of the jewel it contains. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 47 Some accounts make him die in the spot where is now the paper- office; but that is not likely, as that very place had been King Henry's private study, and was then appointed for the reception of the letters and papers left by that prince and of other public papers. Vertue thought if he died in the precincts of the palace, that it was in some slight lodging there, then called the paper buildings, or in Scotland- yard, where the king's artificers lived ; but he was rather of opinion that Holbein breathed his last in the Duke of Norfolk's house in the priory of Christchurch, 1 near Aldgate, then called Duke's Place, having been removed from Whitehall, to make room for the train of Philip, to whom Queen Mary was going to be married. 2 The spot of his interment was as uncertain as that of his death. Thomas, Earl of Arundel, the celebrated collector in the reign of Charles I., was desirous of erecting a monument for him, but dropped the design from ignorance of the place. Strype, in his edition of Stowe's Survey of London, says that he was buried in St. Catherine Cree Church, which stands in the cemetery of that dissolved priory, and consequently close to his patron's house. Who his wife was, or what family he left, we are not told ; mention of some of his children will be made in the list of his works. Holbein painted in oil, in distemper, and water-colours. He had never practised the last till he came to England, where he learned it of Lucas Cornelii, and carried it to the highest perfection. His minia- tures have all the strength of oil-colours joined to the most finished delicacy. He generally painted on a green ground; in his small pictures often on a deep blue. There is a tradition that he painted with his left hand, like the Roman knight Turpilius ; but this is contradicted by one of his own portaits that was in the Arundelian collection and came to Lord Stafford, in which he holds his pencil in the right hand. It is impossible to give a complete catalogue of his works ; they were extremely numerous : and, as I have said, that number is in- creased by copies, by doubtful or by pretended pieces. Many have prob- ably not come to my knowledge ; those I shall mention were of his hand, as far as I can judge. From his drawings for the Moriss Encomium there have been prints to many editions, and yet they are by no means the most meritorious of his performances. At Basil, in the town-house, are eight pieces of the history of Christ's passion and crucifixion. Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, offered a great sum for them. Three of the walls in the upper part of the same edifice are adorned with histories by him. In the library of the university there is a dead Christ, painted on board in the year 152-1. In the same 1 There was a priory given at the dissolution to Sir Thomas Audley, from whose family it came by marriage to the Duke of Norfolk ; but this was not till four years after the death of Holbein ; consequently Vertue's conjecture is not well grounded. 2 Holbein was not likely to be in favour in that rcign/being supposed a protestant. 4S PORTRAITS AND PAINTINGS BY HANS HOLBEIN. place, the Lord's supper, much damaged. Another there on the same subject, drawn by Holbein when very young ; Christ scourged ; in the same place, but not very well painted. Ibid. A board painted on both sides; a schoolmaster teaching boys. It is supposed to have been a sign to some private school, 15 16. Ibid. A profile of Erasmus writing his Commentary on Saint Matthew. Ibid. The same in an oval; smaller. Ibid. The portrait of Amerbach. Ibid. A woman sitting with a girl in her arms, and stroking a little boy. These are said to be Holbein's wife and children. This has been engraved by Joseph Wirtz. Ibid. A lady of Alsace, with a boy. Ibid. A beauti- ful woman, inscribed, Lais Corinthiaca, 1526. Ibid. Adam and Eve, half figures, 15 17. Ibid. Two pictures in chiaro scuro, of Christ crowned with thorns, and the Virgin praying. Ibid. One hundred and three sketches on paper, collected by Amerbach ; who has written on them ' Hans Holbein genuina.' They are chiefly designs for the Life of Christ, and some for the family of Sir Thomas More. Many of them are thought to have been patterns for glass-painters. I have heard that at Basil there are paintings on glass both by Holbein him- self and his father. Ibid. Two death's heads near a grate. Ibid. The portrait of John Holbein (I do not know whether father or son) in a red hat, and a white habit trimmed with black. The portrait of James Mejer, consul or burgo-master of Basil, and his wife, 15 16, with the sketches for both pictures. In the museum of Feschius. Erasmus in the same place. In the street called Eissengassen, is a whole house painted by him on the outside, with buildings and history. For this he received sixty florins. The Emperor, Charles V., Le Blond, a Dutch painter, 1 gave 100 crowns for this at Lyons in 1633, for the Duke of Buckingham. Another portrait of Erasmus, bought at Basil by the same Le Blond for 100 ducats. This was engraved in Holland by Vischer. It is mentioned in the catalogue of the duke's pictures, p. 17, No. 6. To this was joined the portrait of Frobenius. Both pictures are now 2 at Kensington ; but the architecture in the latter was added afterwards by Stenwyck. A large picture, containing the portraits of the consul Mejer and his sons on one side, and of his wife and daughters on the other, all 1 So I find him called in -the list of Holbein's works prefixed to the English edition of the Morise Encomium. Sandrart mentions another person of almost the same name, who he says was the Swedish minister in Holland, and that he, Sandrart, gave him an original portrait of Holbein. He adds, that Mons. Le Blon had another picture by Holbein of a learned man and death with an hour-glass, and a building behind ; and that Le Blon, being earnestly solicited, had sold to J. Lossert, a painter, for three hundred florins, a picture of the Virgin and Child by the same master. Le Blon had also some figures by Holbein, particularly a Venus and Cupid, finely modelled. _ There is a print of the Swedish Le Blon, after Vandyck byTheo. Matham, thus inscribed, Michel Le Blon, Agent de la Reyne et Couronne de Suede chez sa Majestie de la Grande Bretagne. 2 But the Erasmus is thought a copy : the true one King Charles gave to Mons. de Lien- court. See catal. p. 18. The Frobenius was given to the king by the Duke of Buckingham just before he went to the isle of Rhee. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 49 praying before an altar. This was sold at Basil for 100 pieces of gold ; the same Le Blond in 1633, gave 1000 rix-dollars for it, and sold it for three times that sum to Mary de Medici, then in Holland. Another portrait of Erasmus ; at Vienna. Another there, supposed the father of Sir Thomas More. This was reckoned one of his capital works. Two pieces about five feet high, representing monks digging up the bones of some saint, and carrying them in procession ; at Vienna. A picture about four feet square, of dancing, hunting, tilting, and other sports; in the public library at Zurich. The inside of a church, the Virgin, and apostles ; angels singing above ; in the collection of Mr. Werdmyller, at Zurich. The portrait of an English nobleman ; in the same cabinet. The portrait of Conrad Pellican, professor of theology and Hebrew at Zurich ; in the house of Mr. Martin Werdmyller, senator of Basil. Christ in his cradle, the Virgin and Joseph : shepherds at a distance ; in the church of the Augustines at Lucern. The adoration of the wise men. Ibid. Christ taken from the cross. Ibid. The Sancta Ve- ronica. Ibid. Christ teaching in the temple. Ibid. Christ on the cross; the Virgin and St. John; with inscriptions in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. All the prophets ; in nine pieces, each a yard long, painted in dis- temper. These were carried to Holland by Barthol. Sarbruck, a painter, who made copies of them, preserved in the Feschian museum. The picture of Queen Mary : Dr. Patin had it, and the following ; an old man with a red forked beard, supposed to be that of a grand master of Rhodes. The Dance of Death in the church-yard of the Predicants of the suburbs of St. John, at Basil, is always ascribed to Holbein, and is shown to strangers through a grate. And yet, as Vertue observed, our painter had undoubtedly no hand in it. Pope Eugenius IV. appointed the council of Basil in 143 1, and it sat there fifteen years, during which time a plague raged that carried off all degrees of people. On the cessation of it, the work in question was immediately painted as a memorial of that calamity. Holbein could not be the original painter, for he was not born till 1498 ; nor had any hand in the part that was added in 1529, at which time he had left Basil. Even if he had been there when it was done (which was about the time of his short return thither) it is not probable that mention of him would have been omitted in the inscription which the magistrates caused to be placed under those paintings, especially when the name of one Hugo Klauber, a painter, who repaired them in 1569, is carefully recorded. But there is a stronger proof of their not being the work of Holbein, and at the same time an evidence of his taste. The paintings at Basil are a dull series of figures, of a pope, emperor, king, queen, etc., each seized by a figure of death; but in the prints which Hollar has given of Holbein's 5 50 THE BEST OF HOLBEIN'S WORKS DONE IN ENGLAND. drawings of Death's Dance, a design he borrowed from the work at Basil, there are groups of figures, and a richness of fancy and inven- tion peculiar to himself. Every subject is varied, and adorned with buildings and habits of the times, which he had the singular art of making picturesque. At Amsterdam in the Warmoes-street was a fine picture of a queen of England in silver tissue. Two portraits of himself, one, a small round, 1 was in the cabinet of James Razet ; the other, as big as the palm of a hand, in the collection of Barth. Ferrers. Sandrart had drawings by Holbein, of Christ's passion, in folio; two of them were wanting ; in his book he offers 200 florins to whoever will produce and sell them to him (p. 241). In the King of France's collection are the following : x. Archbishop Warham, set. suae 70, 1527. There is another of these at Lambeth. Archbishop Parker entailed this and another of Erasmus on his successors ; they were stolen in the civil war, but Juxon repur- chased the former. 2. The portrait of Nicholas Cratzer, astronomer to Henry VIII. This man after long residence in England had scarce learned to speak the language. The king asking him how that happened, he replied, ' I beseech your highness to pardon me ; what ' can a man learn in only thirty years?' These two last pictures 2 were in the collection of Andrew de Loo, a great virtuoso, who bought all the works of Holbein he could procure ; among others a portrait of Erasmus, which King Charles afterwards exchanged for a picture of Leonardo da Vinci. A drawing of Cratzer is among the heads by Holbein, at Kensington. Among others in De Loo's collection was the fine Cromwell, Earl of Essex, now at Mr. Southwell's, and engraved among the illustrious heads. 3 3. Anne of Cleve. 4. Holbein's own portrait. 5. Erasmus writing ; a small picture. 6. An old man with a gold chain. 7. Sir Thomas More, less than life. 8. An old man with beads and a death's head. In the collection of the Duke of Orleans are four heads : another Crom- well, Earl of Essex ; 4 Sir Thomas More ; a lady ; George Gysein. 5 But the greatest and best of his works were done in England, many 1 Mr. George Augustus Selwyn has one that answers exactly to this account, and is in perfect preservation. Mr. Walpole has another, and better preserved. 2 Warham's came afterwards to Sir Walter Cope, who lived without Temple Bar over against the Lord Treasurer Salisbury, and had several of Holbein, which passed by marriage to the Earl of Holland, and were for some time at Holland House. Oxf. MSS. Yelvert., p. 11S. Another of Cratzer remained at Holland House till the death of the Countess of War- wick, wife of Mr. Addison ; a fine picture, strongly painted, representing him with several instruments before him, and an inscription expressing that he was a Bavarian, of the age of 41 in 1528. In one of the office-books are entries of payment to him : — April, paid to Nicholas the astronomer, n/. Anno 23, paid to ditto, 5/. 4s. Cratzer in 1550 erected the dial at Corpus Christi Coll. Oxford. Brit. Topogr., vol. ii.,p. 159. 3 De Loo had also the family picture of Sir Thomas More, which v/as bought by his grand- son Mr. Roper. 4 There is a small head of him at Devonshire House with this date, aet. 15, 151 5. 5 This is a Dutch name : Peter Gyzen, born about 1636, was a painter, and scholar of Velvet Breughel. Descamps, vol. iii., p. 41. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 5 1 of which still remain here. Some were lost or destroyed in the civil war ; some sold abroad at that time ; and some, particularly of his miniatures, were, I believe, consumed when Whitehall was burned. There perished the large picture of Henry VII. 1 and of Elizabeth of York, of Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour; it was painted on the wall in the privy chamber. The copy which Remee 2 made of it for Charles II. in small, and for which he received 150/., hangs in the king's bed- chamber below stairs at Kensington ; from that Vertue engraved his print. Holbein's original drawing of the two kings is in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire. It is in black chalk, heightened, and large as life, now at Chatsworth. The architecture of this picture is very rich, and parts of it in a good style. In the chapel at Whitehall, he painted Joseph of Arimathea, and in that at St. James's, Lazarus rising from the dead — both now destroyed (Peacham on Limning). That he often drew the king is indubitable ; several pictures extant of Henry are ascribed to him — I would not warrant many of them. There is one at Trinity College, Cambridge, 3 another at Lord Torring- ton's, at Whitehall, both whole lengths, and another in the gallery of royal portraits at Kensington, which, whoever painted it, is execrable ; one at Petworth, and another in the gallery at Windsor. But there is one head of that king at Kensington, not only genuine, but perhaps the most perfect of his works. It hangs by the chimney in the second room, leading to the great drawing-room ; and would alone account for the judgment of Depiles, who, in his scale of picturesque merit, allows 16 degrees for colouring to Holbein, when he had allotted but 12 to Raphael. I conclude that it was in the same light that Frederick Zucchero considered our artist, when he told Goltzius that in some respects he preferred him to Raphael. Both Zucchero and Depiles understood the science too well to make any comparison except in that one particular of colouring, between the greatest genius, in his way, that has appeared, and a man who excelled but in one, and that an inferior, branch of his art. The texture of a rose is more delicate than that of an oak ; I do not say that it grows so lofty, or casts so exten- sive a shade. Opposite to this picture hangs another, but much inferior, called in the catalogue Lord Arundel, or Howard ; 4 the latter name is a con- fusion, occasioned by the title of Arundel passing into the family of Howard. The portrait in question, I suppose, is of H. Fitzalan, Earl 1 The portraits of Hen. VII. and Elizabeth must have been taken from older originals : Holbein more than once copied the picture of this queen, and of the king's grandame (as she was called) Margaret Countess of Richmond. *. 2 Remee was a scholar of Vandyke, and died in 1678, aged 68. 3 It has £E Fecit upon it ; and was probably a copy by Lucas de Heere, of whom here- after. 4 The fine original of Thomas Howard Duke of Norfolk with the staves of earl marshal and lord treasurer, from whence the print is taken, is at Leicester House. 5 * 52 STORE FOUND OF HOLBEIN'S ORIGINAL DRAWINGS. of Arundel, and probably the very person who first persuaded Holbein to come into England. In the state bed-chamber is a portrait of Edward VI. It was originally a half length ; but has been very badly converted into a whole figure since the time of Holbein. Considering how long he lived in the service of the crown, it is surprising that so few of his works should have remained in the royal collection ; Charles I, appears by his catalogue to have possessed but about a dozen. All the rest were dispersed, but those I have mentioned (unless the whole length of the unfortunate Earl of Surrey, in a red habit, in the lower apartment at Windsor is so, as I believe it is), and a fine little picture of a man and woman, said to be his own and wife's portraits, which hangs in an obscure closet in the gallery at Windsor ; and the portrait of a man opening a letter with a knife, in the standard- closet in the same palace. But at present an invaluable treasure of the works of this master is preserved in one of our palaces. Soon after the accession of the late king, Queen Caroline found in a bureau at Kensington, a noble collection of Holbein's original drawings for the portraits of some of the chief personages of the court of Hen. VIII. How they came there is quite unknown. They did belong to 1 Charles I., who changed them with William, Earl of Pembroke, for a St. George by Raphael, ,now at Paris. Lord Pembroke gave them to the Earl of Arundel, and at the dispersion of that collection they might be bought by or for the king. There are eighty-nine 2 of them, a few of which are duplicates ; a great part are exceedingly fine, 3 and in one respect preferable to his finished pictures, as they are drawn in a bold and free manner ; and though they have little more than the outline, being drawn with chalk upon paper stained of a flesh colour, and scarce shaded at all, there is a strength and vivacity in them equal to the most perfect portraits. The heads of Sir Thomas More, 4 Bishop Fisher, Sir Thomas Wyat, and Broke Lord Cobham, are master- pieces. 5 It is great pity that they have not been engraved, not only 1 After Holbein's death they had been sold into France, from whence they were brought and presented to King Charles by Mons. De Liencourt. Vanderdoort, who did nothing but blunder, imagined they were portraits of the French court. Sanderson in his Graphice, p. 79, commends this book highly, but says some of the drawings were spoiled. 3 See the list of them, subjoined to the catalogue of the collection of King James II. published by Bathoe, in quarto, 1758. In King Charles's catalogue they are said to be but fifty-four, and that they were bought of, not given by, Mons. De Liencourt. 3 Some have been rubbed, and others traced over with a pen on the outlines by some un- skilful hand._ In an old inventory belonging to the family of Lumley, mention was made of such a book in that family, with a remarkable note, that it had belonged to Edward VI., and that the names of the persons were written on them by Sir John Cheke. Most of the draw- ings at Kensington have names in an old hand ; and the probability of their being written by a minister of the court who so well knew the persons represented, is an addition to their value. 4 Richardson the painter had another of these, which was sold at his auction, and from whence Houbraken's print among the illustrious heads was taken. 5 They were first placed by the queen at Richmond, but afterwards removed to Kensington, where they still remain ; but it is a very improper place for them, many hanging against the light or with scarce any, and some so high as not to be discernible, especially a most graceful head of the Duchess of Suffolk. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 53 that such frail performances of so great a genius might be preserved, but that the resemblances of so many illustrious persons, nowhere else existing, might be saved from destruction. Vertue had under- taken this noble work ; and after spending part of three years on it, broke off, I do not know why, after having traced off on oil-paper but about five and thirty. These I bought at his sale ; and they are so exactly taken as to be little inferior to the originals. In the same closet are two fine finished portraits by Holbein, said to be his own and his wife's ; they were presented to Queen Caroline by Sir Robert Walpole, my father. 1 And a circular drawing, the story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. In one of the king's cabinets is a miniature of two children of Charles Brandon. Over one of the doors is a picture ascribed to Holbein, and supposed to be Queen Elizabeth, when princess, with a book in her hand ; but I question both the painter and the person represented. He drew Will Somers, 2 King Henry's jester, from which there is a print. It is perhaps a little drawback on the fame of heroes and statesmen, that such persons, who shared at least an equal portion of royal favour formerly, continue to occupy a place even in the records of time — at least, we antiquaries, who hold everything worth preserv- ing, merely because it has been preserved, have \yith the names of Henry, Charles, Elizabeth, Francis I., Wolsey, Sir Thomas More, etc., treasured up those of Will Somers, Saxton, Tom Deny (Queen Anne's jester), Tarlton (Queen Elizabeth's), Pace, another fool in that reign ; Archee, the disturber of Laud's greatness; Muckle John, who suc- ceeded ; Patch, Wolsey's fool ; Harry Patenson, Sir Thomas More's ; and of Bisquet and Amaril, the jesters of Francis I. not to mention Hitard, 3 King Edmund's buffoon ; Stone, 4 and Jeffery Hudson, the dwarf of Henrietta Maria. Of some of these personages I have found the following anecdotes : Saxton is the first person recorded to have worn a wig; in an account of the treasurer of the chambers in the reign of Hen. VIII., there is entered, 6 Paid for Saxton, the king's fool, ' for a wig, 20s.' In the accounts of the Lord Harrington, who was in the same office under James I., there is, 6 Paid to T. Mawe for the diet 4 and lodging of Tom Derry, her majesty's jester, 13 weeks, 10/. i8j. 6d. J Patch and Archee were political characters ; the former, who had been Wolsey's fool, and who, like wiser men, had lived in favour through all the changes of religion and folly with which four successive courts 1 The father of Lord Treasurer Oxford, passing over London Bridge, was caught in a shower ; and stepping into a goldsmith's shop for shelter, he found there a picture of Holbein (who had lived in that house) and his family. He offered the goldsmith 100/. for it, who consented to let him have it, but desired first to show it to some persons. Immediately after happened the fire of London, and the picture was destroyed. 2 There is a burlesque figure of him in the armoury at the Tower. 3 Dart's Antiquities of Canterbury, p. 6. 4 A fool mentioned in Seldon's Table Talk- 54 holbein's picture of triumph of riches and poverty. had amused themselves or tormented everybody else, was employed by Sir Francis Knollys to break down the crucifix which Queen Elizabeth still retained in her chapel ; and the latter, I suppose on some such instigation, demolished that which Laud erected at St. James's, and which was probably the true cause of that prelate engaging the king and council in his quarrel, though abusive words were the pretence. Of little Jeffery, I shall say more in another place. King James II., as appears by the catalogue of his pictures pub- lished by Bathoe, had several of Holbein ; though all in that list were not painted by him. Of Holbein's public works in England, I find an account of only four. The first is that capital picture in Barber Surgeon's Hall, of Hen. VIII. giving the charter to the company of surgeons. The character of his majesty's bluff haughtiness is well represented, and all the heads are finely executed. The picture itself has been retouched, but is well-known by Baron's print. The physician in the middle on the king's left hand is Dr. Butts, immortalised by Shakespeare. 1 The second, is the large piece in the hall of Bridewell, representing Ed. VI. delivering to the Lord Mayor of London the royal charter by which he gave up and erected his palace of Bridewell into an hospital and workhouse. Holbein has placed his own head in one corner of the picture. Vertue has engraved it. This picture, it is believed, was not completed by Holbein, both he and the king dying immediately after the donation. The third and fourth were two large pictures, painted in distemper, in the hall of the Easterling merchants in the Steelyard. Where Descamps found, I do not know, that they were designed for ceilings. It is probably a mistake. These pictures exhibited the triumphs of riches and poverty. The former was represented by Plutus riding in a golden car; before him sat Fortune scattering money, the chariot being loaded with coin, and drawn by four white horses, but blind, and led by women, whose names were written beneath. Round the car were crowds with extended hands catching at the favours of the god. Fame and Fortune attended him, and the procession was closed by Croesus and Midas and other avaricious persons of note. Poverty was an old woman, sitting in a vehicle as shattered as the other was superb ; her garments squalid, and every emblem of wretch- edness around her. She was drawn by asses and oxen, which were guided by Hope, and Diligence, and other emblematic figures, and attended by mechanics and labourers. The richness of the colouring, the plumpness of the flesh, the gaudy ornaments in the former, and the strong touches and expression in the latter, were universally admired. It was on the sight of these pictures that Zucchero expressed 1 The ring which Henry sent by Doctor Butts to Cardinal Wolsey, was a cameo on ruby of the king himself, formerly given to him by the cardinal. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 55 such esteem of this master ; he copied them in Indian ink, and those drawings came afterwards into the possession of Mons. Crozat Voster- man, jun., engraved prints from them, at least of the triumph of poverty, but Vertue could never meet with that of riches : however, in Bucking- ham House in St. James's Park, he found two such drawings, on one of which was an inscription attributing them to Holbein, and adding, that they were the gift of Sir Thomas More, who wrote verses under them. Vertue thought that these drawings were neither of Holbein nor Zucchero, but the copies which Vosterman had made, in order to engrave. These drawings I suppose were sold in the duchess's auction. 1 For the large pictures themselves, Felibien and Depiles say that they were carried into France from Flanders, whither they were transported, I suppose, after the destruction of the company, of which Stowe (Survey of London, p. 249) gives the following account : — The Steelyard was a place for merchants of Almaine, who used to bring hither wheat, rye, and other grain ; cables, ropes, masts, steel, and other profitable merchandise. Hen. III., at the request of his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King of Almaine, gave them great privileges, they then having a house called Guilda Aula Teutonicorum. Ed. I, confirmed their charter; and in the same reign there was a great quarrel between the Mayor of London and those merchants of the Haunce, about the reparation of Bishopsgate, which was imposed on them in consideration of their privilages, and which they suffered to run to ruin. Being condemned to the repairs, they were in recom- pense indulged with granaries, and an alderman of their own ; but in time were complained of, for importing too great quantities of foreign grain. They were restricted, yet still increased in wealth, and had a noble hall in Thames-street with three arched gates ; and in the reign of Ed. III., they hired another house of Richard Lions, a famous lapidary, one of the sheriffs, who was beheaded by the Kentish rebels in the reign of Richard II., and another for which they paid 70/. per annum. But still continuing to engross the trade, they were suppressed in the reign of Edward VI., who seized the liberties of the Steel- yard into his own hands. But for nothing has Holbein's name been oftener mentioned than for the picture of Sir Thomas M ore's family. Yet of six pieces extant 1 So I concluded, but have since been so lucky to find that they were preserved at Buck- ingham House, till it was purchased by his majesty ; when the pictures being exposed to auction, these very drawings were exhibited there, as allegoric pieces by Vandyck. They more than come up to any advantageous idea I had formed of Holbein. The composition of each is noble, free, and masterly; the expressions admirable, the attitudes graceful, and several of them bearing great resemblance to the style of Raphael. The Triumph of Riches is much wider than the other ; the figures in black and white chalk, the skies coloured. On each are Latin verses, but no mention of Holbein, as Vertue relates. The figure of Croesus has great resemblance to the younger portraits of Hen. VIII. By the masterly execution of these drawings I should conclude them Zucchero's copies ; but the horses, which are remarkably fine and spirited, and other touches, are so like the manner of Vandyck, that one is apt to attribute them to Vosterman, who lived in his time. Probably the Triumph of Riches is Vosterman's copy, and that of Poverty, Zucchero's. They are now at Strawberry Hill. 56 holbein's paintings of sir t. more and of Erasmus. on this subject, the two smaller are certainly copies, the three larger probably not painted by Holbein, and the sixth, though an original picture, most likely not of Sir Thomas and his family. That Holbein was to draw such a piece is indubitable ; a letter of Erasmus is extant, thanking Sir Thomas for sending him the sketch of it; but there is great presumption, that though Holbein made the design, it was not he who executed the picture in large, as will appear by the following accounts of the several pieces. The most known is that at Burford, the seat of the famous Speaker Lenthall. To say that a per- formance is not equal to the reputation of its supposed author, is not always an argument sufficient to destroy its authenticity. It is a well-known saying of Sir Godfrey Kneller, when he was reproached with any of his hasty slovenly daubings, ' Pho, it will not be thought ' mine ; nobody will believe that the same man painted this and the 'Chinese at Windsor/ But there is a speaking evidence on the picture itself against its own pretensions. Holbein died in 1554. The picture at Burford is dated 1593. It is larger and there are more figures than in its rival, the piece in Yorkshire, and some of these Vertue thought were painted from the life. This was kept at Gubbins, in Hertfordshire, the seat of the Mores; but by what means the piece passed into the hands of Lenthall is uncertain ; the remains of the family of More are seated at Barnborough in Yorkshire, where they have a small picture of their ancestor and his relations like that at Burford, but undoubtedly not an original. There too they preserve some relics which belonged to that great man ; as a George enamelled, and within it a miniature of Sir Thomas ; a gold cross with pearl drops, and the cap he wore at his execution. The second picture is at Heron, in Essex, the seat of Sir John Tyrrel; but having been repainted, it is impossible to judge of its antiquity. The dispute of originality has lain only between the piece at Burford, and the next. The third large picture, and which Vertue thought the very one painted for Sir Thomas himself, is twelve feet wide, and is the actual piece which was in De Loo's collection, after whose death it was bought by Mr. Roper, Sir Thomas's grandson. As De Loo was a collector of Holbein's works, and his cotemporary, it sounds extraordinary, that a picture which he thought genuine should be doubted now ; and yet Vertue gives such strong reasons, supported by so plausible an hypo- thesis, to account for its not being Holbein's, that I think them worth laying before the reader. He says the picture is but indifferent : on this I lay no more stress than I do in the case of that at Burford; but his observation that the lights and shades in different parts of the picture come from opposite sides, is unanswerable, and demonstrates it no genuine picture of Holbein, unless that master had been a most HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 57 ignorant dauber, as he might sometimes be a careless painter. This absurdity Vertue accounts for, by supposing that Holbein quitted the chancellor's service for the king's, before he had drawn out the great picture, which, however, Sir Thomas always understood was to be ex- ecuted ; that Holbein's business increasing upon him, some other painter was employed to begin the picture, and to which Holbein was to give the last touches; in short, that inimitable perfection of flesh which characterizes his works. And this the more probable, as Vertue observes that the faces and hands are left flat and unfinished, but the ornaments, jewels, etc., are extremely laboured. As the portraits of the family, in separate pieces, were already drawn by Holbein, the injudicious journeyman stuck them in as he found them, and never varied the lights, which were disposed, as it was indifferent in single heads, some from the right, some from the left, but which make a ridiculous contradiction when transported into one piece. This picture, purchased as I have said by Mr. Roper, the son of that amiable Margaret, whose behaviour when Sir Thomas returned to the Tower was a subject not for Holbein, but for Poussin or Shakspeare ! This picture remained till of late years at Wellhall, in Eltham, Kent, the mansion of the Ropers. That house being pulled down, it hung for some time in the king's house at Greenwich ; soon after which, by the death of the last Roper, whose sole daughter married Mr. Henshaw, and left three daughters, the family picture, then valued at 300/., came between them ; and Sir Rowland Wynne, who married one of them, bought the shares of the other two, and carried the picture into York- shire, where it now remains. The other small one is in the collection of Colonel Sothby, in Blooms- bury Square. It is painted in the neatest manner in miniature. On the right hand are inserted the portraits of Mr. More, and his wife, Sir Thomas's grandson, for whom it was drawn, and their two sons, with their garden at Chelsea behind, and a view of London. The painter of this exquisite little piece is unknown, but probably was Peter Oliver. The fifth was in the palace of the Delfino family at Venice, where it was long on sale, the price first set 1500/. When I saw it there in 1 741, they had sunk it to 400/., soon after which the present king of Poland bought it. It was evidently designed for a small altar-piece to a chapel ; in the middle on a throne sits the Virgin and child ; on one side kneels an elderly gentleman with two sons, one of them a naked infant; opposite kneeling are his wife and daughters. The old man is not only unlike all representations of Sir Thomas More, but it is certain that he never had but one son. 1 For the colouring, it is beautiful 1 There is recorded a hon mot of Sir Thomas on the birth of his son. He had three daugh- ters ; his wife was impatient for a son ; at last they had one, but not much above an idiot — 58 DRAWINGS OF HOLBEIN IN PRIVATE HOUSES IN ENGLAND. beyond description, and the carnations have that enamelled bloom so peculiar to Holbein, who touched his works till not a touch remained discernible ! A drawing of this picture by Bisdhop was brought over in 1723, from whence Vertue doubted both of the subject and the painter ; but he never saw the original ! By the description of the family picture of the consul Mejer, mentioned above, I have no doubt but this is the very picture — Mejer and More are names not so unlike, but that in process of time they may have been confounded, and that of More retained, as much better known. In private houses in England are or were the following works of Holbein, besides what may not have come to Vertue's or my know- ledge : — In the Arundelian collection, says Richard Symonds, 1 was a head of Holbein in oil, by himself, most sweet, dated 1543. At North- umberland House, an English knight sitting in a chair, and a table by him. Lord Denny, comptroller, and his lady, 1527. Sir Henry Guldeford and his lady. They were engraved by Hollar. 2 As also Monsieur Moret, jeweller to Hen. VIII. In the Earl of Pembroke's collection was a lady in black satin, which Zucchero admired exceed- ingly. 3 The Duke of Buckingham had eight of his hand, in particular the story of Jupiter and Io (See his Catal, p. 16). At the Earl of Uxbridge's at Drayton, his ancestor Lord Paget. At the Earl of Guildford's, at Wroxton, Sir Thomas Pope, the founder of Trinity College, Oxford. At Blenheim, a very lively head of a young man. At Buckingham House was the portrait of Edmund Lord Sheffield. 4 Hen. VIII. and Francis I. exchanged two pictures: the King of France gave to Henry the Virgin and Child, by Leonardo da Vinci ; the English present was painted by Holbein, but the subject is not mentioned. The former came into the possession of Catherine Patin. In the late Duke of Somerset's possession was ahead of his ancestor the protector, engraved among the illustrious heads. Vertue mentions having seen a fine miniature of Henry VIII. and his three children, but does not say where. It had a glass over it, and a frame curiously carved. At Lord Orford's at Houghton, is a small whole length of Ed. VI., on board, which was sold into Portugal from the collection of Charles I., and Erasmus, smaller than life. I have Catherine of Arragon, a miniature, exquisitely finished; a round on blue ground. It was given to the Duke of Monmouth by Charles II. I bought it at the sale of the Lady Isabella Scott, ' You have prayed so long for a boy,' said the chancellor, 'that now we have got one who, I 'believe, will be a boy as long as he lives.' 1 In one of his pocket-books which will be mentioned more particularly in chapter ix. 2 They were at Tart Hall. 3 There is a view of the siege of Pavia at Wilton, said to be by Holbein, but it is by Albert Durer. I even question whether the profile of Edward VI. there be an original. 4 This is a mistake. It was painted by Antonio More, and is now at Strawberry Hill, and is the portrait of John, Lord Sheffield, the friend of Gibbon, the historian. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 59 daughter of the Duchess of Monmouth. A head of the same queen on board in oil; hard, and in her latter age. It is engraved among the illustrious heads. Cath. Howard, a miniature, damaged. It was Richardson's, who bought it out of the Arundelian collection. It is engraved among the illustrious heads ; and by Hollar, who called it Mary, Queen of France, wife of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Edmund Montacute, a judge. Ditto, flat. Philip the Fair, son of the Emperor Maximilian, and father of Charles V., when a boy. It is finely coloured; and is engraved in Montfaucon's Antiquities of France. This must have been copied from some other picture. A drawing of a man in a blue gown, cap, and buskins. It seems to be a masquerade dress. Another drawing, the head of a man, with a hat and picked beard. A design in water colours, which he afterwards executed on a house at Basil. A large design for a chimney piece. A design for a clock, in great taste. It was drawn for Sir Anthony Denny, and intended for a new year's gift to Henry VIII. from the collection of Monsieur Mariette at Paris. Ahead of Melancthon, in oil on board, a small round, very fine. Several drawings by Holbein, and some miniatures, are preserved in various collections. There is a very curious picture in the collection of Colonel Sothby, said to be begun in France by Janet, and which Vertue thinks might be retouched by Holbein, as it was probably painted for his patron the Duke of Norfolk, from whom it descended immediately to the Earl of Arundel, out of whose collection the father of the present possessor purchased it. It represents three royal pair dancing in a meadow, with a magnificent building at a distance ; they are Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, and his sisters Margaret, Queen of Scots, and Maty, Queen of France, with their second husbands, Archibald Douglas and Charles Brandon. 1 The circumstances of three matches so unequal assembled together, induced Vertue, with much probability, to conclude that it was a tacit satire, and painted for the Duke of Norfolk, who, however related to Anne Boleyn, was certainly not partial to her, as protectress of the reformed. If this conjecture could be verified, it would lead one to farther reflections. The jealousy which Henry towards the end of his reign conceived against the Howards, and his sacrificing the gallant Earl of Surrey for quartering the arms of England, as he undoubtedly had a right to quarter them, have always appeared acts of most tyrannic suspicion. He so little vouch- 1 This was Venue's opinion. The account in the family calls the man in the middle the Duke of Norfolk, and him on the right hand the Duke of Suffolk. If the tradition that this picture represents only English personages were not so well grounded, I should take it for a French composition. The person in the middle is a black swarthy man with a sharp beard, like Francis I., and resembling neither of the Dukes of Norfolk or Suffolk, the former of whom is never drawn with a beard, the latter always with a short square one ; add to this, that the figure called Hen. VIII., and which certainly has much of his countenance, is in an obscure corner of the picture, and exhibits little more than the face. 6o holbein's talents were not confined to painting. safed to satisfy the public on the grounds of his proceedings, that it is possible he might sometimes act on better foundation than anybody- knew. If he really discovered any ambitious views in the house of Norfolk, this picture would seem a confirmation of them. To expose the blemishes in the blood of the three only branches of the royal family, might be a leading step towards asserting their own claim — at least their own line would not appear less noble than the descendants of Boleyn, Brandon, and Douglas. Holbein's talents were not confined to his pictures; he was an archi- tect, he modelled, carved, was excellent in designing ornaments, and gave draughts of prints for several books, some of which it is supposed he cut himself. Sir Hans Sloane had a book of jewels designed by him, now in the British Museum. He invented patterns 1 for gold- smith's work, for enamellers and chasers of plate, arts much counte- nanced by Hen. VIII. Inigo Jones showed Sandrart another book of Holbein's designs for weapons, hilts, ornaments, scabbards, sheaths, sword-belts, buttons, and hooks, girdles, hat-bands, and clasps for shoes, knives, forks, saltcellers and vases, all for the king. Hollar engraved several of them. The Duchess of Portland 2 and Lady Elizabeth Germayn 2 have each a dagger set with jewels, which be- longed to that prince, and were probably imagined by Holbein. The latter lady has a fine little figure of Henry cut in stone, whole length ; Holbein cut his own head in wood, and I have another by his hand of the king, in which about his neck instead of a George he wears a watch. Two other figures carved in stone were in the museum of Tradescant, at Lambeth. His cuts to the Bible were engraved and printed at Leyden, by Johannes Frellonius, in 1547, under this title, Icones Historiarum veteris Testamenti. The titles to every print are in Latin, and beneath is an explanation in four French verses. Prefixed is a copy of Latin verses, in honour of Holbein, by Nicholas Borbonius, a celebrated French poet of that time, and of whom there is a profile among the drawings at Kensington. 3 Lord Arundel showed Sandrart a little book of twenty-two designs of the Passion of Christ, very small ; in which, says the same author, Christ was everywhere represented in the habit of a black monk — but that was a mistake, for Hollar engraved them, and there is only Christ 1 The noble seal appendant to the surrender of Cardinal Wolsey's College at Oxford, has all the appearance of being designed by Holbein. The deed is preserved in the augmenta- tion-office, and the seal has been engraved among the plates published by the Society of Antiquaries. 2 The dagger in her grace's collection is set with jacynths, and cost Lord Oxford 45/. at Tart Hall, when the remains of the Arundelian collection were sold there in 1720. The dag- ger that was Lady E. Germayn's is set with a hundred rubies and a few diamonds, and is now at Strawberry Hill, with other curiosities bought out of that collection, particularly the figure of Henry VIII in stone, mentioned in the text. 3 In St. John's College, Cambridge, is Hen. the VIII. 's Bible printed on vellum, with Hol- bein's cuts finely illuminated, and the figures of Henry, Cromwell, and others. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 6 1 persecuted by monks. Sandrart adds, that it is incredible what a quantity of drawings of this master Lord Arundel had collected, and surprising the fruitfulness of Holbein's invention, his quickness of execution and industry in performing so much. To the Catechismus or Instruction of Christian Religion, by Thomas Cranmer, printed by Walter Lynn, 1538, quarto, the title is a wooden cut representing Ed. VI. sitting on his throne giving the Bible to the archbishop and nobles kneeling : this and several head-pieces in the same book were designed by Holbein, and probably some of them cut by him ; one has his name. On the death of Sir Thomas Wyat, the poet, in 1541, a little book of verses, entitled Naenia, was published by his great admirer, Leland. Prefixed was a wooden cut of Sir Thomas, from a picture of Holbein, with these lines : 1 Holbenus nitida pingendi maximus arte Effigiem expressit graphice ; sed nullus Apelles Exprimet ingenium felix animumque Viatic Of his architecture nothing now remains standing but the beautiful porch at the Earl of Pembroke's at Wilton. From that and his drawings it is evident that he had great natural taste. One cannot but lament that a noble monument of his genius has lately been demolished : the gateway at Whitehall, supposed to have been erected for the entry of Charles V. ; but that was a mistake ; the emperor was here in 1521 ; Holbein did not arrive at soonest till five years after. Peacham mentions a design that he saw for a chimneypiece 1 for Henry's new palace at Bridewell. There, undoubtedly, at Whitehall and at Nonsuch, were many of his productions. It may be wondered that I have said nothing of a work much renowned, and ascribed to this master ; I mean the chamber at the Lord Montacute's, at Coudray ; but it is most certainly not executed by him. Though the histories represented there, the habits and customs of the times, make that room a singular curiosity, they are its only merit. There is nothing good either in the designs, disposition, or colouring. There are three other historic pieces in the same house, of much more merit, ascribed likewise to Holbein, and undoubtedly of his time. The first represents Francis I. on his throne, with his courtiers, and the Duke of Suffo (so it is written) and the Earl of Southampton standing before him on an embassy. This is by much the worst of the three, and has been repainted. The next is smaller, and exhibits two knights running a tilt on the foreground; one wears the crown of France, another a coronet, like that of an English prince, composed of crosses and fleurs de lys, and not closed at top. An elderly man with 1 I have a drawing by him for a magnificent chimney-piece, I do not know if the same. 62 holbein's fame now thoroughly established. a broad face, and an elderly lady in profile, with several other figures, boldly painted, but not highly finished, are sitting to see the tilt. On the background is the French king's tent, and several figures dancing, rejoicing, and preparing entertainments. A person seems leading a queen to the tent. Under this is written, 6 The meeting of the kings 6 between Guines and Arden in the Vale of Gold.' This is an upright piece. The third is the largest, broad like the first. Francis on his throne at a distance with guards, etc., on each side in a line. Before him sit on stools with their backs towards you four persons in black, and one like a clergyman standing in the middle and haranguing the king. On each side sit noblemen, well drawn, coloured, and neatly finished. On this piece is written, 6 The great ambassade, sent to the ' French king, of the Earl of Worcester, Lord Chamberlain, the Bishop ' of Ely, the Lord St. John, the Lord Vaux, and others/ These pictures I should not think of Holbein ; the figures are more free than his, less finished, and the colouring fainter; and none of the English seem portraits. The spelling too of i Suffo ' is French. Probably these pieces were done by Janet, who was an able master, was cotemporary with Holbein, and whose works are often confounded with our painter's. 1 Holbein's fame was so thoroughly established (Sandrart), even in his life, that the Italian masters vouchsafed to borrow from him. In par- ticular Michael Angelo Caravaggio was much indebted to him in two different pictures. Rubens was so great an admirer of his works that he advised young Sandrart to study his Dance of Death, from which Rubens himself had made drawings. This account of a man, dear to connoisseurs for the singular perfec- tion of his colouring, become dear to antiquaries by the distance of time in which he lived, by the present scarcity of his works, and by his connections with More and Erasmus, I must close with all I can dis- cover more relating to him ; that he formed but one scholar, Christopher Amberger, of Ausburg; and that in a roll 2 of new-year's gifts in the 30th year of the reign of Hen. VIII. signed by the king's own hand, in which are registered presents to the prince, to the ladies Mary and Elizabeth, to the Lady Margaret Douglas, to the nobility, bishops, ladies, and gentry, most of the gifts being of plate, mention is made of a present to Hans Holbein of a gilt creuse and cover, weighing ten ounces two pennyweights, made by (Lucas) Cornelii. D° to Lucas (Penne) a gilt creuse and cover, same weight On the other side of the roll presents to the king : Holbein gave a picture of the prince's grace ; Lucas a screen to set before the fire ; Richard Atsyll a brooch of gold with an antique head. 3 1 In the great drawing-room at Coudriy is a chimney-piece painted with grotesque ornaments in the good taste of Holbein, and probably all he executed at that curious old seat ; the tradi- tion in the family being that he stayed there but a month. 2 It was in the possession of Mr. Holmes, keeper of the records in the Tower, and was ex- hibited to the Antiquarian Society in 1736. 3 He was an engraver of stones. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 63 In the library of the Royal Society is a book of the chamberlain's office, containing payments made by Sir Bryan Tuke, treasurer of the king's chamber, beginning in Feb., 1538, in the 29th of Henry VIII. There appear the following accounts : 'Payd to Hans Holbein, paynter, a quarter due at Lady-day last '8/. los.od. Again at Midsummer quarter. Item, for Hans Hol- ' bein, paynter, for one half year's annuitie advanced to him before . 1 hand, the same year to be accounted from our Lady-day last past, ' the sum of 30/. Dec. 30, An. 30. Item, payd to Hans Holbein, one ' of the king's paynters, by the kyng's commandment certify'd by my ' lord privy seal's letter, x /. for his cost and charge at this time, sent 6 about certeyn his grace's affairs in the parts of High Burgundy, 1 by 6 way of his grace's reward. Sept. An. 31. Item, payd by the king's 1 highness commandment, certify'd by the lord privy seal's letters, to ' Hans Holbein, paynter, in the advancement of his whole year's wages i before hand, after the rate of xxx/. 2 by the year, which year's ad- ' vancement is to be accounted from this present, which shall end 1 ultimo Septembris next ensuing.' The advancement of his salary is a proof that Holbein was both favoured and poor. As he was certainly very laborious, it is probable that the luxury of Britain did not teach him more economy than he had practised in his own country. Henry, besides these painters, had several artists of note in his ser- vice. The superb tomb of his father, says Stowe (p. 499), was not finished till the eleventh year of this king, 15 19. It was made, adds the same author, by one Peter, a painter of Florence, for which he received a thousand pounds for the whole stuff and workmanship. This Peter, Vertue discovered to be Pietro Torreggiano, a valuable sculptor. That he was here in the preceding year appears by a book of acts, orders, decrees, and records of the Court of Requests, printed in 1 592 in quarto, where it is said, p. 60, that in a cause between two Florentine merchants, Peter de Bardi and Bernard Cavalcanti, heard before the council at Greenwich, Master Peter Torisanno, a Florentine sculptor, was one of the witnesses. Vasari says, that Torreggiano having made several figures in marble and small brass, which were in the town hall at Florence, and drawn many things with spirit and a good manner, in competition with Michael Angelo (and consequently could be no despicable performer), was carried into England by some merchants, and entertained in the king's service, for whom he executed variety of works in marble, brass, and wood, in concurrence with other masters of this country, over all whom he was allowed the superiority. He received, adds Vasari, such noble rewards, that if he had not been a proud, inconsiderate, ungovernable man, he might have lived in great 1 It was to draw the picture of the Duchess of Milan mentioned above. 3 Sandrart by mistake says only 200 florins. 64 SAD FATE OF TORREGIANO, THE SCULPTOR. felicity and made a good end ; but the contrary happened ; for, leaving England and settling in Spain, after several performances there, he was accused of being a heretic, 1 was thrown into the Inquisition, tried and condemned. The execution indeed was respited ; but he became melancholy mad, and starved himself to death at Seville in 1522,111 the fiftieth year of his age. Torreggiano it seems, with Henry's turbulence of temper had adopted his religion, and yet, as he quitted England, one should suppose had not suppleness enough to please the monarch, even after that complaisance. In the Life of Benvenuto Cellini is farther evidence of Torreggiano's being employed here, and of his disputes with Michael Angelo. When Cellini was about seventeen, he says there arrived at Florence a sculptor called Pietro Torreggiano, who came from England, where he had resided many years; this artist much frequenting Cellini's master, told the former, that having a great work of bronze to execute for the King of England, he was come to engage as many youths as he could to assist him : and that Cellini being rather a sculptor than a graver, Torreggiano offered to make his fortune if he would accompany him to London. He was, adds Cellini, of a noble presence, bold, and with the air of a great soldier rather than of a statuary, his admirable gestures, sonorous voice, and the action of his brow striking with amazement, 'ed ogni giorno ragionava delle sue bravure con quelle 6 bestie di quelli Inglesi/ every day relating his brave treatment of those beasts, the English. But as much struck as Cellini was with this lofty behaviour to us savages, he took an aversion to his new master, on the latter boasting of a blow in the face that he had given to the divine Michael Angelo with his fist, the marks of which he would carry to his grave. Others say that this event happened in the palace of the car- dinal de Medici, Torreggiano being jealous of the superior honours paid to Michael Angelo, whose nose was flattened by the blow. The aggressor fled and entered into the army, where he obtained a captain's commission; but being soon disgusted with that life, he retired to Florence, and from thence came to England. To Torreggiano Vertue ascribes likewise the tomb of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII., and that of Dr. Young, master of the rolls, in the chapel at the Rolls in Chancery-lane. There is a head of Hen. VIII. in plaster in a round at Hampton- court, which I should suppose is by the same master. Among the Harleian MSS. is an estimate of the charge and expense of the monument 2 to be erected for Henry VII., in which appear the 1 In a passion he had broken an image of the Virgin that he had just carved. 2 At Strawberry Hill is a model in stone of the head of Henry VII. in the agony of death. It is in the great style of Raphael and Michael Angelo, and worthy of either, though undoubt- edly by Torreggiano. I have also a matchless portrait of the king, which seems evidently- taken from the life, as strongly representative of his pensive policy ; yet it is touched with so masterly a knowledge of chiaro scuroj, that I and better judges conjecture that it was recolourecl by Rubens himself. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 65 names of other artists who worked under Torreggiano, as Laurence Ymber, carver, for making the patrons in timber ; Humphrey Walker, founder; Nicholas Ewer, coppersmith and gilder; John Bell and John Maynard, painters ; Robert Vertue, Robert Jenings, and John Lebons, master masons. There was another called William Vertue, who by indenture dated June 5, in the twenty-first year of Hen. VII., engaged with John Hylmer to vault and roof the choir of the chapel of St. George at Windsor for 700/. (Ashmole's Order of the Garter, p. 136). Humphrey Cooke 1 was master carpenter employed in the new build- ings at the Savoy. The tomb at Ormskirk of Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby, last husband of Margaret of Richmond, was in the same style with that of his wife and son-in-law. On it lay an image of brass five feet six inches long, which when cast and prepared ready for gild- ing weighed 500 weight and a half. James Hales for making the image of timber had a hundred shillings. It was in the reign of Hen. VIII. that the chapel of King's College, Cambridge, was 2 finished; a work alone sufficient to ennoble any age. Several indentures are extant relative to the execution of that fabric. One in the fourth year of this king, between the provost, Robert Hacomblein, and Thomas Lake, surveyor of the works, on one part, and John Wastell, master mason, on the other part, by which he agrees to build or set up a good sufficient vault for the great church there, according to a plat signed by the lords executors of King Hen. VII., they covenanting to pay him 1200/., that is to say, 100/. for every severey (or partition) of the church, there being twelve severeys. Another, dated Aug. 4, in the fifth of the same king, between the same parties, for the vaulting of two porches of the King's College Chapel, and also seven chapels, and nine other chapels behind the choir, according to a plat made and to be finished, the vaults and battlements before the feast of St. John Baptist next ensuing, 25/. to be paid for 1 Robert Cook, clarenceux in that reign, was a painter, and at Cockfield Hall, in Yoxford in Suffolk, drew the portraits of Henry VII., Henry VIII., Queen Catherine, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, Sir Anthony Wingfield, Sir Robert Wingfield, his lady and seven or eight sons, all remaining there lately. At Boughton, the seat of the late Duke of Montagu, is a small piece of the family of Wingfield, containing several figures, which probably is the picture here alluded to. 2 The name of the original architect is preserved by Hearne, who in his preface to the His- tory of Glastonbury, p. 65, says, ' All that see King's College Chapel in Cambridge are struck ' with admiration, and most are mighty desirous of knowing the architect's name. Yet few ' can tell it. It appears however from their books at King's College [as I am informed by my 'friend Mr. Baker, the learned antiquary of Cambridge] that one Mr. Cloos, father of Nicho- 'las Cloos, one of the first fellows of that college, and afterwards Bishop of Lichfield, was the ' architect of that chapel [though Godwin says the bishop himself was master of the king's 'works here] as far as King Henry VI. 's share reacheth, and contriver or designer of the 'whole, afterwards finished by Hen. VII., and beautified by Hen. VIII.' In a MS. account of all the members of King's College, a copy of which is in the possession of the Rev. Mr. Cole of Blecheley, to whom the public and I are obliged for this and several other curious particulars, Bishop Nicholas Close is mentioned as a person in whose capacity King Henry VI. (who had appointed him fellow in 1443) had such confidence that he made him overseer and manager of all his intended buildings and designs for that college. In the same MS. John Canterbury, a native of Tewksbury and feflow of the college in 1451, is said to have been clerk of the works there. 6 66 INDENTURES FOR COSTS OF PUBLIC WORKS. each of the said porches; 20/. for each of the seven chapels; 12/. for each of the nine chapels, and for stone and workmanship of the battlements of all the said chapels and porches, divided into twenty severeys, each severey 100/. Another between the same persons, for making and setting up the finyals of the buttresses of the church, and one tower at one of the corners of the said church, and for finishing and performing of the said tower with finyals, ryfaats, gablets, battlement, orbyss, and cross-quar- ters, and everything belonging to them. For every buttress to be paid 61. 13 s. 4^., and for all the said buttresses J 40 /., and for the tower 100/. The two next deeds are no less curious, as they have preserved the names of the artists who painted the magnificent windows in the same chapel. Indenture of May 3, in the 18th of Hen. VIII., between the afore- said provost and Thomas Larke, archdeacon of Norwich, and Francis Williamson of South wark, glazier, and Simon Symonds of St. Marga- ret's, Westminster, glazier, the two latter agreeing curiously and suffi- ciently to glaze four windows of the upper storey of the church of King's College, Cambridge, of orient colours and imagery of the story of the Old Law and of the New Law, after the manner and goodness in every point of the king's new chapel at Westminster, also according to the manner done by Bernard Flower, glazier, deceased ; also according to such patrons, otherwise called vidimus, to be set up within two years next ensuing, to be paid after the rate of sixteen pence per foot for the glass. The last is between the same provost and Thomas Larke on one part, and Galyon Hoone of the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, glazier, Richard Bownde of St. Clement's-Danes, glazier, Thomas Reve, of St. Sepulchre's, glazier, and James Nicholson of Southwark, glazier, on the other part, the latter agreeing to set up eighteen windows of the upper storey of King's College chapel, like those of the king's new chapel at Westminster, as Barnard Flower, glazier (late deceased), by in- denture stood to do, six of the said windows to be set up within twelve months : the bands of lead to be at the rate of two-pence per foot. 1 In these instruments there appears little less simplicity than in the old ones I have reported of Henry III. Yet as much as we imagine ourselves arrived at higher perfection in the arts, it would not be easy 1 An indenture more ancient than these, and containing names of persons employed in this celebrated building, has been discovered in the archives of Caius College, by the present master, Sir James Burrough, and is as follows : — ' To alle christen people this psent writyng endented seeng, redyng, or heryng, John Wul- ' rich, maistr mason of the werkes of the Kyngs college roial of our lady and seynt Nicholas of 'Cambridge, John Bell, mason wardeyn in the same werkes, Richard Adam, and Robert ' Vogett, carpenters, arbitrours indifferently chosen by the reverent fader in God, Edward, by ' the grace of God, byshopp of Karlyle, Mr. or Wardeyn of the house or college of St. Michael ' of Cambr : and the scolers of the same on the oon part, and maist : Henry Coffey, warden of ' the college or hall of the Annuntiation or Gonville hall, and the fellowes and scolers of the ' same, on the other part, of and upon the Evesdroppe in the garden of Ffysshwyke hostle, 'belonginge to Gonville Hall &c. Written at Cambr : 17 Aug. 1476. 16 Edw. 4/ HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 6 7 for the master of a college now to go into St. Margaret's parish, or Southwark, and bespeak the roof of such a chapel as that of King's College, and a dozen or two of windows, so admirably drawn, and order them to be sent home by such a day, as if he was bespeaking a chequered pavement or a church Bible. Even those obscure artists, Williamson, Symonds, Flower, Hoone, etc., would figure as consider- able painters in any reign ; and what a rarity in a collection of drawings would be one of their vidimuses ! It is remarkable, that one of the finest of these windows is the story of Annanias and Saphira as told by Raphael in the cartoons. Probably, the cartoons being consigned to Flanders for tapestry, drawings from them were sent hither ; an in- stance of the diligence of our glass painters in obtaining the best designs for their work. John Mustyan, born at Enguien, is recorded as Henry's arras- maker ; John de Mayne as his seal-graver ; and Richard Atsyll 1 as his graver of stones. 2 Skelton mentions one Master Newton as a painter of that time: c Casting my sight the chambre about To se how duly eche thyng in ordre was, Towarde the dore as we were commying out I saw Maister Newton syt with his compas, His plummet, his pensell, his spectacles of glas, Devysing in picture by his industrious wit Of my laurel the proces every whitte.' And among the payments of the treasurer of the chambers, reported above, is one of 40/. to Levin a Tirlinks paintrixe — a name that occurs but once more, in a roll of new-year's gifts to and from Queen Eliza- beth. This gentlewoman presents the queen's picture painted finely on a card. In the cathedral of Chichester are pictures of the kings of England and bishops of that see, painted about the year 15 19, by one Bernardi, ancestor of a family still settled in those parts. They were done at the expense of Bishop Sherborne, who erected a monument for himself, yet remaining there. Vermander mentions one Theodore Bernardi of Amsterdam, master of Michael Coxie, who Vertue thinks painted those works at Chichester, as they are in a Dutch taste. They were repainted in 1 747 by one Tremaine. The congenial temper of Wolsey displayed itself in as magnificent a manner as the king's. Whitehall, Hampton Court, and his College of Christ-church, were monuments of his grandeur and disgrace, flowing from the bounty of and then reverting to the crown. In 1524 he began * Hillyard (the same person probably of whom more hereafter) cut the images of Henry VIII. and his children on a sardonyx, in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire. The Earl of Exeter has such another. Lady Mary Wortley had a head of the same king on a little stone in a ring : cameo on one side and intaglia on the other. * With a fee of twenty pounds a year. 6 * 68 MAGNIFICENT ERECTIONS BY CARDINAL WOLSEY. a monument for himself at Windsor, erecting a small chapel adjoining to St. George's church, which was to contain his tomb, the design whereof, says Lord Herbert, was so glorious that it exceeded far that of Henry VII. One Benedetto, a statuary of Florence, took it in hand, and continued it till 1529, receiving for so much as was already done 4250 ducats. The cardinal, adds the historian, when this was finished, did purpose to make a tomb for Henry ; but, on his fall, the king made use of so much as he found fit, and called it his. Dr. Fiddes says that the cardinal made suit to the king to have his own image with such part of his tomb as shall please the king to let him have, to be sent to York, where he intended to be buried. In the same collections men- tion is made of Antony Cavallari, as gilder of the tomb, whom the cardinal is besought to permit to return home to Antwerp, if he means to employ him no farther, and also that Benedict, the carver, may return to Italy. But Benedict Henry took into his own service, and employed on the same tomb, which his majesty had now adopted for himself. — This person was Benedetto da Rovezzano, another Florentine sculptor, who, Vasari says, executed many works of marble and bronze for Henry, and got an ample fortune, with which he returned to his native country ; but his eyes having suffered by working in the foundry, he grew blind in 1550 and died soon after., The celebrated Baccio Bandinelli made an admirable model of wood with figures of wax for the same monument ; but Benedetto of Rovezzano, it seems, was preferred. 1 The sepulchral chapel was never completed. 2 Henry and Jane Seymour were buried in St. George's Church, with an intention of their being removed into the monument as soon as it should be finished, Charles I. resumed the design, proposing to enlarge the chapel, and fit it for his own and the interment of his successors. But the whole was demolished in 1646, by order of parliament, and the rich figures of copper gilt melted down. James II. repaired this building, and em* ployed Verrio to paint it, intending it for a popish chapel — but no des- tination of it has yet succeeded ; it remains a ruin, known by the name of the Tomb-house. CHAPTER V. State of Architechire to the End of the Reign of Henry VIII. It is unlucky for the world, that our earliest ancestors were not aware* of the curiosity which would inspire their descendants of knowing 1 I suppose it was Antony Cavallari or Benedetto da Rovezzano who made the large statue in metal of Henry VIII. in a cloister at Gorhambury ; it is not in a bad taste. 2 Leland says that the ancient chapel of St. George built by Edward III., stood on this very spot, and that Henry VII. pulled it down, and erected the present tomb-house in its place, intending himself to be buried there ; but afterwards changed his mind and built his chapel at Westminster. See Leland's Comment on the Cygnea Cantio, published with his Itinerary by Hearne, vol. ix. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 6 9 minutely everything relating to them. When they placed three or four branches of trees across the trunks of others, and covered them with boughs or straw to keep out the weather, the good people were not apprised that they were discovering architecture, and that it would be learnedly agitated some thousand of years afterwards who was the inventor of this stupendous science. In complaisance to our inquiries they would undoubtedly have transmitted an account of the first hovel that was ever built, and from that patriarch hut we should possess a faithful genealogy of all its descendants. Yet such a curiosity would destroy much greater treasures; it would annihilate fables, researches, conjectures, hypotheses, disputes, blunders and dissertations, that library of human impertinence. Necessity and a little common sense, produced all the common arts, which the plain folks who practised them were not idle enough to record. Their inventions were obvious, their productions useful and clumsy. Yet the little merit there was in fabri- cating them being soon consigned to oblivion, we are bountiful enough to suppose that there was design and system in all they did, and then take infinite pains to digest and methodise those imaginary rudiments. No sooner is any era of an invention invented, but different countries begin to assert an exclusive title to it ; and the only point in which any countries agree is perhaps in ascribing the discovery to some other nation remote enough in time for neither of them to know anything of it. Let but France and England once dispute which first used a hat- chet, and they shall never be accorded till the chancery of learning ac- commodates the matterjby pronouncing that each received that invalu- able utensil from the Phoenicians. Common sense, that would inter- pose by observing how probable it is that the necessaries of life were equally discovered in every region, cannot be heard ; a hammer could only be invented by the Phoenicians, the first polished people of whom we are totally ignorant. Whoever has thrown away his time on the first chapters of general histories, or of histories of arts, must be sen- sible that these reflections are but too well grounded. I design them as an apology for not going very far back into the history of our archi- tecture. Vertue and several other curious persons have taken great pains to enlighten the obscure ages of that science ; they find no names of architects, -nay little more than what they might have known without inquiring; that our ancestors had buildings. Indeed Tom Hearne, Brown Willis, and such illustrators did sometimes go upon more posi- tive ground : they did now and then stumble upon an arch, a tower, nay a whole church, so dark, so ugly, so uncouth, that they were sure it could not have been built since any idea of grace had been trans- ported into the island. Yet with this incontestable security on their side, they still had room for doubting; Danes, Saxons, Normans, were all ignorant enough to have claims to peculiar ugliness in their fashions. 70 CRITICISM ON STYLES OF ARCHITECTURE — GRECIAN AND GOTHIC. It was difficult to ascertain the period 1 when one ungracious form jostled out another: and this perplexity at last led them into such refinement, that the term Gothic Architecture, inflicted as a reproach on our ancient buildings in general by our ancestors who revived the Grecian taste, is now considered but as a species of modern elegance, by those who wish to distinguish the Saxon style from it. This Saxon style begins to be defined by flat and round arches, by some undulating zigzags on certain old fabrics, and by a very few other characteristics, all evidences of barbarous and ignorant times. I do not mean to say simply that the round arch is a proof of ignorance; but being so natural, it is simply, when unaccompanied by any graceful ornaments, a mark of a rude age — if attended by misshapen and heavy decora- tions, a certain mark of it. The pointed arch, that peculiar of Gothic architecture, was certainly intended as an improvement on the circular; and the men who had not the happiness of lighting on the simplicity and proportion of the Greek orders, were however so lucky as to strike out a thousand graces and effects, which rendered their buildings mag- nificent, yet genteel, vast, yet light, 2 venerable and picturesque. It is difficult for the noblest Grecian temple to convey half so many impres- sions to the mind as a cathedral does of the best Gothic taste — a proof of skill in the architects and of address in the priests who erected them. The latter exhausted their knowledge of the passions in com- posing edifices whose pomp, mechanism, vaults, tombs, painted win- dows, gloom and perspectives infused such sensations of romantic devotion ; and they were happy in finding artists capable of executing such machinery. One must have taste to be sensible of the beauties of Grecian architecture ; one only wants passions to feel Gothic. In St. Peter's one is convinced that it was built by great princes. In Westminster Abbey, one thinks not of the builder; the religion of the place makes the first impression — and though stripped of its altars and shrines, it is nearer converting one to popery than all the regular pageantry of Roman domes. Gothic churches infuse superstition; Grecian, admiration. The papal see amassed its wealth by Gothic cathedrals, and displays it in Grecian temples. 3 1 When men inquire, * Who invented Gothic buildings ? ' they might as well ask, 1 Who in- ' vented bad Latin ? ' The former was a corruption of the Roman architecture, as the latter was of the Roman language. Both were debased in barbarous ages ; both were refined, as the age polished itself ; but neither was restored to the original standard. Beautiful Gothic architecture was engrafted on Saxon deformity ; and pure Italian succeeded to vitiated Latin. 2 For instance, the facade of the cathedral of Rheims. 3 In the six volumes of letters published at Rome, and entitled, 1 Raccolta di Lettere sulla Pittura, Scultura ed Architettura,' are several of Mons. Mariette, a most worthy man, but too naturally infected by the prejudices of his country, his religion, and his profession of connois- seur. All professions are too apt to be led by words, and to talk by rote. Connoisseurs in the arts are not the least bigoted. Taste has its inquisition as well as Popery; and though M. Mariette has been too partial to me, he has put this work in his ' Index Expurgatorius,' from totally misunderstanding my meaning. Here follows his censure of the passage above, in which I have ascribed more address to the architects of Gothic churches, than to those of St. Peter's — not as architects, but as politicians — a distinction M. Mariette did not give himself time to make, or he could not have understood a book so ill that he gave himself the trouble to trans- HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 7* I certainly do not mean by this little contrast to make any comparison between the rational beauties of regular architecture and the unrestrained licentiousness of that which is called Gothic. Yet I am clear that the persons who executed the latter, had much more knowledge of their art, more taste, more genius, and more propriety than we choose to imagine. There is a magic hardiness in the execution of some of their works, which would not have sustained themselves if dictated by mere caprice. There is a tradition that Sir Christopher Wren went once a year to survey the roof of the chapel of King's College, and said that, if any man would show him where to place the first stone, he would engage to build such another. That there is great grace in several places, even in their clusters of slender pillars, and in the application of their ornaments, though the principles of the latter are so confined that they may almost all be reduced to the trefoil, extended and varied, I shall not appeal to the edifices themselves — it is sufficient to observe, that Inigo Jones, Sir Christopher Wren, and Kent, who certainly under- stood beauty, blundered 1 into the heaviest and clumsiest compositions whenever they aimed at imitations of the Gothic. Is an art despicable in which a great master cannot shine ? Considering how scrupulously our architects confine themselves to antique precedent, perhaps some deviations into Gothic may a little relieve them from that servile imitation. I mean that they should study both tastes, not blend them; that they should dare to invent in the one, since they will hazard nothing in the other. When they have built a pediment and portico, the Sibyl's circular temple, and tacked late. After an account of these anecdotes, and too flattering mention of the author, he says, ' Quest' opera e arrichita di presso di cento ritratti, e la stampa e veramente magnifica. Io vi ' fard ridere, se vi diro, che la chiesa di San Pietro non e di suo gusto, et che egli la trova troppo ' carica d'ornati, il che non gli pare proprio per un tempio degno dello Maesta dell' Essere ' supremo, che lo abita ; che gli ornamenti, che vi sono sparsi a profusione, non vi sono posti ' per altro che per fomentare * la superstitione, di che egli accusa malamente la nostra chiesa ' Romana. Ed a quale edifizio credete voi, che egli conceda la preferenza sopra a. S. Pietro? * A una chiesa fabricata ful gusto Gotico, et le di cui muraglie sieno tutte nude ; cosa, che fa 'Pieta !' 1 In Lincoln's-inn chapel, the steeple of the church at Warwick, the king's bench in West minster-hall, the screen at Gloucester, etc. * Observe that I have said just the contrary (in that Gothic churches infuse superstition ; Grecian, admiration). In my comparison between the effects of a Grecian and a Gothic church, is there any question of preferring the latter to the former in point of architecture? Have I not said, that Gothic architects had not the happiness of discovering the true beauties of the Grecian orders ? Is there a word of St. Peter's being overloaded with ornaments ? Have I not even said, that a Gothic church, though stripped of its shrines and splendour, makes stronger religious impression than the cathedral of Rome, though advantaged by all those decorations ? And why, but because gloom and well-applied obscurity are better friends to devotion than even wealth ? A dark landscape, savage with rocks and precipices, by Salvator Rosa, may be preferred to a serene sunshine of Claud Lorrain ; not because it is a more pleas- ing, but a more striking picture. Cato is a regular drama, Macbeth an extravagant one ; yet who thinks the genius of Addison equal to Shakespeare's? The one copies rules, the other the passions. A Gibbs and money, a French critic and an English schoolmaster, can make a build- ing or a tragedy without a fault against proportion or the three unities ; and the one or the other might make either. It required a little more genius to write . Macbeth, or to establish the Roman Catholic religion ; and though Monsieur Mariette does not know it, his creed, which he mistakes for architecture, was more obliged to Gothic architects than to Michael Angelo and the rest, who designed St. Peter's. 72 ARCHITECTURE IN BRITAIN IN ERA OF KING ARTHUR. the wings to a house by a colonnade, they seem c au bout de leur Latin.' If half a dozen mansions were all that remained of old Rome, instead of half a dozen temples, I do not doubt but our churches would re- semble the private houses of Roman citizens. Our buildings must be as Vitruvian, as writings in the days of Erasmus were obliged to be Ciceronian. Yet confined as our architects are to few models, they are far from having made all the use they might of those they possess. There are variations enough to be struck out to furnish new scenes of singular beauty. The application of loggias, arcades, terrasses and flights of steps, at different stages of a building, particularly in such situations as Whitehall to the river, would have a magnificent effect. It is true, our climate and the expense of building in England are great restrictions on imagination : but when one talks of the extent of which architecture is capable, one must suppose that pomp and beauty are the principal objects ; one speaks of palaces and public buildings, not of shops and small houses. But I must restrain this dissertation, and come to the historic part, which will lie in a small compass. Felibien took great pains to ascertain the revival of architecture, after the destruction of the true taste by the inundation of the northern nations ; but his discoveries were by no means answerable to his labour. Of French builders he did find a few names, and here and there an Italian or German. Of English he owns he did not meet with the least trace ; while at the same time the founders of ancient buildings were everywhere recorded ; so careful have the monks (the only his- torians of those times) been to celebrate bigotry and pass over the arts. But I own I take it for granted, that these seeming omissions are to be attributed to their want of perspicuity rather than to neglect As all the other arts 1 were confined to cloisters, so undoubtedly was architecture too ; and when we read that such a bishop or such an abbot built such and such an edifice, I am persuaded that they often gave the plans as well as furnished the necessary funds ; but as those chroniclers scarce ever specify when this was or was not the case, we must not at this distance of time pretend to conjecture what prelates were or were not capable of directing their own foundations. Felibien is so impartial an author, that he does not even reject the fables with which our own writers have replenished the chasms in our history. He quotes Matthew of Westminster for the flourishing con- dition of architecture in Britain at a time when indeed neither that nor any other science flourished here. King Arthur, say they (Felib., vol. v., p. 165), caused many churches and considerable edifices to be erected here. It would in truth have been an act of injustice to us to 1 The arts flourished so much in convents to the last, that one Gyffard, a visitor employed by Thomas Cron well to make a report of the state of those societies previous to their suppres- sion, pleads in behalf of the house of Wolstrop, ' That there was not one religious person there, but that he could and did use, either embrotheryng, writing books with very fair hand, making their own garments, carving, painting, graffing.' Strype's Memor., vol. i., p. 255. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 73 omit this vision, in a man who, on the authority of Agathias, relates that the Emperor Justinian had in his service one Anthemius, so able a mathematician that he could make artificial earthquakes, and actually did revenge himself by such an experiment on one Zeno, a rhetorician. The machinery was extremely simple, and yet I question whether the greatest mathematician of this age is expert enough to produce the same effect ; it consisted in nothing but placing several caldrons of hot water against the walls of Zeno's house. The same author has cited Procopius for the origin of dams to restrain the course of rivers, the method of whose construction was revealed to Chryses, an architect of Alexandria, in a dream. Dreams, lies, absurdities, are all one finds in searching into early times. In a scarcity of facts, probability was the last thing to which such authors attended ; and consequently they left a mark by which, if we pleased, we might distinguish between the truth and what they invented. In Felibien (vol. v., p. 185) the only thing I find to my pur- pose, and all that he really found in Matthew of Westminster, is, that in the kingdom of the Mercians Sexulphus, abbot and afterwards bishop, built a considerable monastery called Medes Hampsted (Peter- borough) ; unless it may be a satisfaction to antiquaries to know who first invented those grotesque monsters and burlesque faces with which the spouts and gutters of ancient buildings are decorated. It was one Marchion of Arezzo (Felib., p. 224), architect to Pope Innocent III. Indeed I speak now critically. Marchion used those grinning animals only to support columns — but in so fantastic an age they were sure of being copied, and soon arrived at the top. Vertue, no less industrious than Felibien, could discover but two ancient architects, Gundulphus who built the Tower 1 (the same person who erected the cathedral of Rochester), and Peter, of Colechurch, priest and chaplain, who, in the year 1163, rebuilt London Bridge of timber. 2 Edward Fitzodo, we have seen, was master of the new works at Westminster, under Henry III., and may fairly claim his place in this list. 3 In the cathedral of Lincoln, is a curious gravestone over a mason of that church, almost perfect, except in that material part, the year of his death, the latter figures being obliterated. On each side of him is his trowel and square : * Hie jacet Ricardus de Gaynisburgh olym cementarius hujus ecclesie qui obiit duodecim. kalendarum Junii anno Domini M CCC — 1 See the compact between the king and bishop in the Textus Rossensis, published by Hearne ; and that between the same bishop and William Rufus for erecting the castle of Rochester, cap. lxxxviii., and Stowe's Survey of London. 2 William de Sens soon after the year 1174, temp. Hen. 2di, built the choir of the cathedral of Canterbury, as it still exists. Helias de Berham, canon of Salisbury, a prima fundatione (temp. Hen. 3tii) rector fuit novae fabricse per 25 annos ; et Robertus caementarius rexit per 25 annos. See Leland's Itinerary, vol. iii., p. 66. Helias de Berham was probably the person mentioned above, p. 12, by the name of Elyas in the reign of King John. 3 See Stowe's Survey, p. 28. Isembert of Xaintes is mentioned as a builder of the bridge of London, and of the chapel in it. 74 WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM. THE LIBRARY OF MERTON COLLEGE. But the brightest name in this list is William of Wykeham, who, from being clerk of the works, rose to be Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor ; a height which few men have reached by mere merit in any mechanic science. Wykeham had the sole direction of the buildings at Windsor and Queenborough Castle, not to mention his own foundations. He rose by pleasing one of the greatest princes, and deserved his fortune by bestowing it on noble charities. William Rede, Bishop of Chichester in 1369, reckoned the best mathematician of the age, was a prelate of similar taste ; he built the first library at Merton College, and the castle of Amberley. In St. MichaePs church at St. Alban's were the following inscriptions : ' Hie jacet Thomas Wolvey [or Wolven] Latomus in arte, nec non 'armiger illustrissimi principis Ric. secundi, quondum regis Angliae, * qui obiit anno Dom. M,cccc,xxx. in vigilia Sti. Thomas Martyris, cujus 'animae propitietur Deus. Amen/ ' This man, as far as I understand by this inscription [Weaver, p. '582], was the master-mason, or surveior of the king's stone- works, as ' also esquire to the king's person.' 6 Hie jacet Richardus Wolven [or Wolvey] Lathonius, films Johannis 4 Wolven, cum uxoribus suis, Agnete et Agnete, et cum octo filiis, et decern * filiabus suis, qui Richardus obiit an. 1490. Quorum animabus, etc/ I have myself turned over most of our histories of churches, and can find nothing like the names of artists. With respect to the builders of Gothic, it is a real loss ; there is beauty, genius, and invention enough in their works to make one wish to know the authors. I will say no more on this subject, than that, on considering and comparing its pro- gress, the delicacy, lightness, and taste of its ornaments, it seems to have been at its perfection about the reign of Hen. IV., as may be seen particularly by the tombs of the archbishops at Canterbury. That cathedral I should recommend preferably to Westminster, to those who would borrow ornaments in that style. The fretwork in the small oratories at Winchester and the part behind the choir at Gloucester would furnish beautiful models. The windows in several cathedrals offer graceful patterns ; for airy towers of almost filigraine we have none to be compared with those of Rheims. 1 It is certain that the Gothic taste remained in vogue till towards the end of the reign of Hen. VIII. His father's chapel at Westminster is 1 Some instances of particular beauty, whose constructions date at different eras from what I have mentioned, have been pointed out to me by a gentleman to whose taste I readily yield ; such as the nave of the minster at York (in the great and simple style) and the choir of the same church (in the rich and the filigraine workmanship), both of the reign of Edward III. The Lady Chapel (new Trinity Church) at Ely, and the Lantern Tower in the same cathedral, noble works of the same time ; and the chapel of Bishop West (also at Ely), who died in 1533, for exquisite art in the lesser style. These notices certainly can add no honour to a name already so distinguished as Mr. Gray's ; it is my own gratitude or vanity that prompts me to name him ; and I must add, that if some parts of this work are more accurate than my own ignorance or carelessness would have left them, the reader and I are obliged to the same gentleman, who condescended to correct what he never could have descended to write. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 75 entirely of that manner. So is Wolsey's tomb-house at Windsor. But soon after the Grecian style was introduced ; and no wonder, when so many Italians were entertained in the king's service. They had seen that architecture revived in their own country in all its purity — but whether they were not perfectly masters of it, or that it was necessary to introduce the innovation by degrees, it certainly did not at first obtain full possession. It was plastered upon Gothic, and made a barbarous mixture. Regular columns, with ornaments neither Grecian nor Gothic, and half embroidered with foliage, were crammed over frontispieces, facades, and chimneys, and lost all grace by wanting sim- plicity. This mongrel species of architecture lasted till late in the reign of James the first. The beginning of reformation 1 in building seems owing to Holbein. His porch at Wilton, though purer than the works of his successors, is of this bastard sort ; but the ornaments and proportions are graceful and well chosen. I have seen of his drawings too in the same kind. Where he acquired this taste is difficult to say ; probably it was adopted from his acquaintance with his fellow-labourers at court. Henry had actually an Italian architect in his service, to whom I should without scruple assign the introduction of regular architecture, if it was clear that he arrived here near so early as Holbein. He was called John of Padua, and his very office seems to intimate something noble in his practice. He was termed 6 Devizor of his majesty's buildings.' In one of the office-books which I have quoted, there is a payment to him of 36/. iar. od. In the same place is the payment of the same sum to Laurence Bradshaw, surveyor, with a fee of two shillings per diem. To the clerk of the latter, 9/. 2s. od. ; for riding expenses, 53/. 6s. od. ; and for boat hire, 13/. 6s. Sd. John de Padua is mentioned again in Rymer's Fcedera, on the grant of a fee of 2s. per diem. ' A.D. 1544. Rex omnibus ad quos, etc., salutem. Sciatis quod nos, ' de gratia nostra speciali, ac ex certa scientia et mero motu nostris, ' necnon in consideratione boni et fidelis servitii, quod dilectus serviens 6 noster Johannes de Padua nobis in architectura, ac aliis in re musica 1 inventis impendit ac impendere intendit. Dedimus et concessimus, i ac per praesentes damus et concedimus eidem Johanni vadium sive ' feodum " duorum solidorum sterlingorum per diem," habendum et an- ' nuatim percipiendum praefato Johanni dictum vadium sive feodum ' " duorum solidorum," durante beneplacito nostro de thesauro nostro ' ad receptam scaccarii nostri, per manus thesaurarii et camerariorum 'nostrorum ibidem pro tempore existentium, ad festa Sancti Michaelis 6 Archangeli et Paschae per aequales portiones ; et insuper sciatis quod, 1 cum dictus Johannes nobis inservivit in dicta arte a festo Paschae 'quod erat in anno regni nostri tricesimo quarto, prout certam habemus 1 Brunelleschi began to reform architecture in the fourteenth century. See Voltaire, Hist. Univ., vol. ii., p. 179. 76 SIR RICHARD LEA, MASTER MASON TO HENRY VIII. i notitiam, nos de uberiori gratia nostra dedimus et concessimus, ac ' per praesentes damus et concedimus eidem Johanni praefatum feodum ' duorum solidorum per diem habendum et percipiendum eidem, a 1 dicto festo Paschae nomine regardi nostri ; eo quod expressa mentio, 6 etc. Teste rege apud Westmonasterium tricesimo die Junii. 6 Per Breve de Privato Sigillo/ This grant was renewed to him in the third of Ed. VI. From the first warrant it appears that John of Padua was not only an architect but musician, a profession remarkably acceptable to Henry. I cannot certainly indicate to the reader any particular work 1 of this master ; but these imperfect notes may lead curious persons to farther discoveries. Jerome di Trevisi, one of the painters mentioned before, is also said to have built some houses here (Felibien, vol. ii., p. 71 ). Henry had another architect of much note in his time, but who ex- celled chiefly in Gothic (from whence it is clear that the new taste was also introduced). This was Sir Richard Lea, master mason, and master of the pioneers in Scotland. Henry gave him 2 the manor of Sopewell in Hertfordshire, and he himself bestowed a brazen font on the Church of Verulam, or St. Alban's, within a mile of which place out of the ruins of the abbey he built a seat called Lees Place. The font was taken in the Scottish wars, and had served for the christening of the royal children of that kingdom. A pompous inscription (Cam- den's Britan., vol. L, p. 355) was engraved on it by the donor; 3 but the font was stolen in the civil wars. Hector Asheley appears, by one of the office-books that I have quoted, to have been much employed by Henry in his buildings, but whether as architect or only supervisor is not clear. In the space of three years were paid to him on account of buildings at Hunsdon House above 1900/. CHAPTER VI. State of Painting under Edward VI. and Mary. Under a minor prince, and amidst a struggle of religions, we are not likely to meet with much account of the arts. Nobody was at leisure to mind or record them. Yet the seeds sown by Henry were not eradi- 4 1 Holmby House was one of our earliest productions in regular architecture, and, by part of the frontispiece lately standing, appeared to be of a very pure and beautiful style, but cannot well be ascribed to John of Padua, as the date was 1583. Wollaton Hall in Nottinghamshire was perhaps of the same hand. The porch of Charlcot House, the seat of the Lucys, is in the same style, and at Kenil worth was another, with the arms of Dudley, Earl of Leicester. 2 Chauncy's Hertfordshire, p. 461, where he is called Richard a Leigh. 3 Nicholas Stone, sen., the statuary and master mason, had a portrait of this Sir Richard Lee, whom he much esteemed. It was painted on board about a foot high, his sword by his side. It came afterwards to one whom Vertue calls ' Old Stoakes,' and he gave it to Jackson, master mason, lately dead. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 77 cated ; Holbein was still alive. We have seen that he was chosen to celebrate the institution of Bridewell. He drew the young king more than once after he came to the crown. Among the stores of old pictures at Somerset-house was one, painted on a long board, representing the head of Edward VI., to be discerned only by the reflection of a cylindric mirror. On the side of the head was a landscape, not ill done. On the frame was written Gulielmus pinxit. This was probably MARC WILLEMS, who was born at Antwerp about 1527, and was scholar of Michael Coxie. He was reckoned to surpass his cotemporaries in his manner and facility of composing. This picture is the sole evidence of his having been in England ; in his own country he painted the decollation of St. John, still extant in the church of St. Rombout, for which too he drew the story of Judith and Holofernes. When Philip II. made his public entry into Mechlin in 1549, Willems was employed to paint a triumphal arch, on which he represented the history of Dido. He made designs for most of the painters, glass painters and arras makers of his time, and died lamented in 1 561. Another picture of Ed. VI. was in the collection of Char. L, painted by Hans Hueet, of whom nothing else is known. It was sold for 20/. in the civil war. There was another painter who lived at this time, of whom Vertue found an account in a MS. of Nicholas Hilliard, but never discovered any of his works. As this person is so much commended by a brother artist, one may believe he had merit ; and as the testimony may lead to farther investigation, I shall give the extract in the author's own words: — ' Nevertheless, if a man be so induced by nature, and live in 4 time of trouble and under a government wherein arts be not esteemed, * and himself but of small means, woe be unto him, as unto an untimely ' birth ! for, of my own knowledge, it hath made poor men poorer, as 6 amongst others many, that most rare English drawer of story works \ in black and white 'JOHN BOSSAM, c one of his skill worthy to have been serjeant-painter to any king or 1 emperor, whose works in that kind are comparable with the best i whatsoever in cloth, and in distemper colours for black and white ; * who being very poor, and belike wanting to buy fairer colours, wrought < therefore for the most part in black and white ; and growing yet * poorer by charge of children, etc., gave painting clean over ; but being l a very fair-conditioned, zealous and godly person, grew into a love of * God's divine service upon the liberty of the gospel at the coming in of 'Queen Elizabeth, and became a reading minister; only unfortunate 78 MAGNIFICENCE OF SOMERSET, THE PROTECTOR. 'because he was English born, for even the .strangers 1 would otherwise ' have set him up.' The protector was magnificent, and, had he lived to complete Somerset House, would probably have called in the assistance of those artists whose works are the noblest furniture. I have already men- tioned his portrait by Holbein. His ambitious Duchess, Anne Stanhope ? and her son are preserved in a small piece 2 of oil-colours at Pet worth; but I know not who the painter was, nor of the portrait of the protector's brother, Admiral Seymour, at Longleat. A miniature of the same person is in the possession of Mrs. George Grenville. Of the admiraFs creature Sir William Sherrington, there are two or three pictures extant ; one, among Holbein's drawings at Kensington. This man was master of the mint, and was convicted by his own confession of great frauds (Strype's Memorials, vol. ii., p. 123). He put the mint of Bristol into the hands of the admiral, who was to take thence 10,000/. per month for his rebellious purposes. Yet Sherrington was pardoned and restored. It has never been observed, but I suppose the lightness which is remarked in the coins of Edward VI. was owing to the embezzlements of this person. Now I am mentioning the mint, I shall take notice that, among the patent rolls, is a grant in the sixth of Edward, to Antony Deric of the office of capital sculptor of the moneys in the Tower of London ; and at the end of the same year, John Brown is appointed, during pleasure, sur- veyor of the coins. Clement Adams has a grant to instruct the king's henchmen or pages ; an office he retained under Queen Elizabeth. In Hackluyt's Voyages (p. 270), that of Richard Chancelor to Cathay, is said to be written in Latin by that learned young man Clement Adams. Of the protector's rival, Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, there is a good head in the chamber at Knowle, where there are so many curious portraits, supposed to have been assembled by the treasurer Buckhurst. Another person of some note in this reign, was Sir John Godsalve, created knight of the carpet at the king's coronation (Strype) ; and commissioner of visitation the same year (Heylin) ; and in the third year comptroller of the mint. His portrait is in the closet at Kensing- ton, and Vertue mentions another in miniature, drawn by John Betts 3 (who he says was an esteemed painter in the reign of Queen Elizabeth). On this picture was written, ' Captum in castris ad Boloniam 1540;' with his arms, party per pale gules and azure, on a fess wavy argent, between three croslets pattee, or, as many crescents sable. The knight was drawn with a spear and shield. This picture belonged to Christopher Godsalve, clerk of the victualling office in the reign of 1 King Philip and the Spaniards. 2 There is a head of her too at Sion, and Mr. Bateman has given me another in small, with a portrait of the protector in her hand ; painted probably after his death. 5 Vertue says that Betts learned of Hilliard. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 79 Charles I., in whose cause he lost 7,000/. and was near being hanged. He was employed by Charles II. in the navy office, and lived to 1694. Guillim Stretes was painter to King Edward; in 155 1 6 he had paid 1 him/ says Strype (vol. ii., p. 494), 6 fifty marks for recompense of three 1 great tables made by the said Guillim, whereof two were the pictures 6 of his highness, sent to Sir Thomas Hoby, and Sir John Mason ' (ambassadors abroad) ; the third a picture of the late Earl of Surrey i attainted, and the council's commandment fetched from the said i Guillim's house.' The peculiarity of these last words induces me to think that I have discovered this very picture. In my father's collec- tion was a very large piece representing that unfortunate lord, at whole length, leaning on a broken column, with this motto, ' Sat superest,* and other devices, particularly the arms of England, one of the articles of his impeachment, and only the initial letters of his name. This was evidently painted after his death ; and as his father was still detained in prison during the whole reign of Edward, it cannot be probable that a portrait of the son, with such marks of honour, should be drawn by order of the court. On the contrary, its ■ being fetched from Guillim's 'house by the council's commandment/ seems to imply that it was seized by their order. It is now in the possession of his grace the Duke of Norfolk. Architecture preserved in this reign the footing it had acquired under the last king. Somerset House is a compound of Grecian and Gothic. It was built on the site of Chester inn, where the ancient poet Occleve formerly lived. As the pension to John of Padua was renewed in the third of this king, one may suppose that he owed it to the protector, and was the architect of this palace. In tji^same style, and dating its origin from the same power, as SomeWc House, is Longleat, though not begun till 1567. It was built by Sir John Thynne, a principal officer to the protector. 1553. The reign of Mary, though shorter even than that of her brother, makes a much more considerable figure in the annals of painting. It was distinguished by more good painters than one ; the principal was SIR ANTONIO MORE. He was a native of Utrecht, and scholar of John Schorel; 1 but seems to have studied the manner of Holbein, to which he approached nearer than to the freedom of design in the works of the great masters, that he saw at Rome. Like Holbein he was a close imitator of nature, but did not arrive at his extreme delicacy of finishing; on the contrary, Antonio sometimes struck into a bold and masculine style, with a good knowledge of the chiaro scuro. In 1522 he drew Philip II., and was 1 Schorel was scholar of Mabuse, and was a poet, musician, and orator. See an account of him in Sandrart, p. 235. 8o SIR ANTONIO MORE, THE PAINTER. recommended by Cardinal Granvelle to Char. V. who sent him to Portugal, where he painted John III., the king, Catherine of Austria, his queen, and the infanta Mary, first wife of Philip. For these three pictures he received six hundred ducats, besides a gold chain of one thousand florins, and other presents. He had one hundred ducats 1 for his common portraits. But still ampler rewards were bestowed on him when sent into England, to draw the picture of Queen Mary, 2 the intended bride of Philip. They gave him one hundred pounds, a gold chain, and a pension of one hundred pounds a quarter as painter to their majesties. He made various portraits of the queen; 3 one was sent by Cardinal Granvelle to the emperor, who ordered two hundred florins to Antonio. He remained in England during the reign of Mary, and was much employed ; but having neglected, as is frequent, to write the names on the portraits he drew, most of them have lost part of their value, by our ignorance of the persons represented. The poorest performers have it in their power to add so much merit to their works, as can be conferred by identifying the subjects; which would be a little reparation to the curious world, though some families should miss imaginary ancestors. On the death of the queen, More followed Philip [and probably his religion 4 ] into Spain, where he was indulged in so much familiarity, that one day the king slapping him pretty roughly on the shoulder, More returned the sport with his handstick ; a strange liberty to be taken with a Spanish monarch, and with such a monarch ! His biographer gives but an awkward account of the sequel ; and I repeat it as I find it. A grandee interposed for his pardon, and he was permitted to retire to the Netherlands, but under promise of returning again to Spain. I should rather suppose that he was promised to have leave to return thither, after temporary banishment ; and this supposition is the more likely, as Philip, for once forgetting majesty in his love of the arts, dispatched a messenger to recall him before he had finished his journey. But the painter, sensible of the danger he had escaped, modestly excused himself : and yet, says the story, the king bestowed noble presents and places on his children. At Utrecht, Antonio found the Duke of Alva, and was employed by him to draw several of his mistresses, and was made receiver of the revenues of West Flanders ; 1 Titian himself had but one hundred pieces of gold. t 2 Sandrart says she was very handsome. It is certain that the drawing of her (when about sixteen) by Holbein at Kensington is not disagreeable, though her later pictures have all a stern hard-favoured countenance. 3 In King Charles's collection was a miniature in oil of this queen by Antonio More, painted on a round gold plate, in blue flowered velvet and gold tissue with sleeves of fur, two red roses and a pair of gloves in her hand ; the very same dress of her picture at the Duke of Bedford's at Woburn. The miniature was a present to the king from the Earl of Suffolk. 4 He was suspected by the Inquisition of making use of his interest with the king in favour of his countrymen, says Sandrart. This might be meant either of their religious or political principles. > But sure the inquisitors knew Philip too well to be apprehensive of his listening to any insinuations of tenderness on either head. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 81 a preferment with which, they say, he was so elated, that he burned his easel, and gave away his painting tools. More was a man of a stately and handsome presence ; and often went to Brussels, where he lived magnificently. He died at Antwerp in 1575, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. His portrait, painted by himself, is in the chamber of painters at Florence ; with which the great duke, who bought it, was so pleased, that he ordered a cartel with some Greek verses, written by Antonio Maria Salvini, his Greek professor, to be affixed to the frame. Salvini translated them into Italian and into the following Latin — Papae ! est imago cujus, Qui Zeuxin atque Apellem, Veterumque quot fuere, Recentiumque quot sunt, Genus arte vicit omne ! Viden' ut suam ipse pinxit Propria manu figuram ; Chalybis quidem nitenti Speculo se ipse cernens. Manus O ! potens magistri ! Nam pseudo-morus iste Fors, More, vel loquetur. Another picture of himself, and one of his wife, were in the collec- tion of Sir Peter Lely. More's was three feet eight inches high, by two feet nine wide. King Charles had five pictures painted by this master; and the Duke of Buckingham had a portrait of a man by him (see his Catalogue, p. 18). A print of him in profile was published by Hondius, and a medal struck of him in Italy with this legend, 6 Ant. ' More, pictor transmontanus.' At what time or where he was knighted is uncertain. He painted his master, John Schorel, in 1560. Several of his works are or were at Sir Philip Sydenham's at Brympton, in Somersetshire. A very good portrait of Sir Thomas Gresham is at Houghton. I have a miniature by him, called Thomas Duke of Norfolk, engraved among the illustrious heads ; it belonged to Richard- son the painter, and came out of the Arundelian collection ; and a half length of a lady in black with a gold chain about her waist, which is mentioned in the catalogue of pictures of James II. and by that of Chas. I., appears to be Margaret of Valois, sister of Hen. II., of France, and Duchess of Savoy, at the tournament for whose wedding that monarch was killed. Lady Elizabeth Germayn has the portrait of Anne, daughter of Francis, Earl of Bedford, and wife of Ambrose, Earl of Warwick. At Newstead Abbey, in Nottinghamshire, the beautiful seat of Lord Byron, where are the most perfect remains of an ancient convent, is an admirable portait, painted as I believe by this master, and worthy of Holbein. It is a half-length of a fat man with a beard, on a light greenish ground. His arms are three roses, the middle one highest, on a field argent ; in base, something like a green hill : these arms are repeated on his ring, and over them, J. N. aet. 1557. As this bearing is evidently foreign, I suppose the portrait represents one of the family 7 82 COLLECTIONS OF PHILIP IN SPAIN, AND OF JAMES II. IN ENGLAND. of Numigen. Nicholas Byron married Sophia, daughter of Lambert Charles of Numigen (Thoroton's Nottinghamshire, p. 261). But More did not always confine himself to portraits. He painted several historic pieces, particularly one much esteemed of the resurrec- tion of Christ with two angels ; and another of Peter and Paul. A painter, who afterwards sold it to the Prince of Condd, got a great deal of money by showing it at the foire St. Germain. He made a fine copy of Titian's Danae for the king ; and left un- finished the Circumcision, designed for the altar in the church of our Lady, at Antwerp. In the catalogue of pictures at the Palais Royal is a portrait said to be of Grotius, by Antonio More, who was dead above twenty years before Grotius was born. JOAS VAN CLEEVE, or Sotto Cleefe, an industrious painter of Antwerp : his colouring was good, and his figures fleshy and round ; but before he arrived at the per- fection he might have attained, his head was turned with vanity ; a mis- fortune not uncommon to the profession, who living secluded from the world, and seeing little but their own creation rising around them, grow intoxicated with the magic of their own performances. Cleeve came to England, expecting great prices for his pictures from King Philip, who was making a collection ; but, unluckily, some of the works of Titian arrived at the'same time. Cleeve begged the recommendation of Sir Antonio More, his countryman; but Philip was too much charmed with the beauties of the Venetian master, and overlooked the labours of the Fleming. This neglect completed his frenzy, the storm of which first vented itself on Sir Antonio. Cleeve abused him, undervaluing his works, and bidding him to return to Utrecht and keep his wife from the canons. At last the poor man grew quite frantic, painted his own clothes, and spoiled his own pictures, till they were obliged to confine him ; in which wretched condition he probably died. He had a son that followed his profession, and was, it is said, no despicable performer. Of Joas there is a print with this legend, 'Vivebat Antwerpiae in ' patria 1544.' Another inscribed, 6 Justo Clevensi, Antwerpiano pictori.' The original painted by himself with a black cap and furred gown, upon a greenish ground, and a portrait of his wife, were purchased by Chas. I., 1 who had also of this master a picture of Mars and Venus (mentioned in a MS. catalogue). James II. had of his painting, the Judgment of Paris (Catalogue, No. 540 and 830), and the birth of Christ with angels (Catalogue, p. 18). The Duke of Buckingham had a portrait of a man, and Sir Peter Lely a bacchanalian two feet one inch wide, by three feet four inches high. 1 See his Catalogue, p. 153- Cleeve's portrait is still in the lower apartment at Kensington. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 83 Vertue found grants in this reign to another painter, who, it seems, had been in the service too of Henry and Edward. His name was Nicholas Lysard ; he had a pension for life of ten pounds a year, and the same fee charged on the customs, as had been granted to the serjeant-painters, John Brown and Andrew Wright. Of Lysard I find no farther mention, but that in a roll of Queen Elizabeth's new year's gifts he presents her with a table painted of the history of Ahasuerus, and her majesty gives him one gilt creuse and cover. This was in the first year of her reign. He died in her service 15 70. In the register of St. Martin's is this entry, i April 5, buried Nicholas Lyzard, serjeant- 6 painter unto the queen's majestic' There was in this reign another person too illustrious a lover and even practiser of the art to be omitted, though I find no mention of him in Vertue's MSS. This was EDWARD COURTENEY, The last Earl of Devonshire, 1 the comeliness of whose person was very near raising him to that throne, for nearness to which in blood he was a prisoner from ten years old; and from that time to thirty, when he died, he scarce en- joyed two years of liberty. It was a happiness peculiar to him to be able to amuse himself with drawing, 2 in an age in which there were so many prisoners and so few resources ; and it gives one very favourable ideas of his being naturally accomplished, of a spirit not easily to be depressed, when we find that Queen Mary no sooner delivered him from his captivity than she wished to marry him ; and that he, con- scious of his great blood and yet void of interested ambition, declined a crown, and preferred the younger sister, the Princess Elizabeth. For this partiality, and on the rising of the Carews in Devonshire who were flattered with the hopes of this match, the princess and he were committed to the Tower, and accused by Wyat as his accomplices. Our historians (Holingshed, Heylin, and Burnet) all reject this accu- sation, and declare that Wyat cleared him at his death; and indeed the earFs gratitude would not have been very shining had he plotted to dethrone a princess who had delivered him from a prison and offered him a throne. The English, who could not avoid feeling partiality to this young prince, were pleased with King Philip, to whose intercession they ascribed the second release of the earl, as well as the safety of the lady Elizabeth. Courteney asked leave to travel, and died at Padua, not without suspicion of poison ; which seems more probable than 1 When Queen Mary released him, she restored him too to the marquisate of Exeter, though that title is omitted by all our historians when they mention him. 2 My authority is Strype, who produces undoubted authority for his assertion, having given us the oration pronounced at his funeral by Sir Thomas Wilson, afterwards secretary of state. Besides his progress in philosophy, maihematics, music, and the French, Spanish, and Italian languages, Sir Thomas adds, ' Tanta etiam expingendarum effigierum cupiditate * ardebat, ut facile et laudabiliter cujuscumque imaginem in fabula exprimeret.' See Strype's Memorials, vol. iii., p. 339, and appendix, p. 192. 7 # 84 QUEEN ELIZABETH SHOWED NO TASTE FOR PAINTING. those rumours generally are, as he was suspected of being a Lutheran, and as his epitaph, 1 written in defence of the Spaniards, formally declares that he owed his death to affecting the kingdom, and to his ambition of marrying the queen ; the last of which assertions at least is a falsehood, and might be a blunder, confounding the queen and princess. After his death, one Cleybery was executed for pretending to be this earl, and thence endeavouring to raise commotions. There is a very good portrait of him at the Duke of Bedford's at Woburn, painted, I should think, by Sir Antonio More; on the back- ground, a ruined tower. CHAPTER VII. Painters in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. The long and remarkable reign of this princess could not but furnish many opportunities to artists of signalizing themselves. There is no evidence that Elizabeth had much taste for painting ; but she loved pictures of herself. In them she could appear really handsome; and yet, to do the profession justice, they seem to have flattered her the least of all her dependents : there is not a single portrait of her that one can call beautiful. The profusion of ornaments with which they are loaded are marks of her continual fondness for dress, while they entirely exclude all grace, and leave no more room for a painter's genius than if he had been employed to copy an Indian idol, totally composed of hands and necklaces. A pale Roman nose, a head of hair loaded with crowns and powdered with diamonds, a vast ruff, a vaster fardingale, and a bushel of pearls are the features by which everybody knows at once the pictures of Queen Elizabeth. 2 Besides many of her majesty, we are so lucky as to possess the portraits of almost all the great men of her reign ; and though the generality of 1 See it at length in the Genealogical History of the Noble House of Courtenay, by Edward Cleaveland, fol. 1735, p. 261. See also history of the family in Gibbon's ' Decline and Fall 'of the Roman Empire.' Murray's Reprint, vol. 3. 1 It is observable that her majesty thought enormity of dress a royal prerogative ; for on Feb. 12, 1579, an order was made in the Star-chamber, 'that no person should use or wear excessive long cloaks (this might proceed from apprehension of their ■concealing arms under them), as of late be used, and before two years past hath not been used in this realm; no per- sons to wear such great ruffes about their necks ; to be left off such monstrous undecent attyring.' Also another against wearing any sword rapier, that shall passe the length of one yard and a half a quarter in the blade, nor dagger above twelve inches in the blade at most. In her father's time, who dictated in everything from religion to fashions, an act of parliament was passed in his twenty-fourth year against inordinate use of apparel, directing that no one should wear on his apparel any cloth of gold, silver or tinsel, satyn, silk, or cloth mixed with gold or silver, any sables, velvet, furrs, embroidery, velvet in gowns or outermost garments, except persons of distinction, dukes, marquisses, earls, barons, and knights of the order, barons' sons, knights of such that may dispend ^250 per ann. This act was renewed in the second of Elizabeth. Edward VI. carried this restraint still farther : in heads of a bill drawn up with his own hand, 1551 (though it never passed into a law), no one who had less than ,£100 a year for life, or gentlemen, the king's sworn servants, was to wear satten, damask, ostrich-feathers, or furrs of conies ; none not worth ^200 or £20 in living certain, to wear chamblet : no serving-man, under the degree of a gentleman, to wear any furr, save lamb 1 nor cloth above ten shillings the yard. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 85 painters at that time were not equal to the subjects on which they were employed, yet they were close imitators of nature, and have per- haps transmitted more faithful representations than we could have expected from men of brighter imagination. The first painter who seems to have made any figure in this reign was LUCAS DE HEERE, born at Ghent in 1534, of a family peculiarly addicted to the arts. John, his father, was a good statuary and architect ; Anne Smitter, his mother, painted in miniature, and with such diminutive neatness, that she executed a landscape with a windmill, millers, a cart and horse, and passengers ; and half a grain of corn would cover the whole com- position. The father went often to Namur and Dinant, where the son copied ruins and castles; but he soon learned of a better master, Francis Floris, under whom Lucas improved much, and drew many designs (which passed for his master's) for tapestry and glass-painters. From Ghent he went to France, and was employed by the queen and queen-mother in making drawings for tapestry; and residing some time at Fontainbleau, where he married Eleanor Carboniere, he con- tracted a taste for the antique by seeing the statues there : an inclina- tion he showed less by his own works than by making a collection of bronzes and medals. He returned to Ghent, where he drew the Count de Vaken, his lady, and their jester, and painted two or three churches ; in St. Peter's, the shutters of an altar-piece, in which he represented the Lord's Supper, much admired for the draperies of the apostles. In St. John's church he painted an altar-piece of the Resurrection ; and on the doors of it, Christ and the disciples at Emmaus, and His appa- rition in the garden. Lucas was not only a painter, but a poet. He wrote the ' Orchard ' of Poesie'; and translated, from the French of Marot, the ' Temple of ' Cupid,' and other pieces. He had begun the lives of the Flemish painters in verse. Carl Vermander, his scholar, who has given the lives of those masters, learned many anecdotes of our English painters from Lucas. At what time the latter arrived in England is not certain ; nor were his works at all known here till the indefatigable industry of Mr Vertue discovered several of them. 1. The first of these was a portrait of Sir William Sidney, grand- father of Sir Philip; but as Sir William died in 1553 at the age of 72, when Lucas de Heere was but nineteen, it is not probable that Sir William was abroad after that young man. was in repute enough to draw his picture ; and it is less probable that he had been in France, had married, and arrived here by the age of nineteen. This picture, which Vertue found at Penshurst, was in all likelihood a copy. 2. The next was a portrait of Henry Lord Maltravers, eldest son c* r 86 DE HEERE'S PAINTING OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, dated 1557, the year before the accession of Queen Elizabeth ; but as this young lord died at Brussels, it is probable that De Heere drew his picture there, and that very acquaintance might have recommended Lucas to England. 3. The third is a picture in my possession, well known by the print Vertue made from it. It contains the portraits of Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, mother of Lady Jane Grey, and her second husband, Adrian Stoke. Their ages, and De Heere's mark KC are on the picture, which is in perfect preservation, the colouring of the heads clear and with great nature, and the draperies, which are black with furs and jewels, highly finished and round, though the manner of the whole is a little stiff. This picture was in the collection of Lord Oxford. There is a tradition, that when this great lady made this second match with a young fellow who was only master of her horse, Queen Elizabeth said, 'What ! has she married her horse-keeper ? ; ' Yes, madam/ replied my Lord Burleigh, ' and she says your majesty would like to do so too.' Leicester was master of the horse. The date on this picture is 1559. 4. Lord Darnley, husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, and his brother, Charles Stuart, a boy, afterwards father of the Lady Arabella. There are two of these : one as large as life, in the room going into the king's closet at St. James's ; the other small, and neatly finished, in the private apartments below stairs at Hampton Court. The date 1569. 5. The next is a very remarkable picture on board at Kensington : Queen Elizabeth richly dressed, with her crown, sceptre, and globe, is coming out of a palace with two female attendants. Juno, Pallas, and Minerva seem flying before her ; Juno drops her sceptre, and Venus her roses ; Cupid flings away his bow and arrows, and clings to his mother. On the old frame remain these lines, probably written by the painter himself, who we have seen dabbled in poetry too ; — Juno potens sceptris, et mentis acumine Pallas, Et roseo Veneris fulget in ore decor : Adfuit Elizabeth ; Juno perculsa refugit ; Obstupuit Pallas, erubuitque Venus. To have completed the flattery he should have made Juno or Venus resemble the Queen of Scots, and not so handsome as Elizabeth, who would not have blushed like the last goddess. 1 1 Another curious picture painted about the same time, I know not by what hand, was in the collection of James West, Esq. It represents Hen. VIII. sitting under a canopy supported by pillars, and delivering the sword to Prince Edward. On the right hand of the king stand Philip and Mary ; Mars is coming in behind them. Queen Elizabeth, too large in proportion to the rest, stands forward on the other side, and leads Peace and Plenty, whose faces are said to be portraits of the Countesses of Shrewsbury and Salisbury ; but the latter must be a mis- take in the tradition, for there was no Countess of Salisbury at that time. Lady Shrewsbury I suppose was the famous Elizabeth of Hardwicke. Circumscribed in golden letters on the frame are these lines, extremely in the style of the queen's own compositions : — A face of much nobility lo ! in a little room, Four States with their conditions here shadowed in a show ; HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 8 7 6. There is a small whole length of Queen Elizabeth by De Heere at Welbeck ; on the background, a view of the old fabric at Wanstead. 7. At Lord Dacre's, at Belhouse in Essex, is one of the best works of this master; it always passed for Holbein's, but Vertue discovered it to be of De Heere, whose mark is still discernible. It is the portrait of Mary Neville, daughter of George, Lord Abergavenny, and widow of Thomas Fienes, Lord Dacre, executed for an accidental murder in the reign of Hen. VIII. A picture of her husband, aet. 22, 1549, copied from a larger piece, is represented as hanging in the room by his wife. Her head is finely coloured. 8. The picture from whence Vertue engraved his Lady Jane Grey, he thought was drawn too by Lucas ; but that is liable to the same objection as his painting Sir William Sidney. Since the first edition of this work, I have discovered another con- siderable work of this master • it is at Longleat, and represents a whole family. The figures are less than life and about half lengths. An elderly gentleman is at table with his wife and another lady — probably, from the resemblance, her sister. The first lady has tags of a particu- lar form, exactly like those on the dress of my Duchess of Suffolk, as is the colouring, though not so highly finished, yet the heads have great nature. Before them are seven young children, their ages marked, which shows that three of them were born at a birth. They are playing with fruit, and by them are a parrot and a monkey ; but the animals and fruit are much inferior to the figures. There are some Latin verses in commendation of the gentleman, whose name or title was Cobham — I suppose Sir George Brooke, Lord Cobham, who died in the first year of Queen Elizabeth, leaving eight sons and two daugh- ters. He had been committed to the Tower by Queen Mary, as privy to Wyat's rebellion. I have likewise found two more pieces of this master at Drayton, the ancient castle-like mansion of the Mordaunts now of the Lady Elizabeth Germain. One is a half length of Margaret Audley, second wife of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, beheaded temp. Eliz. Her arms and titles are on the background, but the picture has suffered. The other, of the same size, is of a young nobleman in a white stiff-bodied habit, black cloak and hat ; he is very swarthy, but handsome. His age 22, 1563. This piece is finely preserved and strongly coloured. In the Life of Holbein I have mentioned the Henry VIII. at Trinity College, Cambridge, with De Heere's mark. A father more than valiant, a rare and virtuous son ; A daughter zealous in her kind, what else the world doth know ; And last of all a virgin queen to England's joy we see Successively to hold the right and virtues of the three. And in small letters on the fore-ground at bottom, these, — The queen to Walsingham this table sent, Mark of her people's and her own content. This picture was brought from Chislehurst, whither it had been carried from Scadbury, the seats of the Walsinghams, and is now at Strawberry Hill. 88 ANDREAS PERFORATUS, M.D., THE WIT OF HIS AGE. The face has been repainted, but the rest of the body is highly finished, and does great honour to the copyist. In 1570 Lucas was employed to paint a gallery for Edward, Earl of Lincoln, the lord high admiral. 1 He was to represent the habits of different nations. When he came to the English, he painted a naked man with cloth of different sorts lying by him and a pair of shears, as a satire on our fickleness in fashions. This thought was borrowed from Andrew Borcle, who, in his ' Introduction to Knowledge/ to the first chapter prefixed a naked Englishman, with these lines, — I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here, Musing in my mind what rayment I shall wear. 2 Lucas de Heere returned to his own country before his death, which happened at Ghent, in 1584. His mark, as above, is on most of his pictures. He used for an anagram these words, 1 Schade leer u/ which Sandrart says signify, 6 Nocumenta tibi sint documenta.' CORNELIUS KETEL 3 was born at Gouda in 1 548, and early prosecuted his art with great ardour, under the direction of his uncle, a tolerable painter and a better scholar. At eighteen he went to Delft, and placed himself with Antony Blockland, with whom he remained a year. From thence he travelled to Fontainbleau, where he worked with great applause in com- petition with three of his countrymen ; but the court coming to Fon- tainbleau, they were ordered to leave the palace. Ketel went to Paris and lodged with John de la Hame, the king's enameller, where he painted some histories ; but an edict obliging the subjects of the King of Spain to quit France, Ketel returned to Gouda and remained there 1 At the Duke of Bedford's at Woburn are two heads of a Countess of Lincoln and of Lady Anne Ayscough, daughter of the earl. As they are evidently painted at the same time, and as the daughter appears the elder person, there is great reason to believe that the countess was only the mother-in-law, and consequently that this portrait represents the fair Geraldine, so much celebrated by the Earl of Surrey. Her chief beauty seems to have been her golden hair. These pictures, I should think, were painted by the following master, Ketel, rather than by Lucas de Heere. 2 It is not extraordinary that this witticism should have been adopted into the lord admiral's gallery. Andrew Borde, or Andreas Perforatus, as he called himself, was an admired wit in the latter end of Henry VIII. to whom he was sometime physician. He had been a Car- thusian, then rambled over many parts of the world, turned physician, and at last wrote against the marriage of priests ; for which I conclude (though Antony Wood could not guess the reason) he was shut up in prison, where some said he poisoned himself. He wrote the Introduction to Knowledge, partly in verse and partly in prose, and dedicated it to the lady Mary, afterwards queen . There are cuts before every chapter. Before the seventh is his •wn picture, standing in a pew with a canopy over him, a gown with wide sleeves and a chaplet of laurel. The title of the chapter is, ' The seventh chapter showeth how the author ' of this boke had dwelt in Scotland, and did go thorow and round about Christendom, and ' out of Christendom, declaring the properties of all the regions, countries and provinces, the ' which he did travel thorow.' He wrote besides, the Breviary of Health ; a Dietary of Health ; the Merry Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham ; a book extremely admired and often reprinted in that age. A right pleasant and merry history of the Mylner of Abingdon, with his wife and his fair daughter, and of two poor Scholars of Cambridge ; and other things which may be seen in Antony Wood, vol. i., p. 75. 3 See Sandrart, 272, and Carl. Vermander, from whence Vertue collected most of the par- ticulars of Ketel's life ; and Descamps, who copied Vermander, p. 69. k HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 89 six years. The troubles in his own country continuing, and conse- quently little encouragement being given to the arts, Ketel embarked in 1573 for England, and was entertained at London by a sculptor and architect there, a friend of his uncle. Here he married a Dutch woman, and his works growing into esteem, he was much employed by the merchants in painting portraits, but was seldom engaged on history, to which his inclination chiefly led him. However, having painted an alle- goric piece of Strength vanquished by Wisdom, it was purchased by a young merchant and presented to Sir Christopher Hatton, afterwards lord chancellor. This incident introduced Ketel to court; he drew a good whole length of Sir Christopher, now at the Earl of Lichfield's at Ditchley ; the portrait of Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, of William Her- bert, Earl of Pembroke ; of the Lord Admiral Lincoln, now at Woburn, and of Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, and of several others. At last, in 1578, he had the honour of painting the queen herself, at the request of the Countess of Hertford ; 1 Elizabeth being then entertained at Hanworth by the famous Anne Stanhope, widow of the protector, and mother of the Earl of Hertford, then very aged. 2 Ketel left England in 1581, and settled at Amsterdam, where he painted a large picture of the trained bands, with their portraits, and their captain, Herman Rodenburgh Beths, at their head. In this pic- ture too he introduced his own portrait. The disposition, resemblances, and the different stuffs of the habits, well imitated, were much admired in this piece. It was placed in the gallery of the Mall at Amsterdam. In 1589 he undertook another picture of the same sort for the company of St. Sebastian, in which was the portrait of their captain, Didier Rosencraus. It was reckoned not inferior to the former, and was neither confused nor unanimated, notwithstanding the number of por- traits it contained. In another of his works under the figures of Christ and the Apostles, he represented Henry Keyser, an architect of Amsterdam, and the principal virtuosos of that city. His best picture was the portrait of Simon Lack of that city ; it was in the possession of one of the same family at the Hague. Many of his works were carried to Danztick. In the Duke of Buckingham's collection was a large picture by this master, representing the Virtues and Vices. See his Catal., p. 19. But Ketel, not content with the glory he acquired by these perform- ances, instead of aiming at greater perfection, took it into his head to make himself known by a method of painting entirely new. He laid aside his brushes, and painted only with his fingers, 3 beginning with 1 This I suppose was Frances Howard, second wife of the earl, and sister of the Lord Admiral Nottingham, a favourite. The Earl of Hertford had been in disgrace for his first marriage with the Lady Catherine Grey. a The duchess died nine years afterwards, at the age of ninety. 3 Descamps mentions a fine picture painted by Weenix in the same manner, vol. ii., p. 310. And in a sale of pictures in Covent Garden, 1729, were two heads painted by one Brandell with his thumb. 90 KETEL AND DE HEERE WERE POETS AS WELL AS PAINTERS. his own portrait. The whim took, he repeated the practice, and, they pretend, executed those fantastic works with great purity and beauty of colouring. In this manner he painted two heads for the Sieur Van Os of Amsterdam; the first, a Democritus, was his own portrait; the other, of M. Morosini, in the character of Heraclitus. The Due de Nemours, who was a performer himself, was charmed with the latter and bought it. Another was the picture of Vincent Jacobson, a noted wine merchant of Amsterdam, with a glass of rhenish in his hand. As his success increased, so did his folly; his fingers appeared too easy tools ; he undertook to paint with his feet, and his first essay he pre- tended to make in public on a picture of the God of Silence. That public who began to think, like Ketel, that the more a painter was a mountebank, the greater was his merit, were so good as to applaud even this caprice. Ketel, like De Heere, was a poet too, and wrote descriptions of seve- ral of his own works in verse. He understood architecture, geometry, and perspective, and modelled in clay and wax. He was living in 1600, when Vermander wrote his account of him. Sandrart, who makes him travel to Venice and Rome, and die young while he was employed on a picture of the King of Denmark, has confounded the master with the scholar : the latter incidents relate to Isaac Oteryn of Copenhagen, Ketel's only disciple. Vermander dedicated to Ketel a dissertation on the statues of the ancients, in which he mentions the great friendship that had subsisted between them for thirty years. Vertue observed on the works of De Heere and Ketel, that those of the former are generally smaller than the life, neater, not so strongly coloured, and most commonly painted on board ; those of Ketel, more strongly coloured and with a fuller pencil, and always as large or rather larger than nature. The next on our list is a name of more note, celebrated even in the lists of the great Italian masters ; this was FREDERICK ZUCCHERO, the younger brother of Taddeo, and born like him at Vado, in the duchy of Urbino, in the year 1550. Frederic was carried by his parents to Rome, where their elder son was then employed ; the younger improved so much in the space of six years, that without his brother's assistance he painted a picture of Helicon and the Muses for a Roman nobleman ; and executed greatest part of a chapel in which his brother was en- gaged. They worked for some time in concert, and being at Florence, painted in four days the whole history of the Passion, which was be- spoken in a hurry for the decoration of a church on Easter Sunday. Taddeo dying at the age of thirty-seven, Frederic finished his imperfect works, among which were the paintings at the magnificent palace then HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 91 lately built at Caprarola by Cardinal Harnese. His picture in distem- per of Calumny, borrowed from the description of one painted by Apelles, was supposed a tacit satire on that cardinal, with whom he had quarrelled on some deficience of payment. Zucchero's temper seems by another instance to have been pretty strongly tinctured with resentment. While he was employed by Gregory XIII. to paint the Pauline chapel in the Vatican, he fell out with some of his holiness's officers. To be revenged, he painted their portraits with ears of asses, and exposed the picture publicly over the gate of St. Luke's Church, on the festival of that saint, the patron of painters. 1 But for this ex- ploit he was forced to fly from Rome ; and passing into France, he was for some time employed in the service of the Cardinal of Lorrain. Thence he went into Flanders and made cartoons for tapestry, and in the year 1574 arrived in England. The queen sat to him for her pic- ture; so did the Queen of Scots for that well-known portrait at Chis- wick which has been engraved by Vertue. Another picture of Elizabeth, in a fantastic habit, something like a Persian, is in the gallery of royal personages at Kensington. Melville mentions her having and wearing dresses of every country. In this picture too appears her romantic turn; she is drawn in a forest, a stag behind her, and on a tree are in- scribed these mottoes and verses, which as we know not on what occa- sion the piece was painted, are not easily to be interpreted : — Injusti justa querela. a little lower, Mea sic mihi. still lower, Dolor est medicina ed tori, (should be, dolori.) on a scroll at bottom, The restless swallow fits my restlesse mind, In still revivinge, still renewinge wrongs ; Her juste complaints of cruelty unkinde Are all the musique that my life prolonges. With pensive thoughts my weeping stag I crown, Whose melancholy teares my cares expresse; (i) His teares in sylence and my sighes unknowne Are all the physicke that my harmes redresse. My onely hopes was in this goodly tree, Which I did plant in love, bring up in care, (too) But all in vaine, for now to late I see (shells) The shales be mine, the kernels others are. My musique may be plaintes, my musique teares, If this be all the fruite my love-tree beares. 1 Verrio, quarrelling with Mrs. Marriot the house-keeper at Windsor, drew her picture for one of the furies. This was to gratify his own passion : to flatter that of the court he has represented Lord Shaftesbury among the demons of faction, in St. George's Hall. 9 2 THE TRAVELS OF ZUCCHERO, PAINTER AND POET. Tradition gives these lines to Spenser ; I think we may fairly acquit him of them, and conclude they are of her majesty's own composition, as they much resemble the style of those in Hentznerus, p. 66 of the English edition. The portraits of Sir Nicholas Bacon at Woburn, of Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham, lord high admiral, at 1 Hampton-court, and of Sir Francis Walsingham, in my possession, all three engraved among the illustrious heads ; and the picture of Queen Elizabeth's gigantic porter at Kensington, were painted by Zucchero : here too he drew his own portrait, and copied the works of Holbein at the Steelyard, as I have mentioned. A chapel at Roehampton belonging to Mr. Bagnols was said to be painted by him. What other works he performed here I do not find; 2 probably not many; his stay was not long; historic subjects were not in fashion, and he was offended at our religion. He returned to Italy, and finished the dome at Florence begun by Vasari. The Pope's anger too being vanished, he was re-admitted to his old employment at Rome, where he built a house for himself on the Monte di Trinita, adorned with four portals, and painted on the outside in fresco by his own hand. On the accession of Sixtus V. Zucchero was invited to Spain by Philip II. to paint the Escurial; but his frescoes not pleasing, he returned to Rome, and founded the academy of paint- ing, for which Gregory XIII. had given him a brief, and of which he was elected the first prince. These expenses however drained him so much, that he again quitted Rome, and went to Venice 3 to print some treatises that he had written on painting ; and some poems too, for Zucchero was a poet, like others of his profession. From Venice he passed into Savoy, where he was favourably received by the duke, for whom he began to paint a gallery. Returning, he visited Loretto, and died at Ancona in 1616, aged 66, leaving the remains of his fortune to his academy. MARC GARRARD, 4 the son of a painter of the same name, was born at Bruges in 1561, and practised history, landscape, architecture, and portrait. He en- graved, illuminated, and designed for glass-painters. His etchings for ^Esop's Fables and View of Bruges were much esteemed. He came to England not long after the year 1580, and remained here till his 1 There too by his hand was a picture of Venus passing sentence on the boar that had killed Adonis. It was sold for 25/. at the sale of King Charles's collection. 2 Vertue mentions a portrait of a Marquis of Somerset ; but there was no such person in that reign. At Wilton is a Nativity by Taddeo and Frederick, and two small portraits of Francis II, and Charles IX. of France ; but these were not painted in England. Mr. Pennant mentions a head of Sir Lionel Talmache by Zucchero. Tour to Scotland, vol. ii., p. 15. 3 There he was competitor with Tintoret for painting the chapel of St. Roch. Catal. raisonne des Tableaux du Roi, vol. ii., p. 70. 4 His name is written Gerhardus, Guerards, and Garrard. Among the Sydney papers at Penshurst was a letter from Sir Robert Sydney to his lady about 1597, desiring her to go to Mr. Garrats, and pay him for the picture of her and the children, so long done and unpaid. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 93 death, which did not happen till 1635, having been painter to Queen Elizabeth and Anne of Denmark. His works are very numerous, though not easily known, as he never used any peculiar mark. In general they are neat, the ruffs and habits stiff, and rich with pearls and other jewels. His flesh-colours are thin, and light, tending to a blueish tincture. His procession of Queen Elizabeth to Hunsdon-house has been en- graved and described by Vertue, who thought that part of the picture of Sir Thomas M ore's family at Burford might have been completed by this painter. Garrard drew a procession of the queen and knights of the garter in 1584, from whence Ashmore took his plate for the history of that order. The portraits, though small, have great resemblance, with that uncommon fidelity of representing the air, stature and bulk of the persons exhibited. Vertue made a copy of this roll in water-colours, which I bought at his sale. It is not quite complete, the original not having been entirely finished. Garrard painted both Prince Henry and Prince Charles. Some portraits of ladies by him are at Lord Lichfield's at Ditchley. His own picture was engraved by Hollar. An introduction to the general art of drawing, first set out by Marc Gerard of Bruges, was translated and published in English, qrto., 1674. HENRY CORNELIUS VROOM 1 was born in 1566 at Harlem, where his father was a statuary, of whom and of his father-in-law, a painter of Florence, young Henry learned to draw. His inclination led him first to paint views of towns : in that pursuit he w r ent to Rotterdam, and soon after on board a Spanish ship to St. Lucar, and thence to Seville, where he lived a short time with a Dutch performer, a painter of monkeys, called by the Spaniards a Pintemony ; from thence to Florence and Rome, where he fixed for two years, and was employed by Cardinal de ? Medici, and became acquainted with Paul Brill. At Venice he stayed a year : and passing through Milan, Genoa, Turin and Paris, returned to Harlem, where he employed himself on devout subjects in little, and, having stocked himself with a quantity, again set out for Spain, where he proposed to sell them, but was cast away on a small island near the coast of Portugal. He and some of the crew were relieved by monks that lived among the rocks, and conducted to Lisbon ; where relating the danger he had escaped, a paltry painter there engaged Vroom to draw the storm he described ; in which he succeeded so happily, that it was sold to a nobleman for a considerable price, The Portuguese painter was charmed, and continued to employ Vroom ; who improved so much in 1 See Sandrart, p. 274, and Descamps, p. 254. 94 VROOM WAS A PAINTER OF NAVAL ENGAGEMENTS. sea-pieces, that having got money, and returning home, he applied himself entirely to that style of painting. At this period, the great Earl of Nottingham, lord high admiral of England, whose defeat of the Spanish Armada had established the throne of his mistress, being desirous of preserving the detail of that illustrious event, had bespoken a suit of tapestry, describing the par- ticulars of each day's engagement. Francis Spiering, an eminent maker of tapestry, undertook the work, and engaged Vroom to draw the designs. The excellence of the performance, obvious to the public eye, makes encomiums unnecessary. It is pleasingly remarkable, that there are two monuments of this sort, and both finely executed : the tapestry in question and the suit at Blenheim, monuments of two signal victories, acquired by sea and land, under the auspices of two queens of the same country, and both gained in defence of the liberties of nations, attacked by two of the most powerful princes, Philip II. and Louis XIV. Vroom received an hundred pieces of gold for his labour ; the arras itself, containing 708 ells Flemish, at 10/. is. per ell, cost 1628/. which was paid by the crown to the earl in the 14th of King James — but it was during the Republic that this noble trophy was placed in a temple worthy of it. 1 The painter came to England to receive instructions and execute his commission ; and contracting a friendship with Isaac Oliver was drawn by him : there is a print from that picture. He returned to his own country, and painted a large picture, which was much admired by Prince Maurice, of the seventh day's action of the fight above mentioned. Vroom died rich, in what year is not mentioned. In the collection of King James II. were two sea-pieces, and in that of Sir Peter Lely, a landscape, both described to be of old Vroom ; whence I suppose he had a son who followed his profession, and his style too, as in the former catalogue is mentioned a sea-piece with King Charles coming from Spain, said to be by Vroom, without the adjunct of old. I find no other account of the son, nor of his having been in England. These were the principal performers in oil in this reign: some ot less note, and of whom but little is recorded, I shall mention at the end of this chapter ; but first I shall treat of the painters in miniature. The name of PETRUCCIO UBALDINI occurs in several places. 2 He appears to have been an illuminator on 1 See Journals of the Commons, January 1, 1650. The House of Lords was then used for committees of the Commons. 2 Vertue says he taught the Italian language. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 95 vellum; some of his works in that kind are or were very lately extant: as the Psalms of David in folio : at the beginning the coat of arms and supporters of a nobleman, and, facing it, king David on his knees. At the end of the book this inscription : i Petruccius Ubaldinus Florentinus Henrico comiti Arundelise, Maecenati suo, scribebat Londini M.D.LXV7 Another book of vellum, written and illuminated by the same person, containing the sentences of scripture painted in the lord keeper's gallery at Gorhambury. 1 This book was made by order of Sir Nicholas Bacon, and by him presented to the Lady Lumley. Another, containing various kinds of writing, chiefly in the Italian language, very neatly executed. This was in the Cotton library. There were besides, in the king's library (most of them now in the Museum), Scotiae descriptio a Deidonensi quodam facto, A.D. 1550, et per Petruccium Ubaldinum transcripta A.D, 1576. in charta. 13. A. viii. Petruccio Ubaldino, un libro d'essemplarL carta. 14. A. i. . . . un libro della forma et regola delP eleggere e coronare gli imperadori. carta. 14. A. viii. . . . comentario del successo delP armata Spa- gnuola, etc. 14. A. x. . . . delP impresa fatta contro il regno d'lng- hilterra dal re Cattolieo, etc., scritta da Petruccio Ubaldino cittadino Florentino, in Londra, il di 15 d'Aprile 1589. 14. A. xi. Le vite et i fatti di sei donne illustri. 14. A. xix. 2 Another Italian book, presented by Petruccio to the queen, is in the Bodleian Library. Petruccio seems to have been in favour at court ; he is frequently mentioned in the rolls of new-year's gifts, which used to be reposited in the jewel-office, and in which the names of Hilliard, Oliver and Marc Garard do not appear. In the 21st year of Elizabeth — To Petruccio — v/. He returns a book of Italian, with pictures to the Life, and Metamorphosis of Ovid. Another in 1585, by Petruccio Ubaldini, a pedigree; to him, gilt plate, five ounces. In 1588, To Petruccio in gilt plate five ounces; he returned a book covered with vellum, of Italian. 1 This gallery and the inscriptions are still extant at the house, now Lord Grimston's, near St. Alban's, where are several curious portraits, a large statue of Henry VIII. in armour, busts of Sir Nicholas Bacon and his lady, and of Lord Bacon when a boy. This mansion was built by the keeper, and much improved by Sir Francis Bacon, who added Italian porti- coes and loggias, but artfully preserved from being too dissonant from the older parts of the building. It is a sweet retirement, without ostentation, and adapted to his motto, Mediocria firma. It was purchased by Sir Harbottle Grimston, and much of the old furniture the pur- chasers and present possessors have had the good taste to preserve. 2 He published a book of this kind, entitled, Le Vite delle Donne illustri del regno d'lnghil- terra, e del regno di Scotia, e di quelle, che d'altri paesi nei due detti regni sono state maritate. Thin 4to, London, printed by John Wolf, 1591. To give an idea of Petruccio's talents for history, it will suffice to produce two of his heroines. The first was Chembrigia, daughter of Gurguntius, son of King Bellinus, who having married one Ontabro, founded a city, which from a mixture of both their names was called Cambridge. The other illustrious lady he styles expressly Donna senza nome. As the reader may be curious to know who this name- less yet illustrious lady, who deserved to have her life written, was, it is the mother of Ferrex and Porrex in Lord Dorset's Gorboduc, who because one of her sons killed the other, that was her favourite, killed a third son in a passion. 96 OLD HILLIARD ; ISAAC OLIVER \ RICHARD HEYDOCK. In one of these rolls Mr. Sidney (the famous Sir Philip) presents the queen at New-year's tide with a whip set with jewels, and another time with a castle enriched with diamonds. NICHOLAS HILLIARD, Limner, jeweller and goldsmith to Queen Elizabeth, and afterwards to King James, was son of Richard Hilliard, of Exeter, high sheriff of that city and county in the year 1 560. Nicholas (I suppose a young son) was born in 1 547, and brought up to the business of a jeweller and goldsmith, to which his inclination soon added that of painting in miniature. The want of an able instructor directed him to study the works of Holbein, as he says in a MS. I shall mention, ' Holbein's i manner of limning I have ever imitated, and hold it for the best.' But though Hilliard copied the neatness of his model, he was far from attaining that nature and force which that great master impressed on his most minute works. Hilliard arrived at no strength of colouring ; his faces are pale, and void of any variety of tints, the features, jewels and ornaments expressed by lines as slender as a hair. The exact dress of the times he curiously delineated ; but he seldom attempted beyond a head, yet his performances were greatly valued. Dr. Donne, in his poem on the storm in which the Earl of Essex was surprised returning from the island voyage, says, a hand or eye By Hilliard drawn, is worth a history By a worse painter made. And Peacham on Limning says, Comparing ancient and modern ' painters, brings the comparison to our own time and. country; nor ? must I be ungratefully unmindful of my own countrymen, who have 'been and are able to equal the best if occasion served, as old Hilliard, 'Mr. Isaac Oliver, inferior to none in Christendom for the countenance 4 in small/ etc. Richard Heydock too (Wood's Athenae, vol. ii., p. 296), of New College, Oxon, in his translation of Lomazzo on Painting, published in 1598, says, 'Limnings, much used in former times in ' church-books, as also in drawing by the life in small models ; of late ' years by some of our countrymen, as Shoote, Betts, etc., but brought i to the rare perfection we now see, by the most ingenious, painful and ' skilful master, Nicholas Hilliard, and his well-profiting scholar, whose ' farther commendations I refer to the curiosity of his works.' The same author in another place mentioning ' Mr. N. Hilliard so ( much admired by strangers as well as natives,' adds, 1 to speak truth ' of his ingenious limnings, the perfection in painting (in them) is so ' extraordinary, that when I devised with myself the best argument to ' set it forth, I found none better than to persuade him to do it himself ' to the view of all men by his pen, as he had before unto very many 6 by his learned pencil, which in the end he assented to ; and by me HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 97 'promiseth a treatise of his own practice that way, with all convenient 6 speed.' This tract Hilliard actually wrote, but never published. Ver- tue met with a copy of it, which I have among his MSS. 1 Blaise Vigenere mentions Hilliard and the neatness of his pencil very particularly : ' Telle estoit aussi Tecriture et les traits d ; un peintre * Anglois nomme' Oeillarde, d'autant plus a emerveiller, que cela se fai- ' soit avec un pinceau fait des poils de la queue d'un escureuil, qui ne 1 resiste ni ne soutient pas comme feroit une plume de corbeau, qui est 1 tres ferme. ? Hilliard's portrait, done by himself at the age of thirteen, was in the cabinet of the Earl of Oxford. He was still young when he drew the Queen of Scots. Queen Elizabeth sat to him often. Charles I. had three of her portraits by him ; one, a side face in the clouds ; another, one of his most capital performances, a whole length of her m her robes sitting on her throne. In the same collection were several more of his works, particularly a view of the Spanish Armada ; and a curious jewel, containing the portraits of Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Queen Mary ; on the top was an enamelled representation of the battle of Bosworth, and on the reverse the red and white roses. This jewel was purchased by the king, of Hilliard's son. In the Essay towards an English School of Painters, 2 it is said that Mr. Fanshaw had the portraits of Hilliard and his father, 3 finely exe- cuted, with inscriptions in gold letters ; on the former, ' Nicolas Hilli- * ardus, aurifaber, sculptor et Celebris illuminator serenissimae reginae * Elizabethan, anno 1577, aet. suae 30/ On the other, 'Ricardus Hilliar- *dus, quondam vicecomescivitatis et comitatus Exoniae, anno i56o,aetatis 'suae 58, annoque Domini 1577. 3 Hilliard continued in vogue during this reign, and great numbers of portraits by his hand, especially of ladies, are extant. He obtained still greater favour from King James, drawing his majesty's and Prince Henry's pictures ; and receivinga patent, printed by Rymer,to this effect : 'Whereas our well-beloved servant, Nicholas Hilliard, gentleman, * our principal drawer of small portraits, and embosser of our medals * in gold, in respect of his extraordinary skill in drawing, graving, and * imprinting, etc., we have granted unto him our special licence for 1 twelve years, to invent, make, grave and imprint any pictures of our * image or our royal family, etc., and that no one do presume to do, without his licence obtained, etc.' 1 An extract of it is in Brown's Ars Pictoria, p. 95 : London, 1675 ; and some of his re- ceipts in Saunderson's Graphice. 2 Printed in 1706 at the end of the translation of De Pile's Art of Painting. See p. 430. 3 Vertue says he saw them afterwards in the possession of the last Sidney Earl of Leicester, and that they were then taken out of the old frames, and set in a snuff-box. Mr. Simon Fanshaw is in possession of two such heads, which have been thought the very pictures, and are undoubtedly of Hilliard's best manner, though one has no inscription, and the other only the date of the year and the age. But Lord Leicester gave the snuff-box in question to Marshal Sir Robert Rich, in whose possession it remains with the pictures. I have a dupli- cate of the father. 8 gS WILL OF HILLIARD, AND THE PUPILS HE FORMED. This grant was of great emolument to him, as about that time he engraved many small plates, and sold licences for others, with the heads of the king and royal family, which were then and are still used for counters. Simon Pass and other engravers were employed by him in these works. Hilliard died Jan. 7, 1619, and was buried in St. Martin's Church-in- the- Fields, Westminster (as appears by the register), in which parish he had a house. He made his will (Register in Doctor's Commons), in the preceding December, leaving twenty shillings to the poor of the parish ; to his sister, Anne Avery, twenty pounds of thirty, 1 that were due of his pension ; the remaining ten pounds to his other sister ; some goods to his servant maid, and all the rest of his effects, plate, jewels, rings, etc., to his son Laurence Hilliard, his sole executor. But the greatest obligation we have to Hilliard is his having contributed to form 2 ISAAC OLIVER. 3 Hitherto we have been obliged to owe to other countries the best performances exhibited here in painting. But in the branch (minia- ture) in which Oliver excelled, we may challenge any nation to show a greater master, if perhaps we except a few of the smaller works of Holbein. Don Julio Clovio, the celebrated limner, whose neatness and taste in grotesque were exquisite, cannot be compared with Isaac Oliver, because Clovio never painted portraits, and the latter little else. Petitot, whose enamels have exceeding merit, perhaps owed a little of the beauty of his works to the happy nature of the composition : we ourselves have nobody to put in competition with Oliver, except it be our own Cooper, who, though living in an age of freer pencil and under the auspices of Vandyke, scarce compensated by the boldness of his ex- pression, for the truth of nature and delicate fidelity of the older master. Oliver's son, Peter, alone approached to the perfection of his father. Of the family of Issac Oliver I find no certain account ; nor is it of any importance: he was a genius ; and they transmit more honour by blood than they can receive. After studying under Hilliard, he had some instructions from Zucchero ; Vertue even thought, from the variety 1 He had the same salary as Holbein. 2 John Betts, whom I have mentioned as painting the portrait of Sir John Godsalve, is said by Vertue to have learned of Hilliard, and is called ' Designer' in Hall's Chronicle about the year 1576, where too is mentioned one Tyrrel, a carver in wood. _ 3 I must not disguise, that, though Oliver was probably born in England, he was in all likelihood of French extraction : in his will he spells his name Oliver, but on his drawings writes it Olivier. Vertue found mention of one ' Aubin Olivier natif de Boisy, inventeur des ' engins de monoyes a Moulins ;' and in Palmer's History of Printing, p. 274, are accounts of Peter Olivier, printer at Caen in Normandy, 151 5, and of Jean Olivier, printer in the same city, 1521. But Hondius, Sandrart, and all the writers who mention him, call him an English- man ; and it is an additional confirmation of his English birth, that he wrote in that language a Treatise on Limning, partly printed in Sanderson's Graphice : in his pocket-book was a mixture of French and English. We have seen in the preceding Life of Hilliard that Peacham calls Oliver his countryman. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 99 of his drawings after the great masters, especially ParmegiariO, that he had been in Italy. For whatever else relates to him, let his works speak. Dr. Meade possessed some of the most capital; as Oliver's own por- trait, extremely small; the head of the Queen of Scots, 1 an admirable piece, though very doubtful whether of her ; Queen Elizabeth profile ; Henry, Prince of Wales, 2 Ben Jonson, 3 and the whole length of Sir Philip Sidney, sitting under a tree. All these were purchased by the late Prince of Wales. I have another portrait of Oliver himself, larger than that of Dr. Meade's, and without a hat, bought at Mr. Barrett's sale. This picture alone would justify all I have said of him. The art of the master and the imitation of nature are so great in it, that the largest magnifying glass only calls out new beauties. 4 But the first, at least the best preserved of all his works, is in my possession ; it is the head of Lady Lucy Percy, mother of Venetia Lady Digby. She is in black with a large hat of the same colour, and a very large ruff ; the whole painted on a lilac ground. This was purchased, with many exquisite pieces by his son Peter Olivier, under whose article I shall, mention them. At the Lord Montacute's, at Coudray, is another invaluable work of Isaac. It represents three brothers of that lord's family, whole lengths in black: their ages twenty-one, twenty-four, and eighteen, with the- painter's mark (J). These young gentlemen resembled each other remarkably ; a peculiarity observable in the picture, the motto on which is, ' Figurae conformis affectus, 1 598.' 5 Another person is coming into- the room, aged twenty-one. The picture is ten inches by seven. His painting of James I. served Rubens and Vandyke, when they had occasion to draw that prince after his decease. In an office-book of the Lord Harrington, treasurer of the chambers,, in the possession of the late Dr. Rawlinson, was an entry of payment to Isaac Oliver, picture-drawer, by a warrant dated at Lincoln, April 4, 161 7, for four several pictures drawn for the prince's highness, as appeareth by a bill thereunto annexed, 40/. In King Charles's catalogue are accounts of several of his works ; King James II. had still more ; the Earl of Arundel many. He drew a whole length of Robert, Earl of Essex, in white, and heads of him several times, and of many others of the nobility ; but his works are much scarcer than those of his master, Hilliard. Colonel Sothby has a fine Magdalen by him, and the Duchess of Portland ahead of Christ, that was Dr. Meade's. 1 Zink made an exceedingly fine copy of this in enamel, purchased hy his royal highness the Duke of Cumberland. It is engraved in Jebb's collections. 2 There are one or two others of this prince by the same hand. 3 It is engraved among the illustrious heads, but is very unlike the old pictures and prints of that poet. 4 Col. Sothby has another larger, and containing only the head, but bold, and admirably painted. 5 Vertue met with a print from whence he supposed Oliver borrowed his design. It was inscribed, Colignsei Fratres, Odetus, Gaspar, Franciscus. 8 * 100 THE WORKS AND BEQUESTS OF ISAAC OLIVER. Of his drawings several are extant, particularly a capital one in Queen Caroline's closet at Kensington; the subject, the placing of Christ in the sepulchre, consisting of twenty-six figures. 1 This piece, which Isaac had not completed, was finished by his son, and is dated 1616. Another, a large drawing, the murder of the Innocents, on blue paper heightened, after Raphael. Vertue saw a print of the history of St. Laurence, touched and heightened by Oliver with great skill. Sir John Evelyn, in 1 734, showed to the Society of Antiquaries (Minutes of the Society, vol. i., p. 206), a drawing by Oliver from a picture of Raphael in the Escurial, of the Virgin, Child, and St. John ; it was copied by Isaac Olivier in 163 1, while the original was in the collec- tion of Charles L He did not always confine himself to water-colours. There are in- stances of his working in oil. In this manner he painted his own, his wife's and the portraits of his children ; a head of St. John Baptist on board ; and the Holy Family. 2 Vertue commends these much ; as I never saw them, I can give no other account of his success in this way, than that the works I have seen in oil by him are but indifferent. Isaac Oliver died at his house in the Blackfriars, London, in 161 7, aged sixty-one or sixty-two. He was buried in St. Anne's Church in that parish, where his son erected a monument to his memory, with his bust in marble. 3 By his will (in the Prerogative Office) proved in October, and executed in the preceding June, he bequeathed to his wife the third of his effects, and the lease of his house in Blackfriars ; excepting only to his eldest son Peter, all his drawings, limnings, his- torical or otherwise, finished or unfinished, of his own handy works ; or in case of Peter's death, to any of his other sons that should follow his profession. All the other two parts of his effects to be sold, and equally divided between his sons and a daughter. His other paintings or collections to be sold, allowing his son Peter to purchase whatever he pleased thereof at five shillings per pound less than the true or genuine value of them. His wife, he left sole executrix; his son Peter r and two other gentlemen trustees. Hondius, in his collection of artists of that age, has given the poi- trait of Oliver, with these lines, which are poor enough. Ad vivum lastos qui pingis imagine vultus, Olivere, oculos mirifice hi capiunt. 1 Mr. Hollis has a fine drawing of the same, inscribed Isa. Olivier, which he bought at Vertue's sale. It has been retouched in several places. 2 Four heads on board in oil, by Olivier, are at Lord Guildford's atWroxton. These Vertue - owns have a little of the stiffness of miniature, though at the same time very neat. Lord Oxford had the famous seaman T. Cavendish, and Sir Philip Sydney, by Oliver, in oil : the last is now Lord Chesterfield's ; the former is at Welbeck. In a sale of pictures brought from Ireland was a large oval head of Lucy Harrington Countess of Bedford, and the Marriage at Cana, by Isaac Oliver, and, I conclude, in oil. 3 The monument and bust were destroyed in the great fire in 1666 ; but a model of the- latter is probably extant, Vertue having seen it. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 101 Corpora quae formas justo hsec expressa colore, Multum est, cum rebus convenit ipse color. Vertue found another in a MS. treatise on limning, the author un- known ; but the epitaph which follows, was inscribed, ' On my dear ' cousin, Mr. Isaac Oliver.' Qui vultus hominum, vagasque formas Brevi describere doctus in tabella, Qui mundum minimum typo minore Solers cudere mortuasque chartas Felici vegetare novit arte. Isaacus jacet hie Olivarius, Cujus vivifica manu paratum est, Ut nihil prope debeant Britanni Urbino, Titianoque, Angeloque. Besides these principal, there were several other artists in this reign, of whom there are only slight memorials. I shall throw them together as I find them, without observing any particular method. 1 At the Duke of Bedford's, at Woburn, is a portrait of Elizabeth Bruges, daughter of the Lord Chandois, with this inscription, 6 Hier- * onymus Custodio Antwerpiensis fecit 1589/ The colouring is flat and chalky. On the picture of the murder of the Lord Darnley at Kensington, is the name of the painter, but so indistinct, that Vertue, who engraved it, could not be sure whether it was Levinus Vogelarius or Venetianus. As it is as little certain whether the picture was painted in England, Scotland, or abroad, no great stress can be laid on this painter, as one of Queen Elizabeth's artists. Vertue thought he might be the same person with Levino, nephew of Pordenone, of whose hand King Charles had a picture. At the same time resided here one Le Moyne, called 2 Le Morgues, who is mentioned by Hackluyt in his translation of Laudonniere's Voyage to Florida, vol. iii., p. 300. ' Divers things of chiefest import- ' ance at Florida, drawn in colours at the charge of Sir Walter Raleigh, ' by that skilful painter, James Morgues, some time living in the Black- 'fryars, London, he whom Monsieur Chatillon, then Admiral of France, f sent thither with Laudonniere for that purpose.' 1 Vertue had seen on a large skin of vellum a plan of the town and boundaries of Dunwich in Suffolk, with its churches, adjacent villages, etc., and several remarks, made by Radblphus Aggas, in March 1589. Whether this person was a professed painter does not appear; but from him was probably descended Robert Aggas, commonly called Augus, * who,' says Gra- ham in his English School, p. 398, 'was a good landscape painter both in oil and in distemper, ' and was skilful in architecture, in which he painted many scenes for the playhouse in Covent Garden.' Few of his works are extant ; the best is a landscape presented by him to the Company of Painter-stainers, and still preserved in their hall, with other works of professors, whose dates I cannot assign. Robert Aggas died in London in 1679, aged about sixty ; but I know not what the author I quote means by a playhouse in Covent Garden before the year 1679. I suppose it should be the theatre in Dorset Gardens.^ 2 Indorum Floridam provinciam habitantium Icones primum ibidem ad vivum expressac a Jacopo le Moyne cui nomen De Morgues 1591. 102 LIST OF OLD PAINTERS, FEW OF WHOSE PIECES ARE KNOWN. We have seen in the life of Hilliard that Shoote and Bettes are mentioned as painters in miniature. The former I suppose was John Shute, who styles himself ' paynter and architecte 9 in a book written and published by him in folio in 1563, called, 'The first and chief groundes 4 of architecture, used in all the auncient and famous monyments, with 6 a farther and more ample discourse uppon the same, than hitherto ' hath been set out by any other.' The cuts and figures in the book are in a better style than ordinary ; the author, as he tells the queen in the dedication, having been sent into Italy in 1550 by the Duke of Northumberland (in whose service he had been), and who maintained him there in his studies under the best architects. This person pub- lished another work, entitled, ' Two notable commentaries, the one of 6 the original of the Turks, etc. the other of the warres of the Turke 6 against George Scanderbeg, etc. translated out of Italian into English.' Printed by Rowland Hall, 1562 (Ames's History of Printing, p. 217). Of Bettes, there were two of the name, Thomas and John, who, with several other painters of that time, are mentioned by Meres in his second part of Wit's Commonwealth, published in 1598 at London. 'As learned Greece had these excellent artists renowned for their ' learning, so England has these, Hilliard, Isaac Oliver, and John de ( Cretz, very famous for their painting. So as Greece had moreover 6 their painters, so in England we have also these, William and Francis 1 Segar brethren, Thomas and John Bettes, Lockie, Lyne, Peake, 6 Peter Cole, Arnolde, Marcus (Garrard), Jacques de Bruy, Cornelius, ' Peter Golchi, Hieronimo (de Bye), and Peter Vandevelde. As 6 Lysippus, Praxiteles and Pyrgoteles were excellent engravers, so have 'we these engravers, Rogers, Christopher Switzer, and Cure/ I quote this passage to prove to those who learn one or two names by rote, that every old picture they see is not by Holbein, nor every miniature by Hilliard or Olivier. By Nicholas Lockie, mentioned in this quota- tion, there are several portraits ; Dr. Rawlinson had one of Dr. John King Bishop of London, from which Simon Pass engraved a plate. Stowe mentions one Master Stickles, an excellent architect of that time, who, in 1596, built for a trial a pinnace that might be taken to pieces. Chron. p. 769. In the list of new year's-gifts to Queen Elizabeth, Bartholomew Campaine presents one piece of cloth of silver stained with the half figure of Henry VIII. This might be the same person with one Campion, an engraver or chaser of plate, whose name is preserved in an old inventory of the goods, chattels, jewels, etc., of the Earl of Sussex, taken at his death in 1583. There appear the names of the following artists ; amongst the gilt and silver plate, one great pair of gilt vases richly wrought by Derick ; others made by Campion. Pots engraven and made by Martin, many other vessels by Derick, and others by Metcalfe. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. The contract for the tomb of this great peer, Thomas Radcliffe Earl of Sussex, lord chamberlain to the queen and a signal antagonist of Leicester, is still extant. 1 He bequeathed 1500/. to be expended on it ; and his executors, Sir Christopher Wray, lord chief justice of her majesty's bench, Sir Gilbert Gerard, master of the rolls, Sir Thomas Mildmay and others, agreed with Richard Stephens for the making and setting it up in Boreham church in Suffolk, where it still remains. The whole charge paid to Stephens for his part of the work was 292/. 12s. 2>d. In a list of debts to be paid after the earl's death by his executors, one was to Horatio Palavicini ; 2 probably for a set of hang- ings mentioned in the inventory; and 61. 16s. to Randolph the painter. Richard Stephens above mentioned was a Dutchman, and no com- mon artist. He was a statuary, painter, and medallist. The figures on Lord Sussex's tomb were his work, and in a good style. In the family of Lumley are some portraits painted by him 3 and among other accounts some of his receipts, as there are too in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire ; which makes it highly probable that the curious portraits at Hardwicke of Queen Elizabeth, in a gown embroidered with sea-monsters, the Queen of Scots, both at whole length, and others, were painted by this Richard Stephens. But his best perform- ances seem to have been his medals, which are bold and in good taste. 1 This contract and inventory Vertue saw among the MSS. of Peter Leneve Norroy. a great antiquary. I do not doubt but considerable discoveries might be made of our old artists, particularly architects, from papers and evidences in ancient families.* 2 Sir Horatio Palavicini was collector of the Pope's taxes in England in the reign of Queen Mary ; on whose death, and the change of religion that ensued, he took the liberty of keeping the money himself; and settling in England, he built a house in the Italian style with a loggia to the second story, with his arms over the portal, at Little Sheltord ; which was pulled down in 1750. He was also possessor of the estate. and house at Baberham, near Cambridge, where in the hall, on a costly chimney-piece, adorned with the history of Mutius Scaevola, his arms still remain. His family were buried at Baberham, as appears by several entries in the parish register, where also is recorded the marriage of his widow (exactly a year and a day after Sir Horatio's death, who died July 6, 1600) thus, ' Mr. Oliver Cromwell 4 and the lady Anne Palavicini were married July 7, 1601.' In a MS. of Sir John Crew, of Uthington, a great antiquary and herald, was this epitaph, corroborative of the tradition above mentioned : Here lies Horatio Palavazene, Him Death wyth besome swept from Babram Who robb'd the Pope, to lend the queene. Into the bosome of oulde Abraham : He was a thief. A thief ! thou lyest; But then came Hercules with his club, For whie ? he robb'd but Antichrist. And struck him down to Belzebub. In Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, vol. ii. , p. 52, lib. 7, it is said, that when the Lord Arundel was imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth for accepting the title of count of the empire, he referred his case to Sir Horatio and others, adding these words in his letter to one of the principal lords of the court : ' Neither doe I thinke England to be so unfurnished of experienced men, * but that either Sir Horatio Palavicini, Sir Robert Sydney, Mr. Dyer, or some other, can 1 witness a truth therein.' But Palavicini had higher merit, as appears by an incontestible record ; he was one of the commanders against the Spanish Armada in 1588, and his portrait is preserved amongst those heroes in the borders of the tapestry in the House of Lords, engraved by Pine. 3 Particularly John Lord Lumley, 1590. When Jervas saw this picture (on which the name of Stephens appears) it was so well coloured, and so like the manner of Holbein, that he concluded many pictures ascribed to that master are the works of Stephens. * In the Antiquarian Repertory published by Godfrey, and printed by Blyth in 1775, vol. i., p. 246, is a print of the tomb of Henry Earl of Westmorland and his two wives, ordered in 1563, and existing in the church of Staindrop in Yorkshire. It was executed, as appears from the inscription, by the hands of John Tarbetans. 104 ROBERT ADAMS, SURVEYOR OF THE QUEEN'S BUILDINGS. Bryan Fairfax had one with a lady's head in the dress of the time?, and this legend, — 'Anna Poines, uxor Thomas Heneage;' under the bust, 6 1562. Ste. ' H. F. J that is, Stephens, Hollandus, fecit. Dr. Mead had two more, one of William Parr Marquis of North- ampton ; the other of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester, engraved in Evelyn's Discourse on English Medals. The author says, that when Leicester quitted Holland, he caused several medals to be engraved, which he gave to his friends there. The medal in question is remark- able for the impertinence of the reverse ; sheep grazing, and a dog turning from them ; under his feet, 1 Invitus desero ' — round, 6 Non 6 gregem sed ingratos.' Vertue mentions others by the same workman, of the Earl of Pembroke and Sir Thomas Bodley. Robert Adams, surveyor of the queen's buildings, seems to have been a man of abilities. I cannot specify his works in architecture, but there are two plans extant that he published ; one is a large print of Middleburgh, dated 1588; the other, of the same date, is a small parchment roll, drawn with the pen, and entitled Thamesis Descriptio; showing, by lines cross the river, how far and from whence cannon- balls may obstruct the passage of any ship upon an invasion, from Tilbury to London, with proper distances marked for placing the guns. Adams was buried in an aisle on the north side of the church of Greenwich with this inscription : ' Egregio viro, Roberto Adams, ' operum regiorum supervisori, architectural peritissimo, ob. 1595. ' Simon Basil, operationum regiarum contrarotulator, hoc posuit 'monumentum, 1601.' Valerio Belli, called Valerio Vicentino, was a celebrated engraver of precious stones. Felibien says (vol. ii., p. 121), if his designs were equal to his execution, he might be compared with the ancients. He engraved caskets and vases of rock crystal for Pope Clement VII. and performed an infinite number of other works. He certainly was in England in this reign, and carved many portraits in cameo. Dr. Meade had a fine bust of Queen Elizabeth on onyx, 1 alto relievo in profile, and very large, by the hand of this master. I have a jewel by him, containing the head of Lord Treasurer Burleigh, affixed to the back of an antique intaglia of Caracalla, and appendent to it a smaller head of the queen, both in cameo on onyx. The Duke of Devonshire has several of his works; two 2 profiles in cameo of Queen Elizabeth; another gem with the head of Edward VI. cameo on one side, and intaglia on the other; and two pieces of crystal with intaglias of several figures from the antique. To these two last is added the sculptor's name. The Duchess of Leeds has a singular curiosity by this hand; it is a pebble, in the shape of an oblong button ; the upper side brown, and 1 Lord Charlemont bought it at Dr. Meade's sale. 2 The Earl of Exeter has also one or two. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 105 very convex; the under, red and white, and somewhat concave. On the top is a profile of Queen Elizabeth, incircled with foliage ; at bottom, a knight completely armed, in the act of tilting ; on the back- ground the front of a castle with columns ; on the basis of which are the syllables, Es-sex ; intimating the earl to be her majesty's knight. In the Museum Trevisanum is a medallion of him in marble, another smaller in copper, on the back of it Valerio Belli Vicentino ; and a third of his son, dated 1572. Among the Harleian MSS. is a list of jewels belonging to Queen Elizabeth : ' Item, a flower of gold garnished with sparkes of dia- 'monds, rubyes, and ophals, with an agath of her majestie's visnomy 'and a perle pendante with devises painted on it given by eight ' maskers in the Christinas week anno regni 24/ The agate was per- haps the work of Vicentino. It is certain, though the queen's economy or want of taste restrained her from affording great encouragement to genius, that the riches and flourishing situation of the country offered sufficient invitations to the arts. Archbishop Parker retained in his service at Lambeth a printer, a painter, and more than one engraver. Of the latter, the principal were Berg, or Hogen Berg, and Lyne above mentioned, who was pro- bably his painter too. Prefixed to the archbishop's life, printed at Lambeth, is a cut of his grace, inscribed, 6 R. Berg f.' Above twenty books were published by the archbishop from his own printing-house ; two only have this head. At Ruckolt, in the parish of Low Layton, in Essex (the mansion of the Hickses), was a large genealogy of the kings of England from the conquest to Queen Elizabeth, with all the line of France and England, under these two titles, ' Linea Valesiorum et ' Linea Angliae;' at bottom the workman's name, 'Remigius Hogen- 'bergius, servus D. Matt, archiep. Cant, sculpsit 1574' (Ames's Typog. Antiq., p. 540). There was another such genealogic chart, entitled, ' Regnum Britan- 'nise tandem plene in Heptarchiam redactum a Saxonibus, expulsis ' Britannis, &c. ? A° 686 executed in wood very plain and well ; the name, 'Richardus Lyne, servus D. Matth. archiep. Cant, sculpsit 1574.' One Lyly too is mentioned as curious in copying the hands of ancient deeds, who was employed by the same patron. Dr. John Twisden, a divine of that age, was himself a performer in painting. He died at the age of eighty-five, in 1588. Vertue was showed a small portrait of him, neatly done by himself, in oil on cop- per about forty years before his death. But there was one gentleman in this reign who really attained the perfection of a master, Sir Nathaniel Bacon, 1 knight of the Bath, a younger son of the keeper, and half brother of the great Sir Francis. 1 He married the daughter of the famous Sir Thomas Gresham, by whom he was ancestor of the present Lord Townshend. See Collin's English Baronets, vol i., p. 4. lo6 ENGRAVERS IN THE TIME OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. He travelled into Italy, and studied painting there; but his manner and colouring approach nearer to the style of the Flemish school. Peacham on Limning, p. 126, says, 6 But none in my opinion deserveth * more respect and admiration for his skill and practice in painting 'than Master Nathaniel Bacon of Broome in Suffolk (younger son to c the most honourable and bountifull-minded Sir Nicholas Bacon), not 6 inferior in my judgment to our skilfullest masters/ At Culford, where he lived, are preserved some of his works ; and at Gorhambury, his father's seat, is a large picture in oil by him of a cook-maid with dead fowls, admirably painted, with great nature, neatness, and lustre of colouring. In the same house is a whole length of him by himself, 1 drawing on a paper ; his sword and pallet hung up ; and a half length of his mother by him. At Redgrave Hall in Suffolk were two more pieces by the same hand, which afterwards passed into the possession of Mr. Rowland Holt ; the one, Ceres, with fruit and flowers ; the other, Hercules and the Hydra. In Tradescant's Museum was a small land- scape, painted and given to him by Sir Nathaniel Bacon. Of the engravers in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who were many and of great merit, I shall say nothing here ; Vertue having collected an ample and separate account of them, which will appear further on in this work. I shall only mention now, that that age resembled the present in its passion for portraits of remarkable persons. Stowe in his Annals, speaking of the Duke d'Alengon, who came over to marry the queen, says, ' By this time his picture, state, and titles were ad- 'vanced in every stationer's shop and many other public places.' 2 The same author, mentioning Sir Francis Drake's return, says, ' there were 1 books, pictures, and ballads published of him.' In another point, too, there was a parity ; auctions were grown into vogue, and consequently abuse ; the first orders for regulating them by the lord mayor were issued in that reign. At the same period was introduced the custom of prohibiting repre- sentations of magnificent funerals. There is a long roll exhibiting the procession at the obsequies of Sir Philip Sidney. It was (as is said at the bottom of it) contrived and invented by Thomas Lant, 3 gentleman, 1 His monument and bust are in the church at Culford, with his pallet and pencils. There is another for him at Stiff key in Norfolk, the inscription on which may be seen in the appen- dix to Masters's History of Corpus Christi Coll. Camb., p. 85. It is said in the note, that Sir Nathaniel was famed for painting plants, and well skilled in their virtues. 2 In the Cecil papers is a letter to the Lord Mayor of London, dated July 21, 1561, telling him, ' The queen's majesty understandeth that certain bookbinders and stationers utter ' certain papers wherein be printed the face of her majesty and the King of Sweden ; and ' although her highness is not miscontented that either her own face or the said king's should be * painted or portraited ; yet to be joined with the said king, or with any other prince that is knov/n * to have made any request in marriage to her majesty, is not to be allowed. And therefore ' your lordship should send for the warden of the stationers or other wardens that have such ' papers to sell, and cause such papers to be taken from them and packed up together in such * sort as none of them be permitted to be seen in any place.' The effect of this order appears from a passage in Evelyn's Art of Chalcography ; ' Had Queen Elizabeth been thus circum- ' spect, there had not been so many vile copies multiplied from an ill painting, as being called * in and brought to Essex House, did for several years furnish the pastrymen with peels for ' the use of their ovens,' P. 25. 3 This Thomas Lant was portcullis poursuivant : there are several copies extant in MS. of a HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. I07 servant to the said honourable knight, and graven in copper by Derick or Theodor de Brie in the city of London, 1587. It contains about 34 plates. Prefixed is a small oval head of Mr. Lant, aet. 32. The same person wrote a treatise of Heraldry. John Holland, 1 of Wortwell, Esq., living in 1586, is commended as an ingenious painter in a book called 6 The Excellent Art of Painting/ p. 20. But it is to the (Mr. Gray) same hand to which this work owes many of its improvements, that I am indebted for the discovery of a very valuable artist in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The eastern side of the college of Caius and Gonville at Cambridge, in which are the Portse Virtutus et Sapientiae, was built in the years 1566 and 1567. These are joined by two long walls to the Porta Humilitatis, and in these are two little Doric frontispieces, all in appear- ance of the same date, and showing the Roman architecture reviving, with little columns and pilasters, well enough proportioned in them- selves and neatly executed, though in no proportion to the building they were intended to adorn. In the entries of the college under the year 1575 are these words: i Porta, quae honoris dicitur et ad scholas * publicas aperit, a lapide quadrato duroque extruebatur, ad earn scilicet 1 formam et effigiem, quam doctor Caius, dum viveret, architecto prae- 4 scripserat, elaborata. 7 This gate cost 128/. 9^. od. Dr. Caius died July 29, 1573. In the same year are these words, * Positum est Joh. 6 Caio ex alabastro monumentum summi decoris et artificii eodem in 1 sacelli loco, quo corpus ejus antea sepeliebatur; cui praeter insculpta 'illius insignia, et annotatum aetatis obitusque diem et annum (uti 1 vivus executoribus ipse praeceperat) duas tantummodo sententias has ' inscripsimus, Vivit post funera Virtus — Fui Caius/ This monument (made to stand upon the ground, but now raised much above the eye on a heavy base projecting from the wall) is a sarcophagus with ribbed work and mouldings, somewhat antique, placed on a basement sup- porting pretty large Corinthian columns of alabaster, which uphold an entablature, and form a sort of canopy over it. The capitals are gilt, and painted with ugly scrolls and compartments, in the taste of th reign. The charge of the founder's tomb was as follows : For alabaster and carriage . . . • c • • . ^ 10 10 o To Theodore and others for carving . „ . . . 33 16 5 To labourers 018 1 Charges extraordinary ...„ 202 Then in the year 1576 are these words, ' In atrio doctorio Caii colum- * na erecta est, eique lapis miro artificio elaboratus, atque in se 60 horo- treatise called ' The Armoury of Nobility,' first gathered by Robert Cook, clarencieux, cor- rected by Robert Glover, Somerset herald, and lastly augmented with the knights of the garter by Thomas Lant, portcullis, anno 1589. One copy of this work is in the possession of the Rev. Mr. Charles Parkin of Oxburgh, in Norlolk, to whom I am obliged for this and other curious communications. 1 See the pedigree of Holland in Blomfield's Norfolk. 108 PORTRAITS IN THE COLLEGES AT CAMBRIDGE. 'logia complexus imponitur, quern Theodorus Haveus Cleviensis, ' artifex egregius, et insignis architectural professor, fecit, et insignibus 'eorum generosorum, qui turn in collegio morabantur, depinxit; et ' velut monumentum suae erga collegium benevolentiae eidem dedicavit. 6 Hujus in summitate lapidis constituitur ventilabrum ad formam Pegasi ' formatum.' That column is now destroyed, with all its sun-dials; but when Loggan did his views of the college, the pillar (though not the dials) was yet standing. In the college is a good "portrait on board of Dr. Keys (not in profile), undoubtedly original, and dated 1563, aetatis suae 53, with Latin verses and mottoes ; and in the same room hangs an old picture (bad at first, and now almost effaced by cleaning) of a man in a slashed doublet, dark curled hair and beard, looking like a foreigner, and hold- ing a pair of compasses, and by his side a polyedron composed of twelve pentagons. This is undoubtedly Theodore Haveus himself, who, from all these circumstances, seems to have been an architect, sculptor, and painter; and having worked many years for Dr. Caius and the college, in gratitude left behind him his own picture. In the gallery of Emmanuel College, among other old pictures, is one with the following inscription, recording an architect of the same age with the preceding : ' Effigies Rodulphi Simons, architecti sua aetate peritissimi, qui (praeter plurima aedificia ab eo praeclare facta) duo col- legia, Emanuelis hoc, Sidneii illud, extruxit integre : magnam etiam partam Trinitatis reconcinnavit amplissime.' Head and hands, with a great pair of compasses. In a book belongingtto the jewel-office, in the possession of the Earl of Oxford, Vertue found mention 4 of a fair bason and lair (ewer) gilt, ' the bason having in the bushel (body) a boy bestriding an eagle, and ' the ewer of the worke of Grotestain, with gooses heads antique upon ' the handle and ! spoute, weighing together xx ounces.' In the same book was this memorandum : 4 Remaining in the hands of Robert i Brandon and Affabel Partrege, the queen's goldsmiths, four thousand i ounces of gilt plate, at five shillings and fourpence the ounce, in the i second year of the queen.' I shall conclude this reign with what, though executed in the time of her successor, properly relates to that of Elizabeth. In the Earl of Oxford's collection was an office-book, in which was contained an account of the charge of her majesty's monument : — Paid to Maximilian Powtran, . . . . 1 70/. Patrick Blacksmith, , 95/. John de Critz, 1 the painter, . . . 100/. Besides the stone, the whole cost . . . 965 1. 2 1 This is the painter mentioned above by Meres, and who, I suppose, gave the design of the tomb. One De Critz is often mentioned among the purchasers of King Charles's pictures during the civil war, as will appear in chap. ix. 2 This monument, and those of the Queen of Scots, and of the two young princesses Mary and Sophia, daughters of King James, cost 3500/. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 1 09 SUPPLEMENT. By the favour of the Earl of Warwick, I am enabled to bring to light a very capital artist, who designed or improved most of the principal and palatial edifices erected in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., though even his name was totally forgotten. I am empowered by the same condescension to point out a volume of drawings of that individual architect JOHN THORPE, who has left a folio of plans, now in Lord Warwick's possession. There are not many uprights, but several ground plans of some of the palaces and many of the seats of the nobility, extant, erected, or altered at that period. Of some he names himself the author— of others, he either designed, supervised, or proposed alterations — though, according to the negligence of that age, he is not circumstantial in particulars. There are ground plans of Somerset House ; of Buckhurst House in Sussex^ an immense pile; ofWoolaton; Copthall; Burleigh House; Burleigh on the Hill 1 (the Duke of Buckingham's); Sir Walter Cope's, now Holland House at Kensington ; Giddy Hall in Essex ; Audley Inn ; Ampthill (now called Houghton) ; and Ampthill Old House, another spacious palace in which Catherine of Arragon some time resided, and of which he says he himself gave the plan of enlargement ; and Kirby, of which he says he laid the first stone in 1570. The taste of all these stately mansions was that bastard style which intervened between Gothic and Grecian architecture; or which perhaps was the style that had been invented for the houses of the nobility, when they first ven- tured on the settlement of the kingdom after the termination of the quarrel between the Roses, to abandon their fortified dungeons, and consult convenience and magnificence ; for I am persuaded that what we call Gothic architecture was confined solely to religious buildings, and never entered into the decoration of private houses. Thorpe's orna- ments on the balustrades, porches, and outsides of windows are barbar- ous and ungraceful, and some of his vast windows advance outwards in a sharp angle ; but there is judgment in his dispositions of apartments and offices, and he allots most ample spaces for halls, staircases and chambers of state. He appears also to have resided at Paris, and even seems to have been employed there ; at least he gives alterations for the queen-mother's house Faber St. Germains, which I suppose means the Luxembourg in the fauxbourg St. Germains, and a plan of the house of Monsieur Jammet (Zamet). There are several other smaller seats and houses in the book, some 1 Cliefden, built by the second Villiers Duke of Buckingham, was evidently copied in little -from his father's seat, Burleigh on the Hill. IIO THE ELIZABETHAN STYLE OF ART AND ARCHITECTURE. with the names of the gentlemen for whom they were built One which he calls Cannons, his Father Fakes house ; and another is a whimsical edifice designed for himself, and forming the initial letters of his name I;*'T, conjoined by a corridor [which I have expressed by the dotted lines], and explained by this curious triplet, 'These two letters I and T, Joined together as you see, Is meant for a dwelling-house for me. — John Thorpe/ The volume however is a very valuable record of the magnificence 1 of our ancestors, and preserves memorials of many sumptuous buildings of which no other monument remains. CHAPTER VIII. Painters and other Artists in the Reign of JAMES I. It was well for the arts that King James had no disposition to them : he let them take their own course. Had he felt any inclination for them, he would probably have introduced as bad a taste as he did into literature. A prince who thought puns and quibbles the perfection of eloquence, would have been charmed with the monkeys of Hemskirk and the drunken boors of Ostade. James loved his ease and his pleasures, and hated novelties. He gave himself up to hunting, and hunted in the most cumbrous and inconvenient of all dresses, a ruff and trouser breeches. The nobility kept up the magnificence they found established by Queen Elizabeth, in which predominated a want of taste, rather than a bad one. In more ancient times the mansions of the great lords were, as I have mentioned before, built for defence and strength rather than convenience. The walls thick, the windows pierced wherever it was most necessary for them to look abroad, in- stead of being contrived for symmetry or to illuminate the chambers. To that style succeeded the richness and delicacy of the Gothic. As this declined, before the Grecian taste was established, space and vast- ness seem to have made their whole ideas of grandeur. The palaces erected in the reign of Elizabeth by the memorable 2 Countess of Shrewsbury, Elizabeth of Hardwicke, are exactly in this style. The apartments are lofty and enormous, and they knew not how to furnish them. Pictures, had they had good ones, would be lost in chambers of such height ; tapestry, their chief movable, was not commonly perfect 1 There is a draught of the chapel of Henry VII. which he says cost 14,000/. 2 It is a tradition in the family of Cavendish, that a fortune-teller had told her, that she she should not die while she was building; accordingly she bestowed a great deal of the wealth she had obtained from three husbands in erecting large seats at Hardwicke, Chats- worth, Bolsover, and Oldcotes, and I think, at Worksop ; and died in a hard frost when the workmen could not labour. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. Ill enough to be real magnificence. Fretted ceilings, graceful mouldings of windows, and painted glass, the ornaments of the preceding age, were fallen into disuse. Immense lights composed of bad glass in diamond panes, cast an air of poverty on their most costly apartments. That of Hardwicke, still preserved as it was furnished for the reception and imprisonment of the Queen of Scots, is a curious picture of that age and style. Nothing can exceed the expense in the bed of state, in the hangings of the state chamber, and of the coverings for the tables. The first is cloth of gold, cloth of silver, velvets of different colours, lace, fringes, and embroidery. The hangings consist of figures, large as life, representing the virtues and vices, embroidered on grounds of white and black velvet. The only moveables of any taste are the cabinets and the table themselves, carved in oak. The chimneys are wide enough for a hall or kitchen, and over the arras are friezes of many feet deep with miserable relievos in stucco representing huntings. There and in all the great mansions of that age is a gallery, remarkable only for its extent. That at Hardwicke is of sixty yards. James built no palace himself. Those erected by the nobles in his reign are much like what I have been describing. Audley Inn, 1 one of the wonders of that age, deserved little notice but for the prodigious space it covered. Towards the end of that monarch's reign genius was called out and appeared. The magnificent temper or taste of the Duke of Buckingham led him to collect pictures, and pointed out the study of them to Prince Charles. Rubens came over, Inigo Jones arose, and architecture broke forth in all the lustre and purity of Rome and Athens. But before I come to that period, I must clear my way by some account of the preceding artists. The first painter who seems to have arrived after the accession of James was PAUL VANSOMER, a native of Antwerp. The accounts of him are extremely deficient, no author of the lives of painters mentioning him but Carl Vermander, who only says that Vansomer was living when he wrote, and then resided with his brother Bernard at Amsterdam. Yet Vansomer as a painter of portraits was a very able master. The picture of the lord chamberlain, William Earl of Pembroke, half length, at St. James's, is an admirable portrait ; and a whole length at Chatsworth of the first Earl of Devonshire in his robes, though ascribed to Mytens, I should think was painted by the same hand. Mytens was much colder in his 1 Sir William Dugdale, writing after the days of Inigo Jones, says, that his house was not to be equalled by any fabric in this realm, excepting Hampton Court. There are prints of Audley Inn in its grandeur by Winstanley, who lived at Littlebury near it, where, within my memory, was his house, remarkable for several mechanic tricks, known by the name of ' Winstanley's Wonders.' His plates of Audley Inn are extant, but the prints are very scarce. Part of the edifice was taken down about forty years ago, and a greater part with the magnificent gallery, was demolished after the decease of the last Earl of Suffolk of that line. 112 jansen's pieces generally painted on board. colouring, and stiff in his drawing. 1 Both these portraits are bold and round, and the chicaro scuro good. The Earl of Devonshire is equal to the pencil of Vandyck, and one of the finest single figures I have seen. In what year Vansomer came to England we do not know; certainly as early as 1606, between which and 1620 he did several pictures. I shall mention but a few, that are indubitably his, from whence by comparison his manner may be known. James I. at Windsor, behind him a view of Whitehall. Anne of Denmark, with a prospect of the west end of St. Paul's. The same king at Hampton Court, armour lying by him on the ground ; better than the former. Dated 1615. His queen, in blue, with a horse and dogs ; also at Hampton Court. This picture is imitated in the tapestry at Houghton. Three ladies, 1615, at Ditchley; Lady Morton in pur- ple ; another, with yellow lace about her neck and a gauze scarf ; the third in black, with a crape over her forehead. Lord Chancellor Bacon and his brother Nicholas at Gorhambury. Sir Simon Weston, brother of Lord Treasurer Portland, whole length, with a pike in his hand, 1608, aet. 43. This piece was in the possession of the Lord Chief Jus- tice Raymond. Marquis of Hamilton with the white staff, at Hamp- ton Court. Vansomer died about the age of forty-five, and was buried at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, as appears by the register, January 5, 1621; * Paulus Vansomer, pictor eximius, sepultus fuit in ecclesia.' CORNELIUS JANSEN, generally, but inaccurately, called Johnson, was, according to Sandrart, born in London of Flemish parents ; but Vertue, and the author of An Essay towards an English School, say it was at Amsterdam, where the latter asserts that he resided long; the former, that he came over young ; which, considering how late he lived, I should be inclined to believe, if Vertue did not at the same time pronounce that his earliest performances are his best ; so good a style of colouring was hardly formed here. His pictures are easily 2 distinguished by their clearness, neatness, and smoothness. They are generally painted on board, and, except being a little stiff, are often strongly marked with a fair charac- ter of nature, and remarkable for a lively tranquillity in the counte- nances. His draperies are seldom but black. I have two portraits by him of singular merit : one of Mr. Leneve, master of the Company of Merchant-taylors ; the other of Sir George Villiers, father of the great Duke of Buckingham, less handsome, but extremely like his son. One 1 My tens improved so much in his later portraits, that this character must be read with allowances ; and on studying more of his works, I cannot determine whether the portrait at Chats worth is not painted by him, as constant tradition says it was. In general, the portraits by Vansomer and My tens, when at whole length, may be thus distinguished : Vansomer com- monly placed his on a mat ; My tens on a carpet. * He sometimes put a mark on his pictures compounded of J and C. HORACE VVALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 113 of his hands rests on the head of a greyhound, as fine as are the animals of Snyder. Jansen's first works in England are dated about 161 8. He dwelt in the Blackfriars, and had much business. His price for a head was five broad pieces. He painted, too, in small in oil, and often copied his own works in that manner. In the family of Verney were the por- traits of Sir Robert Heath and his lady in both sizes. At Cashiobury is a large piece, curious, but so inferior to Jansen's general manner, that if his name were not to it, I should doubt its being of his hand. It represents Arthur Lord Capel, who was beheaded, his lady, and children. Behind them is a view of the garden at Hadham, at that time the chief seat of the family. Between the years 1630 and 1640 Jansen lived much in Kent, at a small village called Bridge, near Barhamdown, and drew many portraits for gentlemen in the neigh- bourhood, particularly of the families of Auger, Palmer, Hammond, and Bowyer. One of his best works was the picture of a Lady Bowyer, of the family of Auger, called for her exquisite beauty, The Star in the East. At Sherburn Castle in Dorsetshire is a head of Elizabeth Wriothesley, eldest daughter of Henry, Earl of Southampton, and wife of William Lord Spenser, her head richly dressed, and a picture in a blue enamelled case at her breast. This picture is well coloured, though not equal to another at the same seat, a half length of her mother, Elizabeth, daughter of John Vernon, wife of Earl Henry. Her clothes are magnificent, and the attire of her head singular, a veil turned quite back. The face and hands are coloured with incompar- able lustre, and equal to anything this master executed. There is also a half length in black satin of John Digby, first Earl of Bristol, young and remarkably handsome. It is ascribed to Jansen, but is faintly coloured, and evidently in the manner of Vandyck, whom perhaps he imitated as well as rivalled. Jansen's fame declined 1 on the arrival of Vandyck; and the civil war breaking out, Cornelius, at the importunity of his wife, quitted England. His pass is recorded in the Journals of the Commons : ' Oct. 10, 1648. Ordered, that Cornelius Johnson, picture-drawer, * shall have Mr. Speaker's warrant to pass beyond seas with Emanuel 4 Passe, George Hawkins ; and to carry with him such pictures and * colours, bedding, household stuff, pewter, and brass, as belongs unto ? himself.' He retired first to Midelburg and then to Amsterdam, where he con- tinued to paint, and died in 1665 (Sandrart, p. 314). His wife's name was Elizabeth Beck, to whom he was married in 1622. They had a son Cornelius, bred to his father's profession, which he followed in Holland, where he died poor, being ruined by the extravagance of a 1 At Lord Pomfret's at Easton was a portrait of Charles I. by Jansen. 9 114 WARRANT FROM THE CONWAY PAPERS. HAMPTON COURT. second wife. The son drew the Duke of Monmouth's picture as he was on the point of sailing for his unfortunate expedition to England. A sister of Cornelius Jansen the elder, was second wife of 1 Nicasius Russel or Roussel of Bruges, jeweller to the kings James and Charles the first. They had many children. To one of the sons, born in 1619, Cornelius Jansen was godfather, and the widow of Isaac Oliver god- mother. Theodore Russel, an elder son, was born in 16 14, and lived nine years with his uncle Cornelius Jansen, and afterwards with Van- dyck, whose pictures he copied very tolerably on small panels ; many of them are in a private apartment at Windsor, at Warwick Castle, and in the collection of the Duchess Dowager of Argyle. Russel chiefly was employed in the country in the families of the Earls of Essex and Holland, and was a lover of his ease and his bottle. He was father of Antony Russel, a painter, from whom Vertue received these particulars, and at whose house he saw a picture of Cornelius Jansen, his wife, and son, drawn by Adrian Hanneman, who courted Jansen's niece, but was disappointed. DANIEL MYTENS, of the Hague, was an admired painter in the reigns of King James and King Charles. He had certainly studied the works of Rubens before his coming over ; his landscape in the backgrounds of his por- traits is evidently in the style of that school; and some of his works have been taken for Vandyck's. The date of his arrival is not certain; probably it was in hopes of succeeding Van Somer; but though he drew several of the court, he was not formally employed as the king's painter till the reign of Charles. His patent is preserved in Rymer's Foedera, vol. xviii., p. 3. I found the minute of the docquet warrant for this among the Con- way papers in these words : ' The office of one of his majesty's picture- ' drawers in ordinary, with the fee of 20/. per ann., graunted to Daniel 1 Mitens during his life. Subscribed by order from the lord chamber- Main. Procured by Mr. Endimyon Porter, May 30, 1625.' And among the same MSS. is the following docquet- warrant : c July 31, 1626. A * warrant to the exchequer to paie unto Daniell Mittens his majesty's 'picturer the somme of 125/. for divers pictures by him delivered to ' sondry persons by his majesty's special direction. By order of the 'lord chamberlaine of his majesty's household, procured by the lord * Conway.' At Hampton Court are several whole lengths of princes and prin- cesses of the house of Brunswick-Lunenburgh, and the portrait of Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham. At Kensington is Myten's own head. At Knowle, Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, lord treasurer, 1 In the catalogue of King Charles's pictures is mentioned a portrait drawn by George Spence of Nuremburg, and bought of Nicasius Russel, p. 135. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 115 with his white staff, whole length. A small bell on the table has these letters, D.M.F. 1623. It was more common for him to paint a slip of paper on his pictures, inscribed only with the names or titles of the persons represented. At Lady Elizabeth Germain's, at Drayton, is a very fine whole length of Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, in a striped habit, with a walking-stick. At St. James's 1 is Jeffery Hudson, the dwarf, holding a dog by a string, in a landscape, coloured warmly and freely like Snyder or Rubens. Mytens drew the same figure in a very large picture of Chas. I. and his queen, which was in the possession of the late Earl of Dunmore, but the single figure is much better painted. The history of this diminutive personage was so remarkable, that the reader will perhaps not dislike the digression. He was born at Oakham in Rutlandshire 2 in 1619, and about the age of seven or eight, being then but eighteen inches high, was retained in the service of the Duke of Buckingham, who resided at Burleigh on the Hill. Soon after the marriage of Charles I., the king and queen being entertained at Burleigh, little Jeffery was served up to table in a cold pie, and presented by the duchess to the queen, who kept him as her dwarf. From seven years of age till thirty he never grew taller ; but after thirty he shot up to three feet nine inches, and there fixed. Jeffery became a considerable part of the entertainment of the court. Sir William Davenant wrote a poem called JefTreidos, on a battle between him and a turkey-cock ; 3 and in 1638 was published a very small book called the New Year's Gift, presented at court from the Lady Parvula to the Lord Minimus (commonly called Little Jeffery) her majesty's servant, etc., written by Microphilus, with a little print of Jeffery prefixed. Before this period Jeffery was employed on a nego- tiation of great importance. He was sent to France to fetch a mid- wife for the queen ; and on his return with this gentlewoman, and her majesty's dancing master, and many rich presents to the queen from her mother, Mary de' Medici, he was taken by the Dunkirkers. 4 Jef- fery, thus made of consequence, grew to think himself really so. He had borne with little temper the teasing of the courtiers and domestics, and had many squabbles with the king's gigantic porter. 5 At last being provoked by Mr. Crofts, a young gentleman of family, a challenge en- sued, and Mr. Crofts coming to the rendezvous armed only with a squirt, the little creature was so enraged that a real duel ensued ; and 1 The picture of the Queen of Scots at St. James's is a copy by Mytens. 2 See Fuller and Wright's Rutlandshire. 3 The scene is laid at Dunkirk, and the midwife rescues him from the fury of his antagonist. 4 It was in 1630. Besides the present he was bringing for the queen, he lost to the value of 2500/. that he had received in France on his own account from the queen-mother and ladies of that court. 5 A bas-relief of this dwarf and giant is to be seen fixed in the front of a house near the end of Bagnio Court on the east side of Newgate Street. Probably it was a sign. Oliver Cromwell too had a porter of an enormous height, whose standard is recorded by a large O on the back of the terrace at Windsor, almost under the window of the gallery. This man went mad and prophesied. In Whitechapel was a sign of him taken from a print of St. Peter. 9* Il6 • PAINTERS IN OIL IN THE REIGN OF JAMES. the appointment being on horseback with pistols, to put them more on a level, JefFery with the first fire shot his antagonist dead. This hap- pened in France, whither he had attended his mistress in the troubles. He was again taken prisoner by a Turkish rover, and sold into Barbary. He probably did not long remain in slavery; for at the beginning of the civil war he was made a captain in the royal army, and in 1644 attended the queen to France, where he remained till the restoration. At last, upon suspicion of his being privy to the Popish plot, he was taken up in 1682, and confined in the Gate-house, Westminster, where he ended his life in the sixty-third year of his age. Mytens remained in great reputation till the arrival of Vandyck, who being appointed the king's principal painter, the former in disgust asked his majesty's leave to retire to his own country ; but the king, learning the cause of his dissatisfaction, treated him with much kindness, and told him that he could find sufficient employment both for him and Vandyck. Mytens consented to stay, and even grew intimate, it is pro- bable, with his rival ; for the head of 1 Mytens is one of those painted among the professors by that great master. Whether the same jealousy operated again, or real decline of business influenced him, or any other cause, Mytens did not stay much longer in England. We find none of his works here after the year 1630. Yet he lived many years afterwards. Houbraken quotes a register at the Hague, dated in .1656, at which time it says Mytens painted part of the ceiling of the Town-hall there ; the subject is, Truth writing history on the back of Fame. These were the most considerable painters in oil in the reign of James; there were undoubtedly several others of inferior rank, whose names are not come down to us, except two or three ; and of one of those I find nothing but this short note from Baglione (p. 186). ' Christophano Roncalli, pittore, ando per la Germania, per la Fiandra, t per FOlanda, per PInghilterra, per la Francia ; e finalmente carico ' d'honori e di 74 anni fini ilcorso 1626 (He died at Rome). I should not mention such slight notices, but that they may lead to further dis- coveries. Another was a more remarkable person, espec ially in the subsequent reign ; but in a work of this nature it is impossible not to run the subjects of one chapter into those of another, taking care how- ever to distribute them, as they serve best to carry on the chronologic series. His name was ROBERT PEAKE. The earliest mention of him that appears is in the note books 2 of the Lord Harrington, treasurer of the chambers, N° 78, 79, being accounts 1 In some of the first impressions the name of Isaac appears in this plate, instead of Daniel^ It was corrected afterwards. 2 They were in the collection of the late Dr. Rawlinson. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 117 of moneys received and paid by him: 'Item, paid to Robert Peake, 1 pic- ture maker, by warrant from the council, October 4, 1612, for three 'several pictures made by him at the commandment of the Duke of York, his officers, and given away and disposed of by the duke's grace, * twenty pounds/ It does not appear whether these pictures were in oil or water- colours; I should rather suppose portraits in miniature of (King Charles I. then) the Duke of York ; but that Peake painted in oil is ascertained by Peacham in his Book of Limning, where he expressly celebrates his good friend Mr. Peake and Mr. Marquis 2 for oil-colours. Peacham himself was a limner, as he tells us in the same book, having presented a copy of his majesty's Basilicon Doron, illuminated, to Prince Henry. Peake was originally a picture-seller by Holborn Bridge, and had the honour of being Faithorn's master, and, what perhaps he thought a greater honour, was knighted at Oxford, March 28, 1645. The dis- orders of the times confounding all professions, and no profession being more bound in gratitude to take up arms in the defence of King Charles, Sir Robert Peake entered into the service, and was made a lieutenant-colonel, and had a command in Basinghouse when it was besieged; where he persuaded his disciple Faithorn to enlist under him, as the latter in his dedication of the Art of Graving to Sir Robert expressly tells him, and where Peake himself was taken prisoner. 3 He was buried in the church of St. Stephen, London. 4 Miniature makes a great figure in this reign by the lustre thrown on it by PETER OLIVER, the eldest son of Isaac Oliver, and worthy of being compared with his father. In some respects the son even appears the greater master, as he did not confine himself to single heads. Peter copied in water- colours several capital pictures with signal success. By the catalogues of King Charles I. and King James II., it appears that there were . thirteen pieces of this master in the royal collection, chiefly historic miniatures: seven of them are still preserved in Queen Caroline's closet at Kensington. At the Earl of Exeter's at Burleigh is the story of Venus and Adonis, painted by Peter, and dated 1631. Vertue mentions another which was in Mr. Halsted's sale in May 1726; it represented Joseph, the Virgin, and the Child asleep, eight inches wide and five high. On it was written his name, with the termination 1 Mr. Pennant in his Tour to Scotland, vol. ii., p. 12, mentions a family picture done by- one Tobias Ratcliff, but by the account he was rather a picture-maker than a painter, in this reign. 2 Of this man I find no other mention. t 3 See a letter from Oliver Cromwell to the speaker of the house of commons, on the reduc- tion of Basing House. Printed in the Annual Register for 1761. 4 Payne Fisher's catal. of monuments. Il8 THE WORKS OF OLIVER, AND STORY OF THEIR RECOVERY. French, P. Oliver fecit, 1628. Another piece, a fine drawing in Indian ink, was copied by him from a picture of Raphael in the collection of King Charles, St John presenting a cross to the Child kneeling before the Virgin. The original was sold after the king's death to the Spanish ambassador for 600/. Jerome Laniere bought Peter's drawing, and sold it for twenty guineas to Mr. John Evelyn, from whom it came to the present Sir John Evelyn. The Duke of Devonshire has the portrait of Edward VI. when an infant, the drapery highly ornamented and finished; a copy from Holbein. 1 Lady Elizabeth Germain has at Drayton the Madonna and Child. The finest work of Peter Oliver, in my opinion, is the head of his own wife, in the cabinet of the Duchess of Portland ; it is life itself. I doubt whether his father ever excelled this piece. I have a head of the same woman drawn with blacklead on the leaf of a vellum pocketbook ; on the reverse is his own portrait in profile ; both masterly ; and in red chalk I have a boy's head, larger than he generally painted, of great nature and vivacity. At Kensington below stairs is the portrait of Peter Oliver by Hanne- man, who painted the wife too ; but I know not where the latter is. 2 It is extraordinary 3 that more of the works 4 of this excellent master are not known, as he commonly made duplicates of his pictures, reserving one of each for himself. On this subject Russel the painter, related to or connected with the Olivers, told Vertue a remarkable story. The greater part of the collection of King Charles being dis- persed in the troubles, among which were several of the Olivers, Chas. II. who remembered, and was desirous of recovering them, made many inquiries about them after the restoration. At last he was told by one Rogers 5 of Isleworth, that both the father and son were dead, but that the son's widow was living at Isleworth, and had many of their works. The king went very privately and unknown with Rogers to see them; the widow showed several finished and unfinished, with many of which the king being pleased, asked if she would sell them ; 1 In the first edition I, by mistake, ascribed this to Isaac Oliver ; but Peter's mark is upon it. z Since this work was first published, a valuable treasure of the works of this master and of his father Isaac was discovered in an old house in Wales, which belonged to a descendant of Sir Kenelm Digby. The latest are dated 1633 > Dut being enclosed in ivory and ebony cases, and the whole collection locked up in a wainscot box, they are as perfectly preserved as if newly painted. They all represent Sir Kenelm and persons related to or connected with him. There are three portraits of himself, six of his beloved wife at different ages, and three tripli- cates of his mistress, all three by Isaac Oliver, as is Lady Digby's mother, which I have mentioned before. But the capital work is a large miniature copied from Vandyck, of Sir Kenelm, his wife and two sons, the most beautiful piece of the size that I believe exists. There is a duplicate of Sir Kenelm and Lady Digby from the same picture, and though of not half the volume, still more highly finished. This last piece is set in gold, richly inlaid with flowers in enamel, and shuts like a book. All these with several others I purchased at a great price, but they are not to be matched. 3 Sir Andrew Fountaine lost many miniatures by a fire at White's original Chocolate-house in St. James's Street, about thirty years ago, where he had hired two rooms for a repository of part of his collection. Probably some of the works of the Olivers, of Cooper, etc., were destroyed there. 4 Peter Oliver etched a few small histories, but Vertue does not specify the subjects. 5 Vertue says he was very great at court ; it was probably Progecs, well known for being employed in the king's private pleasures. Memoires de Gramont. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. II9 she replied, she had a mind the king should see them first, and if he did not purchase them, she should think of disposing of them. The king discovered himself ; on which she produced some more pictures which she seldom showed. The king desired her to set her price : she said she did not care to make a price with his majesty, she would leave it to him ; but promised to look over her husband's books, and let his majesty know what prices his father the late king had paid. The king took away what he liked, and sent Rogers to Mrs. Oliver with the option of 1000/. or an annuity of 300/. for her life. She chose the latter. Some years afterwards it happened that the king's mis- tresses having begged all or most of these pictures, Mrs. Oliver, who was probably a prude, and apt to express herself like a prude, said, on hearing it, that if she had thought the king would have given them to such whores, and strumpets, and bastards, he never should have had them. This reached the court, the poor woman's salary was stopped, and she never received it afterwards. The rest of the limnings which the king had not taken, fell into the hands of RussePs father. Peter Oliver, says Vertue, died about the year 1664, aged near 60 ; but this must be a mistake, as his father's drawing at Kensington finished by the son is dated 161 6, when by that account Peter was not above twelve years old. From his age, and the story of his widow, it is more likely that he died before the restoration. Probably the date 1664 should be 1654. He was buried with his father in the Blackfriars. As in none of these accounts mention is made of any children of Peter Oliver, I conclude that Isaac Oliver, glass-painter, born in 1616, was son of the younger brother James. Among the verses printed by the univer- sity of Cambridge in 1638 on the death of Mr. Edward King, Milton's Lycidas, one of the English copies is inscribed, Isaac Oliver (Peck's Life of Milton, p. 36) ; who, I suppose, was the glass-painter, and then about the age of twenty-two, as appears from the following in- cription on a painted window in Christ Church, Oxford, i Oliver aetat. 'suae 84, anno 1700, pinxit deditque.' The story is St. Peter delivered out of prison : the drawing and execution good, but the colouring in some parts faint. The long life of this person, 1 estimable for its own merit and that of his family, served almost alone to preserve the secret of painting on glass — a secret which however has never been lost, as I shall show in a moment by a regular series of the professors. The first interruption given to it was by the reformation, which banished the art out of churches ; yet it was in some measure kept up in the escutcheons of the nobility and gentry in the windows of their seats. 1 After the fire of London he was employed jointly with Mr. Hooke in surveying and laying out the^ ground for rebuilding the city. See Biog. Britann., vol. iv., p. 2654, marginal note. There is a mezzotinto of Egbert Hemskirk sold by J. Oliver at the Eagle and Child on Ludgate Hill ; and another of James II. on his throne with addressers thanking him for his declaration of liberty of conscience. Vide Granger's Catalogue of English heads. 120 DETAILED LIST OF VALUABLE PAINTINGS BY OLIVER. Towards the end of Queen Elizabeth it was omitted even there, yet the practice did not entirely cease. The chapel of our Lady at Warwick was ornamented anew by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and his countess, and the cypher of the glass-painter's name yet remains, with the date 1574; and in some of the chapels at Oxford the art again appears dating itself in 1622 by the hand of no contemptible master. I could supply even the gap of forty-eight years by many dates on Flemish glass ; but nobody ever supposed that the secret was lost so early as the reign of James L, and that it has not perished since will be evident from the following series reaching to the present hour : — The portraits in the windows of the library at All Souls, Oxford. In the chapel at Queen's College, twelve windows, dated 15 18. PC a cypher on the painted glass in the chapel at Warwick, 1574. The windows at Wadham College ; the drawing pretty good, and the colours fine, by Bernard Van Linge, 1622. In the chapel at Lincoln's- inn, a window with the name of Bernard, 1623. This was probably the preceding Van Linge. In the chapel at Wroxton, stories from the Bible, by Bernard Van Linge, 1632. In Christ Church, Oxford, by Abraham Van Linge, 1640. In the Church of St. Leonard, Shoreditch, two windows by Baptista Sutton, 1634. The east window in the chapel at University College. Hen. Giles 1 pinxit, 1687; there are eight or ten more dated 1640. At Christ Church, Isaac Oliver, aged 84, 1700. Window in Merton Chapel, William Price (he died in 1722), 1700. Windows at Queen's, New College and Maudlin, by William Price, the son, now living, 2 whose colours are fine, whose drawing good, and whose taste in ornaments and mosaic is far superior to any of his pre- decessors, is equal to the antique, to the good Italian masters, and only surpassed by his own singular modesty. 3 EDWARD NORGATE, though of a very inferior walk in the profession, deserves to be re- membered for his uncommon excellence in his way. He was son of Dr. Robert Norgate, master of Bennet College, Cambridge, where Edward was born. He was brought up by Nicholas Felton, Bishop of 1 In Mr. Thoresby's museum was 'the picture of Mr. Henry Gyles, (called there) the ' famous glass-painter at York, wrote in mezzotinto by the celebrated Mr. Francis Place, when 1 that art was known to few others. Bought with other curiosities of Mr. Gyles's executors.' Thoresby's Dacatus Leodiensis, p. 492. 2 He died a bachelor at his house in Great Kirby Street, Hatton Garden, July 16, 1765. 3 It may not be unwelcome to the curious reader to see some anecdotes of the revival of taste for painted glass in England. Price, as I have said, was the only painter in that style for many years in England. Afterwards, one Rowell, a plumber at Reading, did some things, particularly for the late Henry Earl of Pembroke ; but Rowell's colours soon vanished. At last he found out a very durable and beautiful red ; but he died in a year or two, and the secret with him. A man at Birmingham began the same art in 1756 or .57, and fitted up a window for Lord Lyttleton in the church of Hagley, but soon broke. A little after him one Peckitt at York began the same business, and has made good proficience. A few lovers of the art collected some dispersed panes from ancient buildings, particularly the late Lord Cobham,who erected a Gothic temple at Stowe, and filled it with arms of the old nobility, HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 121 Ely, who married his mother, and who observing his inclination to limning and heraldry, permitted him to indulge his genius. As he had good judgment in pictures, he was sent into Italy by the great collector Thomas Earl of Arundel to make purchases for him ; but returning by Marseilles, and by some accident being disappointed of the remittances he expected, and totally unknown there, he was observed by a French gentleman to walk many hours every day on the Cours in a discon- solate manner. The gentleman, inquiring into his circumstances, told him, that perceiving he was able to walk at least twenty miles a day, if he would set out on his journey homewards, he would furnish him handsomely for a footman ; by which assistance Norgate arrived in his own country. 1 Among the accounts of the Lord Harrington quoted above, is the following entry : * Paid to Edward Norgate by warrant 'from the council April 24, 1613, for his paines taken to write and Mymne in gedd and colours certain letters written from his majesty to c the King of Persia, the sum of ten pounds/ These letters were undoubtedly in answer to those brought by that singular adventurer Sir Anthony Shirley, ambassador from the Sophy to his own sovereign. The warrant for restoring the use of the old English inarch, which T have set forth in the Catalogue of Noble Authors, was illuminated by this person; but the best evidence of his abilities is a curious patent lately discovered. The present Earl of Stirling received from a relation an old box of neglected writings, among which he found the original commission of Charles I. appointing his lordship's predecessor Alex- ander Earl of Stirling commander in chief of Nova Scotia, with the confirmation of the grant of that province made by James I. In the initial letter are the portraits of the king sitting on the throne delivering the patent to the earl, and round the border representations in miniature of the customs, huntings, fishings and productions of the country, all in the highest preservation, and so admirably executed, that it was believed of the pencil of Vandyck. But as I know no instance of that master having painted in this manner, I cannot doubt but it was the work of Norgate, allowed the best illuminator of that age, and gener- ally employed, says Fuller, to make the initial letters in the patents of peers and commissions of ambassadors. Fuller concludes his account of him in these words : ' He was an excellent herald by the title of etc. About the year 1753, one Asciotti, an Italian, who had married a Flemish woman, brought a parcel of painted glass from Flanders, and sold it for a very few guineas to the honourable Mr. Bateman of Old Windsor. Upon that I sent Asciotti again to Flanders, who brought me 450 pieces, for which, including the expense of his journey, I paid him thirty-six guineas. His wife made more journeys for the same purpose, and sold her cargoes to one Palmer, a glazier in St. Martin's Lane, who immediately rose the price to one, two, five guineas for a single piece, and fitted up entire windows with them, and with mosaics of plain glass of different colours. In 1761, Paterson, an auctioneer at Essex House in the Strand, exhibited the first auctions of painted glass, imported in like manner from Flanders. All this manufacture consisted in rounds of scripture-stories, stained in black and yellow, or in small figures of black and white, birds and flowers in colours, and Flemish coats of arms. 1 Fuller's Worthies in Cambridgeshire. 122 PRINCE HENRY — HOPES ENTERTAINED OF HIM. 1 ,* and, which was the crown of all, a right honest man. 6 Exemplary his patience in his sickness (whereof I was an eye-witness), 1 though a complication of diseases, stone, ulcer in the bladder, etc., 6 seized on him.' He died at the Herald's Office, Dec. 23, 1650. SOLOMON DE CAUS, a Gascon, was Prince Henry's drawing-master. All 2 we know of him is, that in 161 2, the year of the prince's death, he published a book 3 entitled, 8 La Perspective, ou Raison des ombres et miroirs,' with several engraved plates, folio. 4 It is addressed from Richmond Palace to Prince Henry, after he had been, as he tells his highness, two or three years in his service; and another tract in folio on mechanic powers, 1682. This young prince was a great lover of the arts, and laid the foun- dation of the collection which his brother completed. *The medals were purchased by him ; and Vanderdort, in his catalogue, mentions several statues and pictures which King Charles inherited from Prince Henry. In the appendix to Birch's Life of this Prince are several letters from Sir Edward Conway ; in one (page 486) of which he men- tions having bought a picture of the Four Evangelists, whom he calls affectedly, 6 the most faithful, glorious, and excellent secretaries that ' ever were to the infinite incomprehensible Prince ;' desiring Mr. Adam Newton, i secretary to the most hopefull, powerfull, and glorious earthly ' prince,' to present it to his royal highness; and in others is much talk of a negotiation in which he was employed by the same prince to engage an eminent painter of Delft to come to England. This was Mireveldt, who had many solicitations afterwards from King Charles on the same head, but none succeeded. The printed letters are from the Harleian MSS., and describe Mireveldt as very fantastic and capricious. Mr. West has two others, one from Mireveldt to Sir Edward Conway, the other from Sir Edward, in which appears the cause of Mireveldt's uncertainty: he was afraid of being stayed in England by authority, and stipulated that he should have liberty to return in three months. In 1625, he had again engaged to come, but was prevented by the breaking out of the plague. Mireveldt is said to have painted five thousand portraits : there are some in England of his hand, as Henry, Earl of Southampton, at Woburn ; Sir Ralph Winwood ; a fine whole length at Kimbolton of Robert Rich, Earl of 1 It is extraordinary that Fuller, who was acquainted with him, did not know the title of his office. It appears by the warrant for the march, that Norgate was Windsor herald. He was also clerk of the signet. Masters's History of Corpus Christi Coll. Camb., p. 118. 2 I have learnt that the front of Wilton by Inigo Jones, was conducted by this De Caus. 3 There is another mentioned in a catalogue called Hortus Palatinus a Frederico rege Bohe- miae elect, palatin. Heidelbergae extructus. Solomone de Caus, architecto Francofurti. Jo. Theod. de Bry 1620, in folio. — Catalogue de Crevenne, vol. ii., p. 246. * From prints in that book I should thinklhat he was brother of Isaac de Caus, and assisted him in building the porticos and loggias of Gorhambury, and at least part of Camden House near Kensington.— Vide Brit. Topogr., vol ii., p. 375. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 1 23 Warwick; and a print of Robert, Earl of Lindsey, by Vorst, 1631, was engraved from a picture of Mireveldt : but these portraits must have been painted when those persons followed the wars and their business abroad. It was in the reign of King James that the manufacture of tapestry 1 was set up at Mortlack in Surrey. Aubrey, in his history of that county, dates its institution in the subsequent reign ; but Lloyd (State Worthies, p. 953) is not only positive for the former era, but affirms, that at the motion of King James himself, who gave two thousand pounds towards the undertaking, Sir Francis Crane erected the house at Mortlack for the execution of the design; and this is confirmed by authentic evidence : in Rymer's Fcedera (vol. xviii., p. 66) is an acknowledgment from King Charles, in the very first year of his reign, that he owes 2 6000/. to Sir Francis Crane for tapestry : — ' Francisco Crane militi, a.d. 1625. — For three suits of gold tapes- c try for our use we stand indebted to Sir Francis Crane for 6000/. i Granted to him an annuity of 1000/. To Sir Francis Crane also 6 allowed more 2000/. yearly for the better maintenance of the said ' works of tapestries for ten years to come.' It is plain by this deed, that the manufacture was then arrived at great perfection. Another suit of hangings, executed at the same place, and representing the five senses, was in the palace at Oatlands ; they were sold in 1649 f° r 2 7°^ At Hampton Court are some of the cartoons. The beautiful hangings at Lord Orford's at Houghton, containing whole lengths of King James, King Charles, their queens, and the King of Denmark, with heads of the royal children in the borders, were in all probability the production of the same manufacture. Williams, Archbishop of York and lord keeper, paid Sir Francis Crane 2,500/. for the four seasons. At Knowle is a piece of the same tapestry, wrought in silk, con- taining the portraits of Vandyck and Sir Francis himself. Mrs. Markham, whose maiden name was Crane, and a descendant of Sir Francis, has a half length portrait in tapestry of her ancestor, with the collar of St. George over his shoulders. She has also a picture in the same manufacture of St. George and the dragon. She is a Roman Catholic lady, and lives in Lincolnshire. At Lord Ilchester's, at Red- linch, in Somersetshire, is a suit of hangings of this manufacture, representing the twelve months in compartments. I have seen several more sets of the same design ; the habits are of the court of Francis 1 The art of weaving tapestry was brought into England by William Sheldon, Esq. , about the end of the reign of Henry VIII. See Dugdale's Warwickshire in stemraate Shelden, p. 584. At Mr. Sheldon's are four maps of Oxford, Worcester, Warwick, and Gloucester, shires, executed in tapestry on a large scale. 2 In the European Mag., Oct. 1786, p. 285, is a letter from Sir Francis Crane to James I. which explains that debt. 124 SCULPTURE DID NOT FLOURISH UNDER KING JAMES. L, and one of the months represents a gentleman and lady riding together to hawk. Of this person I find no further record with relation to the arts, but that he made a present to the king of a sea-piece painted by Persellis; and was dead when Vanderdort drew up the catalogue. 1 The manu- facture will be mentioned again in the article of Francesco Cleyne. Sculpture was carried to no great height in the reign of James : what statuaries there were, found employment chiefly on monuments, which, as far as I have seen, were generally in a bad taste. What little Vertue could discover of the artists I shall set down. MAXIMILIAN COLTE lived in St. Bartholomew's Close : in the church is a monument for his daughter Abigail, who died at the age of 16, March 29, 1629: and in the register of the parish is mentioned the interment of his wife Susan, who died in 1645. He had two sons, Alexander and John; the latter was a stone-cutter, and was buried in the same parish with his wife and children. Maximilian, the father, was of some eminence, and was in the service of the crown, as appears by an office-book of the board of works : ' Maximilian Colte, master sculptor, at 8/. a year, 1633. ' EPIPHANIUS EVESHAM was another sculptor of that time : in the translation of Owen's Epi- grams by John Penkethman, printed in 1624, the translator says, i Give me leave to insert his (Owen's) epitaph, which is engraved in a c plate of brass, and fixed under his monumental image, formed and 1 erected by that most exquisite artist, Mr. Epiphanius Evesham, in < the Cathedral of St. Paul.' NICHOLAS STONE was the statuary most in vogue. He was born at Woodbury, near Exeter, in 1586, and, coming to London, lived for some time with one Isaac James. He then went to Holland, where he worked for Peter de Keyser, whose daughter he married ; and returning to England was employed in making monuments for persons of the first distinc- tion. In 16 1 6 he was sent to Edinburgh to work in the king's chapel there. In 16 19 he was engaged on the building of the banqueting- house ; and in the beginning of the reign of King Charles, he received his patent as master mason, recorded in Rymer's Fcedera (Vol. xviii., 1 King Charles's Catalogue, p. 13. He went to Paris to be cut for the stone in the bladder in 1635, and probably died there. He was at that time engaged in a suit in the Star Chamber with Sir Robert Osborne, an old servant of King James, who had mortgaged to Crane for 7500/. the royal manor of Grafton, of which he was only tenant. See Strafford's Papers, vol. i., pp, 261, 336, 524. He was some time chancellor of the garter, and founded five additional alms-knights, by his will dated in 1635. See Aubrey's History of Surrey, vol. iii., p. 206. In Rymer is a patent granting to him and Frances Duchess of Richmond and Lennox the mono- poly of farthings for seventeen years. Vol. xviii., p. 143. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 12$ p. 6y$), of which this is the substance: 1 Know ye that we do give and ' graunt unto our trusty and well beloved servant Nicholas Stone, the i office and place of our master mason and architect for all our build- 6 ings and reparations belonging to our castle of Windsor during the ' term of his natural life; and further, for the executing the said office, 1 we do give him the wages and fee of twelve pence by the day in as 1 ample and as large a manner as 1 William Suthis or any other person 'heretofore did enjoy. A.D. 1626, April 20/ The history of his work is fully recorded by himself. Vertue met with his pocket-book, in which he kept an account of the statues and tombs he executed, of the persons for whom done, and of the pay- ments he received : a copy of this 2 pocket-book Vertue obtained, from which I shall extract the most remarkable and curious articles. 1 In June 16 14, I bargained with sir Walter Butler for to make a I tomb for the earl of Ormond, and to set it up in Ireland ; for the which I I had well payed me 100/. in hand, and 300/. when the work was set ' up at Kilkenny in Ireland.' * 1615. Agreed with Mr. Griffin for to make a tomb for my lord of ' Northampton 3 and to sett it in Dover-castle, for the which I had ' 500/. well payed. I made master Isaac James a partner with me in ' courtesy, because he was my master three years, that was, two years 6 of my prentice, and one year journeyman.' ' In May 1615, I did set up a tomb for sir Thomas Bodely in Oxford, ' for which Mr. Hackwell of Lincoln's-inn payed me 200/. good money.' ' In Nov. 1 61 5 Mr. Jansen in South wark and I did sett up a tomb 1 for Mr. Sutton at Charter-house, for the which we had 400/. well ' payed, but the little monument of Mr. Lawes was included, the which 1 I made and all the carven work of Mr. Sutton's tomb.' ' July 161 6 was I sent into Scotland, where I undertook to do work ' in the king's chappie and for the king's clossett, and the organ, so ' much as came to 450/. of wainscot-worke, the which I performed and 1 had my money well payed, and 50/. was given to drink, whereof I had ' 20/. given me by the king's command.' 6 1616. A bargain made with Mr. Chambers for the use of the right ' honorable Luce countes of Bedford, 4 for one fair and stately tomb of 6 touchstone and white marble for her father and mother and brother 1 William Suthis, master mason of Windsor Castle, citizen and goldsmith of London, is buried at Lambeth, where a tomb was erected for him by his wife. He died October 5, 1625. See the epitaph in Aubrey's History of Surrey, vol. v., p. 248. 2 Mr. Hawksmore had the original. Another copy was in the possession of Captain Wind, an architect who will be mentioned hereafter. 8 Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton. Catalog, of Royal and Noble Authors. 4 Lucy Harrington, a great heiress, wife of Edward, Earl of Bedford, whose fortune and her own she wasted. She was a great patroness of the wits of that age, and was much celebrated by them, particularly by Doctor Donne. May dedicated his Lucan to her. At Woburn there is a picture of her in a fantastic habit, dancing; and another very fine one by Honthorst, which will be mentioned hereafter. She was a collector of antique medals ; among Sir Thomas Roe's is a letter to her, or rather a dissertation, which infers that she was no mean Latin scholar. Vide p. 583. 126 PRICES PAID FOR ARCHITECTURAL LABOUR. ' and sister, for the which I was to have 1020/. and my lady was to ' stand at all charges for carridge and iron and setting up/ ' 16 19. A bargain made with sir Charles Morison of Cashioberry in 6 Hartfordshire for a tomb of alabaster and touchstone onely. One 'pictor of white marble for his father, and his own, and his sister the ' countess of Sesex, 1 as great as the life, of alabaster, for the which I had ' well payed 260/. and four pieces given me to drink.' ' 1 6 19. I was sent for to the officers of his majesty's workes to under- ' take the charge of the place of master mason for the new banquetting- ' house at Whitehall, wherein I was employed two years, and I had ' payed me four shillings and ten pence the day : and in that year I ' made the diall at St. James's, the king finding stone and workmanship ' only, and I had for it 61. 13^. 4^. And I took down the fountain at ' Theobalds, and sett it up again, and the fountain at Nonsuch, and I ' was paid for both 48 /.' ' And in 1622 I made the great diall 2 in the Privy-garden at White- 'hall, for the which I had 46/.' ' And that year 1622 I made a diall ' for my lord Brook in Holbourn, for the which I had 8/. lay.' * Unto ' sir John Daves at Chelsey I made two statues of an old man and a 'woman and a diall, for the which I had 7/. a piece.' ' And a tomb ' for Dr. Donne's wife in St. Clement-danes, for the which I had fifteen ' pieces.' ' 1620. In Suffolke I made a tomb for sir Edmund Bacon's lady, and ' in the same church of Redgrave I made another for his sister lady ' (Gawdy), and was very well payed for them. And in the same place I ' made two pictors of white marbell of sir N. Bacon and his lady ' and they were layed upon the tomb that Bernard Janson had ' made there, for the which two pictors I was payed by sir Edmund ' Bacon 200/. I also made a monument for Mr. Spencer the poet, and 6 set it up at Westminster, for the which the countess of Dorsett payed ' me 40/. And another there for Mr. Francis Holies, the youngest son i of the earl of Clare, for the which the sayd earl payed for it 50/. [As this figure is of most antique simplicity and beauty, the design was certainly given by the earl to Stone, who when left to himself had no idea of grace, as appears by the tomb of the Lytteltons at Oxford.] ' My lord of Clare also agreed with me for a monument for his brother ' sir George Holies, the which I made and sett up in the chappell at ' Westminster where sir Francis Vere lyeth buried, for the which I was 'payed from the hands of the said earl of Clare 100/.' 'And in the 6 same church I made an inscription for sir Richard Cox, for the which 'I had 30/.' 'And another fast by for monsieur Casabon: the lord ' bishop of Durham payed for it 60/.' S And about this time (1625) I made for the Old Exchange in London 1 Bridget Morrison, wife of Robert Radcliffe Earl of Sussex. 2 Mr. Marr drew the lines. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 127 ' four statues, the one Edw. 5, Rich. 3, and Hen. 7, for these three I 6 had 25 /. a piece, and one for queen Elizabeth, which was taken down 6 and set up again where now it standeth at Guildhall gate, for the t which I had 30/.' 6 And in 1629 I made a tomb for my lady Paston of Norfolk, and sett 1 it up at Paston, and was very extraordinarily entertained there, and c payed for it 340/.'* ' In 1631 I made a tomb for the right hon. lady 1 the countess of Buckingham, and sett it up in Westminster-abbey, and ' was payed for it 560 6 In 163 1 I made a tomb for doctor Donne, 1 ' and sett it up in St. Paul's London, for the which I was payed by 6 doctor Mountford, the sum of 120/. I took 60/. in plate, in part of 1 payment/ ' In 1634 I made a chemny-peece for sir John Holland, 'and sett it up at Godnon [Quidnam] in Norfolk, for the which I 'had joo/.' -And 1632 I made a chemny-peece for Mr. Paston, sett up at Oxnett * in Norfolk, and for the which I had 80/. and one statue of Venus and ' Cupid, and had 30/. for it; and one statue of Jupiter 25/. and the f three-headed dog Cerberus with a pedestal 14/. and Seres, and Her- 1 cules, and Mercury 50 /. 2 and a tomb for my lady Catherine his dear * wife 200/. and a little chemny-peece in a banquetting-house 30/. and i one Ranee marbel tabel with a foot 15 /. and divers other things sent 'down to him from time to time, as paintings, arms, &c., and in May '1641 sent to him three statues, the one Appollo, Diana, and Juno, ' agreed for 25 /. a piece, with pedestals.' ' In 1635 I made a tomb for the two sonns of sir Thomas Littleton, 'and sett it up in Maiden-college in Oxford, where the boys were * drowned, for the which work I had 30// 'In 1649 * made a tomb i for my lord Castleton vycount Dorchester, and sett it up at West- ' minster-abbey, for the which I had 200/. and an old monument that ' stood in the same place before sett up for his lady some eight years i before.' 8 1 This monument of Doctor Donne is remarkable for its singularity ; a print of it is prefixed to the first edition of his Sermons. Another plate is in Dugdale's St. Paul's. 2 These three statues, on the extinction of the house of Paston, were sold to the Earl of Buckingham. 3 As persons of curiosity may be glad to know the workman and the expense of the tombs of their ancestors, I shall here briefly recapitulate the rest. For Lady Bennet's at York, 35/. Sir Roger Wilbraham's at Hadley by Barnet, 80/. Sir Thomas Hayes in Aldermanbury, 100/. Sir Robert Drury at Hasteed by Bury, 140/. Alderman Anguish at Norwich, 20/. Sir Thomas Ewer at Lynn, 95/. Lady Carey* mother of Lord Danvers, at Stow, Northampton- shire, 220/. Mr. Molesworth at Croyland, 23/. Mrs. Palmer at Enfield, 16/. Sir Thomas Cornwallis, groom-porter, at Portchester, 18/. Mr. Cornwallis of Suffolk, 16/. Sir Thomas Monson's father and mother, set up two miles beyond Lincoln. For Sir Edward Paston, 100/. Sir Charles Morrison and his lady in the chancel at Watford, 400/. Sir George Copen at St. Martin's, 40/. Dr. Barker in New College Oxford, 50/. Lord Knevett at Stanwell, Middle- sex, 215/. Sir Adam Niton (Newton) at Charlton by Greenwich, 180/. Sir Humphrey Lee at Acton Bromwell, '6/. Sir Thomas Palmer at Winam, Kent, 100/. Sir Thomas Meary at * Elizabeth Nevil, daughter of John Lord Latimer, by Lady Lucy Somerset, daughter of Henry Earl of Worcester. Lady Elizabeth was first married to Sir John Danvers of Daunte- sey, and then to Sir Edmund Carey, son of Henry Lord Hunsdon. She died in 1630, aged 84. The tomb, I am assured, is admirably performed. 128 BUILDINGS AND MONUMENTS BY NICHOLAS STONE. The whole receipts, as they were cast up by Stone's kinsman, Charles •Stoakes, amounted to 10,889/. Besides these works, Stone, in 1629, undertook to build for the Earl of Holland, at Kensington, two piers of good Portland stone, to hang a pair of great wooden gates ; the estimate of the piers (which were designed by Inigo Jones, and are still standing at Holland-house, though removed to greater distance from each other) was 100/. He built the great gate of St. Mary's church, and the stone gates for the physic-garden at Oxford, designed too by Inigo, for the Earl of Danby, by whom (as by some other persons) he was employed even as an architect. The earl ordered Stone to design a house for him at Cornbury, and to direct the workmen; for which he was paid 1000/. In 1638, he built Tart Hall, near Buckingham-house, for the Countess of Arundel, and had paid to him at different times to pay workmen 634/. He built the front of St. Mary's, at Oxford, and executed many works at Windsor for King Charles, particularly three cartouches to support the balcony, the star and garter. The figure of the Nile on the stairs at Somerset House, was of his work; the other statue was done by Kerne, a German, who married Stone's sister. He employed several workmen, some of whose names he has preserved among his own accounts, as follow : 6 1629. John Har grave made a statue of Sir Edward Cook, for 6 15 /. os. od. 163 1. Humphrey Mayor flnisht the statue for Dr. Donne's 1 monument, 8/. os. od. 1638. John Hargrave made the statue to the ' monument of Lord Spencer, 14/. os. od. ; and Richard White made ' the statue of Lady Spencer, 15 /. os. od. 1643. John Schurman, carver. Nicholas Stone died in 1647, an d was buried in St. Martin's, where on the north wall, within the church, is the following inscription, with a profile of his head : ' To the lasting memory of Nicholas Stone, Esq., master mason to ' his majesty, in his lifetime esteemed for his knowledge in sculpture 'and architecture, which his works in many parts do testify, and> ' though made for others, will prove monuments of his fame. He 6 departed this life on the 24th of August, 1647, aged sixty-one, and i lyeth buried near the pulpit in this church. Mary, his wife, and ' Nicholas, his son, lye also buried in the same grave. She died ' Nov. 19th, and he on the 17th of Sept., 1647. H. S. posuit/ Stone had three sons, Henry, Nicholas, and John. The two eldest were sent to Italy to study; the youngest was educated at Oxford, being designed for a clergyman, but in the civil war he entered into Walthamstow, 50/. Sir William Stonehouse at Radley, Oxfordshire, 120/. Sir Richard and Lady Verney at Compton Verney, 90/. Mr. Cook and his wife at Brampton, Suffolk, 130/. Sir Julius Caesar in St. Helen's, London, no/. Lord and Lady Spencer at Althorp, 600/. This was in 1638. Lord Chief Justice Coke at Tittleshall, 400/. Sir Thomas Puckering at Warwick, 200/. Judge Hatton at St. Dunstan's by Temple Bar. 40/. Sir J. Worsnom at Stanmore, 200/. and a porch to the new church there, 30/. Besides others for very obscure persons, and without specification of place. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. I29 the army on the king's side. During that period this John Stone published a book on fortification, called Enchiridion, with many small cuts etched by himself but without his name. The king's forces being routed, young Stone and a companion made their escape; the latter was taken, and hanged before his father's door in Smithfield ; but Stone hid himself in his father's house in Long Acre for above a twelvemonth, without the knowledge, says Vertue, of his father ; whence, I suppose, he had either offended the old man by quitting his studies for arms, or the father was too prudent to risk the emoluments of his profession by engaging in party dissensions. John at last found means of retiring to France, where he lived some years, and, I conclude, applied himself to the aits, as we shall find him after his return engaged in his father's business. Nicholas, the second son, was of a promising genius; and while abroad, modelled after the antiques so well that his works have been mistaken for the best Italian masters. Mr. Bird, the statuary, had the Laocoon, and Bernini's Apollo, and Daphne, in terra cotta, by this Nicholas Stone; and Vertue saw a book with many of his drawings of palaces, churches, and other buildings in Italy. He returned to England in 1642, and died the same year as his father. Henry, the eldest son, who erected the monument for his father, mother, and brother, carried on, in conjunction with John, the business of a statuary after his father's death ; though Henry addicted himself chiefly to painting, and was an excellent copyist of Vandyck and the Italian masters; he is generally known by the name of ' Old Stone/ I suppose to distinguish him from his brother John. Henry wrote a book, a thin folio, entitled ' The third part of the Art of Painting/ taken mostly from the ancients. Vertue, who saw this book, was uncertain whether the two former parts were composed by Stone, or by some other author. The accounts of Nicholas Stone, sen., which I have quoted above, were continued by John, while he and Henry worked in partnership; among other articles are the following: ' In the year of our Lord, 1659, my brother and I made a tomb for i the Lord Ashley, for which we had 60 /. Formerly I made a little 1 tomb of white marble, being an eagle with an escutcheon upon his 'breast, sett up at Sunning, in Barkshire, for 7/. In A° 1656, I sett f up a little tomb in the Temple Church for Sir John Williams, and had 'for it 10/. It was an eagle of white marble.' There are but fifteen monuments entered in this account, the prices of none of which rise above 100/. Consequently the sons, I suppose, never attained the reputation of the father. A head of Sir Jonas Moore, with a scroll of paper in his hand, was engraved by T. Cross, in 1649, fr° m a painting by Henry Stone, 1 whose house, garden, and work-yard in Long Acre, the same that had been 1 Ferdinando Boll, the painter, sent his own portrait to Henry Stone, in exchange for his. Boll's was sol4 to Counsellor Eades at Warwick in 1680. IO 130 HENRY STONE, PAINTER AND STATUARY. his father's, were rented from the crown at 10/. a year, as appeared when surveyed in 1650, by the commissioners appointed to inspect the lands that had belonged to the king. Henry Stone died in 1653, and was buried near his father, where a monument was erected, and this epitaph written for him by his brother John : 6 To the memory of Henry Stone, of Long-acre, painter and statuary, * who having passed the greatest part of thirty-seven years in Holland, c France, and Italy, atchieved a fair renown for' his excellency in arts 1 and languages, and departed this life on the 24th day of August, A.D. 1 1653, and lyeth buried near the pulpit in this church: * His friends bewail him thus : Could arts appease inexorable fate, Thou hadst survived this untimely date; Or, could our votes have taken place, the sun Had not been set thus at it's glorious noon ; Thou shouldst have lived such statues to have shown As Michael Angelo might have wished his own ; And still thy most unerring pencil might Have rais'd his admiration and delight, That the beholders should inquiring stand Whether 'twas Nature's or the Artist's hand. But thy too early death we now deplore, There was not art that thou couldst live to more, Nor could thy memory by age be lost, If not preserved by this pious cost ; Thy name's a monument that will surpass The Parian marble or Corinthian brass. ( John Stone to perfect his fraternal affections erected this monument.' And a little lower, June, 1699: 6 Four rare Stones are gone, The father and three sons ; ' In memory of whom, their near kinsman, Charles Stoakes, repaired 1 this monument/ John Stone, the last of the family, died soon after the restoration; and Stoakes, the person above mentioned, from whom Vertue learned all these circumstances, came into possession of many drawings, prints, paintings, models, etc., particularly many portraits of the family in small by Henry Stone; and from Stoakes, the pictures fell into the hands of Mr. Cock, the auctioneer. BERNARD JANSEN was an architect at the same time that Nicholas Stone was the fashion- able statuary. They were employed together, as appears by the fore- HORACE WALPOLE-'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. going memorandums, on the tomb of Mr. Sutton, the founder of the Charter-house. Of what country Jansen 1 was, does not appear; by both his names I conclude a foreigner, and probably a Fleming, as he was a professed imitator of Dieterling, a famous builder in the Nether- lands, who wrote several books on architecture. Jansen was engaged on many great works 2 here ; he built Audley Inn, 3 and the greater part of Northumberland House, except the frontispiece, which Vertue dis- covered to be the work of the next artist. GERARD CHRISMAS. Before the portal of that palace was altered by the late Duke of Northumberland, there were in a frieze near the top in large capitals C. JE. 9 an enigma long inexplicable to antiquaries. Vertue found that at the period when the house was built, lived Chrismas, an architect and carver of reputation, who gave the design of Aldersgate, and cut the bas-relief on it of James I. on horseback, and thence concluded that those letters signified Chrismas sediflcavit. 4 Jansen probably built the house, which was of brick ; and the frontispiece, which was of stone, was finished by Chrismas. The carvers of the great ship, built at Woolwich by Mr. Peter Pett in 1637, were John and Mathias Chrismas, 5 sons of Gerard. 6 1 Among the Harleian MSSc No. 8, art. 15, are articles of agreement between Paul D'ewes, Esq., and Jan. Jansen, stone-cutter, for setting up a tomb in the church of Stowlangtoft. Dated June 25, 1624. 2 This account Vertue received from Stoakes the relation of Stone, mentioned in the preced- ing article. 3 Audley Inn, near Walden in Essex, was an immense pile of building; the rooms large, but some of them not lofty in proportion, and a gallery of ninety-five yards, which with the chapel, and great council chamber, each projecting backwards from the ends of the gallery, have been demolished. The present chapel was lately fitted up. The screen accompanying the ascent of steps from the hall was designed by Sir John Vanbrugh, and has no relation to the rest of the building. That injudicious architect too advised the destruction of the first court, which consisted of noble corridors supported by columns of alabaster, in the room of which he built two ugly brick walls which cost 1600/. The marble pillars of the chapel were purchased by Lord Onslow. King William bought thence some suits of tapestry, now at Windsor, for which he paid 4500/. The drawing-room, called the fish-room, is a noble cham- ber ; the ceiling and a deep frieze adorned in stucco with sea-monsters, and great fishes swim- ming. All the costly chimney-pieces have been sold; over that in the gallery were the labours of Hercules, and in the ceiling, the loves of the gods. Many of the friezes still extant are in very good taste. It was erected by Thomas Howard Earl of Suffolk, lord treasurer in the reign of James I., and was generally supposed to be founded on Spanish gold, his countess, who had great sway with him, being notoriously corrupt. There is a whole length of her in the hall at Gorhambury. She was mother of the memorable Frances Countess of Essex and Somerset; whose escutcheon still (1762) remains entire in the chancel of the church at Walden, one of the lightest and most beautiful parish churches I have seen. 4 In the New Description of London, vol. 5 it is said, that from some* letters on the front, when it was last rebuilt, it was inferred, that one Moses Glover was the architect ; which is not improbable, as that great curiosity at Sion House, the survey of Sion and the neighbouring villages, was performed by Moses Glover, painter and architecter. In that valuable plan are views of the royal houses and seats in the neighbourhood. 5 They also made a tomb at Ampton in Suffolk, for Sir H. Calthorpe. Gough's Topogr. vol. i., p. 579. In the same work is mentioned a panegyric on Mayster Gerard Chrismas for bringing pagents and figures to such great perfection both in symmetry and substance, being before but unshapen monsters made only of slight wicker and paper, p. 676. 6 Vertue had seen a printed copy of verses in"praise of the father. It is probable, that originally there was a larger inscription, containing, I suppose, the titles 10 i 132 BUILDINGS OF WELBECK AND BOLSOVER CASTLE. JOHN SMITHSON was an architect in the service of the Earls of Newcastle. He built part of Welbeck in 1604, the riding-house 1 there in 1623, and the stables in 1625 ; and when William Cavendish, Earl and afterwards Duke of Newcastle, proposed to repair and make great additions to Bolsover Castle, Smithson, it is said, was sent to Italy to collect designs. From them I suppose it was that the noble apartment erected by that duke, and lately pulled down, was completed, Smithson dying in 1648. Many of Smithson's drawings were purchased by the late Lord Byron from his descendants who lived at Bolsover, in the chancel of which church Smithson is buried, with this inscription : ' Reader, beneath this plain stone buried lies Smithson's remainder of mortality ; Whose skill in architecture did deserve A fairer tomb his memory to preserve ; But since his nobler works of piety To God, his justice and his charity, Are gone to heaven, a building to prepare Not made with hands, his friends contented are. He here shall rest in hope, till th ? worlds shall burn, And intermingle ashes with his urn. ' Ob. Decemb. 27, 1648/ His son, a man of some skill in architecture, was buried in the same grave. BUTLER, a name preserved only by Peacham, in whose time Butler seems to have been still living ; for, speaking of architecture and of the Lord Treasurer Salisbury, 4 who,' he adds, c as he favoureth all learning and i excellency, so he is a principal patron of this art, having lately em- ployed Mr. Butler and many excellent artists for the beautifying his '* , especially his chapel at Hatfield.' STEPHEN HARRISON, who calls himself joiner and architect, invented the triumphal arches erected in London for the reception of James I. They were engraved by Kip on a few leaves in folio : a work I never saw but in the library Chatsworth. 1 As appears by his name over the gate. , . - - ,-. — r . of the Earl of Northampton the founder, in Latin, as well as the builder's name : for in Cam- den's Annalium Apparatus of James the First, p. 45, at the end of his Letters, it is said, that at the funeral of Queen Anne, a young man among the spectators was killed by the fall of the letter S from the top of Northampton House. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 1 33 I shall conclude what I have to say on the reign of King James with a brief account of a few of his medallists. This article is one of the most deficient in Vertue's notes ; he had found but very slight mate- rials, though equally inquisitive on this head with the rest. One must except the subject of the two Simons, of whose works as he himself published a most curious volume, I shall omit the mention of them in this catalogue, only desiring that Vertue's account of the two Simons and Hollar, and the catalogues of the collections of King Charles, King James, and the Duke of Buckingham, may be regarded as parts of this his great design. By those specimens one sees how perfect he wished and laboured to make the whole. I was in hopes of completing this article by having recourse to Mr. Evelyn's Discourses on Medals, but was extremely disappointed to find that in a folio volume, in which he has given the plates and in- scriptions of a regular series of our medals, he takes not the least notice of the gravers. I should not have expected that a virtuoso so knowing would have contented himself with descriptions of the persons repre- sented, he who had it in his inclination, and generally in his power, to inform posterity of almost everything they would wish to learn. Had Mr. Evelyn never regretted his ignorance of the names of the workmen of those inimitable medals of the Seleucidas, of the fair coins of Augus- tus, and of the denarii of the other Roman emperors ? Was he satis- fied with possessing the effigies of Tiberius, Claudius, Irene, without wishing to know the names of the ingenious and more harmless gravers ? Why did he think posterity would not be as curious to learn who were the medallists of Char. II., James I., Mary I. ? He has omitted all names of gravers except in two or three of the plates, and even there says not a word of the artist. For instance, in a medal of Char. I., p. 113, under the king's bust are the letters N. R. F. I can- not discover who this N. R. was. 1 Thomas Rawlins was a graver of the mint about this time ; perhaps he had a brother who worked in partnership with him. I was so surprised at this omission, that I con- cluded Mr. Evelyn must have treated of the gravers in some other part of the work. I turned to the index, and to my greater surprise found almost everything but what I wanted. In the single letter N, which contains but twenty-six articles, are the following subjects, which I believe would puzzle any man to guess how they found their way into a discourse on medals : ' Nails on the cross. Narcotics. Nations, whence of such various 1 dispositions. Natural and artificial curiosities. Navigation. Nea- politans, their character. Negros. Neocoros. Nightingale. Noah. ' Noses. Nurses, of what importance their temper and dispositions/ In short, Mr. Evelyn, who loved to know, was too fond of telling the 1 Unless it was Norbei t Rotier, who arrived in the reign of Charles II. In that case, the medal in question must have been executed after the Restoration. 134 '-T HE VIRTUE, INGENUITY, AND LEARNING OF JOHN EVELYN. world all he knew. 1 His virtue, industry, ingenuity, and learning were remarkable ; one wishes he had written with a little more judgment — or perhaps it is not my interest to wish so ; it would be more prudent to shelter under his authority any part of this work that is not much to the purpose. All this author says (p. 239) of our medallists is, that we had Symons, Rawlins, Mr. Harris, Christian, etc., and then refers us to his Chalcography (p. 49), where indeed he barely names two more, Restrick and Johnson, of whom I can find no other account. The reader must therefore accept what little is scattered up and down in Vertue's MSS. I have already mentioned one or two in a preceding part of this volume. The first graver I meet in the reign of James is CHARLES ANTONY, to whom Sir Thomas Knyvet, master of the mint in the second of that king, paid by warrant 40/. for gold and workmanship, for graving an offering piece of gold, Antony having then the title of the king's graver. 2 Vertue supposes this person made the medal in 1604 on the peace with Spain, a medal not mentioned by Evelyn, and that he continued in office till 1620. Mr. Anstis informed him of a warrant to a brother of Charles Antony, called THOMAS ANTONY, curatori monetae et sigillorum regis ad cudendum magnum sigillum pro episcopatu et comitatu palatino Dunelm. 161 7. But of neither of these brothers do I find any other traces. THOMAS BUSHELL was probably a medallist of the same age. In the year 1737 Mr. Compton produced at the Antiquarian Society, as I find by their minutes, a gold medal larger than a crown piece ; on one side Lord Chancellor Bacon in his hat and robes, with this legend ; c Bacon 6 Viceco. S ct * Alb. Anglias CancehV On the reverse, 6 Thomas Bushell. 6 Deus est qui clausa recluclit.' NICHOLAS BRIOT was a native of Lorraine, and graver of the mint to the King of France, in which kingdom he was the inventor, or at least one of the first 1 Among other branches of science, if one can call it so, Mr. Evelyn studied physiognomy, and found dissimulation, boldness, cruelty, and ambition in every touch and stroke of Fuller's picture of Oliver Cromwell's face, which he says was the most resembling portrait of the pro- tector. In Vandyck's Earl of Strafford, a steady, serious, and judicious countenance ; and so in many others whose characters from knowing their history he fancied he saw in their features. How his divination would have been puzzled if he had been shown a picture of Cromwell in the contemptible appearance, which, Sir Philip Warwick says, he made at his first entry into the house of commons ! Or if my Lord Strafford had continued to oppose the court, and had never changed sides, would Mr. Evelyn have found his countenance so steady and judicious ? 2 I have a thin plate of silver larger than a crown piece, representing King James on his throne. It is very neat workmanship, and probably by this Antony. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 135 proposers of coining money by a press, instead of the former manner of hammering. As I am ignorant myself in the mechanic part of this art, and have not even the pieces quoted by Vertue, I shall tread very cautiously, and only transcribe the titles of some memorials which he had seen, and from whence I conclude a literary controversy was carried on in France on the subject of this new invention, to which, according to custom, the old practitioners seem to have objected, as probably interfering with the abuses of which they were in prescriptive possession. Raisons de Nicolas Briot, tailleur et graveur des monoyes de France, pour rendre et faire toutes les monoyes du royaume a l'advenir uniformes et semblables, etc. Les remonstrances faites par la cour des monoyes contre la nouvelle invention d'une presse ou machine pour fabriquer les monoyes, proposee par Nicolas Briot, 161 8. quo. Examen d'un avis presente au conseil de sa majeste 1621 pour la reformation des monoyes par Nicolas Briot. Compose par Nicholas Coquerel. This Coquerel, I find by another note, was generalis monetarius, or pope of the mint into which the reformation was to be introduced. The Luther, Briot, I suppose miscarried, as we soon afterwards find him in the service of the crown of England, where projectors were more favourably received. From these circumstances I conclude he arrived in the reign of King James, though he did not make his way to court before the accession of King Charles, the patron of genius. Briot's first public work was a medal of that prince exhibited in Evelyn, with the artist's name and the date 1628. To all or to almost all his coins and medals he put at least the initial letter of his name. He was employed both in England and Scotland. In 163 1, as appears by Rymer's Feed., torn, xix., p. 287, a special com- mission was appointed for making trial of the experience, skill, and industry of Nicholas Briot, in the coinage of money at the mint, dated June 13, 163 1, at Westminster. This was the project he had attempted in France, by instruments, mills, and presses, to make better money and with less expense to the crown than by the way of hammering. The scheme was probably approved, for in the very next year we find him coining money upon the regular establishment. There is extant a parchment-roll, containing the accounts of Sir Robert Harley, Knight of the Bath, master-worker of his majesty's moneys of gold and silver within the Tower of London, in the reign of King Chas. L, from Nov. 8, 1628, to Aug, 1, 1636. In this account in 1632, are payments to Briot for coining various parcels of gold and silver, which are followed by this entry : 1 And delivered to his majestic in fair silver moneys at Oatlands 'by Sir Thomas Aylesbury, viz. iij crownes, and iij half crownes of 6 Briot's moneys, and iij crownes, and iij half crownes, and ten shillings 4 of the nionoyers making.' 136 ENGRAVINGS OF NICHOLAS DE BRIOT. These comparative pieces were probably presented to the king by Sir Robert Harley, B riot's patron, to show the superior excellence of the latter's method. Briot returned to France about 1642, having formed that excellent scholar Thomas Simon. In a private family (the name of which he does not mention) Vertue saw a peach-stone, on which was carved the head of King Charles full-faced, with a laurel, and on the reverse, St. George on horseback, with the garter round it, and on one side above the king's head, these letters KB. The tradition in that family was, that the carver having been removed from the service of the crown, and at last obtaining the place of poor knight at Windsor, cut that curiosity to show he was not superannuated nor incapable of his office, as he had been represented. If the mark KB signified Nicholas Briot, as is probable, either the story is fictitious, or Briot did not return to France on the breaking out of the civil war. The latter is most likely, as in the Treasury, where the plate of St. George's Chapel is deposited, there is such another piece, though inferior in workmanship to that above mentioned. In the museum at Oxford are two small carvings in wood, Christ on the cross, and the nativity, with the same cypher K3 on each. I have a bronze dish ornamented in a good grotesque taste in relief, with the elements and the seven liberal sciences. On the bottom of the outside is a good deal of Francis Briot, who was probably the brother of Nicholas. CHAPTER IX. Charles I. His Love and Protection of the Arts. — Accounts of Vandcrdort and Sir Balthazar Gerbier. — Dispersion of the Kings Collection, and of the Eaid of Arundel's. The accession of this prince was the first era of real taste in England. As his temper was not profuse, the expense he made in collections, and the rewards he bestowed on men of true genius and merit, are proofs of his judgment. He knew how and when to bestow. Queen Elizabeth was avaricious with pomp; James I. lavish with meanness. A prince who patronizes the arts, and can distinguish abilities, enriches his country, and is at once generous and an economist. Charles had virtues to make a nation happy; fortunate, if he had not thought that he alone knew how to make them happy, and that he alone ought to have the power of making them so ! His character, as far as it relates to my subject, is thus given by Lilly : ' He had many excellent parts in nature, was an excellent ' horseman, would shoot well at a mark, had singular skill in limning, HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 137 'was a good judge of pictures, a good mathematician, not unskilful ' in music, well read in divinity, excellently in history and law, he 'spoke several languages, and writ well, good language and style.' Perinchief is still more particular: 1 His soul/ says that writer, ' was 'stored with a full knowledge of the nature of things, and easily ' comprehended almost all kinds of arts that either were for delight, \ or of a public use; for he was ignorant of nothing, but of what ' he thought it became him to be negligent; for many parts of learning, ' that are for the ornament of a private person, are beneath the cares of 1 a crowned head. He was well skilled in things of antiquity, could 'judge of medals whether they had the number of years they pretended 'unto; his libraries and cabinets were full of those things on which ' length of time put the value of rarities. In painting he had so ' excellent a fancy, that he would supply the defect of art in the ' workman, and suddenly draw those lines, give those airs and lights, 'which experience and practice had not taught the painter. He could 'judge of fortifications, and censure whether the cannon were mounted ' to execution or no. He had an excellent skill in guns, knew all that ' belonged to their making. The exactest arts of building ships for the ' most necessary uses of strength or good sailing, together with all their ' furniture, were not unknown to him. He understood and was pleased ' with the making of clocks and watches. 1 He comprehended the art 'of printing. There was not any one gentleman of all the three 'kingdoms that could compare with him in any universality of know- ledge. He encouraged all the parts of learning, and he delighted to ' talk with all kind of artists, and with so great a facility did apprehend ' the mysteries of their professions, that he did sometimes say, " He ' "thought he could get his living, if necessitated, by any trade he knew '."of, but making of hangings ;" although of these he understood much, ' and was greatly delighted in them ; for he brought some of the most * curious workmen from foreign parts to make them here in England.' 2 With regard to his knowledge of pictures, I find the following anecdote from a book called, ' The Original and Growth of Printing,' by Richard Atkyns, Esq. ' This excellent prince,' says that author, ' who ' was not only aliquis in omnibus, but singularis in omnibus, hearing of ' rare heads (painted) amongst several other pictures brought me from ' Rome, sent Sir James Palmer to bring them to Whitehall to him, ' where were present divers picture-drawers and painters. He asked 1 Mr. Oughtred made a horizontal instrument for delineating dials for him : * Elias Allen, ' says that celebrated mathematician, having been sworn his majesty's servant, had a purpose ' to present his majesty with some new year's gift, and requested me to devise some pretty in- ' strument for him. I answered that I have heard that his majesty delighted much in the great ' concave dial at Whitehall ; and what fitter instrument could he have than my horizontal, 'which was the very same represented in flat?' Biogr. Brit., vol. v., p. 3279. Delamain, another mathematician, made a ring dial for the king, which his majesty valued so much, that, on the morning before he was beheaded, he ordered it to be given to the Duke of York, with a book showing its use. Ib., p. 3283. 2 Life of Charles I. at the end of the Icon Basilike, edit. ^27. LOVE OF ART DISPLAYED BY CHARLES I. 'them all of whose hand that was ? Some guessed at it; others were of 6 another opinion, but none was positive. At last, said the king, This is * of such a man's hand, I know it as well as if I had seen him draw it ; 'but, said he, is there but one man's hand in this picture? None did ' discern whether there was or not ; but most concluded there was but 6 one hand. Said the king, I am sure there are two hands have workt 1 in it; for I knew the hand that drew the heads, but the hand that did 6 the rest I never saw before. Upon this a gentleman that had been at ' Rome about ten years before, affirmed that he saw this very picture, i with the two heads unfinished at that time, and that he heard his brother ' (who staid there some years after him) say, that the widow of the i painter that drew it wanting money, got the best master she could find 6 to finish it and make it saleable.' This story, which in truth is but a blind one, especially as Mr. Atkyns does not mention even the name of the painter of his own picture, seems calculated to prove a fact, of which I have no doubt, his majesty's knowledge of hands. The gentle- man who stood by, and was so long before he recollected so circum- stantial a history of the picture, was, I dare say, a very good courtier. The king is said not only to have loved painting, but to have practised it; it is affirmed that Rubens corrected some of his 1 majesty's drawings. It was immediately after his accession that Charles began to form his collection. The crown was already in possession of some good pictures — Hen. VIII. had several. What painters had been here had added others. Prince Henry, as I have said, had begun a separate collection both of paintings and statues. All these Charles assembled, and sent commissions into France and Italy to purchase more. Cross 2 was sent into Spain to copy the works of Titian there ; and no doubt, as soon as the royal taste was known, many were brought over and offered to sale at court. The ministers and nobility were not back- ward with presents of the same nature. Various are the accounts of the jewels and baubles presented to magnificent Elizabeth. In the catalogue of King Charles's collection are recorded the names of several of the court who ingratiated themselves by offerings of pictures and curiosities. But the noblest addition was made by the king himself ; 1 pe Piles, in his Life of Rubens, says, that the king's mother-in-law, Mary de' Medici, designed well. 2 Vincentio Carducci in his Dialogo della Pittura, printed at Madrid in 1633, calls him Michael de la Crux ; others say it was Henry Stone, jun., who was sent to Spain. When Charles was at that court, the King of Spain gave him a celebrated picture by Titian called the Venus del Pardo, see Catal., p. 103; and the Cain and Abel by John of Bolona, which King Charles afterwards bestowed on the Duke of Buckingham, who placed it in the garden of York House. See Peacham, p. 10S. From Whitlocke, p. 24, we have the following in- formation : ' In December the queen was brought to bed of a second daughter named ' Elizabeth. To congratulate her majesty's safe delivery, the Hollanders sent hither a ' solemn ambassy and a noble present, a large piece of ambergrease, two fair china basons ' almost transparent, a curious clock, and four rare pieces of Tintoret's and Titian's painting. 1 Some supposed that they did it to ingratiate the more with our king, in regard his fleet was ' so powerfull at sea, and they saw him resolved to maintain his right and dominion there.' HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 139 he purchased at a great 1 price the entire cabinet of the Duke of Mantua, then reckoned the most valuable in Europe. But several of those pic- tures were spoiled by the quicksilver on the frames, owing I suppose to carelessness in packing them up. Vanderdort, from whom alone we have this account, does not specify all that suffered, though in general he is minute even in describing their frames. The list, valu- able as it is, notwithstanding all its blunders, inaccuracy, and bad English, was I believe never completed, which might be owing to the sudden death of the composer. There are accounts in MS. of many more pictures, indubitably of that collection, not specified in the printed catalogue. Now I have mentioned this person, Vanderdort, it will not be foreign to the purpose to give some little account of him, especially as to him we owe, however mangled, the only record of that royal museum. 2 Abrahaham Vanderdort, a Dutchman, had worked for the Emperor Rodolphus, whose service he left we do not know on what occasion. He brought away with him a bust of a woman modelled in wax as large as the life, which he had begun for that monarch ; but Prince Henry was so struck with it, that, though the emperor wrote several times for it, the young prince would neither part with the work nor the workman, telling him he would give him as good entertainment as any emperor would — and indeed Vanderdort seems to have made no bad bargain. He parted with the bust to the prince upon condition that, as soon as the cabinet, then building from a design of Inigo Jones, should be finished, he should be made keeper of his royal highness's medals with a salary of 50/. a year; 3 a contract voided by the death of the prince. However, upon the accession of King Charles, Vanderdort was imme- diately retained in his service with a salary of 40/. a year, and appointed keeper of the cabinet. The room was erected about the middle of Whitehall, running across from the Thames towards the banqueting- house, and fronting westward to the privy-garden. 4 Several warrants for payments to Vanderdort as follows are extant in Rymer and among the Conway Papers : one of the latter is singular indeed, and shows in what favour he stood with his royal master. 6 The second day of April, 1625, at St. James. His majesty was 6 pleased by my lord duke of Buckingham's meanes to send for sir 1 The lowest I have heard was 20,000/. So R. Symondes said. At Kensington are several pieces of the Venetian and Lombard schools, in uniform frames of black and gold, the pic- tures themselves much damaged. These I take to have been part of the collection from Mantua. 2 The original copy, of which there were two or three transcripts, is preserved in the Ashmo- lean Museum at Oxford. Tom Hearne once thought of publishing it, but at last concluding it was German, gave it over. Mr. Vertue, better grounded, and still more patient, transcribed it for the press ; but dying before the impression was finished, it was published by Mr. Bathoe, as were Vertue's Catalogues of the collections of James II. the Duke of Buckingham, Queen Caroline, etc., the whole making 3 vols. 4to. 3 See Birch's Life of Prince Henry, Append., p. 467 ; and Rymer, vol. xviii., p. 100, which gave him the patent of being the king's medallist in gold, silver, brass, etc. * Catalogue of King Charles's Collection, p. 164. 140 PATENTS BESTOWED ON ARTISTS BY CHARLES I. 1 Edward Villiers, warden of his majesty's mint, as also for his owne ' servant Abraham Vanderdoort, where his majesty did command in the * presence of the said lord duke and sir Edward Villiers that the said * Abraham Vanderdoort should make patterns for his majesty's * coynes and also give his assistance to the ingravers and his further- ' ance that the same may be well engraven according to their abilities. ' For which he desireth a warrant with an annual fee of 40/. a year, t whereby it may appear that it was his majesty's pleasure to appoint ' him for that service.' — Conway Papers. At the bottom of this paper is this entry, ' It is his majesty's pleasure that the clerk of his majesties ' signett for the tyme being doe cause a booke to be prepared fitt for his ' majesties signature of the office, with the annuitie or fee beforemen- ' tioned to be paid out of the exchequer duringe his life.' The patent itself is in Rymer (Feed. vol. xviii., p. 73). ' A warrant under the signet to the officers of his majesty's house- ? hold for the allowance of five shillings and six-pence by the day unto * Abraham Vanderdoorte for his boorde wages, to begyne from Christ- ' mas last, and to contynue during his life. By order of the lord Conway ' and by him procured. March 24, 1625 ' (Conway Papers). 'Docquett. 11 Junii, 1628. A warrant unto Abraham Vanderdort 'for his lyfe of the office of keeper of his majesties cabynett roome '•with a pension of 40/. per annum, and of provider of patternes for ' the punches and stampes for his majesties coyne in the mynt with the ' allowaunce of 40/. per annum for the same paiable quarterly out of 'the exchequer, the first payment tobegynne at Midsommer next 1628. 'With further warrant to pay unto him the several arrearage of 120/. ' 100/. and of 10/. due unto him upon privy seales for and in respect of 'his imployment in the said 1 office and place which are to bee sur- ' rendered before this passe the greate seale. His majesties pleasure ' signyfied by by the lord viscount Conway and by him procured. Sub- ' scribed Mr. Solicitor Generall.' 'To Mr. Attorney; Junii 17, 1628. Sir, his majestie is pleased to ' make use of the service of his servaunt Abraham Vanderdoort, to 'make patternes for his majesties coynes, and give his assistance and ' furtherance to the ingravers for the well makinge of the stamps ; and ' for his paines therein to give him an allowance of 40/. per annum ' duringe pleasure. To which purpose you will be pleased to draw a 'bill for his majesties signature.' 1 ' Docquett. n° Oct 1628. A letter to Sir Adam Newton, knight and ' baronett, receaver generall of his majesties revenue whitest he was 'prince, to pay unto Abraham Vanderdort for the keeping of his majes- 'ties cabinett room at St. James's, and other service the some of 130/. ' in arreare due unto him for the said service from our Lady-day, 1625, "till Midsommer, 1628; procured by Lord Viscount Conway.' 1 Minute of a letter from Lord Conway. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 141 The next is the extraordinary paper I mentioned ; it shows at once how far the royal authority in that age thought it had a right to extend, and how low it condescended to extend itself. 6 Docquett. 28 Nov. 1628. A letter to Louysa Cole, the relict of 'James Cole, in favour of Abraham Vanderdort his majesties servant, ' recommending him to her in the way of marriage. Procured by the ' Lord Viscount Conway/ What was the success of this royal interposition 1 I nowhere find. Vanderdort, in his Catalogue (pp. 57, 72), mentions presents made by him to the king, of a book of prints by Albert Durer, of a head in plaster of Charles V., and of the arm of the King of Denmark, 2 modelled from the life. It is certain that the poor man had great gra- titude to or great awe of Charles I. The king had recommended to him to take particular care of a miniature by Gibson, the parable of the lost sheep. Vanderdort laid it up so carefully, that, when the king asked him for it, he could not find it, and hanged himself in despair m (Sanderson's Graphice, p. 14). After his death his executors found and restored it. As this piece is not mentioned in the catalogue, probably it was newly purchased. There is an admirable head of Vanderdort by Dobson at Houghton. 3 The king, who spared neither favour nor money to enrich his collec- tion, invited 4 Albano into' England by a letter written with his own hand. It succeeded no more than a like attempt of the Duke of Buckingham to draw Carlo Maratti hither. Carlo 5 had drawn for that duke the portraits of a Prince and Princess of Brunswick, but excused himself from obeying the summons, by pleading that he had not studied long enough in Rome, and was not yet worthy of painting for the king. Simon Vouet, an admired French painter, who while very young had 1 How much this was the practice of that court, we are told by an unexceptionable witness. Lord Clarendon, in his character of Waller, says, ' he had gotten a very rich wife in the city, 'against all the recommendation, and countenance, and authority of the court, which was * thoroughly engaged on the behalf of Mr. Crofts, and which used to be successful in that age f against any opposition.' Vide Life, in folio, p. 24. 2 In the king's collection was a portrait of the King of Denmark by Vanderdort, which proves that he dabbled too in painting. 3 In the JEdes Walpoliange I have called this, Dobson's father, as it was then believed ; but I find by various notes in Vertue's MSS. that it was bought of Richardson the painter, and is certainly the portrait of Vanderdort. 4 In the Life of Romanelli in Catalogue Raisonne des Tableaux du Roy (de France) it is said that Charles invited that painter hither too. Vol. i., p. 163. 5 Several English sat to that master at Rome, particularly the Earls of Sunderland, Exeter, and Roscommon, Sir Thomas Isham,* Mr. Charles Fox, and Mr. Edward Herbert of Pack- ington, a great virtuoso. The portrait of Lord Sutherland is at Althorp, a whole length, in a loose drapery like an apostle ; the head and hands are well painted. The head of Mr. Her- bert, who was called the rough diamond, was, with some of his books, left by his nephew to the library of the Middle Temple, where it remains. At Waldeshare in Kent a portrait of Sir Robert Furnese ; and at Sherburn Castle in Dorsetshire another, not quite half length, of Robert Lord Digby, son of Kildare Lord Digby, holding a paper with a mathematical figure. At Burleigh, a portrait of the Earl of Exeter, who selected so many of Carlo's works, and a head of Charles Cavendish, a boy, with the eyes shut, said to be taken after his death ; but it seems too highly coloured, and is probably sleeping. * It is at Lord Ilchester's at Redlinch, and is a good head ; on the shoulder are scarlet ribands. if* 142 BUSTS EXECUTED OF KING CHARLES. been sent over in 1604 to draw the portrait of some lady of great rank retired hither from Paris, was invited by King Charles with promise of great rewards to return to England, but declined the offer (Felibien). His majesty was desirous too of having something of the hand of Bernini. Vandyck drew in one piece the full face and the three-quarter face and the profile of the king; from which Bernini made a bust, that was consumed or stolen in the fire of Whitehall. 1 It was on seeing this picture that Bernini pronounced, as is well known, that there was something unfortunate in the countenance of Charles. The same artist made a bust too-of Mr. Baker, who carried the picture to Rome. The Duke of Kent's father bought the latter bust at Sir Peter Lely's sale ; it is now in the possession of Lord Royston, and was reckoned preferable to that of the king. The hair is in prodigious quantity, and incomparably loose and free; the point-band very fine. Mr. Baker paid Bernini 100 broad pieces for his, but for the king's Bernini received 1000 Roman crowns. King Charles was so pleased with his own, that he desired to have one of the queen too ; but that was prevented- by the war. 2 Among the Strafford Papers is an evidence of this prince's affection for his pictures; in a letter (p. 130., vol. ii.) from Mr. Garrard, dated Nov. 9, 1637, speaking of two masks that were to be exhibited that win- ter,he says/ A great room is now building 3 only for this use betwixt the ' guard-chamber and banquetting-house of fir, only weather-boarded ' and slightly covered. At the marriage of the Queen of Bohemia, I ' saw one set up there, but not of that vastness that this is, which will 6 cost too much money to be pulled down, and yet down it must when ' the masks are over/ 1 It is very uncertain what became of this bust : Vertue from several circumstances, which I shall lay before the reader, believed it was not destroyed. Cooper the print-seller told him that he had often heard Norrice, frame-maker to the court, and who saved several of the pictures, aver that he was in the room where the bust used to stand over a corner chimney, and that it was taken away before that chamber was destroyed. Lord Cutts, who commanded the troops, was impatient to blow up that part ; and yet, after he had ordered the drums to beat, it was half an hour before the explosion was begun ; time enough to have saved the bust, if it was not stolen before. Sir John Stanley, then deputy chamberlain, was of the latter opinion. He was at dinner in Craig Court when the fire began, which was about three o'clock ; he immediately went to the palace, and perceived only an inconsiderable smoke in a garret, not in the principal building. He found Sir Christopher Wren and his workmen there, and the gates all shut. Looking at Bernini's bust, he begged Sir Christopher to take care of that, and the statues. The latter replied, ' Take care of what you are concerned in, and leave 'the rest to me' Sir John said it was about five hours after this before the fire reached that part. Norrice afterwards dug in the ruins of that chamber, but could not discover the least fragment of marble. The crouching Venus in the same apartment was known to be stolen, being discovered after a concealment of four years, and retaken by the crown. Vertue thought that the brazen bust of King Charles in the passage near Westminster Hall, was not taken from _ Bernini's, of which casts are extant, but of an earlier date. In the imperial library at Vienna, says Dr. Edward Brown in his Travels, is a head of King Charles in white marble ; but this cannot be Bernini's, as Brown wrote in 1673, and the fire of Whitehall happened in 1697. 2 In the church at Chelsea is a fine monument in a niche for the Lady Jane Cheyney ; she is represented lying on her right side, and leaning on a Bible. This tomb was the work of Bernini, and cost 500/. 3 Journal of the House of Commons, July 16, 1645. Ordered that the boarded masque-house at Whitehall, the masque-house at St. James's, and the courts of guard be forthwith pulled down and sold away. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 1 43 In another of Dec. 16, the same person says, ' Here are two masks * intended this winter ; the king is now in practising his, which shall 'be presented at Twelfth-tide; most of the young lords about the * town, who are good dancers, attend his majesty in this business. The ' other the queen makes at Shrove-tide, a new house being erected in 'the first court at Whitehall, which cost the king 2500/. only of deal ( boards, because the king will not have his pictures in the banquetting- ' house hurt with lights.' The most capital purchase made by King Charles were the cartoons of Raphael, now at Hampton Court. They had remained in Flanders from the time that Leo X. sent them thither to be copied in tapestry, the money for the tapestry having never been paid. Rubens told the king of them, and where they were, and by his means they were bought. It may be of use to collectors and virtuosi, for whose service this work is composed, to know when they meet with the ruins of that royal cabinet, or of the Earl of Arundel's. On the king's pictures was ® ® this mark CP. or C.R., on his drawings a large star thus ^ on the earPs a smaller . * ^ The dials at Whitehall were erected by the order of Charles, while he was prince. Mr. Gunter drew the lines, and wrote the description and use of them, printed in a small tract by order of King James, in 1624. There were five dials ; afterwards some were made of glass in a pyramidal shape by Francis Hall, and placed in the same garden. One or two of these may still be extant ; Vertue saw them at Bucking- ham House in St. James's Park, from whence they were sold. It looks as if Charles had had some thoughts of erecting a monu- ment for his father. In the lodgings of the warden of New College, Oxford, was a mausoleum with arms, altar-tomb, columns, and in- scriptions in honour of that prince, dated 1630. It is certain King Charles had no less inclination for architecture than for the other arts. The intended palace at Whitehall would have been the most truly magnificent and beautiful fabric of any of the kind in Europe. His majesty did not send to Italy and Flanders for architects, as he did for Albano and Vandyck ; he had Inigo Jones. Under the direction of that genius the king erected the house at Greenwich. Charles had in his service another man, both architect and painter, of whom, though excellent in neither branch, the reader will perhaps not dislike some account, as he was a remarkable person and is little known. Sir Balthazar Gerbier d'Ouvilly, of Antwerp, was born about 1591, came young into England, and was a retainer of the Duke of Bucking- ham as early as 1613. In Finette's Master of the Ceremonies it is said, ' Alonzo Cantarini, embassador from Venice, came to Mr. Gerbier, ' a gentleman serving the Duke of Buckingham.' Sanderson (Graphice, 144 VISIT AND ERRAND OF RUBENS TO ENGLAND. p. 15) calls him 'a common penman, who pensiled the dialogue (pro- ' bably the decalogue) in the Dutch church, London, his first rise of * preferment/ It is certain that he ingratiated himself much with that favourite, and attended him into Spain, where he was even employed in the treaty of marriage, though ostensibly acting only in the character of a painter. 1 Among the Harleian MSS. is a letter from the Duchess of Buckingham to her lord in Spain: ' 1 pray you, 'if you have any idle time, sit to Gerbier for your picture, that I may 'have it well done in little/ 2 Bishop Tanner had a MS. catalogue of the duke's collection drawn up by Gerbier, who had been employed by the duke in several of the purchases. However, there Js some appear- ance of his having fallen into disgrace with his patron. In one of Vertue's MSS. is a passage that seems to be an extract, though the author is not quoted, in which the duke treats Gerbier with the highest contempt. The transcript is so obscure and imperfect, that I shall give it in Vertue's own words : — * King James L ill and dying, the Duke of Buckingham was advised ' to apply a plaister to his stomach, which he did with proper advice of ' doctors, physicians of the king. But the king dying, the duke was 4 blamed — one Eglesham printed a scurrilous libel, 3 and flew away * into Flanders. — I was told by Sir Balthazar Gerbier [though his ' testimony be odious to any man] that Eglesham dealt with him in ' Flanders for a piece of money [not more than 400 guilder to defray 1 the charges] to imprint his recantation, of which the duke bid Gerbier 1 join malice and knavery together, and spit their venom till they split, 4 and he would pay for printing that also.' Nothing can be built upon so vague a foundation. It is certain that, immediately after the accession of King Charles, Gerbier was employed in Flanders to negotiate privately a treaty with Spain, the veiy treaty in which Rubens was commissioned on the part of the Infanta, and for which end that painter came to England. Among the Conway Papers I found a very curious and long letter from Gerbier himself on this occasion ; which though too prolix to insert in the body of this work, I shall affix at the end, not only as pertinent to 1 He painted small figures in distemper. De Piles. While in Spain he drew the Infanta in miniature, which was sent over to King James. 2 In a letter dated 1628, it is said the king and queen were entertained at supper at Gerbier the duke's painter's house, which could not stand him in less than 1000/. The Duchess of Northumberland has a large oval miniature of the Duke of Buckingham on horseback. The head is well painted ; the figure, dressed in scarlet and gold, is finished with great labour and richness. The head of the horse, which is dark grey with a long white mane is lively. Under the horse, a landscape and figures ; over the duke's head his motto, 1 Fidei coticula crux and on the fore-ground, ' B. Gerbier, 1618.' 3 The title was, * The Forerunners of Revenge, in two petitions ; the one to the king, the 1 other to the parliament ; concerning the Duke of Bnckingham's poysoning King James, ' and the Marquis of Hamilton. By George Eglisham, physician to King James, qu Q . 1642.' By the date of this piece, I suppose it was reprinted at the beginning of the war. The piece itself was transcribed by Mr. Baker, of St. John's College, Cambridge, from the printed copy in possession of Doctor Zachary Grey, editor of Hudibras, Vide also Lloyd's State Wor thies, p. 654. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. *45 my subject from the part these painters had in so important a busi- ness, but as it is more particular than anything I know in print on that occasion. Gerbier kept his ground after the death of Buckingham. In 1628 he was knighted at Hampton Court, and, as he says himself in one of his books, was promised by King Charles the office of surveyor-general of the works after the death of Inigo Jones. In 1637 he seems to have been employed in some other private transactions of state, negotiating with the Duke of Orleans, the king's brother, who was discontented with the court. The Earl of Lei- cester, ambassador to Paris, writes to Mr. Secretary Windebank, Nov. 24, ' I received a packet from Garbier to Monsieur d d ;1 [French king's brother]. July 13, 1641, he took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, having a bill of naturalization. 2 From that time to the death of the king I find no mention of him, though I do not doubt but a man of so supple and intriguing a nature, so universal an undertaker, did not lie still in times of such dark and busy complexion. However, whether miscarrying or neglected, 3 in 1648 he appears, not only in the character of author, but founder of an academy. In that year he pub- lished a thin quarto, entitled, 'The Interpreter of the Academie for c Forrain Languages and all noble Sciences and Exercises. To all • fathers of families and louers of vertue, the first part, by Sir Balthazar ' Gerbier, knight. Loiid. French and English with a print 4 of his head in oval and this motto, 'Heureux qui en Dieu se conAe.' It is a most striking superficial rhapsody, and deserved the sarcasm that Butler passed on so incompetent 5 an attempt: in his fictitious will of Philip, Earl of Pembroke, that lord is made to say, 6 All my other \ speeches, of what colour soever, I give to the academy, to help Sir ' Balthazar's art of well speaking.' In 1649 he published the 6 first lecture of geography read at Sir 1 Sidney Papers, vol. ii., p. 528. In one of his dedications mentioned hereafter, Gerbier puts this lord in mind of his having been in a public employment when his lordship was at Paris ; and De Piles says, that the Duke of Buckingham finding him a man of good under- standing, recommended him to the king, who sent him as his agent to Brussels. 2 Journals of the Commons. 3 Vertue says he was much hated and persecuted by the antimonarchic party, being always loyal and faithful to the king and his son ; which may explain and soften what is said above of his testimony being odious to any man. He bought goods at King Charles's sale to the value of 35/. Gerbier was so far from deserving that character, that his fifth lecture (with which I have lately met) read at his academy in Whitefriars, on military architecture, is dedicated, 1650, to Major-General Skippon, and is full of fulsome flattery; and_ tells him he is under the immediate protection of Providence, and that no man can really perish in a good cause ! In 1665 the versatile Gerbier published a piece he called * Subsidium Peregrinentibus, * or an Assistance to a Traveller' (an incoherent medley, teeming with as many blunders and incorrections as his other tracts) : this he addressed to James, Duke of Monmouth. 4 There is another print of him, half length, by Pontius after Vandyck, in which he is styled Bruxellas Prolegatus. 5 For instance, he translates Arcadia, Orcadys. 6 So Vertue calls it ; but it is probably a mistake, Mr. Masters being possessed of a tract which is probably the same, and corresponds exactly to Butler's words : it is entitled, 'The Art f of Well-speaking, being a lecture read gratis at Sir B. Gerbier's academy, dedicated to the II 146 THE LIFE, WORKS, AND POSITION OF SIR B. GERBIER. Balthazar Gerbier's academy at Bethnal Green ; by which it seems that at least his institution was opened. This piece I have not seen, nor the next, though from Vertue's extract one learns another singular anecdote of this projector's history. 'Sir Balthazar Gerbier's manifestation of greater profits to be done 'in hot than the cold parts of America. Rotterdam 1660. Wherein ' is set forth that he having a commission to go there, settle, and make ' enquirys, he went to Cajana (Cayenne) with his family, and settled at ' Surinam. A governor there from the Dutch had orders to seize 'upon him and all his papers, and bring him back to Holland; which ' they did in a very violent manner, breaking into his house, killed one ' of his children, endangered the lives of the rest of his family, and ' narrowly escaped himself with his life, having a pistol charged at his ' breast if he resisted. They brought him to Holland ; he complained, 'but got no redress, the states disowning they had given any such ' orders. However, it was just before the restoration ; and knowing 'the obligations he had to England, they apprehended he might 'give the king notice of the advantages which might be gained by a ' settlement there.' This perhaps was one among the many provocations, which, meet- ing his inclinations to France, led Charles II. into his impolitic, though otherwise not wholly unjustifiable, war with Holland ; a people too apt, even in their depressed state, to hazard barbarous and brutal infraction of treaties and humanity, when a glimpse of commercial interest invites it. Gerbier probably returned to England with that prince; for the triumphal arches erected for his reception are said to have been de- signed by Sir Balthazar. 1 In France he published a book on fortification; and in 1662, at London, a small discourse on magnificent buildings, dedicated to the king, in which he principally treats of solidity, convenience, and orna- ment, and glances at some errors of Inigo Jones in the banqueting- house. Here too he mentions a large room built by himself near the Watergate 2 at York-stairs, thirty-five feet square, and says, that King Charles I. being in it in 1628, at some representation of scenery, com- mended it, and expressed as much satisfaction with it as with the banqueting-house. In the piece he proposes to the lords and commons to level the streets, Fleet Bridge and Cheapside, and erect a sump- tuous gate at Temple Bar, of which he had presented a draught to his majesty. Before this book is a different print of him with a riband and a medal, inscribed 'C. R., 1653.' The medal I suppose was given 'right high and supreame power of this nation, the parliament of England, etc./ dated 6 January, 1649. Farther accounts relative to Gerbier's academy will be found in the second volume of the Environs of London, by Mr. Dan Lysons. 1 They were so. Vide Brit. Topogr., vol. i. } 683. 2 The gate itself was designed by Inigo. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 147 him when appointed, as he says he was, master of the ceremonies to Charles I. His portrait in one piece with Sir Charles Cotterel and Dobson, painted by the latter, is at Northumberland House ; Gerbier has been mistaken in that picture for Inigo Jones. This piece was bought for 44/. at the sale of Betterton the player. Gerbier's 1 last piece is a small manual, entitled, ' Counsel and Advice to all builders, etc., London, 1663/ A full half ^ of this little piece is wasted on dedications, of which there are no fewer than forty, and which he excuses by the example of Antonio Perez. They are addressed to the Queen-mother, Duke of York, and most of the principal nobility and courtiers. The last is to his own disciple, Captain William Wind. There is a heap of a kind of various knowledge even in these dedica- tions, and some curious things, as well as in the book itself, particularly the prices of work and of all materials for building at that time. In one place he ridicules the heads of lions, which are creeping through the pilasters on the houses in Great Queen Street built by Webb, the scholar of Inigo Jones. Hempsted-marshal, the seat of Lord Craven, since destroyed by fire, was the last production of Gerbier. He gave the designs for it, and died there in 1667 while it was 2 building, and was buried in the chancel of that church. The house was finished under the direction of Captain Wind above mentioned. In the library of Secretary Pepys at Magdalen College, Cambridge, is a miscellaneous collection in French, of robes, manteaux, couronnes, armes, etc., d'empereurs, rois, papes, princes, dues et comtes, anciens et modernes, blazonnes et enlumines par Balthazar Gerbier. Among the Harleian MSS. No. 3384, is one entitled, 'Sir Balthazar 'Gerbier, his admonitions and disputes with his three daughters, retired 'into the English nunnery at Paris, 1646/ Since the former edition of this work I have received a present from Mr. J. Bindley, of another piece of Gerbier which I never saw elsewhere. The title is, ' Les effets pernicieux de meschants favoris et grands 'ministres d'etat des provinces Belgiques, en Lorraine, Germanie, 'France, Italic, Espagne et Angleterre, et desabuses d'erreurs populaires ' sur le subject de Jaques et Charles Stuart, roys de la Grande Bretagne, 'par le Chev. B. Gerbier, a la Haye, 1653.' Small duod. It is an ignorant servile rhapsody, containing little argument, many lies, and some curious facts, if the author- is to be believed. Thre are two dedications, one, 'a tous empereurs, roys, reines, princes, princesses, 'regentes, e'tats et magistrats;' another to Charles II. The scope 1 Victor in his Companion to the Play House, vol. i., says that Gerhier wrote a play called 'The False Favourite disgraced, and the Reward of Loyalty,' tragi-comedy, 1657, and that it was never acted, and contains false English. By mistake he calls him George instead of Balthazar. 8 The foundation was laid in 1662. II * 148 STYLE, FOLLY, AND REASONING OF GERBIER's WRITINGS. of the book is to lay all the faults committed by sovereigns on wicked favourites, in which class he ranks even the leaders of the parliament which opposed Charles L He gives a list of the favourites of James L, but excuses them all, as he does Buckingham and Charles I. The second part is a defence of James and Charles, and such a defence as they deserved ! There follow indexes of 3rd, 4th, and 5th parts, and the heads of what they were to contain in defence of Charles and of the chastity of his queen against the parliamentarians. Those probably never appeared. He says that Lord Cottington betrayed to Spain a design of the catholic states of Flanders to revolt in 1632 on their oppressions. Such a witness may be believed. He speaks of a young lady who was shut up between four walls for blabbing that Lafin, agent of Emanuel, Duke of Savoy, by the advice of Count Fuentes, had incited Ravaillac to murder Henry IV. m He says that Eggleston desired Sir W. Chaloner to ask Gerbier to get his pardon, on condition of his confessing that some Scotch and English had set him on publishing his libel, to blacken the prince and Bucking- ham ; that he wrote to the secretary of state, but got no answer. He says the Earl of Berkshire was likely to be Charles's minister on the death of James ; that Larkin, who was employed at Paris to watch the sincerity of France, was drowned ; and that Rubens was sent to assure King James that the Infanta had power to conclude the treaty for the restitution of the palatinate. But his most remarkable anecdote, and probably a true one, is, that Monsieur Blinville, the French ambassador, when lodged at the Bishop of Durham's, celebrated mass openly, that the odium might fall on. the king; and when the mob rose, told them that he had been privately assured by the king and Buckingham that he might. Gerbier says, 'This was done by 'Richelieu's order;' and he adds, that he himself was sent to Paris to complain of Blinville. To Gerbier, of whom, from what has already been said, no random or contradictory and unauthenticated assertions but may be credible, has been ascribed a small tract, printed by authority in 1651 (that is, after the execution of the king), and called, 'The Nonsuch Charles 'his character.' It is one of the most virulent libels ever published ; and if written by Gerbier, one of the basest, after his obligations to that prince. The style, the folly, and wretched reasonings, are most consonant to Gerbier's other writings ; and several passages mark him as the author, or as having furnished materials. But as curious a circumstance as any would be, that after such gross abuse of the father, Gerbier should have been countenanced by the son after the restoration. The fact is by no means incredible ; considering how many bitter enemies Charles 1 1, did, or was forced to pardon ; and when Ave recollect that his majesty from fear ? or from total want HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF FAINTING. I49 of principle, countenanced that notorious villain Blood, it would not be surprising that so worthless a man as Gerbier should have been readmitted to a sphere whence no odious criminal was excluded. Perhaps not being rewarded by the new government as he expected for his invective against Charles L, Gerbier two years after might write 'Les Effets pernicieux/ mentioned in the preceding article, as a kind of preparatory palinody, in case the royal family should happen to be restored. To the second piece he has set his name ; and it being printed at the Hague, and written in French, when the Stuarts were in exile, it was probably a peace-offering, or meant to disavow the invective ; though from the extreme similarity of the manner of the pieces, I have no doubt of Gerbier being the father of both. The late Prince of Wales hearing of a capital picture by Vandyck in Holland, to which various names of English families were given, as Sir Balthazar Arundel, Sir Melchior Arundel, Sir Balthazar Buckingham, or Sheffield, the last of which gained most credit from a resemblance in the arms, his royal highness gave a commission to purchase it, and it was brought to Leicester House. It appeared that a celebrated piece, for which Lord Burlington had bid 500?. at Lord Radnor's sale, and which Mr. Scawen 1 bought at a still greater price, was the same with this picture, but not so large nor containing so many figures. Mr. Scawen's had always passed for a mistress and children of the Duke of Buckingham; but Vertue discovered on that of the Prince of Wales an almost effaced inscription, written by Vandyck's own hand, with these words remaining, ' La famille de ' Balthazar — chevalier and he showed the prince that the arms on a flower-pot were the same with those on two different prints of Gerbier, and allusive to his name, viz., a chevron between three garbs or sheafs. There is a group of children on the right hand, very inferior to the rest of the composition, and certainly not by Vandyck. The little girl 2 leaning on the mother's knee was originally painted by Rubens in a separate piece, formerly belonging to Richardson the painter, since that to General Skelton and Captain William Hamilton, and now in the collection of the lord Viscount Spenser. It is finer than the large picture. But it is time to return to King Charles. The academy erected by Gerbier was probably imitated from one established by Charles L in the eleventh year of his reign, and called Museum Minervae. The patent of erection is still extant in the office of the Rolls. None but who could prove themselves gentlemen were to be admitted to education there, where they were to be instructed in 1 It was again exposed at Mr. Scawen's sale, but bought in, and has since been purchased by Sampson Gideon. 2 One of Gerbier's_ daughters was maid of honour to the Princess of Condc, and passed for her mistress while the princess made her escape from GhantilH, when the prince was imprisoned by Mazarin. Memoires de Lenet, vol. i., p. 189. Lenet was in love with Mile. Gerbier, p. 263. 150 DISPERSION OF THE ROYAL PICTURES ON DEATH OF CHARLES I. arts and sciences, foreign languages, mathematics, painting, architecture, riding, fortification, antiquities, and the science of medals. Professors were appointed, and Sir Francis Kynaston, 1 in whose house in Covent Garden the academy was held, was named regent. There is a small account of the design of this academy, with its rules and orders, printed in 1636. 2 But it fell to the ground with the rest of the king's plans and attempts ; and so great was the inveteracy to him, that it seems to have been part of the religion of the time to war on the arts because they had been countenanced at court. The parliament began to sell the pictures at York House so early as 1645 ? ^> ut ^ est tne necessity of their affairs should not be thought sufficient justification, they coloured it over with a piece of fanatic bigotry that was perfectly ridiculous ; passing the following votes among others, July 23 (Journal of the Commons). i Ordered, that all such pictures and statues there (York House), as 1 are without any superstition, shall be forthwith sold for the benefit of ' Ireland and the North.' * Ordered, that all such pictures there, as have the representation of ' the second Person in Trinity upon them, shall be forthwith burnt/ 6 Ordered, that all such pictures there, as have the representation of ( the Virgin Mary upon them, shall be forthwith burnt/ This was a worthy contrast to Archbishop Laud, who made a Star Chamber business of a man who broke some painted gass in the cathe- dral at Salisbury. The cause of liberty was then, and is always, the only cause that can excuse a civil war ; yet if Laud had not doted on trifles and the presbyterians been squeamish about them, I question whether the nobler motives would have had sufficient influence to save us from arbitrary power. They are the slightest objects that make the deepest impression on the people. They seldom fight for a liberty of doing what they have a right to do, but because they are prohibited or enjoined some folly that they have or have not a mind to do. One comical instance of the humour of those times I find in Aubrey's His- tory of Surrey (vol. ii., p. 30). One Bleese was hired for half-a-crown a day to break the painted glass windows in the church of Croydon. The man probably took care not to be too expeditious in the destruction. Immediately after the death 3 of the king, several votes were passed for sale of his goods, pictures, statues, etc. 1 Sir Francis Kynaston, who styled himself Corporis Armiger, printed in 1635 a translation into Latin verse of Chaucer's Troilus and Cressida. 2 At the end of the little edition of Busbequius's Epistles, printed at Oxford, 1660, is the grant of a coat of arms to the regent and professors of the Museum Minervse from Sir John Burroughs the herald, dated 1635, which arms are prefixed to the rules and orders of that establishment printed 1636. Previous to its being set on foot, a committee had been appointed in the House of Lords, consisting of the Duke of Buckingham and others, for taking into consideration the state of the public schools, and method of education . What progress vyas made by this committee is not known, but probably the Museum Minervse owed its rise to it. 3 I cannot help inserting a short remark here, though foreign to the purpose. The very day after the execution of the king was passed this vote, * Ordered, that the Lord Grey be ' desired, cut of Haberdasher's Hall, to dispose of one hundred pounds for the service of the HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. Feb. 20, 1648. It was referred to the committee of the navy to raise money by sale of the crown, jewels, hangings, and other goods of the late king. Two days after, Cromwell, who as soon as he was possessed of the sole power stopped any further dispersion of the royal collection, 1 and who even in this trifling instance gave an indication of his views, re- ported from the council of state that divers goods belonging to the state were in danger of being embezzled ; which notification was immediately followed by this order : — ' That the care of the public library at St. James's, and of the statues i and pictures there, be committed to the council of state, to be pre- c served by them.' However, in the ensuing month (Mar. 23, 1643), the House pro- ceeded to vote that the personal estate 2 of the late king, queen, and prince should be inventoried, appraised, and sold, except such parcels of them as should be thought fit to be reserved for the use of the state ; and it was referred to the council of state to consider and direct what parcels of the goods and personal estates aforesaid were fit to be re- served for the use of the state. Certain commissioners were at the same time appointed to inventory, secure and appraise the said goods, and others, not members of the House, were appointed to make sale of the said estates to the best value. The receipts were to go towards satisfying the debts and servants of the king, queen, and prince, pro- vided such servants had not been delinquents ; the rest to be applied to public uses ; the first 30,000/. to be appropriated to the navy. This vote, in which they seem to have acted honestly, not allowing their own members to be concerned in the sale, was the cause that the collection fell into a variety of low hands, and were dispersed among the painters ' commonwealth, as he shall think fit : and that the committee at Haberdasher's Hall be required ' forthwith to pay the same to the said Lord Grey for that purpose.' This order is so covertly worded, without any particular application, at the same time that the sum is so small for any public service, that, joined to the circumstance of time and the known zeal of the paymaster, I cannot doubt but this was intended for the reward of the executioner. Mr. West has an authentic account of the execution, in which it is said that Richard Brandon, the executioner, having found in the king's pocket an orange stuck with cloves, was offered 20 shillings for it, which he refused, but sold it for ten on his way home. 1 LudloAv prevented the sale of Hampton Court ; for which he was much blamed by some of his friends. Biogr. Britan., vol v., p. 3024. 2 Somerset House had a narrow escape during that lust of destruction, of which an account is preserved in a very scarce tract, entitled, ' An Essay on the wonders of God in the har- 1 mony of the times that preceded Christ, and how they met in Him, written in French by 1 John D'Espagne, minister of the gospel [who died in 1650], and now published in English 1 by his executor Henry Browne, London, 1662, octavo.' In the preface the editor tells us, ' that the author preached at the French church in Durham House, where his sermons were * followed by many of the nobility and gentry. That demolished, he says, it pleased God to ' touch the hearts of the nobility to procure us an order of the house of peers to exercise our ' devotions at Somerset House chapel ; which was the cause, not only of driving away the 'anabaptists, quakers and rther sects, that had got in there, but also hindered the pulling ' down of Somerset House, there having been twice an order from the late usurped powers for ' selling the said house ; but we prevailed so, that we still got order to exempt the chapel 'from being sold, which broke the design of those that had bought the said house, who ' thought for their improvement to have made a street from the garden through the ground 'the chapel stands on, and from the back yard to the great street of the Strand by pulling ' down the said chapel.' 152 SALE OF THE KING'S GOODS BY THE COMMONWEALTH. and officers of the late king's household, where many of them remained on sale with low prices affixed. The principal pieces were rated more highly, and some of them were sold above their valuation. Ireton, on June 2, 1648, reported the act for sale; and mention is made of some proposition of Captain Myldmay concerning the pictures and statues to be referred to the council of state. This proposal it seems had been accepted, but was revoked. Probably this person might be an agent of Cromwell to prevent the dispersion. Cromwell had greater matters to attend to ; the sale proceeded. Two years after- wards, viz. in October and November, 1650, the journals speak of sums of money received from the sale of the king's goods, and of various ap- plications of the money towards discharge of his debts. Prom that time I find no further mention of the collection in the records. With regard to the jewels, the parliament, immediately after the king's death, ordered the crown and sceptres, etc., to be locked up. The queen had already sold several jewels abroad to raise money and buy arms. Some had been sold in foreign countries early in the king's reign, particularly what was called the inestimable collar of rubies; 1 it had belonged to Hen. VIII., and appears on his pictures and on a medal of him in Evelyn. His George, diamond and seals, which Charles at his execution destined to his successor, the parliament voted should not be so delivered. A pearl which he always wore in his ear, as may be seen in his portrait on horseback by Vandyck, was taken out after his death, and is in the collection of the Duchess of Portland, attested by the handwriting of his daughter the Princess of Orange, and was given to the Earl of Portland by King William. 2 A catalogue of the pictures, statues, goods, tapestries, and jewels, 1 There is a long warrant in Rymer directing the delivery of this collar, there termed 1 the 1 great collar of ballast rubies,' and sundry other valuable jewels, to the Duke of Buckingham and Earl of Holland, to be disposed of by them beyond the seas, according to private orders which they had received from his majesty. The whole piece is curious, and mentions the danger there might be to the keepers of those jewels to let them go out of their hands, ' as ' they were of great value, and had long contynued as it were in a continual discent for many 'years togeather with the crowne of England.' Feed., vol. xviii., p. 236. In Thoresby's museum was Sir Sackville Crow's book of accounts from the year 1622 to 1628, containing the receipts and accounts of the private purse of the Duke of Buckingham in his voyages into Spain and France ; with the charge of his embassage into the Low Countries ; with the moneys received upon the pawning the king's and his grace's jewels, etc. Due. Leod., p, 523. That museum is dispersed ; but part of it being sold by auction in Mar. 1764, I purchased the MS. in question, and shall hereafter perhaps print it with some other curious papers. 2 Tavernier, book iv., chap. 17, mentions having a diamond on which were engraved the arms of Char. I. The sophy of Persia and his court were extremely surprised at the art of engraving so hard a jewel ; but, says Tavernier, ' I did not dare to own to whom it belonged, ' remembering what had formerly happened to the chevalier de Reville on the subject of that 'king.' The story, as he had related it before, in book ii., chap. 10, was, that Reville having told the sophy that he had commanded a company of guards in the service of Charles, and being asked why he came into Persia, replied, that it was to dissipate the chagrin he felt on his master being put to death, and that since that time he could not endure to live in Christen- dom. The sophy fell into a rage, and asked Reville how it was possible, if he was captain of the king's guards, that he and all his men should not have shed the last drop of their blood in defence of their prince ? Reville was thrown into prison, and remained thei*e twenty-two days, and escaped at last by the intercession of thesophy's eunuchs.— Had all Charles's soldiers been as loyal as the Persian monarch thought it their duty to be, we might now have the glory of being as faithful slaves as the Asiatics. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 1 53 with the several prices at which they were valued and sold, was dis- covered some years ago in Moorfields, and fell into the hands of the late Sir John Stanley, who permitted Mr. Vicechamberlain Cook, Mr. Fairfax, and Mr. Kent to take copies, from one of which Mr. Vertue obtained a transcript. The particulars are too numerous to insert here. The total of the contracts amounted to 118,080/. 10s. id. Thirty-one pages at the beginning, relating to the plate and jewels, were wanting, and other pages here and there were missing. Large quantities were undoubtedly secreted and embezzled, and part remained unsold by the accession of Cromwell, who lived both at Whitehall and Hampton Court. All other furniture from all the king's palaces was brought up and exposed to sale: there are specified particularly Denmark or Somerset House, Greenwich, 1 Whitehall, Nonsuch, Oatlands, Wind- sor, Wimbledon House, St. James's, Hampton Court, Richmond, Theobald's, Ludlow, Carisbrook and Kenilworth Castles, Bewdley House, Holdenby House, Royston, Newmarket, and Woodstock Manor House. One may easily imagine that such a collection of pictures, with the remains of jewels and plate and the furniture of nineteen palaces, ought to have amounted to a far greater sum than 11 8,000 /. 2 The sale continued to August 9, 1653. The prices were fixed; but if more was offered, the highest bidder purchased ; this happened in some instances, not in many. Part of the goods were sold by inch of candle. The buyers, called contractors, signed a writing for the several sums. If they disliked the bargain, they Were at liberty to be discharged from the agreement on paying one fourth of the sum stipulated. Among the purchasers of statues and pictures were several painters, as Decritz, Wright, Baptist, Van Leemput, Sir Balthazar Gerbier, etc. The prices of the most remarkable lots were as follow : the cartoons of Raphael, 300/., bought by his highness (Cromwell). The royal family (now in the gallery at Kensington), 150/. The king on horseback (in the same place), 200/. The triumphs of Julius Caesar by Andrea Mantegna (now at Hampton Court), 1000/. Twelve Caesars by Titian, 1200/. The Muses by Tintoret (at Kensington), valued at 80/. sold for 100/. Alexander VI. and Caesar Borgia by Titian, 100/. Triumph of Vespasian and Titus by Julio Romano (at Paris), 150/. The great piece of the Nativity by Julio Romano, 500/. It seems the act for destroying what they called superstitious pieces was not well observed. Two pieces of tapestry of the five senses by Sir Francis Crane, 270/. Mention is made of two sets more ancient, of the land- ing of Henry VII. and the 3 marriage of Prince Arthur. From Windsor 1 Among the pictures from Greenwich is mentioned one piece of writing by Holbein, sold for ten pounds. I know not what this writing was. 2 R. Symonds says, the committee of Somerset House prized the king's goods and move- ables with the pictures at 200,000/., notwithstanding the queen had carried away and himself caused to be conveyed away abundance of jewels ; and for this he cites Beauchamp, clerk to the committee. 3 This latter piece is extant at an abandoned house of the late Lord Aston's, now a popish 154 CROMWELL STOPS THE DISPERSION OF THE ROYAL PICTURES. a picture of Edward III. with a green curtain before it, 4/. Mary, Christ, and many angels dancing, by Vandyck, valued only at 40/. This is the picture at Houghton, for which my father gave 800/. It was twice sold before for above 1000/. whence I conclude there was some knavery in the valuation of it. Sleeping Venus by Correggio, 1000/. Mary, Child, and St. Jerome, by Parmegiano, 150/. The Venus del Pardo by Titian, valued at 500/. sold for 600/. Marquis del Guasto haranguing his soldiers, by Titian, 250/. Venus dressing by the Graces, Guido (at Kensington), 200/. Herodias with the head of St. John by Titian, 150/. (with his highness.) The little Madonna and Christ by Raphael, 800/. St. George by Raphael, 150/. Marquis of Mantua by ditto, 200/. Frobenius and Erasmus by Holbein, 200/. Our Lady, Christ, and others, by Old Palma, 200/. A man in black by Holbein, 120/. St. John by Leonardo da Vinci, 140/. Duke of Bucks and his brother by Vandyck (now at Kensington), valued at 30/. sold for 50/. This is one of the- finest pictures of that master. A satyr flayed, by Correggio, 1000/. Mercury teaching Cupid to read, Venus standing by, by Correggio, 800/. The king's head by Bernini, 800/. A statue of Tiberius larger than ^ife, 500/. The Gladiator, in brass (which is now at Houghton), 300/. Christ washing the feet of His disciples, 300/. Among the contractors appears Mr. John Leigh, who on August 1, 1649, buys goods for the use of Lieutenant- General Cromwell to the value of 109/. $s., arid on the 15th are sold to the right honourable the lady Cromwell goods to the amount of two hundred pounds more. But no sooner was Cromwell in possession of the sole power, than he not only prevented any farther sale, but even detained from the pur- chasers much of what they had contracted for. This appears by a petition, 1 addressed, after the protector's death, to the council of state, by Major Edward Bass, Emanuel de Critz, William Latham, and Henry Willet, in behalf of themselves and divers others, in which they represent, — 6 That, in the year 165 1, the petitioners did buy of the contractors ' for the sale of the late king's goods, the several parcels there under- ' named, and did accordingly make satisfaction unto the treasurer for 5 the same. But for as much as the said goods are in Whitehall, and * some part thereof in Mr. Kinnersley's custody in keeping, the peti- i tioners do humbly desire their honours' order, whereby they may 1 receive the said goods, they having been great sufferers by the late 1 General CromwelPs detaining thereof ; and the petitioners/ etc. The goods specified are hangings, and statues in the garden at seminary, at Standon near Puckeridge, Hertfordshire. The work is coarse, and the figures do not seem to have been portraits, but the habits are of the time. In one corner Henry VII. and Ferdinand are conferring amicably on a joint throne. 1 Copied by Vertue from a paper in possession of Mr. Martin. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. iS5 Whitehall. It is very remarkable that in this piece they style the protector,, the late General Cromwell. Whence Charles had his statues v/e learn from Peacham : 6 the king ' also/ says he, ( ever since his coming to the crown, hath amply testified ' a royal liking of ancient statues, by causing a whole army of old ' foreign emperors, captains, and senators, all at once to land on his 6 coasts, to come and do him homage, and attend him in his palaces of \ St. James's and Somerset House. A great part of these belonged 'to 1 the late Duke of Mantua ; and some of the old Greek marble bases, ' columns, and altars, were brought from the ruins of Apollo's temple * at Delos, by that noble and absolutely compleat gentleman Sir Kenelm i Digby knight' (Compleat Gentleman, 107). Some of the most capital pictures v/ere purchased by the King of Spain; which arriving there while the ambassadors of Charles II. were at that court, they were desired, by an odd kind of delicacy, to with- draw — they supposing that this dismission was owing to an account received at the same time of Cromwell's victory over the marquis of Argyle. 6 But,' says Lord Clarendon, 'they knew afterwards that the 'true cause of this impatience to get rid of them, was, that their 1 minister in England, having purchased many of the king's pictures i and rich furniture, had sent them to the Groyne ; from whence they 1 were expected to arrive about that time at Madrid ; which they ' thought could not decently be brought to the palace while the ambas- 1 sadors remained at the court.' After the restoration endeavours were used to reassemble the spoils* A commission was issued out to examine Hugh Peters concerning the disposal of the pictures, jewels, etc., that had belonged to the royal family — but without effect, by the obstinacy or ignorance of Peters, who would not or could not give the desired satisfaction. 1 Some of the pictures had been purchased by Gerard Reyntz, 2 a Dutch collector, after whose death they were bought of his widow by the States, and presented to Charles II. One only picture [the king on horseback by Vandyck] was recovered by a process at law from P.emee van Leemput, a painter then in England, who had bought it at the sale. Notwithstanding the havoc that had been made, it is plain from the catalogue of the collection of James II. that the crown still possessed a great number of valuable pictures ; but the fire of Whitehall des- troyed almost all that the rage of civil war had spared. Some valuable pieces indeed were carried to Lisbon from Somerset House by the queen dowager, when she returned to Portugal. The then lord cham- berlain, it is said, put a stop to their embarkation, till mollified by the present of one of them that he admired. The royal library escaped better; this was founded by James L It 1 See General Diet., vol. ii., p. 384. 2 They are engraved in Reyntz's gallery. 156 HOWARD, EARL OF ARUNDEL, THE FIRST OF COLLECTORS. contained the collection belonging to the crown, among which were several fine editions on vellum, sent as presents from abroad, on the restoration of learning, to Hen. VII., Hen. VIII., and Queen Elizabeth ; the library of the Lord Lumley, purchased by James for Prince Henry; the collection of Casaubon, bought of his widow, and some curious MSS. brought from Constantinople by Sir Thomas Roe. These books have been given to the British Museum by his late majesty. To this library Prince Henry had added a large number of coins, medals, cameos, and intaglias, the Dactyliotheca of Gorlasus. Mr. Young, librarian to Charles I., 1 was removed by the council of state in 1649, at which time an account of the books and coins was taken ; of the latter there were 1200, of which 400 only remained at the restoration. Among the Duke of Ormond's letters is one dated April 2, 1649, where he says, 4 All the rarities in the king's library at St. James's are i vanished/ Yet it is evident many remained; for in June 1659 a vote passed i that the Lord Whitlocke be desired and authorised to take ' upon him the care and custody of the library at James House, and of all the books, manuscripts and medals, that are in or belonging to the ' said library, that the same be safely kept and preserved, and to 1 recover all such as have been embezzled or taken out of the same.' Charles II. after his return ordered Ashmole 2 to draw up an account of the medals that were left, and placed them in the closet of Henry VIII. at Whitehall, where they were lost at the fire. What farther relates to Charles I. as protector of the arts, will be found in the subsequent pages, under the articles of the different pro- fessors whom he countenanced. If this chapter has not been thought tedious and too circumstantial, the readers who excuse it, will not per- haps be sorry if I add a little more to it on that other patron of genius, the Earl of Arundel. Thomas Howard 3 Earl of Arundel is sufficiently known in his public character by that admirable portrait drawn of him rTy Lord Clarendon. Living much within himself, but in all the state of the ancient nobility, his chief amusement was his collection, the very ruins of which are ornaments now to several principal cabinets. He was the first who professedly began to collect in this country, and led the way to Prince Henry, King Charles, and the Duke of Buckingham. 6 1 cannot/ says 1 In this library, says Perinchief, was kept a collection of his, of the excellent sayings of authors, written by his own hand, and in his youth presented to his father King James. Life of Charles, p. 219. 2 Memoires of Elias Ashmole prefixed to his Berkshire, pp. to, 24. 8 There is a short view of his life in Sir Edward Walker's Historical Discourses, and some curious particulars in Lilly's Observations on the Life and Death of King Charles. As the book is not in everybody's hands, one anecdote may be worth transcribing. The king taking the part of a priest, who pretended that his majesty had a right to a rectory which the earl challenged as his, Arundel said to Charles, ' Sir, this rectory was an appendent to a manour 1 of mine, untill my grandfather unfortunately lost both his life and seventeen lordships more, 1 for the love he bore to your grandmother.' P. 51. I have found another anecdote of this earl that I have met with nowhere else. In the life of Aretine in 'Les Vies des Hommes et des Femmes illustres dTtalie, par line Societe de gensde HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 157 Peacham, 1 'but with much reverence mention the every way right 4 honourable Thomas Howard, lord high marshal of England, as great ' for his noble patronage of arts and ancient learning, as for his high ' birth and place ; to whose 2 liberal charges and magnificence this angle 1 of the world oweth the first sight of Greek and Roman statues, with ' whose admired presence he began to honour the gardens and galleries ' of Arundel House about 16 14, and hath ever since continued to trans- 'plant old Greece into England.' The person chiefly employed by the earl in these researches was Mr. Petty. It appears from Sir Thomas Roe's letters, who had a commission of the like nature from the Duke of Buckingham 3 that no man was ever better qualified for such an employment than Mr. Petty. 1 He encounters/ says Sir Thomas, 4 1 all 1 accidents with unwearied patience, eats with Greeks on their work- 1 days, lies with fishermen on planks, is all things that may obtain his 1 ends.' Mr. Petty, returning with his collection from Samos, narrowly escaped with his life in a great storm, but lost all his curiosities, and was imprisoned for a spy ; but obtaining his liberty, pursued his researches. Many curious pieces of painting and antiquities, especially medals, the earl bought of Henry Vanderborcht a painter of Brussels, who lived at Frankendal, and whose son Henry Lord Arundel finding at Frankfort, sent to Mr. Petty then collecting for him in Italy, and after- wards kept in his service as long as he lived. Vanderborcht the younger was both painter and graver; he drew many of the Arundelian curiosities, and etched several things both in that and the royal collec- tion. A book of his drawings from the former, containing 567 pieces, is preserved at Paris, and is described in the catalogue of L'Orangerie, p. 199. After the death of the earl, the younger Henry entered into the service of the Prince of Wales, afterwards Char. II., and lived in esteem in London for a considerable time, but returned to Antwerp and died there. 5 There are prints by Hollar of both father and son; the former done from a painting of the latter. ' Lettres,' Paris, 1768, vol., i.,p. 388, it is said that Aretine having dedicated the second volume of his letters to James I., and receiving no reward, solicited one for five years. Hearing at last that the Earl of Arundel had orders to give him 500 crowns, and not receiving them, he accused the earl publicly of having sunk them for his own use. The earl ordered his servants to beat Aretine ; which they did severely. The corrected libeller published that the earl had no hand in the beating him, went to him, begged the money, and received it. The peer's re- sentment and the satirist's mercenary servility are both very credible. 1 Compleat Gentleman, p. 107. 2 In one of R. Symondes's pocket-books in the Museum is a character not quite so favour- able of the earl ; ' Mai,' says he, ' rimunero persona. Era molto generoso e libero a foras- ' tieri per guadagnare fama, ed in quella cosa spendea liberamente.' There are also the following hints : ' Old Earle fece rubare pezzo di quel quadro di Veronese a Padova, but it ' was spoiled, says Mr. Jer. Lanier. Last Earl Thomas, molto lodato di Jer. Lanier per uom * honestissimo et civile ed intendentissimo ; per patto furono d'accordo d'andare in Italia quest' 'anno 1654 per comprare disegni e quadri.' This Thomas must be the person who was re- stored to the title of Duke of Norfolk by Charles II., and died at Padua in 1678. 3 * Neither am I,' says the duke, ' so fond of antiquity, as you rightly conjecture, to court it 'in a deformed or misshapen stone.' P. 534. 4 Page 495. See the particulars of several purchases made by Sir Thomas and Mr. Petty, in various letters in that collection. They are worth reading. 5 English School, p. 467. There is a print by Hollar of Elias Alien, from a painting of Vanderborcht. 158 THE ARUNDELIAN MARBLES. THE NORFOLK CAMEOS. The earl was not a mere selfish virtuoso; he was bountiful to men of talents, retaining some in his service, and liberal to all. 1 He was one of the first who discovered the genius of Inigo Jones, 2 and was himself, says Lilly, 3 the first who 6 brought over the new way of build- ing with brick in the city, greatly to the safety of the city, and pre- ■ servation of the wood of this nation.' Norgate, whom I have men- tioned, partook of his favours. On his embassy 4 to Vienna he found Hollar at Prague, and brought him over ; where the latter engraved a great number of plates from pictures, drawings, and curiosities in the Arundelian collection. There is a set of small prints by Hollar, views of Albury, the earPs seat in Surrey. 6 Lord Arundel thought/ (Sculp- tura, p. 103) says Evelyn, 6 that one who could not design a little, would 6 never make an honest man.' A foolish observation enough, and which, if he had not left better proofs, would give one as little opinion of the judgment of the speaker, as it does of that of the relator. The earl seems to have had in his service another painter, one Har- rison, now only known to us by a chronologic diary, in which he records particulars relating to old Parr, whom Lord Arundel had a curiosity to see. 5 At the beginning of the troubles the earl transported himself and his collection to Antwerp ; and dying not long after at Padua, he divided his personal estate between his sons Henry Lord Maltravers, and Sir William Howard Viscount Strafford. Of what came to the eldest branch, since Dukes of Norfolk, the most valuable part fell into the hands of the duchess who was divorced ; the statues she sold G to the last Earl of Pomfret's father, which have been lately given by the countess dowager to the university of Oxford, which had before been enriched with those curious records called the Arundelian marbles : the cameos and intaglias the Duchess of Norfolk bequeathed to her second husband Sir John Germayne. They 7 are now in the possession of his widow Lady Elizabeth Germayne. 8 Among them is that inimit- able cameo, the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, which I should not scruple to pronounce the finest remain of antique sculpture in that 1 The famous Oughtred was taken into Arundel House to instruct the earl's son, Lord William Howard, in mathematics, but it seems was disappointed of preferment , Biogr. Brit., vol. v., pp. 3280, 3283, 3284. 2 Some carved seats by Inigo were purchased from Tart Hall, and placed in a temple at Chiswick, by Lord Burlington. 3 Observations on the Life of King Charles, p. 51. 4 An account of this embassy was drawn up and published by Crowne, who attended the earl. 5 See Peck's collection of divers curious historical pieces, subjoined to his Lives of Crom- well and Milton. The earl sent Parr, who was then blind, to King Charles. The king said to him, ' You have lived longer than other men ; what have you done more than other men?' He replied, ' I did penance when I was a hundred years old.' 6 The duchess, it is said, wanted money, and sold them for 300/. 7 Part of this collection were the antique gems published by Apollina at Rome, 1627, and afterwards by Licetus of Genoa. 8 Since the first edition of this book, Lady E. Germayne has given them to Lord Charles Spencer, on his marriage with her great niece, Miss Beauclerc, and he to his brother the Duke of Marlborough. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 159 kind. The coins and medals came into the possession of Thomas Earl of Winchelsea, and in 1696 were sold by his executors to Mr. Thomas Hall. Arundel House was pulled down in 1678. The re- mainder of the collection was preserved at Tart Hall, without the gate of St. James's Park near Buckingham House. Those curiosities too were sold by auction in 1720, 1 and the house itself has been lately demolished. At that sale Dr. Meade bought the head of Homer; 2 after whose death it was purchased by the present Earl of Exeter, and by him presented to the British Museum. It is believed to have been brought from Constantinople, and to have been the head of the very statue in the imperial palace described by Cedrenus. The rest of the figure was melted in the fire. The Earl of Arundel had tried to pro- cure the obelisk, since erected in the Piazza Navona at Rome ; and he offered the value of 7000/. in money or land to the Duke of Bucking- ham for a capital picture of Titian called the Ecce Homo, in which were introduced the portraits of the Pope, Charles V., and Solyman the Magnificent. The earl has been painted by Rubens and Vandyck. The present Duke of Argyle has a fine head of him by the former. By the latter he was drawn in armour with his grandson Cardinal Howard. The earl had designed too to have a large picture, like that at Wilton, of him- self and family. Vandyck actually made the design ; but by the inter- vention of the troubles it was executed only in small by Ph. Frutiers at Antwerp, from whence Vertue engraved a plate. The earl and countess are sitting under a state ; before them are their children ; one holds a shield 3 presented by the great Duke of Tuscany to the famous Earl of Surrey at a tournament ; and two others bring the helmet and sword of James IV., taken at the victory of Flodden Field, by the Earl of Surrey's father, Thomas, Duke of Norfolk. Portraits of both those noblemen are represented as hanging up near the canopy. I will conclude this article and chapter with mentioning that Fran- ciscus Junius (Article in Gen. Dicti.) was taken by the Earl of Arundel for his librarian, and lived in his family thirty years. The earl had purchased part of the library of the kings of Hungary from Perkey- merus ; Henry, Duke of Norfolk, by persuasion of Mr. Evelyn, bestowed it on the Royal Society (London and Environs, vol. v., p. 201). 1 Mr. West has the printed catalogue (which was miserably drawn up) with the prices. That sale produced 6535/. 2 It is engraved in a print from Vandyck of the earl and countess, in which the earl, who has a globe near him, is pointing to Madagascar, where he had thoughts of making a settlement. 8 This shield is now in the possession of his grace the Duke of Norfolk. l6o DIFFERENCE OF STYLES OF REMBRANDT AND RUBENS. CHAPTER X. Painters in the Reign of CHARLES I. SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS. One cannot write the life of Rubens without transcribing twenty authors. The most common books expatiate on a painter whose works are so numerous and so well known. His pictures were equally adapted to please the ignorant and the connoisseurs. Familiar sub- jects, familiar histories, treated with great lustre and fulness of colour- ing, a richness of nature and propriety of draperies, recommend them- selves at first sight to the eyes of the vulgar. The just boldness of his drawing, the wonderful chiaroscuro diffused throughout his pictures, and not loaded like Rembrandt's to force out one peculiar spot of light, the variety of his carnations, the fidelity to the customs and manners of the times he was representing, and attention to every part of his compositions, without enforcing trifles too much or too much neglecting them ; all this union of happy excellencies endears the works of Rubens to the best judges ; he is perhaps the single artist who attracts the suffrages of every rank. One may justly call him the popular painter; he wanted that majesty and grace which confine the works of the greatest masters to the fewest admirers. I shall be but brief on the circumstances of his life ; he stayed but little here, in which light only he belongs to this treatise. 1 His father was doctor of laws and senator of Antwerp, which he quitted on the troubles of that country, and retired with his family to Cologne, where, on the feast of St. Peter and Paul, his wife was de- livered of Rubens in 1577. Great care was taken of his education; he learned and spoke Latin in perfection. When Antwerp was reduced by the arms of Philip, Rubens, the father, returned to his native country. The son was grown up, and was well made. The Countess of Lalain took him for her page ; but he had too elevated a disposition to throw away his talents on so dissipated a way of life. He quitted that service ; and his father being dead, his mother consented to let him pursue his passion for painting. Toby Verhaest, a landscape-painter, and Adam Van Oort were his first masters, and then Otho Venius, under whom he imbibed (one of his least merits) a taste for allegory. The perplexed and silly emblems of Venius are well known. Rubens with nobler simplicity is perhaps less just in his. One may call some of his pic- tures a toleration of all religions. In one of the compartments of the Luxemburgh gallery, a cardinal introduces Mercury to Mary de J Medici, and Hymen supports her train at the sacrament of marriage, before an 1 This extract is chiefly made from Felibien, vol. iii., p. 404, from Descamps, p. 297, and Sandrart. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. l6t altar, on which are the images of God the Father and Christ. 1 At the age of twenty-three, Rubens set out for Italy, and entered into the service of Vincent Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. One day while he was at that court, and was painting the story of Turnus and ^Eneas, intend- ing to warm his imagination by the rapture of poetry, he repeated with energy those lines of Virgil, 2 — ' Ille etiam patriis agnien ciet/ etc. The duke, who overheard him and entered the chamber, was sur- prised to find the mind of his painter cultivated with a variety of graceful literature. Rubens was named envoy to Spain, and carried magnificent presents to the favourite Duke of Lerma ; exerting at that court his political and elegant talents with a dignity and propriety that raised the latter without debasing the former. He conversed little with the painters of that country except Velasquez, with whom he con- tinued a correspondence of letters. The fame of the young painter reached Don John of Braganza, after- wards King of Portugal, who invited him to Villa Viciosa. Rubens set out with such a train that the duke apprehended the expense of entertaining so pompous a visitor, and wrote to stop his journey, accompanying the excuse with a present of fifty pistoles. The painter refused the present, said he had not proposed to paint, but to pass a week at Villa Viciosa, and had brought a thousand pistoles that he in- tended to spend there. Returned to Mantua, the duke sent him to Rome to copy the works of the great masters. There he studied them, not what they had studied, the ancients; Rubens was too careless of the antique, as Poussin copied it too servilely. The former seemed never to have seen a statue, the latter nothing else. The reputation of Titian and Paul Veronese drew Rubens to Venice ; there he was in his element, in the empire of colours. There he learned to imitate nature ; at Rome he had missed the art of improving on it. If he has not the simplicity of Titian, he has far more than Paul Veronese. The buildings with which he has enriched the backgrounds of his compositions do not yield to those of the latter; his landscapes are at least equal to those of the former. Seldom as he practised it, Rubens was never greater than in landscape ; the tumble of his rocks and trees, the deep shadows in his glades and glooms, the watery sunshine, and dewy verdure, show a variety of genius, which are not to be found in the inimitable but uniform glow of Claud Lorrain. Rubens was much worse employed at Genoa, where he drew most of their palaces, and caused them to be engraved in two volumes* 1 See more on this subject at the end of Mr. Spence's Polymetis. 2 No wonder his emulation was raised at Mantua, where the works of Homer were treated by Raphael and Julio Romano. 12 1 62 THE RISE IN FAME AND FORTUNE OF RUBENS. How could a genius like his overlook the ruins of Rome, the designs of Raphael and Michael Angelo, and the restorers of ancient architec- ture at Venice, and waste his time on the very moderate beauties that he found at Genoa, where their greatest art lay in crowding magnifi- cence into a narrow and almost useless situation, where most of their palaces can only be seen from a sedan chair ! His mother's illness drew him back to Antwerp, where the Archduke Albert detained him, and where he married his first wife Elizabeth Brants. He built a palace, and painted it within and without. His cabinet or rotunda was enriched with antique vases, statues, medals, and pictures. The Duke of Buckingham saw and coveted it. Le Blond, whom I have mentioned in the life of Holbein, negotiated the bargain, to which Rubens consented with regret. The favourite, who was bent on the purchase, gave, it is said, 10,000/. for what had not cost above 1000/. In Flanders he executed many great works, which created him as many enemies. They affected to ascribe to the scholars whom he had formed or been forced to take to assist him, as Jordaens, Van Uden, Snyder, and Wildens, the merits of the master; but the greater the talents of the assistants, the higher the genius of the master. Do able painters work under an indifferent one? Abraham Janssens chal- lenged Rubens to a trial of their art; Rubens replied, he would engage with him when Janssens had proved himself worthy to be his competitor. A more friendly offer was rejected by him with equal wit. A chemist tendered him a share of his laboratory and of his hopes of the philosopher's stone. Rubens carried the visionary into his painting-room, and told him his offer was dated twenty years too late ; 6 For so long it is/ said he, ' since I found the art of making ' gold with my pallet and pencils.' From Antwerp he was called to Paris by Mary de Medici, and painted the ostensible history of her life in the Luxemburgh. 1 A peculiar honour, as that princess was an Italian. It is even said that he gave her some lessons in drawing. If the prodigious number of large pieces painted by Rubens were not testimonies of the abundance and facility of his genius, this gallery alone, completed in three years, would demonstrate it. As soon as it was finished, he returned to Antwerp, where his various talents were so conspicuous, that he was pitched upon to negotiate a treaty of peace between Spain and Eng- land. The Infanta Isabella sent him to Madrid for instructions, where he ingratiated himself so much with the Conde-duc d'Olivarez, that, besides many valuable presents, he had a brevet for himself and his son of secretary of the privy council, and was dismissed with a 1 It is said that she designed he should fill another gallery with the story of Henry IV. , her husband, and that he had begun several of the compartments, but the troubles of that princess prevented the execution. Abrege de la Vie des Peintres, vol. ii., p. 141. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING 163 secret commission to King Charles, as I have mentioned before, in which he had the honour of succeeding. Neither Charles nor Rubens overlooked in the ambassador the talents of the painter. The king engaged him to paint the ceiling of the banqueting-house. The design is the apotheosis of King James ; for whom, when once deified, there seems to have been no farther thought of erecting a monument. The original sketch for the middle compartment is preserved at Houghton ; it had belonged to Sir Godfrey Kneller, who often studied it, as is evident by Sir Godfrey's original sketch, at Houghton too, for the great equestrian picture of King William at Hampton Court; though in the larger piece he seems to have forgot that he ever had studied the former design. Sir Godfrey had heard that Jordaens assisted Rubens in the execution; if true, some of the compartments must have been painted in Holland and sent over hither ; for I do not find that Jordaens was ever in England. Rubens received 3000/. for his work. The building itself cost 1 7,000/. What had it been if completed ! Vandyck was to have painted the sides with the history of the order of the garter. Inigo Jones, Rubens, and Vandyck! Europe could not have shown a nobler chamber. Kent in the late reign repaired the painting on the ceiling. During his residence here Rubens painted for the king a St. George, 1 four feet high and seven feet wide. His majesty was repre- sented in the saint, the queen in Cleodeiinde ; each figure one foot and a half high; at a distance, a view of Richmond and the Thames. In another picture, the benefits of peace and miseries of war (King Charles' Catalogue, p. 86). Theodore Rogiers 2 modelled for the king a silver ewer designed by Rubens, with The Judgment of Paris. There is a print from this vase by James NefTs. This great painter was knighted at Whitehall, Feb. 21, 1630; and the king gave him an addition to his arms, on a dexter canton, gules, a lion passant, or. A large print from his picture of the descent from the cross, engraved by Vosterman in 1620, is thus dedicated ; 'Illustrissimo, excellentissimo 'et prudentissimo domino, domino Dudleio Carleton equiti, magnae * Britannse regis ad confcederatos in Belgio ordines legato, pictoria? artis 'egregio 3 admiratori, P. P. Rubens, gratitudinis et benevolentise ergo, c nuncupat, dedicate We have in England several capital works of Rubens'. Villiers, 1 In a letter in the Museum, dated Mar. 6, 1630, it is said, * My Lord Carlisle hath twice in ' one week most magnificently feasted the Spanish ambassador and Monsieur Rubens also, ' the agent who prepared the way for his coming ; who in honour of our nation hath drawn * with his pencil the history of St. George, wherein (if it be possible) he hath exceeded himself ; * but the picture he hath sent home into Flanders, to remain as a monument of his abode and " employment here.' This, I suppose, was a repetition of the picture he drew for the king ; one of them is now in the collection of the Earl of Lincoln. 2 There is a head of Rogiers among the artists » drawn by Vandyck. 3 There is a print of Sir Dudley Carleton by W. Delff, from a painting of Mirevelt, thus in- 12 * 1 64 WHERE THE FINER PAINTINGS OF RUBENS ARE TO BE SEEN. Duke of Buckingham, had thirteen, and Sir Peter Lelyfive (Catalogues by Bathoe). The Duchess of Marlborough gave any price for his pictures. They 1 are the first ornaments of Blenheim, but have suffered by neglect. At Wilton are two ; one, the Assumption of the Virgin, painted for the Earl of Arundel while Rubens was in England, and with which he was so pleased himself, that he afterwards made a large picture from it for a convent at Antwerp. The other contains four children, Christ, an angel, St. John, and a girl representing the church. This picture, which is far superior to the foregoing, and very fine, is said in the catalogue to be allowed to be the best picture in England of Rubens ; an hyperbole indeed.' 2 At the Earl of Pomfret's at Easton was a portrait of Lodowic, Duke of Richmond and Lenox. At Houghton is that masterly piece, Mary Magdalen anointing the feet of Christ ; and a large cartoon of Meleager and Atalanta. There too are three pieces in three different styles, in each of which he excelled : a landscape; 3 and satyrs; and lions. Animals, especially of the savage kind, he painted beyond any master that ever lived. In his satyrs, though highly coloured and with characteristic countenances, he wanted poetic imagination. They do not seem a separate species, but a compound of the human and animal, in which each part is kept too distinct. His female satyrs are scarce more indelicate than his women; one would think that, like Swift, he did not intend that Yahoos should be too discriminate from human nature; though what the satirist drew from spleen flowed in the painter from an honest love of flesh and blood. There are besides in Lord Orford's collection the sketches, for the Cardinal Infant's entry into Antwerp ; the family of Rubens, by his scholar Jordaens ; and his second wife Helena Forman, a celebrated whole length by Vandyck. The fine picture of St. Martin, the late Prince of Wales bought of Mr. Bagnol, who brought it from Spain. It is remarkable that in this piece Rubens has borrowed the head of an old man from the cripple in one of the cartoons, of which I have said he gave information to King Charles, who purchased them. At Lord Spencer's at Wimbledon is a fine portrait of Cardinal Howard. At Burleigh is an ebony cabinet, the front and sides of which are painted by Rubens ; at one end are his three wives, highly coloured. I do not find how long Rubens stayed in England, probably not scribed: ' Illust. excell. ac prudent, domino dn. Dudleyo Carleton equiti, magnae Britannias ' regis apud confoederatarum provinciarum in Belgio ordines legato, etc., pictoriae artis non • solum admiratori, sed etiam insigniter perito. Sculptor dedicat.' 1 There are sixteen pieces by this master : the best are, his own portrait with his wife and child, the offering of the magi, and the Roman charity. 2 Kennedy's account of Wilton, pp. 76, 79. 3 This picture is well known by the print, a cart overturning in a rocky country by moon- light. The Earl of Harcourt has a duplicate of this picture at his seat of Nuneham in Oxford- shire, where are scenes worthy of the bold pencil of Rubens, or to be subjects for the tranquil sunshines of Claud Lorrain. The noblest and largest landscape of Rubens is in the royal collection. It exhibits an almost bird's-eye view of an extensive country, with such masterly clearness and intelligence, as to contain in itself alone a school for painters of landscape. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. above a year. He died of the gout, in his own country, in 1640. A catalogue of his works may be seen in Descamps. 1 Mr. Maurice Johnson, of Spalding, in Lincolnshire, a great anti- quary, produced to the Society of Antiquaries some years ago a MS. containing discourses and observations on human bodies, and on the statues and paintings of the ancients and moderns, written partly in Latin, partly in Italian, and some notes in Dutch, and illustrated with several drawings, as heads, attitudes, proportions, etc., habits of Greeks and Romans, various instruments, utensils, armour, and head- dresses from coins and statues, and comparisons of Raphael, Michael Angelo, and others. It was an octavo pocket-book, and appeared to be an exact copy of Rubens's Album, which he used in his travels ; the drawings, and even handwriting, and different inks, being exactly imitated. This book was brought from Brussels by Captain Johnson, Mr. Johnson's son, and had one leaf of the original in it, with a sketch of the head of the Farnesian Hercules. The original itself is at Paris, where they intended to publish it. An account of it is given in the Catalogue raisonne de Monsieur Quintin de TOrangerie, par Frederic Gersaint, 1 744. Albert Rubens, son of Sir Peter Paul, was a learned man and medallist : he published the Due d'Arscot's medals with a commen- tary, and a treatise De re vestiaria et de lato clavo. Vide Biblioth. choisie de Colomies, p. 96. ABRAHAM DIEPENBECK, among the various scholars of Rubens, was one of the few that came to England, where he was much employed by William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, whose managed horses he drew from the life ; from whence were engraved the cuts that adorn that peer's book of horsemanship. Several of the original pictures still remain in the hall at Welbeck. Diepenbeck drew views of the Duke's seats in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and portraits of the duke, duchess, and his children, and gave designs for several plates prefixed to the works of both their Graces. i Diepenbeck/ says De Piles, 'was born at Boisleduc, and in his youth * was much employed in painting upon glass, 2 and, entering afterwards 1 into the school of Rubens, became one his best disciples.' Several prints were made from his works, particularly those he designed for a book called ' The Temple of the Muses,' engraved by Bloemart and Mattham in 1663, 3 and his portraits of Lessius and Bellarmine by Bolsvert (Evelyn's Sculptura, p. 73), and of Sir Hugh Cartwright, 1656, by Vosterman. 1 See also a list of the works of Rubens in ' Le Comte's Cabinet des Singularitez d'Architectnre ^Peinture, etc.,' vol. i. p. 251. There are forty-six pieces painted by him in the Elector Pala- tine's gallery at Dusseldorp : one of them, The Last Judgment, is 20 feet high, and 15 wide. 2 Sandrart says he excelled all the other painters on glass. 3 Sandrart. ^See a further account of Diependeck in the Abrcgc de la Vic des plus fameux Peintres, vol. ii., p. 198. At Cashiobury is the story of Dido and ^neas by him. Sir R. V/alpole had another, but smaller. 1 66 vandyck's early life and style of painting. SIR ANTONY VANDYCK, whose works are so frequent in England that the generality of our people can scarce avoid thinking him their countryman, was born at Antwerp in 1598, the only son of a merchant, and of a mother who was admired for painting flowers in small, and for her needleworks in silk. Vandyck was first placed with Van Balen, who had studied at Rome, and painted figures both in large and small; but the fame of Rubens drew away to a nobler school the young, congenial artist. The progress of the disciple speedily raised him to the glory of assisting in the works from which he learned. Fame, that always supposes jealousy is felt where there are grounds for it, attributes to Rubens an envy of which his liberal nature I believe was incapable, and makes him advise Van- dyck to apply himself chiefly to portraits. I shall show that jealousy, at least emulation, is rather to be ascribed to the scholar than to the master. If Rubens gave the advice in question, he gave it with reason, not maliciously. Vandyck had a peculiar genius for portraits; his draperies 1 are finished with a minuteness of truth not demanded in his- toric compositions ; besides, his invention was cold and tame, nor does he anywhere seem to have had much idea of the passions and their expression ; portraits require none. If Rubens had been jealous of Van- dyck, would he, as all their biographers agree he did, persuade him to visit Italy, whence himself had drawn his greatest lights ? Addison did not advise Pope to translate Homer, but assisted Tickell in a rival translation. Vandyck, after making presents to Rubens of two or three histories, and the famous portrait of the latter's wife, set out for Italy, and made his first residence at Genoa. From thence he went to Venice, which one may call the metropolis of the Flemish painters, who seem so naturally addicted to colouring that even in Italy they see only with Flemish eyes. Vandyck imbibed so deeply the tints of Titian, that he is allowed to approach nearer to the carnations of that master even than Rubens ; Sir Antony had more delicacy than the latter ; but, like him, never reached the grace and dignity of that antique. He seldom even arrived at beauty. His Madonnas are homely; his ladies so little flattered that one is surprised he had so much custom. He has left us to wonder that the famous Countess of Carlisle could be thought so charming; and had not Waller been a better painter, Sacharissa would make little impression now. One excellence he had which no portrait- painter ever attained except Sir Godfrey Kneller, the hands are often the finest part of his pictures. He went to Rome and lived splendidly, avoiding the low conversa- tion of his countrymen, and distinguished by the appellation of the Pittore Cavalieresco. It was at Rome he drew that capital portrait of Cardinal Bentivoglio, who, having been nuncio in Flanders, had a 1 His satins, of which he was fond, particularly white and blue, are remarkably finished ; his backgrounds heavy, and have great sameness. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING, 167 partiality for their artists ; and as he celebrated their history with his pen, was in return almost immortalised by one of their best pencils. Vandyck, while at Rome, received an invitation to Palermo, and went thither. There he painted Prince Philibert of Savoy, the vice- roy, and a paintress of some name, Sophonisba Anguisciola, 1 then at the age of ninety-one. But the plague soon drove him from Sicily ; he returned to Genoa, where he had gained the highest reputation, and where he has left many considerable works. He went back to Antwerp, and practised both history and portrait. Of the former kind were many applauded altar-pieces ; in the latter were particularly the heads of his cotemporary artists. lie drew them in chiaroscuro on small panels, thirty-five of which are in the collec- tion of the Countess of Cardigan at Whitehall. Admirable is the variety of attitudes and airs of heads ; but in those pieces he meant to surpass as well as to record. The whole collection has been thrice published; the first edition, by Vanden Enden, contains fourscore plates; the second, by Giles Hendrix, one hundred; the last by Ver- dussen, who effaced the names and letters of the original engravers. Some of the plates were etched by Vandyck himself. I say nothing of the numbers of prints from his other works. Hearing of the favour King Charles showed to the arts, Vandyck came to England, and lodged with his friend Geldorp, a painter, hoping to be introduced to the king: it is extraordinary he was not. He went away chagrined ; but his majesty soon learning what a treasure had been within his reach, ordered Sir Kenelm Digby, who had sat to Van- dyck, to invite him over. He came, and was lodged among the king's artists at Blackfriars, which Felibien, according to the dignity of ignor- ance which the French affect, calls 6 UHotel de Blaifore' (Vol. hi., p. 445). Thither the king went often by water, and viewed his performances with singular delight, frequently sitting to him himself and bespeaking pictures of the queen, his children, and his courtiers, and conferring the honour of knighthood 2 on him at St. James's, July 5, 1632. This was soon attended by the grant of an annuity of 200/. a year for life. The patent is preserved in the rolls, and dated 1633, in which he is styled painter to his majesty. I have already mentioned the jealousy of Mytens on this occasion. Of the various portraits by Vandyck of King Charles, the principal are, a whole length in the coronation robes at Hampton Court ; 3 the head has been engraved by Vertue among the kings of England, and the whole 1 At the Lord Spencer's at Wimbledon is a good Sophonisba Anguisciola playing on a harpsi- chord, painted by herself, and an old woman attending her : on the picture is written Jussu Patris. Lord Ashburnham has a small head of her in a round. 2 The French author of the Lives of the Painters says he was created knight of the lath ; a mistake. Abrege, vol. ii., p. 170. Another mistake is his supposing that Vandyck was only to give designs for tapestries in the banqueting-house, p. 171. 3 In the same palace are whole lengths of James I., his queen, the Queen of Bohemia, and Prince Henry, copied by Vandyck from painters of the preceding reign Prince Henry's is in armour, in which Vandyck excelled; has an amiable countenance, and is a fine picture. i68 THE PAINTINGS OF SIR ANTONY VANDYCK. figure by Strange. Another in armour on a dun horse at Blenheim. 1 A whole length in armour at Houghton. Another, a large piece at the Duke of Grafton's, in which the king (a most graceful figure) in white satin, with his hat on, is just descended from his horse ; at a distance, a view of the Isle of Wight. The king 2 in armour on a white horse; Monsieur de St. Antoine 3 his equerry, holding his helmet. The head of the latter is fine ; the king's is probably not an original. This and the following are at each end of the gallery at Kensington. The king and queen sitting; Prince Charles, very young, standing at his knee; the Duke of York, an infant, on hers. 4 At Turin is another whole length of the king, in a large piece of architecture. At Somerset House the king and queen, half lengths, holding a crown of laurel between them. At Windsor is a beautiful half length of the queen in white. Many portraits of her pretend to be by Vandyck, but none are so lovely as this. He two or three times drew Prince Charles in armour standing. At Kensington in one piece are Prince Charles, Prince James, and the Princess Mary, lately engraved by Strange. In the same palace is one of his finest works, George Villiers, the second Duke of Buckingham, and Lord Francis his brother, when children. Nothing can exceed the nature, lustre, and delicacy of this sweet picture. At Houghton are two young daughters of the Lord Wharton, admirable too, but rather inferior to the foregoing. In Lord Orford's collection are several principal works 5 of this master. The holy family with a dance of angels; it belonged to King Charles, is a capital picture, but has its faults. Inigo Jones, a head; Rubens' wife, in black satin; Henry Dan vers Earl of Danby, whole length, in the robes of the garter; and a half length of Sir Thomas Chaloner, governor of Prince Henry. Be- sides these, my father bought of the last duke the whole collection of the Wharton family ; there were twelve whole lengths, the two girls, six half lengths, and two more by Sir Peter Lely ; he paid a hundred pounds each for the whole lengths and the double picture, and fifty pounds each for the half lengths. Most of them were carried to Houghton ; but some not suiting the places were brought back, and sold for a trifle after the death of my father. Those that remain are, King Charles, the queen, very indifferent, Sir Thomas Wharton; of the half lengths, Laud, a celebrated but not very fine picture ; Sir Christo- pher Wandesford, Lady Wharton, Mrs. Wharton, Mrs. Wenman, and the Lely s. 6 1 This was in the royal collection, was sold in the civil war, and was bought by the Duke of Marlborough from Munich. 3 This is the picture that was recovered from Remee. 3 He had been a chief equerry to Prince Henry, and led a mourning-horse at his funeral. See Birch's life of that prince, append. 527. 4 This picture has been heightened to make it match its opposite. 5 See a particular description of these pictures in the iEdes Walpolianse. 6 The rest were, Lady Wharton in white ; Lady Chesterfield ditto ; Countess of Worcester in blue ; Lady Rich in black, very handsome, on whose death Waller wrote a poem ; and Lord Wharton, both bought by Lord Hardwickc ; Mrs. Smith in blue, a homely woman, but a fine HORACE WALPOLE ? S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. At Cornbury, the seat of the Earls, of Clarendon in Oxfordshire, was a noble collection of portraits of the principal persons in the reign of King Charles, many of which were drawn by Vandyck. The collection has since been divided between the Duchess of Queensbury, Lady Hyde, and Lady Mary Forbes, the heiresses of the family. Several others of his works are at the Earl of Denbigh's, and at Lord Spencer's at Althrop. Among the latter, a celebrated double whole length of the first Duke of Bedford, and the famous Lord Digby, afterwards Earl of Bristol. The whole figure of the latter is good, and both the heads fine ; the body of Bedford is flat, nor is this one of his capital works. Here, too, is a good picture of Daedalus and Icarus, half lengths ; a fine surly impatience in the young man, and his body well coloured. The Duke of Devonshire has some good pictures by him ; at Chiswick is the well known Belisarius, 1 though very doubtful if by the hand of Vandyck. The expressive figure of the young soldier redeems this picture from the condemnation it would deserve by the principal figure being so mean and inconsiderable. The duke has Vandyck's travel- ling pocket-book, in which are several sketches, particularly from Titian, and of Sophonisba Anguisciola mentioned above. At Holkham is a large equestrian picture of a Count D'Aremberg; both the rider and horse are in his best manner ; and at Earl Cowper's a large piece of John, Count of Nassau, and his family, lately engraved by Baron. Mr. Skinner, with the collection of the late Mr. Thomas Walker, has a fine little picture of the Lady Venetia Digby, wife of Sir Kenelm ; though only a model for the large one at Windsor, it is exquisitely finished. She is represented as treading on Envy and Malice, and is unhurt by a serpent that twines round her arm. This gallant compli- ment is a little explained in the new Life of Lord Clarendon, who mentions Sir Kenelm's marriage with a lady, 'though of an extra- ordinary beauty, of as extraordinary fame.' 2 Mr. Walker's collection was chiefly chosen for him by a set of virtuosi called Vandycks, or The Club of St. Luke ; and it is plain, from the pictures they recom- picture, now mine ; Lady Carlisle, bought by Mr. West ;* Arthur Goodwin, father of Lady Wharton, one of the best, given by my father to the late Duke of Devonshire ; and two portraits of Prince Rupert, whole and half lengths ; both very poor performances. Some of the whole lengths were engraved by Van Gunst. 1 Lord Burlington gave iooo/. for this picture at Paris, and had another of Luca Jordano into the bargain.. 2 There is an elegy and epitaph on this lady in Randolph's poems, page 28, in which her beauty is exceedingly commended. She was daughter and coheiress of Sir Edward Stanley, grandson of Edward Earl of Derby, by the Lady Lucy Percy, daughter of Thomas Earl of Northumberland. Lady Venetia was found dead in her bed. Sir Kenelm erected for her a monument of black marble with her bust in copper gilt, and a lofty epitaph, in Christchurch without Newgate ; but it was destroyed in the fire of London. Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, vol. iv., p. 89. There are two copper busts of the lady Venetia extant at Mr. Wright's at Gothurst in Buckinghamshire, with several portraits of the family of Digby. The house belonged to Sir Kenelm, and was purchased by Sir Nathan Wright. And at his death by Mr. Barret of Lee. 170 THE PAINTINGS OF VANDYCK IN THE SALON AT WILTON. mended, that they understood what they professed. There was another large piece of Sir Kenelm, his lady, and two children, in the collection of the Earl of Oxford ; and a fine half lengh of Sir Kenelm alone is at Kensington. Vandyck painted, too, for the king a twelfth Roman emperor, to complete the set of Titian, in the room of one which was spoiled and left at Mantua. They cost the king 100/. apiece, and after his death were bought by the Spanish ambassador, the first purchaser of those effects. As the king's collection was embezzled or taken by his servants for their arrears, that minister laid out 500/. in those pur- chases with Harrison the king's embroiderer by Somerset House, and of Murray, his taylor, he bought a half figure of a Venus. 1 The Flem- ings gave any price for the works of Vandyck from that collection. Sir Peter Lely, as maybe seen in his catalogue, had several capital ones. But it is at the Earl of Pembroke's at Wilton that Vandyck is on his throne. The great salon is entirely furnished by his hand. There is that principal picture of Earl Philip and his family, which, though damaged, would serve alone as a school of this master. Yet with great admiration of him, I cannot but observe how short he falls of his model Titian. What heads both of age and youth are in the family of Cor- naro at Northumberland House ! How happily is the disposition of a religious act chosen to throw expression into a group of portraits ! It is said that the Earl of Pembroke had obtained leave to have a piece of the whole royal family by the same hand, as a companion to his own. At Leicester House is a double portrait, bought by the late Prince of Wales of Mr. Bagnols. It represents two of the wits of that time : T. Carew, of the privy-chamber to Charles I. and a poet, and Henry Killigrew. They had a remarkable dispute before Mrs. Cecilia Crofts, sister of the Lord Crofts, to which Vertue supposed this picture alluded, as in a play called * The Wanderer' was a song against jealousy, writ- ten on the same occasion. I have another very fine double portrait by him of the celebrated Countess of Carlisle, and her sister, the Countess of Leicester, which came from Penshurst ; and I bought, too, after the death of Richardson the painter, the picture of the Countess of Exeter, which he has described so largely in one of his treatises. I have reserved to the last 2 the mention of the finest picture in my 1 These and many other notices are taken from the pocket-books of Richard Symonds of Black Notley in Essex, gent., who was born at Okehampton, and was in the army of King Charles during the civil war, writing memoirs of battles, actions, motions, and promotions of officers from time to time in small pocket-books ; and through the several counties he passed, memorandums of churches, monuments, painted windows, arms, inscriptions, etc., till January 1, 1648, when he left London, and travelled, first to Paris, and then to Rome and Venice (always continuing his memoirs), where he stayed till his return to England in 1652. Eight or ten of these books were in the Harleian library, two in that of Dr. Meads, and two or three in the Herald's office, where is the pedigree of his family with his picture (probably) in red wax from a seal, engraved by T. Simon, his namesake but no relation. 2 I have here, as in the case of Holbein, mentioned only the capital pieces, or those which, being in great collections, are most easy of access. I do not pretend to enumerate all that are or are called of this master. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 171 opinion of this master. It is of the Earl of Strafford and his secretary, at the Marquis of Rockingham's, at Wentworth House, in Yorkshire. I can forgive him any insipid portraits of perhaps insipid people, when he showed himself capable of conceiving and transmitting the idea of the greatest man of the age. There is another of these pictures at Blenheim, but infinitely inferior. In the cathedral of Gloucester are two cumbent figures of an alder- man and his wife, evidently wrought from a design of Vandyck. It is great pity the sculptor is not known, so successfully has he executed the manner of the painter. The figures, even in that tasteless attitude, are easy and graceful, and the draperies have a peculiar freedom. 1 Vandyck had 40/. for a half, and 60/. for a whole length ; a more rational proportion than that of our present painters, who receive an equal price for the most insignificant part of the picture. Since the former edition of this work I have been been favoured by Edm. Malone, Esq., with the following notes of some of Vandyck's prices from an office-book that belonged to the lord chamberlain, Philip Earl of Pembroke. 1 July 15, 1632. A warrant for a privy seale of 280/. to be payed unto i Sir Antony Vandyke, for diverse pictures by him made for his majes- i tye, viz., for the picture of his majestie, another of Monsieur, the ' French king's brother, and another of the ambassadress, at length, at 1 25/. a piece — one of the queene's majestie, another of the Prince of 6 Orange, another of the Princess of Orange, and another of their son, * at half length, twenty pounds a piece. For one great piece of his c majestie, the queene and their children, one hundred pounds. One 1 of the Emperor Vitellius, twenty pounds. And for mending the pic- ture of the Emperor Galba, five pounds ; amounting in all to 280/.' From the same book, 1 Forty pounds paid to Sir Antony Vandyke c for the picture of the queene, presented to Lord Strafford, Oct. 12, 1633.' He was indefatigable, 2 and, keeping a great table, often detained the persons who sat to him, to dinner, for an opportunity of studying their countenances, and of retouching their pictures again in the afternoon. Sir Peter Lely told Mrs. Beale, that Laniere assured him he had sat seven entire days to him morning and evening, and that, notwith- standing, Vandyck would not once let him look at the picture till he was content with it himself. This was the portrait that determined the king to invite him to England a second time. 3 In the summer he lived at Eltham in Kent, In an old house there, said to have been his, Vertue saw several sketches of stories from Ovid in two colours, ascribed to him. 1 Sanderson, a quaint writer, uses a phrase, which, though affected, is expressive. He says, ' Vandyck was the first painter, who e'er put ladies' dress into a careless romance.' Graphice, P- 39- . . 2 This is evident by the number of his works ; for, though he was not above forty-two when he died, they are not exceeded by those of Rubens. 3 It is at the seat of the Lord Chancellor Henley, at the Grange in Hampshire. 172 THE LUXURIOUS LIFE LED BY VANDYCK. At the Duke of Grafton's is a fine half length of Vanclyck 1 by him- self, when young, holding up his arm, the hand declined. There is a print of it, and of two others of him, older ; one looking over his shoulder, the other with a sunflower. At Hampton Court in the apart- ment below, is his mistress Mrs. Lemon 2 highly finished. There is a print of the same person by Hollar, but not from this picture. In the pocket-book of R. Symonds that I have mentioned, he says, ' It was f much wondered at, that he (Vandyck) should openly keep a mistress ' of his (Mrs. Lemon) in the house, and yet suffer Porter to keep her 6 company.' This was Endymion Porter, of the bed-chamber to King Charles, of whom and his family there was a large piece by Vandyck at Buckingham House. 3 He was much addicted to his pleasures and expense ; I have men- tioned how well he lived. He was fond of music, and generous to musicians. His luxurious and sedentary life brought on the gout, and hurt his fortune. He sought to repair it, not like his master, by the laboratory of his painting-room, but by that real folly, the pursuit of the philosopher's stone, in which perhaps he was encouraged by the example or advice of his friend, Sir Kenelm Digby. Towards the end of his life, the king bestowed on him for a wife, Mary, the daughter of the unfortunate Lord Gowry, which, if meant as a signal honour, might be calculated too to depress the disgraced family by connecting them with the blood of a painter. It is certain that the alliance does not seem to have attached Vandyck more strongly to the king ; whether he had any disgusts infused into him by his new wife, or whether ambi- tious, as I have hinted, of vying with the glory of his master in the Luxemburg, Sir Antony soon after his marriage set out for Paris, in hopes of being employed there in some public work. He was disap- pointed 4 — their own Poussin was then deservedly the favourite at that court. Vandyck returned to England, and in the same humour of executing some public work, and that in competition with his master. He proposed to the king, by Sir Kenelm Digby, to paint the walls of the banqueting house, of which the ceiling was already adorned by Rubens, with the history and procession of the order of the garter. The proposal struck the king's taste; and by a small sketch 5 in chiaro- scuro for the procession, in which, though very faint, some portraits are 1 I have a fine sketch of the face only, by himself. 2 I have another head of her freely painted, which was in the collection of Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham. From the minutes of the Antiquarian Society, I find that in 1723 they were informed that at Mr. Isaac Ewer's in Lincoln's-inn-fields was a copy by Vanderbank of Thurloe's portrait, painted by Mr. Churchill's pupil, mistress to Vandyck. This person, I suppose, was Mrs. Carlisle, mentioned hereafter ; but of Churchill I have seen no other account. 3 See a list of Vandyck's works in Le Compte's Cabinet des Singularites d' Architecture, Peinture, etc., vol. i., p. 282. Many are in the gallery at Dusseldorp. 4 He was not totally unemployed there. Sir Richard Lyttelton has two small pictures in chiaroscuro, since engraved, evidently designed for altar-pieces, and representing Anne of Austria and some monkish saint. 5 Now at the Lord Chancellor Henley's at the Grange in Hampshire. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 173 distinguishable, it looks as though it had been accepted ; though some say it was rejected, on the extravagant price demanded by Vandyck; I would not specify the sum, it is so improbable, if I did not find it repeated in Fenton's notes on Waller. It was fourscore thousand pounds ! The civil war prevented farther thoughts of it, as the death of Vandyck would have interrupted the execution, at least the comple- tion of it. He died in Blackfriars, Dec. 9, 1641, and was buried on the nth in St. PauFs, near the tomb of John of Gaunt. By Maria Ruthven his wife, he left one daughter married to Mr. Stepney, a gentleman who rode in the horse-guards on their first establishment by Charles II. Their grandson Mr. Stepney, was envoy to several courts, and is known by his poems published in the collection of the works of our minor poets. Sir John Stepney, another de- scendant, died on the road from Bath to Wales in 1748. Lady Van- dyck, the widow, was married again to Richard Pryse, son of Sir John Pryse of Newton- Aberbecham, in Montgomeryshire, knight. Richard, who was created a baronet, August 9, 1641, was first married to Hester, the daughter of Sir Hugh Middleton; by Vandyck's widow he had no issue. 1 Besides his legitimate children Vandyck had a natural daughter called Maria Teresa, to whom, as appears by his will in Doctor's Com- mons, he left four thousand pounds, then in the hands of his sister Susannah Vandyck in a convent at Antwerp, whom he appoints trustee for that daughter. To his sister Isabella he bequeaths 250 guilders yearly ; and in case his daughter Maria Teresa die unmarried, he en- tails 4000/. on another sister, married to Mr. Derick, and her children. To his wife Mary, and his new-born daughter Justiniana Anna, he gives all his goods, effects and moneys, due to him in England from King Charles, the nobility, and all other persons whatever, to be equally divided between them. His executors are his wife, Mr. Aurelius de Meghan, and Katherine Cowley, to which Katherine he leaves the care of his daugter to be brought up, allowing ten pounds per ann. till she is eighteen years of age. Other legacies he gives to his executors and trustees for their trouble, and three pounds each to the poor of St. Paul's and St. Anne's, Blackfriars, and to each of his servants male and female. The war prevented the punctual execution of his will, the probate of which was not made till 1663, when the heirs and executors from abroad and at home assembled to settle the accounts and recover what debts they could — but with little effect. In 1668, and in 1703, the heirs, with Mr. Carbonnel, who had married the daughter of Vandyck's daughter, made farther inspections into his affairs and demands on his creditors ; but what was the issue does not appear. Lady Lempster, mother of the last Earl of Pomfret, who was at 1 Vertue ascertained these matches by books in the college of arms. 174 THE SCHOLARS AND COMPANIONS OF VANDYCK. Rome with her lord, wrote a life of Vandyck, with some description of his works. Sir Kenelm Digby in his discourses compares Vandyck and Hoskins, and says the latter pleased the most, by painting in little. Waller has addressed a poem to Vandyck, beginning, 'Rare artisan Lord Halifax another on his portrait of Lady Sunderland, printed in the third volume of State poems, and Cowley wrote an elegy on his death. Among the scholars 1 of Vandyck was 2 DAVID BECK, born at Arnheim in 162 1 ; he was in favour with Charles L, and taught the prince and the Dukes of York and Gloucester to draw. Descamps says that Beck's facility in composition was so great, that Charles I. said to him, ' Faith ! Beck, I believe you could paint riding post' (vol. ii. 315). He afterwards went to France, Denmark, and Sweden, and died in 1656. GEORGE GELDORP, of Antwerp, a countryman and friend of Vandyck, in whose house that painter lodged at his first arrival, had been settled here some time before. He could not draw himself, but painted on sketches made by others, and was in repute even by this artificial practice; 3 though Vertue was told by Mr. Rose that it was not his most lucrative employment, his house being reckoned convenient for the intrigues of people of fashion. He first lived in Drury Lane, in a large house and garden rented from the crown at 30/. per ann., and afterwards, in 1653, in Archer Street. He had been concerned in keeping the king's pic- tures ; and when Sir Peter Lely first came over, he worked for Geldorp, who lived till after the restoration, and was buried at Westminster. One of the apprentices of Geldorp was ISAAC SAILMAKER, who was employed by Cromwell to take a view of the fleet before Mardyke. A print of the confederate fleet under Sir George Rooke engaging the French, commanded by the Count de Toulouse, was 1 John de Reyn, a scholar of Vandyck, is said by Descamps to have lived with his master in England till the death of the latter, after which he was in France and settled at Dunkirk. If De Reyn's works are little known, adds his biographer, it is owing to their approaching so nearly to his master's as to be confounded with them. Vol. ii., p. 189. 2 The French author of the Abrege says that Gerard Seghers came hither after the deaths of Rubens and Vandyck, and softened his manner here. This is all the trace I find of his being in England. Vol. ii., p. 162. At Kensington is an indifferent piece of flowers by him, but I do not know that it was painted here. 3 This must not be supposed to include his portraits, for which he certainly would have had no custom, if the persons had been obliged to sit to two different men. A painter may execute a head, though he cannot compass a whole figure. A print by Voerst of James Stewart, Duke of Lenox, with George Geldorp, pinx., is indubitable proof that the latter painted portraits. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 1 75 engraved in 1714 from a design of Sailmaker, who lived to the age of 88. and died June 28, 1721. BRADSHAW was another painter in the reign of Charles I., whom I only mention with other obsolete names to lead inquirers to farther discoveries. All I find of him is a note from one of the pocket-books of R. Symonds above mentioned, who says, ' Pierce in Bishopsgate Street told me that i Bradshaw is the only man that doth understand perspective of all the ' painters in London/ B. VAN BASSEN, of Antwerp, was a very neat painter of architecture. In the private apartment below stairs at Kensington are two pictures by him ; in one are represented Charles I. and his queen at dinner ; in the other, the King and Queen of Bohemia, distinguished by their initial letters F. and E. The Duchess of Portland has a magnificent 1 cabinet of ebony, bought by her father, the Earl of Oxford, from the Arundelian collec- tion at Tart Hall. On each of the drawers is a small history by Polen- burg, and pieces of architecture in the manner of Steenwyck by this Van Bassen, who must not be confounded with the Italian Bassans, nor with the Bassanos, who were musicians to Charles, and of which name there was also a herald painter. The first Bassano, who came hither in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and was related to the Italian painters of that name, settled in Essex and purchased an estate, which was sold in 1714 by the male descendant. In the mansion was a por- trait of the musician holding a bass-viol. It is now at Narford in Norfolk, the seat of the late Sir Andrew Fountain. CORNELIUS POLENBURG, the sweet painter of little landscapes and figures, was born at Utrecht in 1586, and educated under Bloemart, whom he soon quitted to travel to Italy, as he abandoned, say our books, the manner of Elsheimer to study Raphael — but it is impossible to say where they find Raphael in Polenburg. The latter formed a style entirely new, and, though pre- ferable to the Flemish, unlike any Italian, except in having adorned his landscapes with ruins. There is a varnished smoothness and finishing in his pictures that makes them always pleasing, though simple and too nearly resembling one another. The Roman cardinals were charmed with the neatness of his works; so was the great duke, but could not retain him. He returned to Utrecht and pleased Rubens, who had several of his performances. King Charles invited him to London, where he lived in Archer Street, next door to Geldorp, and generally painted the figures in Steenwyck's perspectives. There is a 1 Lord Oxford paid 310/. 176 SCARCITY OF THE WORKS OF POLENBURG : THEIR IMITATIONS- very curious picture at Earl Poulet's at Hinton St. George, represent* ing an inside view of Theobald's, with figures of the king, queen, and the two Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, William and Philip. This piece is probably of Steenwyck, and the figures, 1 which are copied from Vandyck, either of Polenburg or Van Bassen. The works of Polenburg are very scarce; 2 his scholar, John de Lis of Breda, imitated his manner so exactly, that his pieces are often taken for the hand of his master. The best picture in England of the latter is at the Viscount Middleton's. I have his own and his wife's portrait by him in small ovals on copper : they were my father's. The wife is stiff and Dutch ; his own is inimitable ; though worked up to the tender smoothness of enamel, it has the greatest freedom of pencil, the happiest delivery of nature. Charles could not prevail on Polenburg to fix here ; he returned to Utrecht, and died there in 1660, at the age of seventy-four. HENRY STEENWYCK was son 3 of the famous painter of architecture, and learned that man- ner of his father. I find no particulars of the time of his arrival here, or when he died. It is certain he worked for King Charles. 4 The ground to the portrait of that prince, in the royal palace at Turin, I believe, was painted by him. 5 In a MS. catalogue of King Charles's collection is mentioned a perspective by Steenwyck, with the king and queen, in little, by Belcamp. In the same catalogue is recorded a little book of perspectives by Steenwyck, which on the sale of the king's goods sold for no more than two pounds ten shillings. Steen- wyck's name and the date, 1629, are on the picture of Frobenius at Kensington, which he altered for King Charles. It is the portrait of the son that is among the heads of painters by Vandyck. His son Nicholas was in England also, painted for King Charles, and probably died here. JOHN TORRENTIUS, of Amsterdam, is known to have been here, not by his works, but on the authority of Schrevelius, in his History of Arlem, from whom Descamps took his account. Torrentius, says the latter, painted 1 In King Charles's catalogue are mentioned the portraits of his majesty, and of the children of the King of Bohemia, by Polenburg ; and in King James's are eight pieces by him. 2 There are sixteen mentioned in the catalogue of James II. 3 Descamps has proved that it is a mistake to call the son Nicholas, as Sandrart and others have done. P. 384. * In King James's catalogue are recorded ten of his works. 5 In France are the portraits of Charles and his queen by him, about a foot high, in one piece, with a front of a royal palace in the background. Descamps says this picture is more care- fully laboured than any work of Vandyck, and equal to the most valuable of Mieris, p. 385. I believe the fine piece of architecture at Houghton is by the hand of Steenwyck, the father. By the son was a capital picture of St. Peter in prison, which at Streater's sale in 1711 sold for 25/. It was afterwards in Dr. Meade's collection, who sold it to the late Prince of Wales, HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. I 7 7 admirably in small, but his subjects were not calculated to procure him many avowed admirers. He painted from the lectures of Petro- nius and Aretine, had the confidence to dogmatise on the same sub- jects, and practised at least what he preached. To profligacy he added impiety, till the magistrates thought proper to put a stop to his bold- ness. He underwent the question, and was condemned to an imprison- ment of twenty years ; but obtained his liberty by the intercession of some men of quality, and particularly of the English ambassador; what the name of the latter was we are not told. Torrentius came over to England ; but giving more scandal than satisfaction, he returned to Amsterdam, and remained there concealed till his death in 1640, aged fifty-one. King Charles had two pieces of his hand: one representing two glasses of rhenish, the other a naked man (Catalog., pp. 158, 162). J. C. KEIRINCX, called here Carings, was employed by King Charles to draw views ; his works are mentioned in the royal catalogue, particularly prospects of his majesty's houses in Scotland. In a sale of pictures in March 1745, was a landscape by him, freely and brightly touched, with his name written on it as above, 1 and a few small figures added by Polen- burg. In Dagar's sale were three drawings with a pen, and washed, by Keirincx; one of them had a view of the Parliament House and Westminster Stairs to the water, dated 1625. JOHN PRIWITZER was too good a painter to remain so long unknown. At Woburn, besides some young heads of the family, is a whole length of Sir William Russel, a youth, and knight of the bath in the robes of the order, with a dwarf aged thirty-two. It is painted with great bright- ness and neatness, and does not want freedom. Upon it is written 4 Johannes Priwitzerus de Hungaria faciebat, 1627.' I have never met with any other mention of this name. GEORGE JAMESONE 2 was the Vandyck of Scotland, to which title he had a double pre- tension, not only having surpassed his countrymen as a portrait-painter, but from his works being sometimes attributed to Sir Amtony, who was his fellow-scholar ; both having studied under Rubens at Antwerp. Jamesone was son of Andrew Jamesone, an architect, and was born 1 The French author of the Abrege calls him Alexander, which must be a mistake. He says he acquired his reputation by what should have destroyed it ; as he could not paint figures, Polenburg, generally added them for him. I have the view of a seat in a park by him, freely painted, not to say very carelessly. It has King Charles's mark behind it. 2 The materials of this article were communicated by Mr. John Jamisone, wine merchant in Leith, who has another portrait of this painter by himself, 12 inches by 10. 178 JAMESONE, THE VANDYCK OF SCOTLAND. at Aberdeen in 1586. At what age he went abroad, or how long he continued there, is not known. After his return, he applied with inde- fatigable industry to portrait in oil, though he sometimes practised in miniature, and in history and landscape too. His largest portraits 1 were generally somewhat less than life. His excellence is said to con- sist in delicacy and softness, with a clear and beautiful colouring, his shades not charged, but helped by varnish, with little appearance of the pencil. There is a print of him, his wife Isabella Tosh and a young son, painted by himself in 1623, engraved by Alexander Jame- sone, his descendant, in 1728, and now in the possession of Mr. John Alexander, limner at Edinburgh, his great grandson, with several other portraits of the family, painted by George ; particularly another of himself in his school, with sketches both of history and landscape, and with portraits of Charles I., his queen, Jamesone's wife, and four others of his works from the life. When King Charles visited Scotland in 1633, the magistrates of Edinburgh, knowing his majesty's taste, employed Jamesone to make drawings of the Scottish monarchs ; with which the king was so much pleased, that, inquiring for the painter, he sat to him, and rewarded him with a diamond ring from his own finger. It is observable that Jamesone always drew himself with his hat on, either in imitation of his master, Rubens, or on having been in- dulged in that liberty by the king when he sat to him. Though most of the considerable families in Scotland are possessed of works by this master, the greatest collection of them is at Tay- mouth, the seat of the Earl of Breadalbane ; Sir Colin Campbell, of Glenorchy, his lordship's ancestor, having been the chief and earliest patron of Jamesone, who had attended that gentleman on his travels. From a MS. on vellum, containing the genealogy of the house of Glenorchy, begun in 1598, are taken the following extracts, written in 1635, P a £ e 5 2: — 'Item, the said Sir Coline Campbell (8th Laird 'of Glenorchy) gave unto George Jamesone, painter in Edinburgh, ' for King Robert and King David Bruysses, kings of Scotland, 'and Charles the first King of Great Brittane, France and Ireland, 'and his majestie's quein, and for nine more of the queins of Scot- ' land their portraits, quhilks are set up in the hall of Ballock, [now ' Taymouth] the sum of tua hundreth thrie scor punds.' ' Mair the ' said Sir Coline gave to the said George Jamesone for the Knight of ' Lockow's lady, and the first Countess of Argylle, and six of the ladys 'of Glenurquhay their portraits, and the said Sir Coline his own ' portrait, quhilks are set up in the chalmer of Deass of Ballock, ane ' hundreth four scoire punds.' 1 His earliest works are chiefly on board, afterwards on a fine linen cloth, smoothly primed with a proper tone to help the harmony of his shadows. His best works were from 1630 to his death. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 1 79 Memorandum. In the same year, 1635, the said George Jamesone painted a large genealogical tree of the family of Glenorchy, 8 feet long and 5 broad, containing in miniature the portraits of Sir Duncan Campbell of Lockow, of Archibald Campbell his eldest son, first Earl of Argyle, and Sir Coline Campbell his second son, first laird of Glenorchy, together with the portraits of eight successive knights, lairds of Glenorchy, with the branches of their intermarriages, and of those of their sons and daughters, beautifully illuminated. At the bottom of which tree the following words are painted on a scroll: 'The genealogie of the hous of Glenurquhie, whereof is descendit ( sundrie nobill and worthie houses, 1635, C. Jamesone faciebat.' Besides the foregoing, Lord Breadalbane has at Taymouth, by the same hand, eleven portraits of lords and ladies of the first families in Scotland, painted in 1636 and 1637. From the extract above, it appears that Jamesone received no more for each of those heads than twenty pounds Scots, or one pound thirteen shillings and four-pence English; yet it is proved by their public records that he died possessed of an easy fortune, which he left to his three daughters, two of whom were honourably married. One of them, named Mary, distinguished herself by admirable needle- work; a piece of which used to be exhibited on festivals in the church of St. Nicholas at Aberdeen. Her descendant, Mr. Thomson, of Port- lethem, has an original picture of her father by himself. Three small portraits of the House of Haddington are in the possession of Thomas Hamilton, Esq., of Fala. Many of Jamesone's works are in both colleges of Aberdeen. The Sybils there, it is said, he drew from living beauties of that city. Mr. Baird, of Auchmedden in Aberdeenshire has in one piece three young ladies, cousins, of the houses of Argyle, Errol, and Kinnoul; their ages six, seven, and eight, as marked on the side of the picture. The same gentleman has a small whole length of William, Earl of Pem- broke, by some ascribed to Vandyck. At Mr, Lindsay's, of Wormeston in Fife, is a double half length of two boys, of that family, playing with a dog, their ages five and three, 1636. There is a perspective view of Edinburgh by Jamesone, with a Neptune on the foreground. Having finished a fine whole length of Charles I., he expected the magistrates of Aberdeen would purchase it for their hall ; but they offering him too inconsiderable a price, he sold it to a gentleman in the north of England. 1 Jamesone had many scholars, particularly Michael Wright, men- tioned in the twelfth chapter of these Anecdotes. His own portrait is in the Florentine chamber of painters. Though Jamesone is little known in England, his character as well 1 See an account of his other works in Pennant's Tour in Scotland, 8vo, 1772. 13 * l8o THE PORTRAITS AND BEQUESTS OF JAMISONE. as his works were greatly esteemed in his own country. Arthur Johnston, the poet, addressed to him an elegant epigram on the picture of the Marchioness of Huntley, which may be seen in the works of that author, printed at Middleburgh in 1642. The portrait itself is extant in the collection of the Duke of Gordon ; and in the Newton College of Aberdeen is the picture of Doctor Johnston himself by the same hand. A Latin elegy composed by David Wedderburn was printed on his death, which happened in 1644, at Edinburgh, where he was interred in the churchyard by the Gray Friars, but without any monument. By his will, written with his own hand in July 1641, and breathing a spirit of much piety and benevolence, he provides kindly for his wife and children, and leaves many legacies to his relations and friends, particularly to Lord Rothes, the king's picture from head to foot, and Mary with Martha in one piece : to William Murray he gives the medals in his coffer, makes a handsome provision for his natural daughter, and bestows liberally on the poor. That he should be in a condition to do all this, seems extraordinary, his prices having been so moderate ; for, enumerating the debts due to him, he charges Lady Haddington for a whole length of her husband and Lady Selon's of the same dimensions, frames and all, but 300 marks ; and Lord Max- well, for his own picture and his lady's, to their knees, 100 marks ; both sums of Scots money. Mr. Jamisone 1 has likewise a memorandum written and signed by this painter, mentioning a MS. in his possession, 6 containing 200 leaves c of parchment of excellent write, adorned with diverse historys of our ' Saviour curiously limned,' which he values at 200/., a very large sum at that time. What is become of that curious book is not known. WILLIAM DOBSON, whom King Charles called the English Tintoret, was born in 16 10, in St. Andrew's parish, in Holbourn. His family had been gentlemen of good rank at St. Alban's ; but having fallen into decay, he was put apprentice 2 to Sir Robert Peake, whom I have mentioned, a painter and dealer in pictures. Under him, though no excellent performer, but by the advantage of copying some pictures of Titian and Vandyck, Dobson profited so much, that a picture he had drawn being exposed in the window of a shop on Snow Hill, Vandyck passing by was struck with it; and, inquiring for the author, found him at work in a poor garret ; from whence he took him and recommended him to the king. On the death of Vandyck, Dobson was appointed serjeant-painter, and groom of the privy-chamber, and attended the king to Oxford, and lodged there in the High Street, almost over against St. Mary's Church, in a \ 1 So the name is now written, not Jamesone. 3 R. Symonds says he learned most of Old Cleyn. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. house where some of his works remained till of late years. At Oxford his majesty, Prince Rupert, and several of the nobility 1 sat to him ; but the declension of the king's affairs proved fatal to Dobson ; he loved his pleasures ; and not having had time to enrich himself, was involved in debts and thrown into prison, from whence he was delivered by one Mr. Vaughan of the Exchequer, whose picture he drew, and thought it the best of his portraits. He enjoyed this release but a short time; dying at the age of thirty-six, he was buried at St. Martin's, October 28, 1646. A short life, in which he had promised much excel- lence. His pictures are thought the best imitations of Vandyck; they are undoubtedly very faithful transcripts of nature. He painted history as well as portrait ; and even the latter, generally containing more than a single figure, rise almost above that denomination. Of the first sort is the decollation of St. John at Wilton. It is in a good style, but the colouring is raw. The idea of St. John is said to have been taken from the face of Prince Rupert. At Chatsworth is a very particular picture, said to be General Monke, his child, and his mistress, whom he took against the consent of her husband. The man in armour undoubtedly resembles Monke, but the whole piece has the air of a holy family ; nor is there any other tradition of any mistress of Monke, but the famous Anne Clarges, 2 whom he afterwards married and who, some say, was a milliner. There are many instances of painters who have deified their mistresses ; but the character of the Virgin Mary was never more prostituted than if assumed by Anne Clarges. Mr. Stanley has a picture extremely like this, by . At Albury, in Surrey, the seat of the Earl of Arundel, was a picture by Dobson of the woman caught in adultery, with several figures; the heads taken from persons then living, among whom was the poet Cowley. At Chippenham, in Cambridgeshire, formerly the seat of Russell, Earl of Orford, in one piece are Prince Rupert, Colonel John Russell, and Mr. William Murray, drinking, and dipping their favour- ribbands in the wine. At Blenheim is a family, by some said to be that of Francis Carter, an architect, and scholar of Inigo Jones ; by others of Lilly, the astrologer, whom Vertue thought it resembled. 3 The man holds a pair of compasses. I have nothing of Dobson pre- ferable to this ; there is the utmost truth in it. At Devonshire House is another family-piece of Sir Thomas Brown, author of Religio Medici, his wife, two sons, and as many daughters. Mr. Willett, mer- chant, in Thames Street, has a small family-piece of Dr. Hibbard, 1 The author of the Abrege de la Vie des plus fameux Peintres, says, that Dobson being over- whelmed with business thought of a lucky way to check it. It was obliging persons who sat to him to pay half the price down ; and that he was the first who used this practice. By the swarms of portraits that are left on the hands of his successors, this method is either neglected, or has very little effect. 2 See an account of her in Lord Clarendon's History of his Life, in Ludlow's Memoirs, and in the Collection of State Poems, vol. i., p. 38. 3 But Whitlocke says that Lilly had no family. I&2 THE SPIRIT IN THE PORTRAITS OF DOBSON. physician, his wife and five children. The father and mother are par- ticularly well painted. A little boy leans on the father's knee, evidently borrowed from the well-known attitude by Rubens of Sir B. Gerbier's daughter. Two children on the right hand were certainly added after- wards, and are much inferior- to the rest. The dates were probably inserted at the same time. A whole length of Sir William Compton is in the possession of the family. At the Lord Byron's is the portrait of Sir Charles Lucas; and at Drayton, in Northamptonshire, Henry Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, in armour, with a page holding his horse, and an angel giving him his helmet. 1 A head of the Marquis of Montrose was taken for the hand of Vandyck: in a corner in stone colour is a statue of Peace ; on the other side, his helmet. At Mr. Skinner's (Mr. Walker's collection) is a large piece of Prince Charles, in armour, drawn about 1638, Mr. Windham, a youth, holding his hel- met ; at bottom are arms and trophies. I have mentioned a fine head of Vanderdort at Houghton. Dobson's wife, by him, is on the stairs of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford ; and his own head is at Earl Paulett's; the hands were added long since by Gibson, as he himself told Vertue. Charles, Duke of Somerset, had a picture of an old man sitting, and his son behind him; on this picture was written the follow- ing epigram, published by John Elsum among his Epigrams on Painting; 2 a work I have mentioned before, though of no merit, but by ascertain- ing some particular pictures : ' Perceiving somebody behind his chair, He turns about with a becoming air ; His head is raised, and looking o'er his shoulder So round and strong, you never saw a bolder. Here you see nature th'roughly understood ; A portrait not like paint, but flesh and blood ; And, not to praise Dobson below his merit. This flesh and blood is quickened by a spirit.' At Northumberland House, as I have said, is a triple portrait of Sir Charles Cotterel embraced by Dobson, and Sir Balthazar Gerbier in a white waistcoat. Sir Charles was a great friend and patron of Dobson; at Rousham in Oxfordshire, the seat of the Cotterels, are several good portraits by him. Sir Charles Cotterel, when at Oxford with the king, was engaged by his majesty to translate Davila's History 'of the Civil Wars of France; the frontispiece, designed by Sir Charles himself, was drawn by Dobson; it represented Francis II., Charles IX., Hen. 1 The last circumstance may relate to his preservation in the civil war, in which he was wounded, and made his escape when taken prisoner with Duke Hamilton and Lord Hol- land. This picture has great merit. 2 Page 112. It is a thin octavo, printed in 1700, with only his initial letters J. E., Esq. This John Elsum published another piece in 1703, called 'The art of Painting after the Italian ' Manner; with practical observations on the principal colours, and directions how to know a good picture with his name. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 1 83 III. and I V. ? with two dogs, a popish and protestant cur, fighting before them. This sketch is still preserved in the family, and in 1 729 was engraved in London for the History of Thuanus. He etched his own portrait. 1 In a collection of poems called Calanthe is an elegy on our painter. GERARD HONTHORST, the favourite painter of the Queen of Bohemia, was born in 1 592 at Utrecht, and instructed in painting by Bloemart ; but he completed his studies at Rome, where he stayed several years, and painted many things for Prince Justiniani, and other works, excelling particularly in night-pieces and candle-lights. On his return he married well, and, having a fair character, was remarkable for the number of his disciples of rank. Sandrart, who was one, says they were twenty-eight at the same time, who each payed him an hundred florins yearly. But his greatest honour was instructing the Queen of Bohemia and her chil- dren, 2 among whom the Princess Sophia, 3 and the Abbess of Maubuis- son chiefly distinguished themselves. King Charles invited him to England, where he drew various pictures, 4 particularly one very large emblematic piece, which now hangs on the queen's staircase at Hampton Court. Charles and his queen, as Apollo and Diana, are sitting in the clouds ; the Duke of Buckingham 5 under the figure of Mercury introduces to them the Arts and Sciences, while several genii drive away Envy and Malice. It is not a pleasing picture, but has the merit of resembling the dark and unnatural colouring of Guercino. This and other things 6 he completed in six months (Sandrart), and was rewarded with 3000 florins, a service of silver plate for twelve persons, and a horse ; and though he returned to Utrecht he continued to paint for the king. It must have been during his residence here that he drew an admirable half length of Lucy Countess of Bedford, now at Woburn ; it is painted and finished with the greatest vivacity 1 At Mr. Nicholas's at Horseley is a portrait of Sir Richard Fanshaw, which has been taken for the hand of Dobson : it was painted by one De Meetre ; a name unknown to me. 2 At Cashiobury, Lord Essex's, is a large picture of the Queen of Bohemia and her children by Honthorst. The elder sons are killing monsters that represent Envy, etc The King of Bohemia, like Jupiter, with the queen again, like Juno, are in the clouds. The head of the queen (not the latter) is pretty well painted; the rest very flat and poor. 3 De Piles. Of the Princess Sophia there is a portrait in a straw hat by Honthorst, at Wil- ton, natural but not very good. The other princess was Louisa Hollandina, who practised that art with swccess. Two pictures painted by her were in the collection of her uncle King Charles. See Catal., p. 53, Nos. 70, 71. One of them is at Kensington, Tobit and the angel in water colours, but now quite spoiled. There is also an altar-piece painted in oil by her in the church of the Jacobins at Paris, with her name to it. In Lovelace's Lucasta is a poem on Princess Loysa drawing, p. 17. She was bred a protestant, but in 1664 went to Paris, turned Catholic, and was made abbess of Maubuisson. She died in 1709 at the age of 86. 4 There were seven in King James's collection. 5 There is another at Kensington of the duke and duchess (to the knees) sitting with their two children. The duke's portrait is particularly good. The duke had a large picture by Hon- thorst, representing a tooth-drawer with many figures round him ; 5 feet by 7 feet. 6 Among the Harleian MSS., No. 6988, art. 19, is a letter from King Charles to the Duke of Buckingham, in the postscript to which he asks the duke if Honthorst had finished the queen's picture ? 1 84 DESCAMPS OFTEN QUOTED BY HORACE WALPOLE. and clearness. She is in black, leaning on her hand. Mr. West has the portraits of the Marquis of Montrose, of the Princes Rupert and Maurice, with his name written to them thus, G^onthorst. Another of their eldest brother Charles Lodowick, count palatine, 1 is dated 1633. A print of Mary de' Medici is inscribed, ' G. Honthorst eftigiem pinxit, ' 1633/ Rubens was a great admirer of Honthorst's night-pieces. The latter worked for the King of Denmark; the close of his life was employed in the service of the Prince of Orange, whose houses at the Hague, Hounslaerdyck, and Reswick, were adorned by his pencil with poetic histories. At the last of the three he painted a chamber with the habits, animals, and productions of various countries, and received 8ooo florins for his labour. He died at the Plague in 1660. Descamps in his second volume says, that Honthorst brought to England Joachim Sandrart, his scholar, and that the king bespoke many pictures of him; and that for the Earl of Arundel he copied from Holbein, Henry VIII. Sir T. More, Erasmus, and several others; and that he left England and went to Venice in 1627. I find no other authority for this account; not one work of Sandrart is mentioned in King Charles's collection ; and what is more conclusive against his having been in England, he takes not the least notice of it himself in the Life of Honthorst, though he relates his master's journey to England and his works here, and calls himself one of his disciples. JOHN VAN BELCAMP was employed under Vanderdort as a copier of the king's 2 pictures, and was reckoned to succeed. The whole length of Edw. IV. in his night-gown and slippers (the face in profile), which hangs over the chimney in the antechamber at St. James's, was painted by Belcamp, the face probably taken from the ancient original. In the catalogue of James II. are mentioned pictures of Edward III., the Black Prince, Anne of Denmark, Louis XIII., and of a large stag; Edward III. and the Black Prince are still in an anteroom at St. James's, and that of the King of France is perhaps the portrait now at Hampton Court. At Drayton, the seat of the Lady Elizabeth Germain in Northampton- shire, are whole lengths of Henry VII. and VIII. copied by Belcamp from the large picture of Holbein, which was burned at Whitehall. When King Charles secretly withdrew from that palace, in the letter which he left for Colonel Whalley were these directions : * There are here three pictures which are not mine, that I desire you 1 to restore ; my wife's picture in blew sattin sitting in a chair you 'must send to Mrs. Kirk; 3 my eldest daughter's picture copied by 1 In the gallery at Busseldorp is the story of the prodigal son by Honthorst. _ 2 One was of the queen in small in a piece of perspective, sold at the dispersion of the collection. a Anne Kirk, one of the queen's dressers, in which place she carried on a competition against Mrs. Neville. Strafford Papers, vol. ii., p. 73. There is a mczzotinto whole length of Mrs. Kirk from Vandyck. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 1 85 1 Belcam to the Countess of Anglesey; 1 and my Lady Stanhope's 'picture 2 to Carey Raleigh. There is a fourth which I had almost 1 forgot ; it is the original of my eldest daughter ; it hangs in this ' chamber over the board near the chimney, which you must send to 'my Lady Aubigney.' 3 At Wimpole in Cambridgeshire, the seat of the Earl of Oxford, which had been Sir Henry Pickering's, and before him the seat of the Tempests, were copies by Belcamp of several English heads, remarkable persons in the reigns of Henry VIII. Elizabeth, James, and Charles I., but they were all sold and dispersed with the rest of the Harleian collection. Belcamp was added by a vote of the Commons, June 2, 1649, t0 tne number of trustees for the sale of the king's goods ; and the directions for the sale in 1650 are witnessed by him. In one of the pocket-books of R. Symonds he is said to be lately dead in 1653. HORATIO GENTILESCHI, a native of Pisa, was disciple of Aurelio Lomi his half brother. After distinguishing himself at Florence, Rome, and Genoa, he went to Savoy, and from thence passing into France, was invited over by King Charles, who gave him lodgings and a considerable salary, and em- ployed him in his palaces, particularly at Greenwich, in painting ceilings. Nine pieces, which were in that palace, were sold after the king's death for 600/. and are now the ornaments of the hall at Marl- borough House. He worked too for Villiers 4 Duke of Buckingham at York House. A ceiling from thence was since at the house of Sheffield) Duke of Buckingham, in St. James's Park. It represented the nine Muses in a large circle. He painted too the family of Villiers, and a large picture for him eight feet wide by five high, of a Magdalen lying in a grotto contemplating a skull. At Hampton Court is his Joseph and Potiphar's wife ; he drew other things for the king, and presented him with a book of drawings. Of Lot and his daughters there is a print after him, in which he is called by mistake Civis Romanus, 1 Mary Bayning, wife of Charles Villiers, Eail of Anglesea, nephew of the Duke of Buckingham. 2 Catherine, daughter of Thomas, Lord Woiton, wife of Henry, Lord Stanhope, who died before his father, the Earl of Chesterfield. She had been governess to Mary, Princess of Orange, daughter of Charles I., and having been verj^ zealous in the king's service, was, after the restoration, made Countess of Chesterfield. Vandyck was said to be in love with her, but was so ungallant as to dispute with her on the price of her picture, which he threatened to sell if she would not give him what he demanded. See a letter of Lord Conway to Lord Went- worth in a collection published by Dodsley in two volumes, 1754, vol. i., p. 136. It was thought the Lord Cottington would have married her, but that she was in love with Carey Raleigh, Sir Walter's son, mentioned in the text. At last she married Poliander Kirkhoven, Lord of Helmfleet in Holland, and died April 9, 1677. There is a whole length print from Vandyck, where by mistake she is called Anne instead of Catherine : the original was bought by Sir Robert Walpole from the Wharton collection. 3 Catherine Howard, eldest daughter of Theophilus Earl of Suffolk. She was in love with George Lord Aubigney, second son of the Duke of Lenox, and turned catholic to marry him. See Strafford Papers, vol. ii.,p. 165. She was secondly married to James Levingston, Earl of Newburgh. There is a half length print of her from Vandyck. 4 In that duke's collection are mentioned two pictures by him of a Magdalen and the holy family. See the catafogue published by Bathoc. 1 86 LANIERE WAS PAINTER, MUSICIAN, AND ENGRAVER. engraved by Lucas Vosterman. He made several attempts at portrait painting, but with little success; and after residing here about 12 years, died at the age of 84, and was buried under the altar in the chapel at Somerset House. His daughter ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI was also in England, was reckoned not inferior to her father in history, and excelled him in portraits ; her own is in the gallery at Althorp. King Charles had several of her works. Her best was David with the head of Goliah. She drew some of the royal family and many of the nobility; but the chief part of her life was passed at Naples, where she lived splendidly, and was as famous, says Graham, 1 for her amours 2 as for her painting. NICHOLAS LANIERE was one of those artists whose various talents were so happy all as to suit the taste of Charles the First. Laniere was born in Italy, was a musician, painter, engraver, and understood hands. He had great share in the purchases 3 made for the royal collection, and probably was even employed in the treaty of Mantua. One picture is said expressly in the king's catalogue to have been changed with Mr. Laniere. 4 His fame was most considerable as a musician. In Ben Jonson's works is a masque performed at the house of the Lord Hay in 161 7, for the entertainment of the French ambassador, the whole masque after the Italian manner, stylo recitativo, by Master Nicholas Laniere, who ordered and made both scenes and music. He was employed many years afterwards in a very different and more melan- choly manner; a vocal composition for a funeral hymn on his royal master, written by Thomas Pierce, was set by Laniere (Wood's Athenae, vol. ii., p. 862). It was in this capacity that he had a salary of 200/. a year. The patent is dated July 11, 1626 (See Rymer's Fcedera). He had besides the office of closet-keeper to the king. As a painter he drew for Charles a picture of Mary, Christ, and Joseph ; his own por- trait 5 done by himself with a pallet and pencils in his hand, and musical notes on a scrip of paper, is in the music school at Oxford. There is a print of him, painted by John Lyvyus, and engraved by Vosterman, and another portrait of him at the late Sir Andrew Fountain's, at Narford, in Norfolk. On one of the plates, which he 1 English School, at the end of the translation of De Piles. 2 R. Symondes, speaking of Nic. Laniere, says, 1 Inamorato d'Artemisia Gentileschi, che * pingeva bene.' 3 The author of the English School says, he put a particular mark on the pictures bought by him for the king, but does not tell us what ; it was thus ?fc . He marked his own etchings with an L. 4 R. Symondes says the Duke of Buckingham once gave Laniere 500/. in gold because he could not get of King James what Laniere deserved. Another time he gave him 300/. in gold. 5 There was another portrait of him and of Isaac Oliver in one piece in the collection of James II. See the catalogue published by Bathoe. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 187 etched himself, 1 he has put in Italian, 'done in my youthful age of 74/ At the sale of the king's goods he gave 230/. for four pictures. His brothers, 2 Clement and Jerome were likewise purchasers. In one of R. Symondes's pocket-books is this memorandum : — ' When the king's pictures came from Mantua, quicksilver was got * in amongst them and made them all black. Mr. Hieronymo Laniere ' told me that to cleanse them, first he tried fasting spittle, then he ' mixed it with warm milk, and those would not do. At last he cleansed i them with aqua-vitae alone, and that took off all the spots, and he c says 'twill take off old varnish.' 3 Nicholas died at the age of 78, and was buried in St. Martin's, November 4, 1646. FRANCIS WOUTERS of Lyere, was born in i6r4, and bred in the school of Rubens, but chiefly practised in landscape, to which he added small naked figures, as Cupids, nymphs, etc. He was much in favour with the Emperor Ferdinand II., but coming to England with the ambassador of that prince in 1637, his pictures pleased at court, and he was made chief painter to the Prince of Wales, afterwards Char. II. In a MS. cata- logue of King Charles's pictures he is said to have painted a ceiling with Hercules and other gods, in a room there, called the Contractor's room, but in which palace is not specified. 4 On the misfortunes of the royal family he retired to Antwerp, where, in 1659, ne was s ^ 10t by the accidental discharge of a gun. There is an epitaph on him in De Bie's Gulden Cabinet. A large print after Titian engraved by Hollar in 1650, is dedicated to Wouters. WEESOP arrived here in 1641, a little before the death of Vandyck, of whose manner he was a lucky imitator, and had the honour of having some of his pictures pass for that master's. He left England in 1649, savm g"> ' He would never stay in a country where they cut off their king's head, £ and were not ashamed of the action.' It had been more sensible to say, he would not stay where they cut off the head of a king that rewarded painters, and defaced and sold his collection. One John Weesop, probably his son, was buried in St. Martin's, in 1652. 1 Rose the jeweller had all the plates for a drawing-book by Laniere, etched by himself. It is called, ' Prove primo fatte a 1'acqua forte da N. Laniere a l'eta sua giovanile di sessanta ' otto anni, 1636.' Another small book he entitled, ' Maschere delin.da J. Romano, ex coll. N. Laniere, 1638.' 2 There was also a John Laniere, I suppose son of one of the brothers, who set two ' allads of Lovelace. See his Lucasta, pp. 3, 43. 3 Laniere seems to have been an adept in all the arts of picture-craft. Sanderson speaks of him as the first who passed off copies for originals, by tempering his colours with foot : and then by rolling them up, he made them crackle and contract an air of antiquity. Graphice, p. 16. > 4 In the catalogue of James II. are mentioned three landscapes and the story of St. Sebas- tian, by Wouters; and in Sir Peter Lely's, a landscape with figures. 1 88 CRITZ'S ACCOUNT FOR REPAIRING THE KING'S BARGE. JOHN DE CRITZ has been mentioned in a former part of this volume. Though serjeant- painter to Char. L, he may more properly be called a retainer to the arts than a professor. His life is to be collected rather from office- books than from his works or his reputation. Yet he was not ignorant. I have two sketches of heads drawn by him with a pen, that are masterly. Vertue saw many more in the hands of Murray the painter, who was scholar of a son or nephew of De Critz, who, according to Murray, painted bravely scenes for masks. Among those drawings was a sketch from a picture of Sir Philip Sidney 1 then at the house of De Critz, and now in the possession of Lord Chesterfield. At Oatlands he painted a middle piece for a ceiling, which on the dispersion of the king's effects, was sold for 20/. In 1657, he painted the portrait of Serjeant Maynard, with a paper in his hand. In a book belonging to the Board of Works, was a payment to John De Critz, for repairing pictures of Palma and the Caesars, of Titian. This was in 1632. Among the annuities and fees payable out of the customs in the port of London in that reign, was a payment to John De Critz, his majesty's serjeant-painter, for his annuity at 40/. a year, due to him for one year ended at Michaelmas, 1633. And in a wardrobe account, lost in the fire in the Temple, was this entry : ' To John De Critz, serjeant-painter, 1 for painting and gilding with good gold the body and carriages of two ' coaches, and the carriage of one chariot and other necessaries, ' J 79?> 3^- 4^, anno 1634/ If this bill should seem to debase the dignity of serjeant-painter, it may comfort the profession to know that Solimeni, who was inferior to no painter of any age in vanity, whatever he was in merit, painted a coach for the present King of Spain, when King of Naples, which cost 12,000/. Indeed I can produce no pre- cedent of any great master who painted and gild ed barges, as Serjeant De Critz appears to have done by the following paper, a memorandum in his own hand : 'John De Critz demaundeth allowance for these parcells of worke 1 following, viz. For repayreing, refreshing, washing, and varnishing 1 the whole body of his majesty's privy barge, 2 and mending with fine 1 gould and faire colours many and divers parts thereof, as about the ' chaire of state, the doores, and most of the antiques about the 6 windowes, that had bene galled and defaced, the two figures at the ' entrance being most new coloured and painted, the Mercury and the 1 In the Earl of Oxford's library was a copy of Holland's Heroologia, in which in an old hand, supposed to be done immediately after the publication of the book in 1618, was written where every picture was from which the prints were taken. That of Sir Philip Sidney is the same with Lord Chesterfield's, and under was written, ' at Mr. De Critz's,' strong evidences of this being a genuine picture. 2 In the court-books at Painter's Hall there is a letter to the Company from the Earl of Pembroke, directing them to appoint certain persons of their hall to view the king's and queen's barges lately beautified, painted, and gilded by De Creetz, serjeant-painter, and give an esti- mate of the work ; which they did of 280/. and some other expenses. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 1 89 1 lion that are fixed to the sternes of this and the row barge being in 1 several places repayred both with gould and colours, as also the ' taffarils on the top of the barge in many parts guilded and- strowed 5 with fayre byse. The two figures of Justice and Fortitude most an i end being quite new painted and guilded. The border on the outside 6 of the bulk being new layd with faire white, and trayled over with 'greene, according to the custom heretofore — and for baying and ' colouring the whole number of the oares for the row barge being 6 thirty-six/ On the other side of this scrap of paper is another bill. 1 For several 1 times oyling and laying with fayre white a stone for a sun-dyall oppo- i site to some part of the king and queen's lodgings, the lines thereof 1 being drawn in severall colours, the letters directing to the howers 6 guilded with fine gould, as alsoe the glory, and a scrowle guilded with i fine gould, whereon the number and figures specifying the planetary ' howers are inscribed; likewise certain letters drawne in black, in- forming in what part of the compasse the sun at any time there ' shining shall be resident ; the whole worke being circumferenced with ' a frett painted in a manner of a stone one, the compleat measure of ' the whole being six foote.' At bottom of each of these bills are the sketches of heads I men- tioned. De Critz and others were buyers of the king's goods, to the value of 4,999/. Rich. Symonds says that at De Critz's house, in Austin Friars, were three rooms full of the king's pictures. Emanuel De Critz, brother or son, was one of the petitioners to the council of state for delivery of the goods they had purchased, which had been detained by Cromwell. Thomas De Critz, brother of John, was a painter too, and superior, said Murray, to his brother. One of the name was mace-bearer to the house of parliament. A head of one Oliver De Critz, with a paper in his hand, is in the Museum at Oxford. John De Critz had a scholar called Le Mense, who was born at Antwerp. ADRIAN HANNEMAN was born at the Hague, and painted both history and portraits, having studied under one Ravesteyn, but more from the works of Vandyck, of whose airs of heads Vertue thought him the best imitator. He made love, as is said before, to the niece of Cornelius Jansen, though without success, and drew that painter, his wife, and son. He came to England in the reign of King Charles, and for some time worked under Mytens, and continued here sixteen years. Returning to Holland, he became the favourite painter of Mary, Princess of Orange. There is a picture of her, and the prince in armour, at Lord Strafford's, at Went worth Castle, painted, I believe, by Hanneman. At Windsor, 1 a portrait of * There were five other portraits of the royal family by him in the collection of James II. See Catalog. 190 PAINTERS IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES L Duke Hamilton; at Worksop, the Duke of Norfolk's, a picture of kettles and utensils. Sir Peter Lely had a man playing on a lute two feet ten square. In the library belonging to the cathedral of Lincoln, the portrait of one Honeywood, whose mother lived to see 365 of her own descendants. There is a print of Charles II., painted before his restoration, by Hanneman, engraved by Hen. Danckers at the Hague : and at General Compton's Vertue saw one done by Hanneman at the same time. He (English School) painted in the chamber of the States at the Hague; and for the Heer Van Wenwing, two usurers counting their money. While he worked on this, he wanted a sum himself, which he borrowed of the person who had ordered the picture, and which, when it was finished, Wenwing would have deducted; but Hanneman told him that all the gold he had borrowed was put into the picture, and was what the misers were counting. He died about 1680. His son, called William, was buried in St. Martin's, in 1641. There were several other painters here in the reign of Charles, who were so inconsiderable, or of whom I find so little, that I shall mention them very briefly. Cornelius Neve drew the portraits of Richard, Lord Buckhurst, and Mr. Edward Sackville in one piece in 1637. ^ is at Knowle. No. 73 in the picture-gallery at Oxford is painted by him, where he is called a celebrated painter. In 1664 he drew the portrait of Mr. Ashmole in his herald's coat (Ashmole's Diary, p. 39). K. Coker painted ahead of Colonel Massey, preserved at Coddington in Cheshire. Matthew Goodricke, or Gothericke, is mentioned as a painter in one of the office-books of that reign. In the inventory of the pictures at Oatlands was a view of Greenwich by Stalband; 1 and in Mr. Harene's sale, 1764, was an octagon land- scape, with the story of the centurion by the same hand ; something in the manner of Paul Brill, but the colours exceedingly bright and glaring. And in another catalogue of the king's pictures was a prospect of Greenwich by Portman. Mr. Greenbury is mentioned in the catalogue (p. 173) of the king's collection for copying two pictures of Albert Durer by direction of the lord marshal. Probably he was one of Lord Arundel's painters. Horatio Paulin lived chiefly in Holland. He came to England, went to Hamburgh, and thence to the Holy Land. Rotiere agreed to go with him, but was discouraged. Descamps (p. 151, vol. iii.) expresses surprise ' that pious painters should have exhibited to the public very 6 licentious pieces and scandalous nudities.' But by the account which he has given of Horatio Paulin, he seemed to present himself with a very easy solution of this paradox. Paulin set on foot a kind of pro- miscuous crusado to the Holy Land; they were stored with crosses, 1 His head is amongst those engraved after Vandyck, HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. I9T relics, etc., and on the road made many proselytes of both sexes. A baker's wife in particular was so devout that she thought it a merito- rious action to plunder her husband of his plate, that she might equip herself for the pilgrimage. When the caravan was furnished by theft, one may easily conceive why its apostle painted indecent altar-pieces. Povey lived in this reign, and painted a head which was in the pos- session of Mr. Leneve, Norroy. One Hamilton, an Englishman, is mentioned by Sandrart (p. 384) as excelling in painting birds and grapes, and doing several things for the Elector of Brandenburgh. Edward Bower drew the portrait of Mr. Pym; an equestrian figure of General Fairfax, and John, Lord Finch, of Fordwich ; the two last were engraved by Hollar. Flolderness drew the picture of an old woman with a skull, which was in the collection of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. T. Johnson made a draught of Canterbury in 165 1, which hangs on the stairs of the library belonging to the cathedral. Reurie is mentioned by Sanderson (Graphice) as a painter in little in 1658. FRANCIS BARLOW was of more note than the preceding artists. He (see English School) was born in Lincolnshire, and placed with one Sheperd, a face-painter ; but his taste lay to birds, fish, and animals, in which he made great figure, though his colouring was not equal to his designs ; consequently, which is not often the case, the prints from his works did him more honour than the works themselves, especially as he had the good for- tune to have some of them engraved by Hollar and Faithorn. 1 There are six books of animals from the drawings of Barlow, and a set of cuts for iEsop's fables. Some ceilings of birds he painted for noblemen and gentlemen in the country ; 2 and he drew some of the monuments in Westminster Abbey, designed for an edition of Mr. Keep's history of that cathedral. Symonds says he lived near the Drum in Drury Lane, and received eight pounds for a picture of fishes. He once painted a half length of General Monke; and the herse was designed by him, as was expressed in the lord chamberlain's warrant to Sir Christopher Wren to prepare timber for it at Monke's funeral. I have a curious long roll engraved by White, exhibiting the ceremonies and procession of that magnificent interment, with a full description of it ; the frontispiece is well designed by Barlow. It is remarkable that forty gentlemen of good families submitted to wait as mutes, with their backs against the wall of the chamber where the body lay in state for 1 The title to one of his books, in which some are etched by Hollar, is, 1 Diversae avium 'species studiosissime ad.vitam delineatae per Fran. Barlow ingeniosissimum Anglum pictorem. 'Guil. Faithorn excudit, 1658.' * At Clandon, Lord Onslow's, are five pieces by Barlow. 192 CHARACTER OF THE FAMOUS COUNTESS OF CARLISLE. three weeks, waiting alternately twenty each day. Barlow, though in- heriting a large sum of money from a friend, died poor so lately as 1702. SIR TOBY MATTHEWS, one of those heteroclite animals who finds his place anywhere. His father was Archbishop of York, and he a Jesuit. He was supposed a wit, and believed himself a politician. His works are ridiculous, and his greatest success was a little mischief in making converts. 1 The famous Countess of Carlisle, as meddling as Matthews and as affected, was the object of his adoration. He drew a character of her 2 which commends her so impertinently, that with scarce straining it might pass for a satire. For instance, he says, 6 She has as much sense and ' gratitude for the actions of friendship as so extreme a beauty will give ' her leave to entertain ; and that although she began to be civil to 1 people at first, she would rather show what she could do than let her 1 nature continue in it, and that she never considered merit in others ' but in proportion as they had any to her. That she affected partial- ' larity so much that you might fear to be less valued by her for obliging 'her; that she had little religion, was passionate, could suffer no con- i dition but plenty and glory, was fickle, and gay only out of contradic- 6 tion because her physicians had told her she was inclined to melan- ' choly ' — with a heap of such nonsense — in short, I believe no proud beauty was ever so well flattered to her own contentment. Mr. Garrard, master of the Charter House, a man of more sense and more plain sense than Matthews, has drawn this lady's character in fewer words, and upon the whole not very unlike Sir Toby's picture : ' My Lady Carlisle ' will be respected and observed by her superiors, be feared by those ' that will make themselves her equals, and will not suffer herself to be 'beloved but of those that are her servants' (Strafford Papers, vol. i., P- 363)* Sir Toby Matthews's title to a place in this work depends singly upon a letter from the Duchess of Buckingham to the duke, 3 in which she tells him that she had not yet seen the picture which Toby Matthews had drawn of the Infanta, and sent over. Vertue adds that he had some small skill in limning ; otherwise I should have concluded that he had only drawn the Infanta's portrait in the same fantastic colours which he had employed on Lady Carlisle. 4 However, as it is 1 On the Lady Newburgh being converted to popery, Lord Conway writes thus to the Earl of Strafford : ' The king did use such words of Wat. Montagu and Sir Tobie Matthew, that • the fright made Wat keep his chamber longer than his sickness would have detained him ; and ' don Tobiah was in such perplexity that I find he will make a very ill man to be a martyr ; * but now the dog doth again wag his tail.' Strafford Papers, vol. ii., p. 125. It seems in this business Matthews was unjustly accused ; the conversion had been made by the Duchess of Buckingham and Signor Con, the Spanish resident (p. 128). 2 See this character prefixed to his Letters. 3 Symondes says, Mr. Gage, Sir Thoby Matthewes, Mr. Fl — ill were buyers of pictures for the Duke of Buckingham. 4 That I guessed right, and that the portrait of the Infanta was only a description of her person, is evident from a letter written to King James by Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham from Spain, in which they tell him that ' Pretty little Toby Matthews comes fcQ HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 1 93 not foreign to the design of this work to throw in as many lights as possible on the manners of the several ages, I did not unwillingly adopt Vertue's mistake, if it is one. Whoever desires to know more of this person, will find his life in the Athenas Oxonienses. But I have not yet done with these motley characters ; the king's taste made his court affect be painters and virtuosi ; among these was SIR JAMES PALMER, often mentioned in the catalogue of the royal collection ; in which he sold, gave, and painted pictures. Of the latter was a piece of Tarquin and Lucretia, copied from Titian. 1 Another, the Feast of Bacchus, was delivered to him by the king's own hands to be copied in tapestry at the manufacture in Mortlack. He had lodgings in the tennis-court at Whitehall, and is often mentioned as a domestic servant. 2 He was the person sent to Richard Atkyns for the picture in which the king distinguished two different painters; and Mr. Garrard, in a letter to Lord Strafford, dated Jan. 9, 1633, says, ' I had almost forgot to tell ' your lordship that the diceing-night the king carried away in James ' Palmer's hat 1850 pieces. The queen was his half, and brought him ' that good luck; she shared presently 900.' In Stone's accounts, from which I have given some extracts above, is mention of a monument for Palmer's wife. If these men add no great ornament to our list, it will at least be honoured by our next ; the Hogarth of poetry was a painter too ; I mean SAMUEL BUTLER, the author of Hudibras. In his Life prefixed to his works we are told, * That for his diversion he practised music and painting. I 6 have seen/ adds the writer, ' some pictures said to be of his drawing, ' which remained 3 in that family (of Mr. Jefferys), which I mention 'not for the excellency of them, but to satisfy the reader of his early 'inclinations to that noble art; for which also he was afterwards ' entirely beloved by Mr. Samuel Cooper, one of the most eminent i painters of his time.' FRANCIS CLEYN was a painter in a different style from any we had seen here; for which reason, though he arrived earlier than many I have mentioned, ' entreat us to deliver this letter to your majesty, which is, as he calls it, a picture of the ' Infanta's, drawn in black and white. We pray you let none laugh at it but yourself and 'honest Kate (the Duchess of Bucks). He thinks he has hit the nail of the head, but you * will find it the foolishest thing that ever you saw.' Vide Miscell. State Papers, published by Lord Hardwicke, 1778, vol. ii., p. 423. 1 Page 52. For the others see pp. 10, 53, 84, 115, 137, 159. 2 He was chancellor of the garter, and married Katherine eldest daughter of William Lord Powys, widow of Sir Robert Vaughan, and was father of Roger Palmer Earl of Castlemain, husband of the Duchess of Cleveland. 3 Several are actually extant in the possession of a person in Worcestershire. 14 194 THE PAINTINGS BY FRANCIS CLEYN. I reserved him till I had despatched the performers in oil. He was born at Rostock, and retained in the service of Christian IV., King of Denmark; but the excellence of his genius prompted him to the search of better models than he found in that northern climate. He travelled to Italy, and stayed there four years; it was at Rome, I suppose, he learned those beautiful grotesques in which he afterwards shone. At Venice he became known to Sir Henry Wotton, and Sir Robert Anstruther recommended him to Prince Charles. He arrived while the prince was in Spain, but notwithstanding he was graciously received by King James, who mentions that circumstance in a Latin letter that he wrote to the King of Denmark, desiring leave to detain Cleyn in England, though with a permission to return first to Copen- hagen and finish a work he had begun there, and promising to pay the expense of his journey. The letter is preserved by Fuller (Worthies of Surrey, p. 77). The request was granted, and Cleyn returned to London at the end of the summer. The king had just then given 2000/. towards Sir Francis Crane's new manufacture of tapestry at Mortlack. They had worked only after old patterns ; Cleyn was placed there, and gave designs both in history and grotesque, which carried those works to singular perfection. It appears by King Charles's catalogue, that five of the cartoons were sent thither to be copied by him in tapestry. His pension is recorded by Rymer (vol. xviii., p. 112). ' Know yee that we do give and graunt unto Francis Cleyne a certain ' annuitie of one hundred pounds by the year during his natural life/ He enjoyed this salary till the civil war; and was in such favour with the king, and in such reputation, that on a small drawing of him in Indian ink about six inches square, which Vertue saw, he is called, 6 II 6 famosissimo pittore Francesco Cleyn, miracolo del secolo, e molto ' stimato del re Carlo della Gran Britania, 1646.' Cleyn was not em- ployed solely in the works at Mortlack; he had a house near the church in Covent Garden, and did several other things for the king and nobility. At Somerset House he painted a ceiling of a room near the gallery, with histories and compartments in gold. The outside of Wimbledon Flouse he painted in fresco. Bolsover in Nottingham- shire, Stonepark, in Northamptonshire, and Carew House, at Parson's Green (since Lord Peterborough's), were ornamented by him. There is still extant a beautiful chamber adorned by him at Holland House, with a ceiling in grotesque, and small compartments on the chimneys, in the style and not unworthy of Parmegiano. Two chairs, carved and gilt, with large shells for backs, belonging to the same room, were undoubtedly from his designs, and are evidences of his taste. A letter (Strafford Papers) from Lord Cottington to Lord Strafford, describing the former's house at Hanworth, mentions Cleyn, though not by name. 6 There is a certain large low room made under the building with a 'fountain in it, and other rare devises, and the open gallery is all HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING, *95 1 painted by the hand of a second Titian, Aug., 1629.' In King Charles's catalogue is mention of four patterns for the great seal, drawings 1 on blue paper by Cleyn. He made designs for various artists ; particu- larly for several of Hollar's plates to Virgil and ^sop; for these he received 50^. apiece. There are two small books of foliages from his drawings, one containing six small slips with animals in grotesque, the other in five slips of the senses, and the initial letters of his name 1 F. C. inv. 1646/ And two books for carvers, goldsmiths, etc., con- taining 25 plates. It is, however, uncertain whether these and a few other plates of the same kind are not by his son, who had the same christian name, and imitated his father's manner. Such is a title-page to Lacrymae Musarum, elegies on the Lord Hastings, who died in 1650, the day before he was to have been married. Also, seven plates of the liberal arts, about four or five inches square, prettily designed and neatly etched. On a small print of the father, etched by the son, Mr. Evelyn wrote, ' A most pious man, father of two sons, who were * incomparable painters in miniature; all died in London.' By the register of Mortlack it appears that he had three sons; Francis, born in 1625, who died and was buried at Covent Garden, October 21, 1650; Charles and John; and two daughters, Sarah and Magdalen. He had another daughter, probably born in London, and called Penelope. Vertue saw a miniature, like Cooper's manner, but not so well, of, Dorothea, youngest daughter of Richard Cromwell, set. 4, 1668, with these letters, P. C, which he thought signified Penelope Cleyn. 2 In the catalogue of plates and prints exhibited to sale by Peter Stent, 1662, was a book of grotesques in ten plates; 'Francis Cleyn inv. et 'sculpsit.' 3 Cleyn, besides his own sons, instructed Dobson, and died himself about 1658. Mr. English, 4 a painter, who died at Mortlack 1 71 8, had a picture of Cleyn and his wife, and several of his designs for tapestries, all of which came to Mr. Crawley, of Hempsted, Hert- fordshire. Richard Symonds in one of his pocket-books mentions another piece of Cleyn and his family by candle light, and a copy by the son, of a sacrifice from Raphael, which was in the royal collection, and a drawing on coloured paper. At Kensington I have lately found a picture which I do not doubt is of Cleyn's hand. It represents Christ and Mary in a chamber, the walls and windows of which are painted in grotesque. Different rooms are seen through the doors ; in one I suppose is Martha employed in the business of the family. There is merit in this piece, particularly in the perspective and grotesques, the latter of which, and the figures in the manner of the Venetian school, make me not hesitate to ascribe it to this master. 1 I am informed that some drawings by Cleyn are in the possession of the Earl of Moray at Donnisbrisle House, Scotland. 2 At Burleigh is a head of Cecil Lord Roos, 1677, with the same letters. 3 There is a plate with six heads prefixed to Dr. Dee's book printed in 1659, with* Fran. ' Cleyn invent.' 4 He etched a small print from Titian, Christ and the two disciples at Emmaus. 14* [96 JOHN HOSKINS EQUAL TO EITHER OLIVER. JOHN HOSKINS. For the life of this valuable master I find fewer 1 materials than of almost any man in the list who arrived to so much excellence. Vertue knew no more of him than what was contained in Graham's English School, where we are only told 6 that he was bred a face-painter in oil, • but afterwards taking to miniature, far exceeded what he did before ; * that he drew King Charles, his queen, and most of the court, and had - two considerable disciples, Alexander and Samuel Cooper, the latter 1 of whom became much the more eminent limner.' Hoskins, though surpassed by his scholar, the younger Cooper, was a very good painter: there is great truth and nature in his heads; but the car- nations are too bricky,' and want a degradation and variety of tints. I have a head of Serjeant Maynard by him, boldly painted and in a manly style, though not without these faults ; and another good one of Lord Falkland, more descriptive of his patriot melancholy than the common prints; it was in the collection of Dr. Mead. 2 There is indeed one work 3 of Hoskins that may be called perfect; it is a head of a man, rather young, in the gown of a master of arts, and a red satin waistcoat. The clearness of the colouring is equal to either Oliver; the dishevelled hair touched with exquisite freedom. It is in 1 he possession of Mr. Fanshaw, but not known whose portrait. Vertue mentions a son of Hoskins of the same name, and says, that this mark ijl distinguishes the works of the father from those of the son, which have I. H. simply. I meet with no other hint of a son of that name except in Sanderson, who barely names him. 4 One Peter Hoskins is entered into the register of Covent Garden as buried July 1, 1681. Hoskins the father was buried in that church February 22, 1664. In the Catalogue (p. 75) of King Charles are mentioned two drawings by Hoskins for the great seal. Colonel Sothby has a head of Sir Benjamin Rudyard by him, and a profile, which Vertue thought might be Hoskins himself. Prefixed to Coryat's Crudities is a copy of verses with his name to them. ALEXANDER COOPER was nephew of Hoskins, and with his brother Samuel, of whom an account will be given in the twelfth chapter, was instructed in water- colours by their uncle. Alexander painted landscapes in this manner as w r ell as portraits. At Burleigh is the story of Actseon and Diana 1 There is not even a portrait of him extant. 2 At Burleigh is a portrait of David Cecil, son of John, fourth Earl of Exeter, by Frances, daughter of the Earl of Rutland ; it is dated 1644 ; and another of Sir Edward Cecil, after- wards Viscount Wimbledon. 3 Since the first edition of this book I have seen another at Burleigh, scarce inferior. It is the profile of a boy, in brown, holding in one hand a plaything like castanets. It is admirably natural. 4 Page 20. In the same place he speaks in the like transient manner of a son of Hilliard. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 197 by him. He went abroad, resided some time at Amsterdam, and at last entered into the service of Queen Christina. ANNE CARLISLE, a paintress, admired for her copies (it is not said whether in oil or miniature) from Italian masters. Graham (English School) says she was in such favour with King Charles, that he presented her and Van- dyck with as much ultramarine at one time as cost him above five hundred pounds. If her share was near equal, I should suppose she painted in oil. Itfwould be a very long time before the worth of 200/. in ultramarine could be employed in miniatures. Vertue mentions her teaching a lady to paint, whose picture she drew standing behind her own ; herself was sitting with a book of drawings in her lap ; and he adds, that many pieces painted by her were in the possession of a widow Lady Cotterel. Mrs. Carlisle died about 1680. JOHN PETITOT was patronized by the two monarchs who of late years have given the noblest encouragement to artists, Charles I. and Louis XIV. He deserved their protection as a genius, and has never been equalled in enamel. Zincke alone has once or twice, and but once or twice, pro- duced works that might stand in competition with any single perform- ance of Petitot. The latter was born at Geneva in 1607; his father, a sculptor and architect, having passed part of his life in Italy, had retired to that city. The son was designed for a jeweller; and having frequent occa- sion to make use of enamel, he attained such a tone of colour, that Bordier, who afterwards became his brother-in-law, conceived that if Petitot would apply himself to portrait, he might carry the art to great perfection. Though both wanted several colours, which they knew not how to prepare for the fire, their attempts had great success. Petitot executed the heads and hands; Bordier, the hair, draperies, and grounds. In this intercourse of social labour the two friends set out for Italy. As painters, the treasures of the art were open to them ; as enamellers, they improved, too, by frequenting the best chymists of that country ; but it was in England that they were so fortunate as to learn the choicest secrets in the branch to which they had devoted themselves. Sir Theodore Mayern, first physician to Charles, and a great chymist, communicated to them the process of the principal colours which ought to be employed in enamel, and which surpassed the famous vitrifications of Venice and Limoges. Mayern introduced Petitot to the king, who knighted and gave him an apartment in Whitehall. The French author of the Abregd de la Vie des plus fameux Peintres, whom I copy, and am sorry to criticise PORTRAITS BY JOHN PET I TOT. while I am indebted to him, says that Vandyck, seeing some designs of Petitot at the king's goldsmith's, and informing himself of the author, advised him to quit the profession of jeweller, and apply himself to painting portraits in enamel. But the biographer had told us that that step was already taken; and surely had not been abandoned during a long stay in Italy. What the same writer adds, that Vandyck gave him instructions, when Petitot copied the works of that master, and that his copies from Vandyck are his best performances, is much more agreeable to probability and fact. The magnificent whole length of Rachael de Rouvigny, Countess of Southampton, in the col]ection of the Duke of Devonshire, is painted from the original in oil by Van- dyck, in the possession of Lord Hardwicke, and is indubitably the most capital work in enamel in the world; it is nine inches three quarters high, by five inches and three quarters wide ; and though the enamel is not perfect in some trifling parts, the execution is the boldest and the colouring the most rich and beautiful that can be imagined. It is dated 1642. His grace has a head of the Duke of Buckingham by the same hand, with the painter's name and the date 1640; conse- quently a copy performed after the duke's death. 1 In the same collec- tion is a portrait of a middle-aged, man in armour, enclosed in a case of tortoise-shell, the person unknown, but inferior to none I have seen of this master. The Duchess of Portland has another of the Duke of Buckingham, exactly the same as the preceding ; Charles the first and his queen, and the Lady Morton, governess of the royal children, who is celebrated by Waller. I have a fine head of Charles I. in armour, for which he probably sat, as it is not like any I have seen by Van- dyck: James II., when Duke of York, freely painted, though highly finished, and I suppose done in France; a very large and capital one of his sister Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, exquisitely laboured ; a very small but fine head of Anne of Austria ; another of Madame de Montespan ; and a few more of less note, but all of them touched in that minute and delicate style, into which he afterwards fell in France, and which, though more laboured, has less merit in richness of tints than his English works. Vanderdort mentions a carving by Petitot from Titian's Lucretia ; in which way I find no other account of his attempts— though, as his father was a sculptor, he probably had given his son some instructions. The tragic death of his royal protector was a dreadful stroke, says his biographer to Petitot, who attended the exiled family to Paris. I question, as so few English portraits appear by his hand, and none that I know later than 1642, whether the civil war did not early drive him back to France ; but Bordier undoubtedly remained here some time longer, having been employed by the parliament to paint a 1 It is evidently copied from the duke's portrait in his family piece by Honthorst at Ken- sington. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. I 99 memorial of the battle of Naseby, which they presented to Fairfax, their victorious general. This singular curiosity is now in my posses- sion, purchased from the museum of Thoresby, who 1 bought it, with other rarities, from the executors of Fairfax. It consists of two round plates, each but an inch and half diameter, and originally served, I sup- pose, for the top and bottom of a watch, such enamelled plates being frequent to old watches instead of crystals. On the outside of that which I take for the bottom is a representation of the House of Com- mons, as exhibited on their seals by Simon. Nothing can be more perfect than these diminutive figures; of many even the countenances are distinguishable. On the other piece within is delineated the battle of Naseby; on the outside is Fairfax himself on his chestnut horse, men engaging at a distance. The figure and horse are copied from Vandyck, but with a freedom and richness of colouring perhaps surpassing thkt great master. Under the horse one reads P. B. fecit. This is the single work which can with certainty be allotted to Bordier alone, and which demonstrates how unjustly his fame has been ab- sorbed in the renown of his brother-in-law. Charles II., during his abode in France, took great notice of Petitot, and introduced him to Louis, who, when the restoration happened, retained Petitot in his own service, gave him a pension, and lodged him in the Louvre. Small portraits of that monarch by this great enameller are extremely com- mon, and of the two queens, his mother and wife. In 165 1 he married Margaret Cuper; the celebrated Drelincourt performed the ceremony at Charenton; for Petitot was a zealous Pro- testant, and dreading the consequences of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, in 1685 he begged permission of the king to retire to Geneva. Louis, who did not care to part with so favourite a painter, and who perhaps thought that an enameller's religion was not com- posed of sterner stuff than the great Turenne's, eluded his demand; and at last, being pressed with repeated memorials, sent Petitot to Fort PEveque, and Bossuet to convert him. The subtle apostle, who had woven such a texture of devotion and ambition that the latter was scarce distinguishable from the former, had the mortification of not succeeding; and Petitot's chagrin bringing on a fever, he at last ob- tained his liberty, now almost arrived at the age of fourscore ; which makes it probable that his conversion rather than his pencil had been the foundation of detaining him. He no sooner was free, than he escaped with his wife to Geneva in 1685. His children, who dreaded the king's wrath, remained at Paris, and throwing themselves at his feet, implored his protection. His majesty, says my author, received them with great goodness, and told them he willingly forgave an old 1 I have the receipt of the executors of Fairfax to Thorcsby, who paid 185/. for his pur- chases. He has, at the end of his Ducatus Leodiensis, in the account of his own museum, given a more minute description of these enamels. 200 THE PROTESTANTISM OF PETITOT TROUBLES HIM. man who had a whim of being buried with his fathers. I do not doubt but this is given and passed at the time for a bon-mot ; but a very flat witticism cannot depreciate the glory of a confessor, who had suffered imprisonment, resisted eloquence, and sacrificed the emoluments of court favour, to the uprightness of his conscience. Petitot did not wish ^ to be buried with his fathers, but to die in their religion. Returned to his country, the good old man continued his darling profession. The King and Queen of Poland desired to be painted by his hand, and sent their portraits to be copied by him in enamel ; but the messenger finding him departed proceeded to Geneva, where he executed them with all the vigour of his early pencil. The queen was represented sitting on a trophy, and holding the picture of the king. For this piece he received an hundred louis d'ors. So great was the concourse to visit him, that he was obliged to quit Geneva and retire to Veray, a little town in the canton of Berne, where, as he was painting his wife, an illness seized and carried him off in a day, in 1691, at the age of fourscore and four. He had had seventeen children: one of his daughters, a widow, was living in 1752. My portrait of Charles I. came from one of his sons, who was a major in our service, and who died major-general, at North Allerton, in York- shire, aged 60, July 19, 1764. Of the rest, one only attached himself to his father's art, and practised in London, his father often sending him his works for models. This son painted in miniature too, and left descendants, who are settled at Dublin, from one of whom the Duchess of Portland has purchased a small but exquisite head of their ancestor by himself. 1 It is idle to write a panegyric on the greatest man in any vocation. That rank dispenses with encomiums, as they are never wanted but where they may be contested. Petitot generally used plates of gold or silver, seldom copper. In the dawn of his reputation he received twenty guineas for a picture, which price he afterwards raised to forty. His custom was to have a painter to draw the likeness in oil, from which he made his sketches, and then finished them from the life. Those of Louis he copied from the best pictures of him, but generally obtained one or two sittings for the completion. His biographer says, that he often added 2 hands to his portraits (I have seen but one such, the whole length of Lady Southampton) ; and that at Loretto there is of his work an incomparable picture of the Virgin. M. D'Heneri, a collector at Paris, possesses more than thirty of this great master's performances, particularly the portraits of Mesdames de la Valiere, 1 This portrait the duchess at her death, in 1785, bequeathed to her friend, the widow of Doctor Delany and correspondent of Swift ; a lady of excellent sense and taste, a paintress in oil, and who, at the age of 75, invented the art of paper mosaic, with which material coloured, she, in eight years, executed within twenty of a thousand various flowers and flowering shrubs, with a precision and truth unparalleled. 2 He specifies one at Paris of Michel L'Asne, the engraver, a large oval with hands, of which one rests on his breast. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 201 Montespan, Fontanges, etc. Another has those of the famous Countess 1 D'Olonne. the Duchess of Bouillon, and other ladies of the court. Van Gunst engraved after Petitot the portrait of Chevreau. Of Bordier, we have no fuller account than this incidental mention of him ; yet I have shown that his is no trifling claim to a principal place among those artists whose works we have most reason to boast. I wish this clue may lead to further discoveries concerning him. I come now to other artists in the reign of Charles ; and first of statuaries. ANDREW KEARNE, a German, was brother-in-law of Nicholas Stone the elder, for whom he worked. Kearne too carved many statues for Sir Justinian I sham, at his house near Northampton. At Somerset Stairs he carved the river-god which answered to the Nile, made by, Stone, and a lioness on the water-gate of York Stairs. For the Countess of Mulgrave, a Venus and Apollo of Portland stone, six feet high, for each of which he had seven pounds. He died in England, and left a son that was alive since 1700.^ JOHN SCHURMAN, born at Embden, was another of Stone's workmen, and afterwards set up for himself. He was employed by Sir John Baskerville; made two shepherds sitting, for Sir John Davers, of Chelsea; a marble statue of Sir T. Lucy, for his tomb in Warwickshire, for which he v/as paid eighteen pounds, and fifty shillings for polishing and glazing ; the same for a statue on Lord Belhaven's tomb; 2 a little boy on the same monument ; two sphinxes for Sir John Davers ; and Hercules and Antaeus for that gentleman's garden, at the rate of sixteen pounds. EDWARD PIERCE, father and son, are mentioned here together, though the father was a painter chiefly in the reign of the first Charles, the son a statuary who worked mostly under the second Charles, but each may be allotted to either period. The father painted history, landscape, 3 and architec- ture ; but the greater part of his works, consisting of altar-pieces and ceilings of churches, were destroyed in the fire of London. One of his ceilings was in the church at Covent Garden. For some time he worked under Vandyck, and several of his performances are at the Duke of Rutland's, at Belvoir. A book of friezework in eight leaves, 1 At Mariette's sale I bought for a very large price another head of the same lady, as a Diana, a character to whom she had no pretensions. It is one of the most capital of all Petitot's works, and is surrounded by a wreath of enamelled flowers in relief, executed by Giles Legare of Chaumont in Bassigny, who was excellent in such works; and this, as Mariette said, was his chef d'ceuvre. 2 This tomb of Douglas Lord Belhaven is in the church of the abbey of Holyrood House. 3 James II. had one of his hand. 202 GRAHAM ON PAINTERS OF THE ENGLISH SCHOOL, etched in 1640, was I suppose by the hand of the father; and to him must be referred an entry in an office-book, where he is mentioned for painting and gilding frames of pictures at Somerset House at two shillings the foot, February 17, 1636. He also agrees to paint and gild the chimney-piece in the cross-gallery there for eight pounds. Dobson drew his picture. He died a few years after the restoration, and was buried at Stamford, He had three sons, who all, says Graham (English School), became famous in their different ways. One was John Pierce, a painter ; of the third, I find no account of his profession ; the other was Edward, the statuary and architect. He made the statues of Sir Thomas Gresham, of Ed. III. at the Royal Exchange, and of Sir William Walworth at Fishmonger's Hall ; a marble bust of Thomas Evans, master of, and a great benefactor to, the company of painters in 1687: the bust is in their hall: a model of the head of Milton, which Vertue had; t]ie bust of Sir Christopher Wren in the Picture Gallery at Oxford, and a bust of Cromwell sold at an auction in 1714. He much assisted Sir Christopher in many of his designs, and built the church of St. Clement under his direction. Edward Pierce too carved the four dragons on the Monument, at fifty pounds each. The whole cost of that column, exclusive of the dragons, and of the bas- relief which is not mentioned in the account, appears by the survey of Hooke, Leybourn, and others, to have amounted to 8000/. A rich vase at Hampton Court is another of the works of Pierce. He lived and died at his house the corner of Surrey Street in the Strand, and was buried at St. Mary's le Savoy in 1698. HUBERT LE SOEUR, one of the few we have had that may be called a classic artist, was a Frenchman, and disciple of John of Boulogne. He arrived at least as early as 1630, and by the only 1 two of his works that remain, we may judge of the value of those that are lost or destroyed. Of the latter were a bust 2 of Char. I. in brass, with a helmet surmounted by a dragon a la Romaine, three feet high, on a black pedestal ; the fountain at Somerset House, with several statues ; and six (Peacham) brazen statues of St. James. Of those extant are, the statue in brass of William Earl of Pembroke in the picture gallery at Oxford, given by the grandfather of the present earl ; and the noble equestrian figure of King Charles at Charing Cross, in which the commanding grace of the figure and exquisite form of the horse are striking to the most un- practised eye. This piece was cast in 1633 in a spot of ground near the church of Covent Garden ; and not being erected before the com- 1 1 have been told that the monument of the Duchess of Lennox was Le Soeur's, but I am not certain of it. 2 Vanderdort's Catalogue, p. 180. I believe this very bust is now in the collection of Mr. Hoare at Stourhead ; I had not seen it when the first edition of this work was published. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 203 mencement of the civil war, it was sold by the parliament to John Rivet, a brazier, living at the Dial near Holborn Conduit, with strict orders to break it in pieces. But the man produced some fragments of old brass, and concealed the statue and horse under ground till the restoration. They had been made at the expense of the family of Howard Arundel, who have still receipts to show by whom and for whom they were cast. They were set up in their present situation at the expense of the crown, about 1678, by an order from the Earl of Danby, afterwards Duke of Leeds. The pedestal was made by Mr. Grinlin Gibbons. Le Soeur had a son Isaac, who was buried Nov. 29, 1630, at Great St. Bartholomew's. The father lived in the close, ENOCH WYAT carved two figures on the water-stairs of Somerset House, and a statue of Jupiter. And he altered and covered the king's statues, which during the troubles were thrust into Whitehall Garden, and which, it seems, were too heathenishly naked to be exposed to the inflammable eyes of that devout generation. ZACHARY TAYLOR lived near Smithfleld, was a surveyor and carver to the king, as he is called in a book belonging to the Board of Works in 163 1. In 1637 he is mentioned for carving the frames of the pictures in the cross-gallery at Somerset House, at two shillings and twopence per foot. He carved some things too at' Wilton. 1 Mr. Davis of the Tennis-court at Whitehall had a good portrait of Taylor with a compass and square in his hands. JOHN OSBORN was another carver of that time : Lord Oxford had a large head in relievo on tortoiseshell of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange ; and these words; Joh. Osborn, Angl. Amstelod. fecit, 1626. MARTIN JOHNSON was a celebrated engraver of seals, and lived at the same time with Thomas and Abraham Simon, the medallists. He was a rival of the former, who used puncheons for his graving, which Johnson never did, calling Simon a puncher, not a graver. Johnson besides painted land- scapes from nature, selecting the most beautiful views of England, which he executed, it is said (English School) with much judgment, freedom, and warmth of colouring. His works are scarce. He died about the beginning of the reign of James II. 1 One Bowden, a captain of the trained bands, was another carver at Wilton, I believe, at the same time with Taylor. 204 CHASERS AND EMBOSSERS OF PLATE PROTECTED AT COURT. ■ GREEN, a seal-cutter, is only mentioned in a letter (Strafford Papers, June 9, 1633) to the lord treasurer from Lord Strafford, who says he had paid him one hundred pounds for the seals of Ireland, but which were cut in England. CHRISTIAN VAN VIANEN. 1 As there was no art which Charles did not countenance, the chasers and embossers of plate were among the number of the protected at court. The chief was Vianen, whose works are greatly commended by Ashmole (Order of the Garter, p. 492). Several pieces of plate of his design were at Windsor, particularly two large gilt water-pots, which cost 235/., two candlesticks weighing 471 ounces; on the foot of one of them was chased Christ preaching on the mount ; on the other, the parable of the lost sheep ; and two covers for a Bible and Common Prayer-Book, weighing 233 ounces; the whole amounting to 3580 ounces, and costing 1564/., were in the year 1639, when the last parcels were delivered, presented as offerings by his majesty to the chapel of St. George. But in 1642 Captain Foy broke open the treasury, and carried away all these valuable curiosities, as may be seen more at large in Dugdale. An agreement was made with the Earl-marshal, Sir Francis Windebank, and Sir Francis Crane, for plate to be wrought for the king at twelve shillings per ounce, and before the month of June, 1637, he had finished nine pieces. Some of these I suppose were the above-mentioned ; others were gilt, for Vianen complained that by the expense of the work, and the treble-gilding, he was a great loser, and desired to be considered. The designs them- selves were thought so admirable as to be preserved in the royal collec- tion. King Charles had besides four plates chased with the story of Mercury and Argus (Vanderdort's Catal., p. 74). Mr. West has two oval heads, in alto relievo, six inches high, of Charles and his queen, with the initial letters of the workman's name, G. V. Lond. The Duke of Northumberland, besides other pieces of plate by him, has a salver by Van Vianen, with huntings on the border, well designed, but coarsely executed. That salver was bequeathed to Charles, Duke of Somerset, by the widow of Earl Algernon, high admiral, whose seal, admirably cut by Simon, the duke has also. The Earl of Exeter has a bason and ewer (bought at the sale of the same Duke of Somerset) with the name of G. Van Vianen, 1632, at bottom of the ewer. There were others of the name, I do not know how related to him. The king (lb., p. 137) had a portrait of the Venetian captain, by Paul Vianen ; and the offer- ing of the wise men (lb., p. 155), by Octavian Vianen. There is a print of a head of Adam Van Vianen, painted by Jan Van Aken, and etched 1 He was of Nuremberg. See Wren's Parentalia, p. 136. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 205 by Paul Vianen 1 above mentioned. Christian Vianen had a very good disciple, FRANCIS FANELLI, a Florentine, who chiefly practised casting in metal, and, though inferior to Le Soeur, was an artist that did credit to the king's taste. Vanderdort mentions in the royal collection a little figure of a Cupid sitting on a horse running, by Fanelli, and calls him 'the one-eyed 6 Italian/ The figures of Char. I. and his queen in niches in the quad- rangle of John's College, Oxford, were cast by him, and are well designed. They were the gift of Archbishop Laud, and were buried for security in the civil war. William, Duke of Newcastle, was a patron of Fanelli, and bought many of his works, still at Welbeck, particularly a head in brass of Prince Charles, 1640, with the founder's name behind the pedestal, 6 Fr. Fanellius, Florentinus sculptor magn. ' Brit, regis.' And several figures in small brass ; as St. George with the dragon dead; another combating the dragon; two horses grazing; four others in different attitudes ; a Cupid and a Turk, each on horse- back, and a centaur with a woman. By the same hand, or Le Soeur's, are, I conclude, the three following curious busts, in bronze ; a head of Edward Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, the author, in the possession of the Earl of Powys ; and two different of the Lady Venetia Digby, wife of Sir Kenelm. Behind the best of them, on which the point-lace of her handkerchief is well expressed, is written this tender line, ' Uxorem 'vivam amare voluptas, defunctam religio.' One of these was probably saved from her monument. See before, page 169. Fanelli published two books of designs of architecture, fountains, vases, etc. One consists of fourteen plates in folio, no date. The other in twenty-one leaves was published by Van Merle, at Paris, 1661, engraved, as Vertue thought, by Faithorne, who was about that time in France. Fanelli had a scholar, called John Bank, who was living in 1713. THEODORE ROGIERS is mentioned by Vanderdort (p. 73), as the chaser of five square plates of silver with poetic stories in the king's collection : and he made an ewer from a design of Rubens, mentioned in the life of that painter. He must not be confounded with William Rogers, an Englishman, who engraved the title-page to John Linschoten's collection of voyages to the East Indies. I shall now set down what little I have to say of the medallists of King Charles. Briot has been mentioned under the preceding reign : he and T. Simon, his disciple, possessed the royal favour till the be- 1 Mr. Pennant mentions a piece of embossed plate exhibiting the resurrection, inscribed *• v «» ^05. Perhaps the father of these artists was named Paul. 2o6 RAWLINS, A DRAMATIST AND PAINTER, ginning of the troubles; when Simon falling off to the parliament, 1 a new medallist was employed on the few works executed for the king during the remainder of his life : his name was THOMAS RAWLINS. The first work by which he was known to the public was of a nature very foreign from his profession; in 1640 he wrote a play called 6 The Rebellion/ 2 and afterwards a comedy, called ' Tom Essence.' 3 He was appointed engraver to the Mint, now become ambulatory, by patent in 1648; having in the preceding year, while the king was at Oxford, struck a medal on the action of Keinton-field. Under the date on the reverse is the letter R, sideways (Evelyn, p. iii., No. 32). The next year he struck another, after many offers of peace had been made by the king and rejected ; on the reverse are a sword and a branch of laurel ; the legend 1 In utrumque paratus/ The letter R. under the bust of the king. In 1644 he made a large oval medal, stamped in silver, with the effigies of a man holding a coin in his hand, and this inscrip- tion, 'Guliel. Parkhurst, eq. aurat. custoscamb. etmonet. totius Angliae 1 1623. Oxon. 1644.' T. R. (combined) sculps. I take for granted this Mr. Parkhurst had been either a patron or relation of Rawlins, or one cannot conceive why he should have gone back twenty-one years to commemorate an obscure person, so little connected with the singular events of the period when it was struck. This medal was in the col- lection of Sir Hans Sloane, and is now in the museum, as was, and is, an oval piece of gold of Charles II., the reverse a ship; better work- manship than the preceding. There is but one piece more, certainly known for his, a cast in lead, thus inscribed, 'Rob. Bollesde Scampton 'in com. Lincol, bart.; ? under the shoulder, 'T. Rawlins, F. 1665/ There might be, and probably were, other works of his hand, to which in prudence he did not set his name. Such is the bold medallion of Archbishop Laud, struck in 1644. ^ e was employed by the crown till 1670, when he died. There is a print of his wife, with this inscription: 'Dorothea Narbona uxor D. Thomae Rawlins supremi sculptoris sigilli 'Carol. I. et Carol. II. D. g. magn. Brit. Franc, et Hiber. regum.' In Fleckno's works published in 1653 is 'A poem on that excellent i cymelist or sculptor in gold and precious stones, etc. Tho. Rawlins/ JOHN VARIN OR WARIN was an eminent medallist in France, but appears by some works to 1 I have already referred the reader to Vertue's account of the two Simons and their works, which he intended as a part of this history of the arts, which is too long to transcribe here, and which would be mangled by an abridgment. Abraham Simon, one of the brothers, a man of a very singular character, had fancied that the Queen of Sweden was in love with him, and at last had an ambition of being a bishop. 2 Langbaine, p. 117. Subjoined to a book called Good Friday, being meditations on that day, printed in 1648, is a collection of poems called Calanthe ; by T. R., who by the presenta- tion-book, Mr. Oldys found was our Thomas Rawlins. s Note to Dryden's Poems, published in 4 volumes, 1760, vol. i., p. 82. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 207 have been in England, at least to have been employed by English. There are four such pieces in the collection of Mr. West. The first, a large medallion cast, 'Guil. fil. Rob. Ducy mil. et baronet, astat. suae f 2i, 1626/ Another, a cast medal of Philip Howard S. R. E. Card. Norfolk. Endymion Porter, aetat. 48, 1635. And Margareta, uxor, set. 26, 1633. I have a good medal of Cardinal Richelieu by Warin, who died in 1675, as I learn from a jetton of him by Dacier. Warin was exceedingly fond of money ; and having forced his daughter, who was beautiful, to marry a rich and deformed officer of the revenue, she poisoned herself a few days after the wedding, saying, 1 1 must ' perish, since my father's avarice would have it so/ Lettres de Guy Patin; and Recreations Histor., vol. i., p. 75, 1768. The last artist that I have to produce of this period, but the greatest in his profession that has appeared in these kingdoms, and so great, that in that reign of arts we scarce know the name of another architect, was INIGO JONES, who, if a table of fame like that in the Tatler were to be formed for men of real and indisputable genius in every country, would save England from the disgrace of not' having her representative among the arts. She adopted Holbein and Vandyck, she borrowed Rubens, she produced Inigo Jones. Vitruvius drew up his grammar, Palladio showed him the practice, Rome displayed a theatre worthy of his emu- lation, and King Charles was ready to encourage, employ, and reward his talents. This is the history of Inigo Jones as a genius. The par- ticulars of his life have been often written, and therefore I shall run them over very briefly ; adding some less known minutiae [which I fear, are the characteristics of these anecdotes] and some catalogue of his works. He was born about 1572, the son of a cloth-worker, and, by the most probable accounts, bound apprentice to a joiner: but even in that ob- scure situation, the brightness of his capacity burst forth so strongly, that he was taken notice of by one of the great lords at court : some say, it was the Earl of Arundel ; the greater number, 1 that it was William, Earl of Pembroke : though against that opinion there is, at least, a negative evidence, which I shall mention presently. By one of these lords, Inigo was sent to Italy to study landscape-painting, to which his inclination then pointed, and for which that he had a talent, appears by a small piece preserved at Chiswick ; the colouring is very indifferent, but the trees freely and masterly imagined. He was no sooner at Rome, than he found himself in his sphere. He felt that nature had not formed him to decorate cabinets, but design palaces. He dropped the pencil, and conceived Whitehall. In the state of Venice he saw 1 Among whom is Lloyd in his Memoires, p. 577. 308 INIGO JONES MADE SURVEYOR OF WORKS. the works of Palladio, and learned how beautifully taste may be exerted on a less theatre than the capital of an empire. How his abilities dis- tinguished themselves in a spot where they certainly had no oppor- tunity to act we are not told, 1 though it would not be the least curious part of his history ; certain it is, that on the strength of his reputation at Venice, Christian IV. invited him to Denmark, and appointed him his architect ; but on what buildings he was employed in that country we are yet to learn. James I. found him at Copenhagen, and Queen Anne took him in the quality of her architect to Scotland. He served Prince Henry in the same capacity, and the place of surveyor-general of the works was granted to him in reversion. On the death of that prince, with whom at least all his lamented qualities did not die, Jones travelled once more to Italy, and assisted by ripeness of judgment per- fected his taste. To the interval between those voyages I should be inclined to assign those buildings of Inigo which are less pure, and border too much upon that bastard style, which one calls King James's Gothic. Inigo's designs of that period are not Gothic, but have a little- ness of parts and weight of ornaments, with which the revival of the Grecian taste was encumbered, and which he shook off in his grander designs. The surveyor's place fell, and he returned to England ; and, as if architecture was not all he had learned at Rome, with an air of Roman disinterestedness he gave up the profits of his office, which he found extremely in debt, and prevailed on the comptroller and pay- master to imitate his example till the whole arrears were cleared. In the reign of James I find a payment by a warrant from the council to Inigo Jones, Thomas Baldwin, William Portington, and George Weale, officers of his majesty's works, for certain scaffolds and other works by them made, by the command of the lord chamberlain, against the arraignment of the Earl of Somerset and the countess his lady. The expense was twenty pounds. In the Faedera 2 is a commission to the Earl of Arundel, Inigo Jones, and several others, to prevent building on new foundations within two miles of London and palace of Westminster. In 1620 he was employed in a manner very unworthy of his genius* King James set him upon discovering, that is guessing, who were the founders of Stonehenge. His ideas were all Romanised; consequently his partiality to his favourite people, which ought rather to have prevented him from charging them with that mass of barbarous clumsiness, made him conclude it a Roman temple. It is remarkable that whoever has treated of that monument has bestowed it on whatever class of antiquity he was peculiarly fond of; and there is not a heap of 1 Though no building at Venice is attributed to Inigo, the palace and a front of a church at Leghorn are said to be designed by him. 2 Vol. xviii., p. 97. See also in the Strafford papers some letters of Mr. Gerrard, which contain an account of proceedings under that commission, by virtue of which twenty newly erected houses in St. Martin's Lane were pulled down. - >f HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 209 stones in these northern countries, from which nothing can be proved, but has been made to depose in favour of some of these fantastic hypotheses. Where there was so much room for visions, the Phoeni- cians could not avoid coining in for their share of the foundation ; and for Mr. Toland's part, he discovered a little Stonehenge in Ireland, built by the druidess Gealcopa (who does not know the druidess Gealcopa?) who lived at Inisoen in the county of Donegal. 1 In the same year Jones was appointed one of the commissioners for the repair of St. PauPs, but which was not commenced till the yeal 1633, when Laud, then Bishop of London, laid the first stone, and Inigo the fourth. In the restoration of that cathedral he made two capital faults. He first renewed the sides with very bad Gothic, and then added a Roman portico, magnificent and beautiful indeed, but which had no affinity with the ancient parts that remained, and made his own Gothic appear ten times heavier. He committed the same error at Winchester, thrusting a screen in the Roman or Grecian taste into the middle of that cathedral. Jones indeed was by no means successful when he attempted Gothic. The chapel of Lincoln's Inn had none of the characteristics of that architecture. The cloister beneath seems oppressed by the weight of the building above. 2 The authors of the Life of Jones place the erection of the banqueting- house in the reign of King Charles ; but as I have shown from the accounts of Nicholas Stone, it was begun in 1619, and finished in two years, a small part of the pile designed for the palace of our kings, but so complete in itself, that it stands a model of the most pure and beautiful taste. Several plates of the intended palace of Whitehall have been given, but I believe from no finished design. The four great sheets are evidently made up from general hints ; nor could such a source of invention and taste as the mind of Inigo, ever produce so much sameness. The strange kind of cherubims on the towers at the end are preposterous ornaments, and whether of Inigo or not, bear no relation to the rest. The great towers in the front are too near, and evidently borrowed from what he had seen in Gothic, not in Roman buildings. The circular court is a picturesque thought, but without meaning or utility. The whole fabric, however, was so glorious an idea, that one forgets for a moment in the regret for its not being executed, the confirmation of our liberties obtained by a melancholy scene that passed before the windows of that very banqueting-house. In 1623 he was employed at Somerset House, where a chapel was to be fitted up for the Infanta, the intended bride of the prince. 3 The 1 See a summary of this controversy in the Life of Inigo Jones in the Biographia Britannica. 2 In Dugdale's Origines Judiciales, p, 34, is an_ account of the building of that chapel from a design of Inigo. The first proposal of building it was in 1609, but it was retarded till about 1617. The charge was estimated at two thousand pounds. It was finished in five years, and consecrated on Ascension Day, 1623, by the Bishop of London, Dr. Donne preaching the sermon. 8 Sir H, Bourgchier in a letter to Archbishop Usher, dated July 14, 1623, says, ' The new 15 210 COURT AMUSEMENTS IN EARLY REIGN OF CHARLES I. chapel is still in being. The front to the river, part only of what was designed, and the water-gate, were erected afterwards on the designs of Inigo, as was the gate at York Stairs. Upon the accession of Charles he was continued in his posts under both king and queen. His fee as surveyor was eight shillings and fourpence per day, with an allowance of forty-six pounds a year for house rent, besides a clerk, and incidental expenses. What greater rewards he had are not upon record. Considering the havoc made in offices and repositories during the war, one is glad of being able to recover the smallest notices. During the prosperous state of the king's affairs, the pleasures of the court were carried on with much taste and magnificence. Poetry, painting, music, and architecture, were all called in to make them rational amusements ; and I have no doubt but the celebrated festivals of Louis XIV. were copied from the shows exhibited at Whitehall, in its time the most polite court in Europe. Ben Jonson was the laureate, Inigo Jones the inventor of the decorations, Laniere and Ferabosco composed the symphonies, the king, the queen, and the young nobility danced in the interludes. We have accounts of many of these entertainments called masks; they had been introduced by Anne of Denmark. I shall mention those in which Jones was concerned. Hymenaei, or solemnities of mask and barriers, performed on the twelfth night, 1606, upon occasion of the marriage of Robert, Earl of Essex, and the Lady Frances, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, at court, by Ben Jonson. Master Alphonso Ferabosco sung, Master Thomas Giles made and taught the dances. Tethys's festival, a masque, presented on the creation of Henry, Prince of Wales, June 5, 1610. The words by S. Daniel, the scenery contrived and described by Master Inigo Jones. This was called The Queen's Wake. Several of the lords and ladies acted in it. Daniel owns that the machinery and contrivance and ornaments of the scenes made the most conspicuous part of the entertainment. Feb. 16, 1613, a masque at Whitehall on the nuptials of the Palsgrave and the Princess Elizabeth, invented and fashioned by our kingdom's most artful and ingenious architect Inigo Jones; digested and written by the ingenious poet, George Chapman. 1 Jones had dabbled in poetry himself; there is a copy of verses by him prefixed to Coryat's Crudities, among many others by the wits of that age, who all affected to turn Coryat's books into ridicule, but which at least is not so foolish as their verses. ' chapel for thelnfanta goes on in building.' There was another chapel erected for her at St, James's, of which Don Carlos Colonna laid the first stone. Rushworth. 1 Chapman was an intimate friend of Jones, and in 1616 dedicated his translation of Musseus ' To the most generally ingenious and learned architect of his time, Inigo Jones, Esq., sur- * veyor of his majesty's works.' See Wood's Athense, p. 591. Jones made the monument for Chapman in the churchyard of St. Giles. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 211 Pan's Anniversary, a masque at court before King James L, 1625. Inventors Inigo Jones and Ben Jonson. Love's Triumph, 1630, by the king and nobility ; the same inventors. Chlorida, the queen's masque at court, 1630; the same. Albion's Triumph, a masque presented at court by the king's majesty and his lords, on twelfth night, 163 1; by Inigo and Jonson. The Temple of Love, a masque at Whitehall, presented by the queen and her ladies, on Shrove Tuesday, .1634; by Inigo Jones surveyor, and William Davenant. Ccelum Britannicum, a masque at Whitehall, in the banqueting-house, on Shrove Tuesday night ; the inventors, Thomas Carew, Inigo Jones. A masque pre- sented by Prince Charles, September 12, 1636, after the king and queen came from Oxford to Richmond. Britannia Triumph ans, a masque presented at Whitehall, by the king and his lords, on twelfth night, 1637. Salmacida Spolia, a masque presented by the king and queen at Whitehall, on Tues., Jan. 21, 1639. The invention, ornaments, scenes, and apparitions, with their descriptions, were made by Inigo Jones, surveyor-general of his majesty's works ; what was spoken or sung, by William Davenant, her majesty's servant. Love's Mistress, or the queen's masque, three times presented before their majesties at the Phoenix in Drury Lane, 1640. T. Hey wood gives the highest com- mendation of Inigo's part in this performance. Lord Burlington had a folio of the designs for these solemnities by Inigo's own hand, consist- ing of habits, masks, scenes, etc. The harmony of these triumphs was a little interrupted by a war that broke out between the composers, Inigo and Ben ; in which, who- ever was the aggressor, the turbulent temper of Jonson took care to be most in the wrong. Nothing exceeds the grossness of the language that he poured out, except the badness of the verses that were the vehicle. There he fully exerted all that brutal abuse which his con- temporaries were willing to think wit, because they were afraid of it; and which only serves to show the arrogance of the man who presumed to satirize Jones and rival Shakespeare. With the latter indeed he had not the smallest pretensions to be compared, except in having sometimes written absolute nonsense. Jonson translated the ancients, Shakespeare transfused their very soul into his writings. Another person who seems to have borne much resentment to Jones was Philip, Earl of Pembroke. 1 In the Harleian library was an edition of Stonehenge which formerly belonged to that earl, and the margins of which were full of strange notes written by him, not on the work, but on the author or anything else. I have such another commonplace book, if one may call it so, of Earl Philip, — the life of Sir Thomas More. In the Stonehenge are memorandums, jokes, witticisms, and abuse of several persons, particularly on Cromwell and his daughters, and on 1 R. Symondes calls him, the bawling coward. 15 * 212 THE WORKS OF INIGO JONES ARE NOT SCARCE. Inigo, whom his lordship calls Iniquity Jones; and says he had 16,000/. a year for keeping the king's houses in repair. This might be exagge- rated, but a little supplies the want I have mentioned of any record of the rewards bestowed on so great a man. It is observable that the earl, who does not spare reflections on his architect, never objects to his having been maintained in Italy by Earl William ; nor does Webb in his preface to the Stonehenge, though he speaks of Inigo's being in Italy, say a word of any patron that sent him thither. Earl Philip's resentment at Jones was probably occasioned by some disagreement while the latter was employed at Wilton. There he built that noble front, and a grotto at the end of the water. Wilton is one of the prin- cipal objects in a history of the arts and belles lettres. Sir Philip Sidney wrote his Arcadia there for his sister; Vandyck drew many of the race; Holbein and Inigo Jones imagined the buildings; Earl Thomas completed the collection of pictures and assembled that throng of statues ; and the last Earl Henry has shown by a bridge designed by himself that, had Jones never lived, Wilton might yet have been a villa worthy of ancient Rome. The works of Inigo are not scarce, though some that bear his name were productions of his scholars ; some indeed neither of the one nor the other. Albins in Essex I should attribute to the last class, though always ascribed to Inigo. If he had any hand in it, it must have been during his first profession, and before he had seen any good buildings. The house is handsome, has large rooms and rich ceilings, but all entirely of the King James's Gothic. Pishiobury in Hertfordshire is said to have been built by him for Sir Walter Mildmay. At Woburn is a grotto-chamber, and some other small parts by him, as there is of his hand at Thorney Abbey, and a summer house at Lord Barrington's in Berkshire. The middle part of each end of the quadrangle at St. John's, Oxford, is ascribed to him. The supporters of the royal arms are strangely crowded in over the niches ; but I have seen instances of his overdoing ornament. Charlton House, in Kent, is another of his supposed works; but some critics have thought that only the great gate at the entrance and the colonnades may be of his hand. The cabinet at Whitehall for the king's pictures was built by him, but we have no drawing of it. At St. James's he designed the queen's chapel. Surgeon's Hall is one of his best works ; and of the most admired, the arcade of Covent Garden and the church ; two structures of which I want taste to see the beauties : in the arcade there is nothing remark- able ; the pilasters are as errant and homely stripes as any plaisterer would make. The barn-roof over the portico of the church strikes my eyes with as little idea of dignity or beauty 1 as it could do if it covered 1 In justice to Inigo one must own, that the defect is not in the architect but in the order. Who ever saw a beautiful Tuscan building ? Would the Romans have chosen that order for a temple? Mr. Onslow, the late speaker, told me an anecdote that corroborates my opinion of this building. When the Karl of Bedford sent fo.r Inigo, he told him he wanted a chapel HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 213 nothing but a barn. The expense of building that church was 4500/. Ambresbury, in Wiltshire, was designed by him, but executed by his scholar, Webb, who married a cousin-german of Jones. Chevening is another house ascribed to him, but doubtful. Gunnersbury, near Brent- ford, was certainly his : the portico is too large, and engrosses the whole front except a single window at each end. The staircase and salon are noble, but destroy the rest of the house ; the other chambers are small, and crowded by vast chimney-pieces, placed with an Italian negligence in any corner of the room. Lindsey House, 1 in Lincoln's Inn Fields, has a chaster front, but is not better disposed for the apartments. In 161 8 a special commission was issued to the lord chancellor, the Earls of Worcester, Pembroke, Arundel, and others, to plant and reduce to uniformity Lincoln's Inn Fields, 2 as it shall be drawn by way of map or ground-plot, by Inigo Jones, surveyor general of the works. Coleshill, in Berkshire, the seat of Sir Matthew Pley- dell, built in 1650, and Cobham Hall, in Kent, were his. He was employed to rebuild Castle Ashby, and finished one front; but the civil war interrupted his progress there and at Stoke Park in North- amptonshire. Shaftesbury House, now the London Lying-in Hospital, on the east side of Aldersgate Street, is a beautiful front. At Wing, seven miles from his present seat at Ethorp in Buckinghamshire, Sir William Stanhope pulled down a house built by Inigo. The front to the garden of Hinton St. George in Somersetshire, the seat of Earl Poulet; and the front of Brvmpton, formerly the mansion of Sir Philip Sydenham, were from designs of Jones ; as Chilham Castle and the tower of the church at Staines, where Inigo some time lived, are said to be. So is a very curious work, if really by him, as I know no other performance of his in that kind, a bridge at Gvvydder in Wales, on the estate of the Duke of Ancaster. Some alterations and additions he made at Sion. At Oatlands remains a gate of the old palace, but re- moved to a little distance, and repaired, with the addition of 'an in- scription, by the present Earl of Lincoln. The Grange, the seat of the Lord Chancellor Henley, in Hampshire, is entirely of this master. It is not a large house, but by far one of the best proofs of his taste. The hall, which opens to a small vestibule with a cupola, and the stair- case adjoining, are beautiful models of the purest and most classic antiquity. The gate of Beaufort Garden'at Chelsea, designed by Jones, was purchasd by Lord Burlington, and transported to Chiswick, where for the parishioners of Covent Garden, but added, he would not go to any considerable ex- pense ; in short, said he, ■ I would not have it much better than a barn.' 'Well, then,' replied Jones, 'you shall have the handsomest barn in England.' 1 Jones was one of the first that observed the same gradual diminution of pilasters as in pillars. Lindsay House owes its chief grace to this singularity. 2 That square is laid out with a regard to so trifling a circumstance, as to be of the exact dimensions of one of the pyramids. This would have been admired in those ages, when the keep at Kenilworth Castle was erected in the form of a horse-fetter, and the Escurial in the shape of St. Laurence's gridiron. 214 BURIAL OF THE MONEYS OF JONES AND STONE. in a temple are some wooden seats with lions and other animals for arms, not of his most delicate imagination, brought from Tart Hall. He drew a plan for a palace at Newmarket, but not that wretched hovel that stands there at present. 1 The last, and one of the most beautiful of his works that I shall mention, is the queen's house at Greenwich. The first idea of the hospital is said to have been taken by Webb from his papers. The rest of his designs, and his smaller works, as chimneys and ceilings, etc., may be seen in the editions of Kent, Ware, Vardy, and Campbell. 2 Dr. Clarke, of Oxford, had Jones's Palladio, with his own notes and observations in Italian, which the doctor bequeathed to Worcester College. The Duke of Devonshire has another with the notes in Latin. Lord Burlington had a Vitruvius noted by him in the same manner. The same lord had his head by Dobson. At Houghton, it is by Van- dyck. Hollar engraved one of them. Villamena made a print of him while he was in Italy. Among the Strafford Papers there is a letter from Lord Cottington to the lord deputy, sending him a memorial from Inigo, relating to the procurement of marble from Ireland. Inigo tasted early of the misfortunes of his master; he was not only a favourite, 3 but a Roman Catholic. In 1646 he paid 545/. for his de- linquency and sequestration. Whether it was before or after this fine I know not, that he and Stone buried their joint stock of ready money in Scotland Yard ; but an order being published to encourage the in- formers of such concealments, and four persons being privy to the spot where the money was hid, it was taken up by them and reburied in Lambeth Marsh. Grief, misfortunes, and age, terminated his life. He died at Somer- set House, July 21, 165 1, and on the 26th of the same month was buried in the church of St. Bennet's, Paul's Wharf, where a monument 4 erected to his memory was destroyed in the fire of London. I here conclude this long chapter on the reign of King Charles. The admirers of that prince will not think, I hope, that I have stinted them in anecdotes of their favourite monarch. The next scarce deserves the name of a chapter; it contains the few names we find of artists during the Interregnum. 1 In Hasted's History of Kent, vol. ii., p. 783, it is said that he built the front of Lee's Court, and Judde House, p. 797. As in the concise account of some natural curiosities in the envi- rons of Malham Craven, 1786, append., p. 5, Storyhurst, the seat of Thomas Weld, Esq., is said to have been designed by Inigo for Sir Nicholas Sherborne. 2 In Hutchins's Hist, of Dorsetshire, vol. ii., p. 461, there is a plate of a handsome gate- way at Clifton Maubank, which is ascribed to Inigo, and, I believe, justly. There is sim- plicity and proportion, niches with shells, and a Grecian entableture, though mixed with many traces of the bad style that preceded him. He seems to have enticed the age by degrees into true taste. 3 In Vanderdort's Catalogue is mention of a picture of Stenwyck bought by Inigo for the king, p. 15, and of awaxen picture of Henry VIII., and a drawing of Prince Henry presented by him, p. 75. 4 The arms on the frame of his picture, when bought by Sir Robert Walpole, were, per bend sinister ermine and ermine, a lion rampant, or, within a border engrailed of the same. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 215 CHAPTER XI. Artists during the Interregnum. Of these the first in rank, if not in merit, was General LAMBERT, who, we are told by the author of the English School, was a great en- courager of painting and a good performer in flowers ; some of his works were at the Duke of Leeds's, at Wimbledon ; and it was supposed that he received instructions from Baptist Caspars, whom he retained in his service. The generaFs son, John Lambert, painted portraits. There is a medal of the general by Simon. ROBERT WALKER, a portrait painter, cotemporary with Vandyck, but most remarkable for being the principal painter employed by Cromwell, 1 whose picture he drew more than once. One of those portraits represented him with a gold chain about his neck, to which was appendant a gold medal with three crowns, the arms of Sweden, and a pearl ; sent to him by Chris- tina in return for his picture by Cooper, on which Milton wrote a Latin epigram. This head by Walker is in the possession of Lord Mount- ford, at Horseth, in Cambridgeshire, and was given to the late lord by Mr. Commissary Greaves, who found it in an inn in that county. 2 Another piece contained Cromwell and Lambert together ; this was in Lord Bradford's collection. A third was purchased for the Great Duke, whose agent having orders to procure one, and meeting with this in the hands of a female relation of the protector, offered to purchase it ; but being refused, and continuing his solicitation, to put him off, she asked 500/. — and was paid it. It was on one of these portraits that Elsum wrote his epigram, which is no better than the rest, ' By lines o' th' face and language of the eye, We find him thoughtful, resolute, and sly.' From one of R. Symondes's pocket-books, in which he has set down many directions in painting that had been communicated to him by various artists, he mentions some from Walker, and says, the latter received ten pounds for the portrait of Mr. Thomas Knight's wife to the knees ; that she sat thrice to him, four or five hours at a time. That for two half-lengths of philosophers, which he drew from poor old men, he had ten pounds each in 1652; that he paid 25/. for the Venus put- ting on her smock (by Titian) which was the king's, and valued it at 1 There is a capital half length of General Moncke at the Countess of Montrath's, Twicken- ham Park. I do not know the painter, but probably it was Walker. a Another is at the Earl of Essex's at Cashiobury. 2l6 CARTER, SURVEYOR OF WORKS UNDER CROMWELL. 60/., as he was told by Mrs. Boardman, who copied it; a paintress of whom I find no other mention j 1 and that Walker copied Titian's famous Venus, which was purchased by the Spanish ambassador, and for which the king had been offered 2500/. He adds, Walker cries up De Critz for the best painter in London. Walker had for some time an apartment in Arundel House, and died a little before the restoration ; his own portrait 2 is at Leicester House, and in the picture gallery at Oxford. Mr. Onslow has a fine whole length, sitting in a chair, of Keble, keeper of the great seal in 1650, by this painter. EDWARD MASCALL drew another portrait of Cromwell, which the Duke of Chandos bought of one Clark, then of the age of J 06, but hearty and strong, who had been summoned to London on a cause of Lord Coningsby. This man had formerly been servant of Mascall, and had married his widow, and was at that time possessed of 300/. a year at Trewellin, in Hereford- shire. He had several pictures painted by Mascall. Of the latter there is an indifferent print, inscribed, ' Effigies Edwardi Mascall, 'pictoris, sculpta ab exemplari propria manu depicto. James Gam- ' mon sculpsit/ HEYWOOD. Of this person I find no mention but that in 1650 he drew the por- trait of General Fairfax, which was in the possession of Mr. Brian Fair- fax. A draught from this by one James Hulet, was produced to the Society of Antiquaries by Mr. Peck in 1739. PETER BLONDEAU and THOMAS VIOLET were employed by the commonwealth to coin their money, of whom and their contests see Vertue's account in his History of the Works of Thomas Simon, p. 17. Blondeau, after the restoration, November 3, 1662, received letters of denization, and a grant for being engineer of the Mint in the Tower of London, and for using his new invention for coining gold and silver with the mill and press; with the fee of 100/. per annum. FRANCIS CARTER was chief clerk of the works under Inigo Jones ; there is an entry in an office-book of a payment to him of 66/. 13^. \d. He lived in Covent Garden, and during the commonwealth was a justice of peace, and made surveyor of the works, in which post he was continued by Oliver. He died soon after the restoration. 1 He names too Loveday and Wray, equally unknown. * 3 There is a good print of Walker, holding- a drawing, by Lombarfc. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 217 At the protector's funeral, among others walked the following persons, his officers : — The master carpenter, Mr. Davenport, master joyner, Mr. Kingwood, master carver, Mr. Philips, master mason, Mr. Thomas Simon, chief graver of the mint. CHAPTER XII. Painters in the Reign of Charles II. The arts were in a manner expelled with the royal family from Britain. The anecdotes of a civil war are the history of destruction. In all ages the mob have vented their hatred to tyrants on the pomp of tyranny. The magnificence the people have envied they grow to de- test, and, mistaking consequences for causes, the first objects of their fury are the palaces of their masters. If religion is thrown into the quarrel, the most innocent arts are catalogued with sins. This was the case in the contests between Charles and his parliament. As he had blended affection to the sciences with a lust of power, nonsense and ignorance were adopted into the liberties of the subject. Painting became idolatry ; monuments were deemed carnal pride ; and a vener- able cathedral seemed equally contradictory to Magna Charta and the Bible. Learning and wit were construed to be so heathen, that one could endure nothing above a pun. What the fury of Henry VIII. had spared, was condemned by the puritans ; ruin was their harvest, and they gleaned after the reformers. Had they countenanced any of the softer arts, what could those arts have represented ? How picturesque was the figure of an Anabaptist ! But sectaries have no ostensible en- joyments ; their pleasures are private, comfortable, and gross. The arts that civilize society are not calculated for men who mean to rise on the ruins of established order. Jargon and austerities are the weapons that best serve the purposes of heresiarchs and innovators. The sciences have b~en excommunicated, from the Gnostics to Mr. Whitfield. The restoration of royalty brought back the arts, not taste. Chas. II. had a turn to mechanics, none to the politer sciences. He had learned (ch. x., art. David Beck) to draw in his youth ; in the imperial library at Vienna, is a view of the Isle of Jersey, designed by him ; but he was too indolent even to amuse himself. Pie introduced the fashions of the court of France, without its elegance. He had seen Louis XIV. coun- tenance Corneille, Moliere, Boileau, Le Sueur, who forming themselves on the models of the ancients, seemed by the purity of their writings to have studied only in Sparta. 1 Charles found as much genius at v It has been objected by some persons that the expression of ' studying in Sparta ' is im- 2l8< CONTRAST BETWEEN COURTS OF CROMWELL AND CHARLES II. home ; but how licentious, how indelicate was the style he permitted or demanded ! Dryden's tragedies are a compound of bombast and heroic obscenity enclosed in the most beautiful numbers. If Wycher- ley had nature, it is nature stark naked. The painters of that time veiled it but little more; Sir Peter Lely scarce saves appearances but by a bit of fringe or embroidery. His nymphs, generally reposed on the turf, are too wanton and too magnificent to be taken for anything but maids of honour. Yet fantastic as his compositions seem, they were pretty much in the dress of the times, as is evident by a puritan tract published in 1678, and entitled, ' Just and reasonable reprehensions of 6 naked breasts and shoulders/ The court had gone a good way beyond the fashion of the preceding reign, when the gallantry in vogue was to wear a lock of some favourite object ; and yet Prynne had thought that mode so damnable, that he published an absurd piece against it, called, ' The unloveliness of Lovelocks. 7 1 The sectaries, in opposition to the king, had run into the extreme against politeness; the new court, to indemnify themselves and mark aversion to their rigid adversaries, took the other extreme. Elegance and delicacy were the point from which both sides started different ways ; and taste was as little sought by the men of wit, as by those who called themselves the men of God. The latter thought that to demolish was to reform; the others, that ridicule was the only rational corrective: and thus, while one party destroyed all order, and the other gave a loose to disorder, no wonder the age produced scarce any work of art that was worthy of being preserved by posterity. Yet in a history of the arts, as in other histories, the times of confusion and barbarism must have their place, to preserve the connection, and to ascertain the ebb and flow of genius. One likqs to see through what clouds broke forth the age of Augustus. The pages that follow will present the reader with few memorable names ; the number must atone for merit, if that can be thought any atonement. The first 2 person who made any figure, and who was properly a remnant of a better age, was ISAAC FULLER. Of his family, or masters, I find no account, except that he studied many years in France under Perrier, who engraved the antique statues. proper, as the Spartans were an illiterate people and produced no authors : a criticism I think very ill founded. The purity of the French writers, not their learning, is the object of the text. Many men travelled to Lacedsemon to study the laws and institutions of Lycurgus. Men visit all countries, under the pretence at least of studying the respective manners ; nor have I ever heard before that the term 'studying' was restricted to mere reading. When I say an author wrote as chastely as if he had studied only in Sparta, is it not evident that I meant his morals, not his information, were formed on the purest models ? 1 At the sale of the late Lady Woresley, was the portrait of the Duchess of Somerset, daughter of Robert, Earl of Essex [Q. Elizabeth's favourite] with a lock of her father's hair hanging on her neck ; and the lock itself was in the same auction. 2 Vertue was told by old Mr. Laroon, who saw him in Yorkshire, that the 'celebrated Rem- brandt was in England in 1661, and lived i6*or 18 months at Hull, where he drew several HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 2IO Graham says 6 he wanted the regular improvements of travel to con- 1 sider the antiques, and understood the anatomic part of painting, 6 perhaps equal to Michael Angelo ; following it so close, that he was 'very apt to make the muscleing too strong and prominent/ But this writer was not aware that the very fault he objects to Fuller did not proceed from not having seen the antiquities, but from having seen them too partially; and that he was only to be compared to Michael Angelo from a similitude of errors, flowing from a similitude of study. Each caught the robust style from ancient statuary, without attaining its graces. If Graham had avoided hyberbole, he had not fallen into a blunder. In his historic compositions Fuller is a wretched painter ; his colouring was raw and unnatural, and not com- pensated by disposition or invention. In portraits his pencil was bold, strong, and masterly; men who shine in the latter and miscarry in the former want imagination. They succeed only in what they see. Liotard is a living instance of this sterility. He cannot paint a blue ribband if a lady is dressed in purple knots. If he had been in the prison at the death of Socrates, and the passions were as permanent as the persons on whom they act, he might have made a finer picture than Nicolo Poussin. Graham speaks of Fuller as extravagant and burlesque in his manners, and says, that they influenced the style of his works. 1 The former character seems more true than the latter. I have a picture of Ogilvy by him, in which he certainly has not debased his subject, but has made Ogilvy appear a moon-struck bard, instead of a contemptible one. The composition has more of Salvator than of Brauwer. His own portrait 2 in the gallery at Oxford is capricious, but touched with great force and character. His altar-pieces at Magdalen 3 and All Souls colleges in Oxford are despicable. At Wadham College is an altar- cloth in a singular manner, and of merit; it is just brushed over for the lights and shades, and the colours melted in with a hot iron. He painted the inside of St. Mary Abchurch in Cannon Street. While Fuller was at Oxford he drew several portraits, and copied Dobson's decollation of St. John, -but varying the faces from real persons. For Herodias, who held the charger, he painted his own mistress ; her mother for the old woman receiving the head in a bag ; and the ruffian, who cut it off, was a noted bruiser of that age. There gentlemen and seafaring persons. Mr. Dahl had one of those pictures. There are two fine whole lengths at Yarmouth, which might be done at the same time. As there is no other evidence of Rembrandt being in England, it was not necessary to make a separate article for him, especially at a time when he is so well known, and his works in such repute, that his scratches, with the difference only of a black horse or a white one, sell for thirty guineas. 1 Elsum, in an epigram that is not one of his worst, agrees with this opinion ; On a drunken sot. ' His head doth on his shoulder lean ; ' Who sees this sot in his own colour * His eyes are sunk, and hardly seen ; * Is apt to say, 'Twas done by Fuller.' 2 It is much damaged, and was given to the University by Dr. Clarke. 8 Mr. Addison wrote a Latin poem in praise of it. 2 20 THE PORTRAITS AND WORKS OF ANDREW FULLER. was besides a little boy with a torch, which illuminated the whole picture. Fuller received 60 pieces for it. In King James's catalogue is mentioned a picture by him, representing Fame and Honour tread- ing down Envy. Colonel Seymour 1 had a head of Pierce, the carver, by Fuller. He was much employed to paint the great taverns 2 in London, particularly the Mitre in Fenchurch Street, where he adorned all the sides of a great room in panels, as was then the fashion. The figures were as large as life ; a Venus, Satyr, and sleeping Cupid a boy riding a goat and another falling down, over the chimney ; this was the best part of the performance, says Vertue : Saturn devouring a child, Mercury, Minerva, Diana, Apollo; and Bacchus, Venus, and Ceres embracing ; a young Silenus falling down, and holding a goblet, into which a boy was pouring wine ; the seasons between the windows, and on the ceiling two angels supporting a mitre, in a large circle : this part was very bad, and the colouring of the Saturn too raw, and his figure too muscular. He painted five very large pictures, the history of the king's escape after the battle of Worcester : they cost a great sum, but were little esteemed. Vertue had seen two books with etchings by Fuller ; the first, Caesar Ripa's Emblems ; some of the plates by Fuller, others by Henry Cooke and Tempesta. The second was called, Libro da Disegnare ; eight or ten of the plates by our painter. He died in Bloomsbury Square, July 17, 1672, and left a son, an ingenious but idle man, according to Vertue, chiefly employed in coach- painting. He led a dissolute life, and died young. Fuller had one scholar, Charles Woodfield, who entered under him at Oxford, and served seven years. He generally painted views, buildings, monuments, and antiquities; but, being idle as his master's son, often wanted necessaries. He died suddenly in his chair, in the year 1724, at the age of 75. CORNELIUS BOLL, a painter of whom I find no particulars, but that he made views of London before the fire; which proves that he was here early in this reign, if not in the last ; these views were at Sutton Place, in Surrey, and represented Arundel House, Somerset House, and the Tower. Vertue, who saw them, says, they were in a good free taste. JOHN FREEMAN, an historic painter, was a rival of Fuller ; which seems to have been his greatest glory. He was thought to have been poisoned in the West Indies, but, however, died in England, after having been 1 Vertue bought it, and from his sale I purchased it. 2 Sir P. Lely seeing a portrait of Norris, the king's frame-maker, an old grey-headed man finely painted by Fuller, lamented that such a genius should drown his talents in wine. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 221 employed in painting scenes for the theatre in Covent Garden (Graham, p. 419). REMEE OR REMIGIUS VAN LEMPUT was born at Antwerp, and arrived at some excellence by copying the works of Vandyck ; he imitated too with success the Flemish masters, as Stone did the Italians ; and for the works of Lely, Remee told that master that he could copy them better than Sir Peter could him- self. I have already mentioned his small picture from Holbein, of the two Henrys and their queens, and that his purchase in King Charles's sale of the king onhorseback was taken from him by a suit at law, after he had demanded 1500 guineas for it at Antwerp and been bidden 1000. The Earl of Pomfret at Easton had a copy of Raphael's Galatea by him ; and at Penshurst is a small whole length of Francis Earl of Bedford, set. 48, 1636, from Vandyck. Mr. Stephens, historio- grapher to the king, had some portraits of his family painted by Remee. The latter had a well-chosen collection of prints and drawings (Graham, p. 458). He died in November, 1675, ar) d was buried in the church- yard of Covent Garden, as his son Charles had been in 165 1. His daughter was a paintress, and married to Thomas, brother of ROBERT STREATER, who was appointed serjeant-painter at the restoration. He was the son of a painter, and born in Covent Garden, 1624, and studied under Du Moulin. Streater did not confine himself to any branch of his art, but succeeded best in architecture, perspective, landscape, and still life. Graham calls him the greatest and most universal painter that ever England bred — but with about as much judgment, as where he says that Streater's being a good historian contributed not a little to his perfection in that way of painting. He might as well say that reading 6 The Rape of the Lock' would make one a good hair-cutter. I should rely more on Sanderson, who, speaking of landscape, says, ' Of our own nation I know none more excellent but Streater, who ' indeed is a compleat master therein, as also in other arts of etching, 1 ' graving, and his work of architecture and perspective ; not a line but 6 is true to the rules of art and symmetry' (Graphice, p. 19). And again, comparing our own countrymen with foreigners, in different branches, he adds, 6 Streater in all paintings' (Ibid., p. 20). But from the few works that I have seen of his hand, I can by no means subscribe to these encomiums : the theatre at Oxford, his principal performance, is a very mean one ; yet Streater was as much commended for it, as by the authors I have mentioned for his works in general. One Robert 1 He engraved a plate of the battle of Naseby. The plates for Sir Robert Stapleton's Juvenal were designed by Streater, Barlow, and Danckers. 22 2 WORKS OF STREATER AT OXFORD AND AT WHITEHALL, Whitehall, 1 a poetaster of that age, wrote a poem called Urania, or a description of the painting at the top of the theatre at Oxford, which concluded with these lines : — ( That future ages must confess they owe To Streater more than Michael Angelo.' At Oxford, Streater painted too the chapel at All Souls, except the Resurrection, which is the work of Sir James Thornhill. Vertue saw a picture, which he commends, of a Dr. Prujean 2 in his gown and long hair, one hand on a death's head, and the other on some books, with this inscription, ' Amicitias ergo pinxit Rob. Streater :' and in the possession of a Captain Streater, the portrait of Robert by himself ; of his brother Thomas by Lankirk; and of Thomas's wife, the daughter of Remee, by herself. Vertue bad also seen two letters, directed to Serjeant Streater at his house in Long Acre ; the first from the Earl of Chesterfield, 3 dated June 13, 1678, mentioning a picture of Mutius Scaevola, for which he had paid him 20/., and offering him 160/. if he would paint six small pictures with figures. His lordship commends too the story of Rinaldo, bought of Streater, but wishes the idea of the hero had been taken from the Duke of Monmouth, or some very handsome man. The other letter was from the Earl of Bristol 4 at Wimbledon, about some paintings to be done for him. Other works of Streater were, 5 ceilings at Whitehall ; the war of the giants at Sir Robert Clayton's; Moses and Aaron, at St. Michael's, Cornhill; and all the scenes at the old play-house. He died in 1680, at the age of 56, not long after being cut for the stone, though Charles II. had so much kindness for him as to send for a surgeon from Paris to perform the operation. He had a good collection of Italian books, prints, drawings, and pictures, which, on the death of his son in 171 1, were sold by auction. Among them were the following by Streater himself, which at least show the universality of his talent ; Lacy the player ; a hen and chickens ; two heads ; an eagle ; a landscape and flowers; a large pattern of the king's arms; Isaac and Rebecca; fruit- pieces; Abraham and Isaac; the nativity; Jacob's vision; Mary Magdalen ; building and figures ; two dogs. They sold, says Vertue, for no great price ; some for 5/., some for 10/. 1 Wood's Athena?, vol. ii., p. 786. A description in prose of that painting is in the New. Oxford Guide. 2 Vertue met with a print, Opinion sitting on a frree, thus inscribed, * Viro clariss. dno. Fran- 'cisco Prujeano, medico, omnium bonarum artium et elegantiarum sautori et admiratori 1 summo. D. D. D. H. Peacham.' 3 This was Earl Philip, mentioned in the Memoires de Grammont. He was very handsome, and had remarkably fine hair. Lord Harrington has a good head of him by Sir Peter Lely, in which these circumstances are observed. 4 The famous George Lord Digby. There is at Althorp a suit of arras with his arms, which he gave to his daughter the Countess of Sunderland, whom I mention to rectify a common blunder ; it is the portrait of this lady, Anne Digby, who had light hair and a large square face, that is among the beauties at Windsor, and not her mother-in-law Sacharissa, wuq " had a round face and dark hair, and who probably was no beauty in the reign of Charles II. 5 Graham, p. 465. James II. had seven of his hand. Vide his catalogue. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 223 HENRY ANDERTON was disciple of Streater, whose manner he followed in landscape and still- life. Afterwards he travelled to Italy, and at his return took to por- trait-painting ; and having drawn the famous Mrs. Stuart, Duchess ol Richmond, he was employed by the king and court, and even interfered with the business of Sir Peter Lely. Anderton died soon after the year 1665. FRANCIS VANSON, OR VANZOON, was born at Antwerp, and learned of his father, a flower painter ; but he came early into England, and, marrying Streater's niece, succeeded to much of her uncle's business. Vertue and Graham commend the free- dom of his pencil, but his subjects were ill chosen. He painted still- life, oranges and lemons, plate, damask curtains, cloths of gold, and that medley of familiar objects that strike the ignorant vulgar. In Streater's sale, mentioned above, were near thirty of Vanson's pieces, which sold well: among others, was the crown of England, and birds in water-colours. Vanson's patron was the Earl of Radnor, 1 who at his house in St. James's Square had near eighteen or twenty of his works, over doors and chimneys, etc. ; there was one large piece, loaded with fruit, flowers, and dead game, by him, and his own portrait in it, painted by Laguerre, with a hawk on his fist. The staircase of that house was painted by Laguerre, and the apartments were ornamented by the principal artists then living, as Edema, Wyck, Roestraten, Danckers, old Griffier, young Vandeveide, and Sybrecht. The collec- tion 2 was sold in 1724. Some of his pictures were eight or nine feet high ; and in them he proposed to introduce all the medicinal plants in the physic-garden at Chelsea, but grew tired of the undertaking before he had completed it. He lived chiefly in Long Acre, and lastly in St. Alban's Street, where he died in the year 1 700, at past fifty years of age. SAMUEL VAN HOOGSTRATEN was another of those painters of still-life, a manner at that time in fashion. It was not known that he had been in England, till Vertue discovered it by a picture of his hand at a sale in Covent Garden, 1 730. The ground represented a walnut-tree board, with papers, pens, pen- knife, and an English almanac of the year 1663, a gold medal, and the portrait of the author in a supposed ebony frame, long hair inclining 1 Charles Bodville Robartes, second Earl of Radnor, who succeeded his grandfather in 1684, and was lord warden of the stanneries, and by King George I. made treasurer of the chambers. He died in 1723.. 2 In this sale were some capital pictures, as Rubens and his mistress (I suppose it should be his wife,, and that it is the picture at Blenheim) sold for 130 guineas ; the martyrdom of St. Laurence by Vandyck, 65 guineas j a satyr, Avith a woman milking a goat, by Jordan of Ant- werp, 160 guineas ; and the family piece, which I have mentioned in the Life of Vandyck, bought by Mr. Scawen for 500/. 2 24 FEW PAINTERS OF ANIMALS SUPERIOR TO HONDIUS. to red, and his name, S. V. Hoogstraten. The circumstance of the English almanac makes it probable that this painter was in England at least in that year; and Vertue found it confirmed by Houbrakenhis scholar, who in his Lives of the Painters 1 says, that Hoogstraten was born at Dordrecht, in 1627, was first instructed by his father, and then by Rembrandt. That he painted in various kinds, particularly small portraits, and was countenanced by the emperor and King of Hungary. That he travelled to Italy, and came to England. That he was author of a book 'on painting, called ( Zichtbare Waerelt geselt worden/ and died at Dordrecht in 1678. BALTHAZAR VAN LEMENS was among the first that came over after the restoration, when a re-established court promised the revival of arts and consequently advantage to artists ; but the poor man was as much disappointed as if he had been useful to the court in its depression. He was born at Antwerp in 1637, and is said 2 to have succeeded in small histories; but not being encouraged, and having a fruitful invention and easy pencil, his best profit was making sketches for others of his profession. He lived to 1704, and was buried at Westminster. His brother, who resided in Brussels, painted a head of him. ABRAHAM HONDIUS was born at Rotterdam in 1638; when he came to England, or who was his master, is not known. His manner, indeed, seems his own ; it was bold and free, and except Rubens and Snyder, few masters have painted animals in so great a style. Though he drew both figures and landscape, dogs and huntings were his favourite. Vertue says he was a man of humour, and that one of his maxims was, that the goods of other men might be used as our own ; and that, finding another man's wife of the same mind, he took and kept her till she died ; after which he married. He lived on Ludgate Hill, but died of a severe course of the gout in 1695, at the Blackmoor's head, over against Water Lane, Fleet Street. One of his first pictures was the burning of Troy ; and he frequently painted candlelights. His best was a dog-market, sold at Mr. Halsted's auction in 1726; above, on steps, were men and women well executed. My father had two large pieces of his hand, the one a boar, the other a stag hunting, very capital. Vertue mentions besides a landscape painted in 1666; Diana returning from hunting, and a bull- baiting, dated 1678. Jodocus Hondius, probably the grandfather of Abraham, had been 1 There is also an account of him in the second volume of Descamps, which was published but a little time before the death of Vertue. 2 Graham. Ahead of Charles I. by one Lemons is mentioned in that king's collection , p. 72. Whether the father of this person, or whether a different name, as there is a slight variation in the orthography, I do not know. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 225 in England before, and was an engraver of maps. He executed some of Speed's, and one 1 of the voyages of Thomas Cavendish and Sir Francis Drake round" the globe. He also engraved a genealogical chart of the houses of York and Lancaster, with the arms of the knights of the garter to the year 1589, drawn by Thomas Talbot ; a map of the Roman empire; another of the Holy Land; and particularly the celes- tial and terrestrial globes, the largest that had then ever been printed. I shall say nothing more of him in this place (as the catalogue of English engravers I reserve for the conclusion of this work), but that he left a son, Henry, born in London, whom I take for the father of Abraham Hondius, and who finished several things that had been left imperfect by Jodocus. MR. WILLIAM LIGHTFOOT, an English painter of perspective, landscape, and architecture, in which last science he practised too, having some share in the Royal Exchange. He died about 1671. SIR PETER LELY, born 161 7, died 1680, not only the most capital painter of this reign, but whose works are ad- mitted amongst the classics of the art, was born at Soest in Westphalia, where his father, a captain of foot, was in garrison. His name was Vander Vaas ; but being born at the Hague in a perfumer's shop, the sign of the Lily, he received the appellation of Captain Du Lys, or Lely, which became the proper name of the son. He received his first in- structions in painting from one De Grebber, and began with landscape and historic figures less than life; but coming to England in 1641, and seeing the works of Vandyck, he quitted his former style and for- mer subjects, and gave himself wholly to portraits in emulation of that great man. His success was considerable, though not equal to his ambition : if in nothing but simplicity, he fell short of his model, as Statius or Claudian did of Virgil. If Vandyck's portraits are often tame and spiritless, at least they are natural. His laboured draperies flow with ease, and not a fold but is placed with propriety. Lely sup- plied the want of taste with clinquant ; his nymphs trail fringes and embroidery through meadows and purling streams. Add, that Van- dyck's habits are those of the times ; Lely's a sort of fantastic night- gowns, fastened with a single pin. 2 The latter was in truth the ladies'- painter; and whether the age was improved in beauty or in flat- tery, 3 Lely's women are certainly much handsomer than those of 1 British Librarian. 2 ' Your night-gown fastened with a single pin, # Fancy improved the wondrous charms within.' Lady M. W. Montague. 3 This suspicion is authorised by Dryden, who says, ' It was objected against a late noble 'painter, that he drew many graceful pictures, but few of them were like ; and this happened 16 226 PICTURES BY SIR P. LELY AT HAMPTON COURT. Vandyck. They please as much more, as they evidently meant to please ; he caught the reigning character, and . . . 6 on animated canvas stole The sleepy eye that spoke the melting soul.' I don't know whether even in softness of the flesh he did not excel his predecessor. The beauties at Windsor are the court of Paphos, and ought to be engraved for the memoires of its charming historiographer, Count Hamilton. 1 In the portraits of men, which he seldomer painted, Lely scarce came up to Sir Antony, 2 yet there is a whole length of Horatio Lord Townshend by the former at Rainham, which yields to few of the latter. At Lord Northumberland's at Sion is a remarkable picture of King Charles I. holding a letter, directed, 6 Au roi monseigneur/ and the Duke of York, set. 14, presenting a penknife to him to cut the strings. It was drawn at Hampton Court, when the king was last there, by Lely, who was earnestly recommended to him. 3 I should have taken it for the hand of Fuller or Dobson. It is certainly very unlike Sir Peter's latter manner, 4 and is stronger than his former. The king has none of the melancholy grace which Vandyck alone, of all his painters, always gave him. It has a sterner countenance, and expressive of the tempests he had experienced. Lely drew the rising sun, as well as the setting. Captain Winde told Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, that Oliver certainly sat to him, and, while sitting, said to him, 6 Mr. Lely, I desire you would use all 1 your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all ; ' but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as 'you see me, otherwise I never will pay a farthing for it.' It would be endless to recapitulate the works of this master; 5 though so many have merit, few are admirable or curious enough to be par- ' to him because he always studied himself more than those who sat to him.' Pref. to second part of his Miscellanies. 1 Author of the Memoires de Grammont. 2 I must except a very fine head in my possession of the Earl of Sandwich ; it is painted with the greatest freedom and truth ; a half length of an Alderman Leneve in his habit, one of the finest portraits I ever saw, the hand is exquisitely well painted ; and a portrait of Cow- ley when a youth, which has a pastoral simplicity and beauty that are perfectly characteristic. 3 The author of the Abrege de la Vie des plus fameux Peintres, in two volumes quarto, 1745, says it was at the recommendation of the Earl of Pembroke. This piece of ignorance is par- donable in a Frenchman, but not to Graham, from whom he borrowed it, and who specifies that it was Philip Earl of Pembroke ; a man too well known for the part he took, to leave it probable that he either recommended a painter to his abandoned master at that crisis, or that his recommendation was successful. He was more likely to have been concerned in the fol- lowing paragraph relating to Cromwell. * Yet it is certainly by him : the Earl of Northumberland has Sir Peter's receipt for it, the price 30/. There is a poem by Lovelace on this very picture, p. 61. R. Symondes too men- tions it, and the portraits of the Duke of York, and the Lady Elizabeth, single heads, both now at the Earl of Northumberland's at Sion ; the first, very pleasing ; the other as valuable, for being the only one known of that princess. There was another of the Duke of Gloucester, with a fountain by him, which is wanting. Symondes adds, Sir Peter had 5/. for a ritratto; 10/. if down to the knees. 5 Several by him and Vandyck are in the gallery at Althorp, one of those enchanted scenes ■which a thousand circumstances of history and art endear to a pensive spectator. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 227 ticularized. They are generally portraits to the knees, and most of them, as I have said, of ladies. 1 Few of his historic pieces are known; at Windsor is a Magdalen, and a naked Venus asleep; the Duke of Devonshire has one, the story of Jupiter and Europ'a ; Lord Pomfret had that of Cimon and Iphigenia ; and at Burleigh is Susanna with the two elders. In Streater's sale was a Holy Family, a sketch in black and white, which sold for five pounds ; and Vertue mentions and commends another, a Bacchanal of four or five naked boys sitting on a tub, the wine running out, with his mark, P and L combined. Lens made a mezzotinto from a Judgment of Paris by him ; another was of Susanna and the elders. His designs are not more common; they are in Indian ink, heightened with white. He sometimes painted in crayons, and well. I have his own head by himself ; Methuen has Sir Peter's and his family in oil. They represent a concert in a land- scape. A few heads are known by him in water-colours, boldly and strongly painted ; they generally have his cypher to them. He was knighted by Charles II., and married a beautiful English woman of family, but her name is not recorded. In town he lived in Drury Lane, in the summer at Kew, 2 and always kept a handsome table. His collection 3 of pictures and drawings was magnificent ; he purchased many of Vandyck's and the Earl of Arundel's; and the second Villiers pawned many to him that had remained of his father the Duke of Buckingham's. This collection, after Sir Peter's death, was sold by auction, 4 which lasted forty days, and produced 26,000/. He left besides an estate in land of 900/. a year. 5 The drawings he had collected may be known by his initial letters P. L. In 1678 Lely encouraged one Freres, 6 a painter of history, who had been in Italy, to come from Holland. He expected to be employed at 1 Waller, as gallant a poet as Lely was a painter, has twice celebrated him ; in the night- piece he says, ' Mira can lay her beauty by, Quit all that Lely's art can take, Take no adyantage of the eye, And yet a thousand captives make.' And in his verses to a lady from whom he received a poem he had lost, * The picture of fair Venus (that Was lost, till Lely from your look For which men say the goddess sat) Again that glorious image took.' In Lovelace's poems (1649), is one addressed to Sir Peter, who designed a little frontispiece to the Elegies on Lovelace's death, printed at the end of his poems. Faithorne engraved that plate at Paris. Charles Cotton wrote a poem to him on his picture of the Lady Isabella Thynne. See Sir John Hawkins's curious edition of Isaac Walton's Compleat Angler, in the Life of Cotton. He was celebrated too by a Duch bard, John Vallenhove. Descamps, vol. ii., p. 258. 2 See an account of the Lord Keeper Guildford's friendship to Sir Peter Lely and his family, particularly in relation to his house, in Roger North's Life of the Keeper, pp. 299, 300, 311, etc. Roger North was his executor, and guardian of his natural son, who died young. 3 See a list of part of it, printed with the Duke of Buckingham's collection by Bathoe. It mentions twenty-six of Vandyck's best pictures. [Total 135.] 4 The sale began April i3, 1682, O. S. In the conditions of sale was specified, that imme- diately upon the sale of each picture, the buyer should seal a contract for payment, according to the custom in great sales. 5 Sir Peter gave 50/. towards the building of St. Paul's. 6 See an account of this Theodore Freres in Descamps, vol. iii., p. 149. 16 * 228 DEATH AND BURIAL PLACE OF SIR PETER LELY. Windsor, but finding Verrio preferred, 1 returned to his own country. Sir Peter had disgusts of the same kind from Simon Varelst, patronized by the Duke of Buckingham; from Gascar, who was brought over by the Duchess of Portsmouth; and from the rising merit of Kneller, whom the French author I have mentioned sets with little reason far below Sir Peter. Both had too little variety in airs of heads : Kneller was bolder and more careless, Lely more delicate in finishing. The latter showed by his pains how high he could arrive ; it is plain, that if Sir Godfrey had painted much less and applied more he would have been the greater master. This perhaps is as true a parallel as the French author's, who thinks that Kneller might have disputed with Lely in the beauty of his head of hair. Descamps is so weak as to impute Sir Peter's death to his jealousy of Kneller, though he owns it was almost sudden ; an account which was almost nonsense, especially as he adds that Lely's physician, who knew not the cause of his malady, heightened it by repetitions of Kneller's success. It was an extraordinary kind of sudden death ! Sir Peter Lely 2 died of an apoplexy as he was drawing the Duchess of Somerset, 1680, and in the 63rd year of his age. He was buried in the church of Covent Garden, where is a monument with his bust, carved by Gibbons, and a Latin epitaph by Flatman (Graham, p. 447). JOSEPH BUCKSHORN, a Dutchman, was scholar of Lely, whose works he copied in great perfection, and some of Vandyck's, particularly the Earl of Strafford, which was in the possession of Watson, Earl of Rockingham. Vertue mentions the portraits of Mr. Davenant and his wife, son of Sir Wil- liam, by Buckshorn. He painted draperies for Sir Peter, and dying at the age of thirty-five was buried at St. Martins. JOHN GREENHILL, 3 the most promising of Lely's scholars, was born at Salisbury 4 of a 1 While he was here, one Thomas Hill, a painter, and Robert Williams, a mezzotinter, learned of him. 2 The celebrated astronomer and miser Robert Hooke was first placed with Sir Peter Lely, but soon quitted him, from not being able to bear the smell of the oil-colours. But though he gave up painting, his mechanic genius turned, among other studies, to architecture. He gave a plan for rebuilding London after the fire : but though it was not accepted, he got a large sum of money, as one of the commissioners, from the persons who claimed the several distributions of the ground, and this money he locked up in an iron chest for 30 years. I have heard that he designed the College of Physicians ; he certainly did Ask's hospital near Hoxton. He was very able, very sordid, cynical, wrong-headed, and whimsical. Proof enough of the last, was his maintaining that Ovid's Metamorphosis was an allegoric account of earthquakes,* See the history of his other qualities in the Biographia Britannica, vol. iv. 3 The French author calls him Greensill ; the public is much obliged to persons who write lives of those whose very names they cannot spell ! 4 He painted a whole length of Dr. Seth Ward, Bishop of Salisbury, as chancellor of the garter, which was placed in the Town Hall there. * Of similar absurdity was a tract published in 1781 by one Goodridge, an old seaman, called the Phoenix, an essay, being an attempt to prove from history and astronomical calcu- lations, that the comet, which, by its approximation to our earth, occasioned the change made at the Fall and at the Deluge, is the real Phoenix of the ancients. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING* 229 good tamily, and at twenty copied Vandyck's picture of Killigrew with the dog, so well that it was mistaken for the original. 1 The print of Sir William Davenant, with his nose flattened, is taken from a paint- ing of Greenhill. His heads in crayons were much admired; and that he sometimes engraved, appears from a print of his brother Henry, a merchant of Salisbury, done by him in 1667; *t has a long inscription in Latin. At first he was very laborious ; but becoming acquainted with the players, he fell into a debauched course of life, and coming home late one night from the Vine tavern, he tumbled into a kennel in Long Acre, and being carried to Parrey Walton's, the painter, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he lodged, died (May 19, 1676) in his bed that night in the flower of his age. He was buried at St. Giles's, and Mrs. Behn, who admired his person and turn to poetry, wrote an elegy on his death. Graham tells a silly story of Lely's being jealous of him, 2 and refusing to let Greenhill see him paint, till the scholar procured his master to draw his wife's picture and stood behind him while he drew it. The improbability of this tale is heightened by an anecdote which Walton told Vertue; or, if true, Sir Peter's generosity appears the greater, he settling forty pounds a year on Greenhill's widow, who was left with several children and in great indigence. She was a very handsome woman; but did not long enjoy that bounty, dying mad in a short time after her husband. DAVENPORT, another scholar of Lely, and good imitator of his manner, lived after- wards with his fellow-disciple Greenhill; and besides painting had a talent for music and a good voice. He died in Salisbury Court, in the reign of King William, aged about 50. PROSPER HENRY LANKRINK, of German extraction, born about 1628. His father, a soldier of fortune, brought his wife and this his only son into the Netherlands, and obtain- ing a commission there, died at Antwerp. The widow designed the boy for a monk ; but his inclination to painting discovering itself early, he was permitted to follow his genius. His best lessons he obtained in the academy at Antwerp and from the collection of Mynheer Van Lyan. The youth made a good choice, chiefly drawing after the de- signs of Salvator Rosa. On his mother's death, from whom he in- herited a small fortune, he came to England and was patronised by Sir Edward Spragge and Sir William Williams, whose house was filled with his works ; but being burned down, not much remains of Lankrink's hand, he having passed great part of his time in that gen- 1 General Cholmondeley has a fine half length of a young man in armour by Greenhill, in which the styles of both Vandyck and Lely are very discernible. 4 Yet it appears from Mr. Beale's pocket-book, that Sir Peter was a little infected with that failing. Vide the account of Mary Beale in this chapter. 230 CHARACTER, BY ANTHONY WOOD, OF MRS. ANNE KILLIGREW. tleman's service. His landscapes are much commended. Sir Peter Lely employed him for his backgrounds. A single ceiling of his was Mr. Kent's at Corsham in Wiltshire, near Bath. He sometimes drew from the life, and imitated the manner of Titian in small figures for his landscapes. Some of those were in the hands of his patrons, Mr. Henly, Mr. Trevor, Mr. Austen, and Mr. Hewitt; the latter of whom had a good collection of pictures. So had Lankrink himself, and of drawings, prints, and models. He bought much at Lely's sale, for which he borrowed money of Mr. Austen ; to discharge which debt Lankrink's collection was seized after his death and sold. He went deep into the pleasures of that age, grew idle, and died in 1692, in Covent Garden, and was buried at his own request under the porch of that church. A limning of his head was in Streater's sale. JOHN BAPTIST GASPARS was born at Antwerp, and studied under Thomas Willeborts Bossaert, a disciple of Rubens. 1 Baptist Gaspars (who must not be confounded with Baptist Monoyer, the flower painter) came into England during the civil war, and entered into the service of General Lambert ; upon the restoration he was employed by Sir Peter Lely to paint his postures, and was known by the name of Lely's Baptist. He had the same business under Riley and Sir Godfrey Kneller. He drew well, and made good designs for tapestry. The portrait of Charles II. in Painter's Hall, and another of the same prince with mathematical instruments in the hall of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, were painted by this Baptist, who died in 1691, and was buried at St. James's. JEREMY VANDER EYDEN, 2 a portrait painter of Brussels, copied and painted draperies for Sir Peter, till marrying he settled in Northamptonshire, where he was much employed, particularly by the Earls of Rutland and Gains- borough and the Lord Sherard, at whose house he died, about 1697, and was buried at Staplefort in Leicestershire. MRS. ANNE KILLIGREW, daughter of Doctor Henry Killigrew, 3 Master of the Savoy, and one of the prebendaries of Westminster, was born in St. Martin's Lane, Lon- don, a little before the restoration. Her family was remarkable for its loyalty, accomplishments, and wit, and this young lady promised to be one of its fairest ornaments. Anthony Wood says she was a Grace for beauty and a Muse for wit. Dryden has celebrated her genius for 1 Graham by mistake says of Vandyck. There is a fine little Holy Family at Houghton by Willeborts, from a large one of Rubens. 2 Graham. This was not Vander-Eyden so famous for his neat manner of painting small views of streets and houses. 3 See an account of him in Wood's Athense, vol. ii., col. 1035. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 231 painting and poetry in a very long ode, in which the rich stream of his numbers has hurried along with it all that his luxuriant fancy produced in his way; it is an harmonious hyperbole composed of the fall of Adam, Arethusa, Vestal virgins, Diana, Cupid, Noah's ark, the Pleia- des, the valley of Jehoshaphat, and the last assizes ; yet Anthony Wood assures us 6 there is nothing spoken of her which she was not equal to, ' if not superior ;' and*his proof is as wise as his assertion; 'for/ says he, ' if there had not been more true history in her praises than com- 1 pliment, her father would never have suffered them to pass the press.' She was maid of honour to the Duchess of York, and died of the small-pox in 1685, in the 25th year of her age. Her poems were published after her death in a thin quarto, with a print of her taken from her portrait drawn by herself, which with the leave of the authors I have quoted, is in a much better style than her poetry, and evidently in the manner of Sir Peter Lely. She drew the pictures of James II. and of her mistress, Mary of Modena; some pieces of still-life and of history ; three of the latter she has recorded in her own poems : St. John in the wilderness, Herodias with the head of that saint, and two of Diana's nymphs. At Admiral Killigrew's sale, 1727, were the following pieces by her hand: Venus and Adonis, a satyr playing on a pipe, Judith and Holofernes, a woman's head, the Graces dressing Venus, and her own portrait. 6 These pictures,' says Vertue, ' I saw, but can say little.' She was buried in the chapel of the Savoy, where is a monument to her memory, with a Latin epitaph, which with the translation may be seen prefixed to her poems, and in Ballard's Memories of Learned Ladies, p. 340. — BUSTLER, 1 a Dutch painter of history and portraits. Mr. Elsum of the Temple, whose tracts on painting I have mentioned, had a picture of three boors painted by this man, the landscape behind by Lankrink, and a little dog on one side by Hondius. DANIEL BOON, of the same country, a droll painter, which turn he meant to express both in his large and small pieces. He lived to about the year 1700. There is a mezzotinto of him playing on a violin. ISAAC PALING, 2 another Dutchman, scholar of Abraham Vander Tempel, was many years in England, and practised portrait painting. He returned to his own country in 1682. 1 From Graham, p. 405, as is the following article. 2 From Houbraken's Lives of the Painters. 232 FLATMAN, A POET, A PAINTER, AND A LAWYER. HENRY PAERT or PEART, disciple of Barlow and afterwards of Henry Stone, from whom he con- tracted a talent for copying. He exerted this on most of the historic pieces of the royal collection. I suppose he was an indifferent per- former ; for Graham says he wanted a warmth and beauty of colouring, and that his copies were better than his portraits. Vertue mentions a half length of James, Earl of Northampton, copied from a head by Paert, who then lived in Pall Mall. 1 He died in 1697, or, 98. HENRY DANKERS, of the Hague, was bred an engraver ; but by the persuasion of his brother John, who was a painter of history, he turned to landscape, and, having studied some time in Italy, came to England, where he was counte- nanced by Charles II., and employed in drawing views of the royal palaces, and the seaports of England and Wales. Of his first profes- sion there is a head after Titian, with his name Henricus Dankers Hagiensis sculpsit. Of the latter, were several in the royal collection ; James II. had no fewer 2 than twenty-eight 3 views and landscapes by him ; one of them was a sliding-piece before a picture of Nell Gwyn. In the public dining-room at Windsor, is the marriage of St. Catharine by him. In Lord Radnor's sale were other views of Windsor, Plymouth, Penzance, etc., and his name HDankers F. 1678, 1679. He made be- sides, several designs for Hollar. Being a Roman Catholic, he left England in the time of the Popish plot, and died soon after, at Amsterdam (Graham). PARREY WALTON, 4 though a disciple of Walker, was little more than journeyman to the arts. He understood hands, and, having the care of the royal collec- tion, repaired several pictures in it. His son was continued in the same employment, and had an apartment in Somerset House. The copy, which is at St. James's, of the Cyclops, by Luca Giordano, at Houghton, was the work of the latter. The father painted still-life, and died about the year 1 700. THOMAS FLATMAN, another instance of the union of poetry and painting, 5 and of a profes- sion that seldom accords with either, was bred at the Inner Temple ; but I believe neither made a figure nor stayed long there ; yet among Vertue's MSS. I find an epigram written by Mr. Oldys, on Flatman's 1 There is a print from his painting of a Morocco ambassador, 1682. 2 Catalogue published by Bathoe. 3 One I suppose of these, the beginning of Greenwich, is now in a small closet by the king's bedchamber at St. James's. 4 Graham. 5 Flatman received a mourning ring with a diamond worth 100/. for his poem on the death of Lord Ossory. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 233 three vocations, as if he had shone in all, though in truth he dis- tinguished himself only in miniature : — 6 Should Flatman for his client strain the laws, The painter gives some colour to the cause : Should critics censure what the poet writ, 1 The pleader quits him at the bar of wit/ Mr. Tooke, school-master of the Charterhouse, had a head of his father by Flatman, which was so well painted that Vertue took it for Cooper's ; and Lord Oxford had another limning of a young Knight of the Bath in a rich habit, dated 1661, and with the painter's initial letter F., which was so masterly, that Vertue pronounces Flatman equal to Hoskins, and next to Cooper. Mrs. Hoadley, first wife of the late Bishop of Winchester, and a mistress of painting herself, had Flatman's own head by him. Another 2 was finished by Mrs. Beale, Dec. 1681, as appears by her husband's pocket-book, from which I shall hereafter give several other extracts. The same person says, 6 Mr. Flatman borrowed of my wife her copy ' of Lady Northumberland's picture from Sir Peter Lely.' Flatman was born in Aldersgate Street, and educated in Wykeham's school, near Winchester; and in 1654 was elected fellow of New College, but left Oxford without taking a degree. Some of his poems were published in a volume with his name ; others, with some singular circumstances relating to them, are mentioned by Anthony Wood (Athense, vol. ii., p. 825). Flatman had a small estate at Tishton, near Diss, in Norfolk; and dying Dec. 8, 1688, was buried in St. Bride's, London, where his eldest son had been interred before him ; his father, a clerk in chancery, and then fourscore, surviving him. CLAUDE LE FEVRE, a man of indigent circumstances, studied first in the palace of Fontain- bleau, where he was born in 1633, and then at Paris, under Le Sueur and Le Brun, the latter of whom advised him to adhere to portraits, for which he had a particular talent. The French author 3 from whom I transcribe, says, that in that style he equalled the best masters of that country, and that passing into England he was reckoned a second Vandyck. If he was thought so then, it is entirely forgotten. Both Graham and Vertue knew so little of him, that the first mentions him not, and the latter confounded him with Valentine Le Fevre, of Brussels, who never was here ; yet mentions a mezzotint of Alexandre Boudan, 1 Lord Rochester treated him very severely in the following lines : — ' Not that slow drudge in swift Pindaric strains, Flatman, who Cowley imitates with pains, And rides a jaded Muse, whipt, with loose reins.' 2 There is a mezzotinto of Flatman holding a drawing of Charles II. en medaille ; and a smaller head, painted by Hayls, and neatly engraved by R. White. 3 Abreg6 de la Vie des plus fameux Peintres, vol. ii., p. 329. 234 PORTRAITS BY CLAUDE AND ROLAND LE FEVRE. imprimeur du roi, done at Paris, by Sarabe, the eyes of which were printed in blue, and the face and hands in flesh-colour. From hence I conclude that Graham made another mistake in his account of ROLAND LE FEVRE DE VEMISE, who, he says, gained the favour of Prince Rupert by a secret of stain- ing marble. As that prince invented mezzotinto, I conclude it was Claude who learned it of his highness, during his intercourse with him, and communicated it to Sarabe at Paris. Le Fevre de Venise certainly was in England, and died here, as Claude did. Vertue says that his Le Fevre painted chiefly portraits and histories in small, in the manner of Vandyck, the latter of which were not always very decent. As I am desirous of adjusting the pretensions of the three Le Fevres, and should be unwilling to attribute to either of the wrong what his modesty might make him decline, I mean the last article, I am inclined to bestow the nudities on Roland, ' qui se plaisoit/ says my author, c a c dessiner en caricatures les characteres et les temperamens de ceux 6 qu'il connoissoit, imitant en cela Annibal Caracci.' — One knows what sort of i temperamens ? Annibal painted. Claude died in 1675, at the age of 42; Roland died in Bear Street, near Leicester Fields, in 1677, about the 69th year of his age, and was buried at St. Martin's. Merrier, painter to the late Prince of Wales, bought at an auction the portrait of Le Fevre, in a spotted fur-cap, with a pallet in his hand ; I suppose painted by himself; and at Burlington House is the picture of Rousseau the painter, by Le Fevre ; I suppose Roland. JOHN HAYLS, 1 remarkable for copying Vandyck well, and for being a rival of Lely. A portrait of himself in water-colours, purchased by Colonel Seymour at Mr. Bryan's sale, ill drawn, but strongly coloured, induced Vertue to think that Lely was not the only person whom Hayls had an ambition to rival, but that this was a first essay in competition with Cooper. However, I mid by a note in a different volume, that some thought this miniature was by Hoskins. At Woburn, is the portrait of Colonel John Russel (of whom there is a better picture in the Memoires de Grammont), third son of Francis, Earl of Bedford; and another of Lady Diana, second daughter of William, the first duke of that house, both by Hayls, and he drew the father of secretary Pepys. He lived in Southampton Street, Bloomsbury, and, dying there suddenly in 1679, was buried in St. Martin's. 1 So he writes his name on the portrait of Flatman. In Painter's Hall is a St. Sebastian, and a portrait of Mr. Morgan, by one Hayes. As I find no other mention of this man, it may be a mistake for Hayls ; so Vertue supposed. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 235 HENRY GASCAR, another competitor of Sir Peter, was a French portrait-painter, patro- nised by the Duchess of Portsmouth, and, in compliment to her, much encouraged. Graham speaks of his tawdry style, which was more the fault of the age than of the painter. The pomp of Louis XIV. in- fected Europe ; and Gascar, whose business was to please, succeeded as well in Italy as he had in England, from whence he carried above 10,000/. At Chesterton, Vertue saw a head in armour of Edmund Verney, with Gascar's name to it. His best performance was a half length, at Lord Pomfret's, of Philip, Earl of Pembroke, which he drew by stealth, by order of his patroness, whose sister Lord Pembroke had married. I suppose this desire of having her brother-in-law's picture was dated before a quarrel she had with him for ill-usage of her sister ; the duchess threatened to complain to the king ; the earl told her, if * she did, he would set her upon her head at Charing Cross, and show the nation its grievance. SIMON VARELST, a real ornament of Charles's reign, and one of the few who have arrived at capital excellence in that branch of the art, was a Dutch flower- painter. It is not certain in what year he arrived in England: his works were greatly admired, and his prices the greatest that had been known in this country. The Duke of Buckingham patronised him ; but having too much wit to be only beneficent, and perceiving the poor man to be immoderately vain, he piqued him to attempt portraits. Varelst, thinking nothing impossible to his pencil, fell into the snare, and drew the duke himself ; but crowded it so much with fruits and sun-flowers, that the king, to whom it was shown, took it for a flower-piece. However, as it sometimes happens to wiser buffoons than Varelst, he was laughed at till he was admired, and Sir Peter Lely himself became the real sacrifice to the jest ; he lost much of his business, and retired to Kew, whilst Varelst engrossed the fashion, and for one half length was paid no/. His portraits were exceedingly laboured, and finished with the same delicacy as his flowers, which he continued to introduce into them. Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury going to sit, was received by him with his hat on. ' Don't you know me?' said the peer. 6 Yes/ replied the painter, ' you are my lord chancellor. 'And do you know me? I am Varelst. The king can make any 1 man chancellor, but he can make nobody a Varelst' Shaftesbury was disgusted, and sat to Greenhill. In 1680 Varelst, his brother H arman, Henny, and Parmcntierc, all painters, went to Paris, but stayed not long. In 1685 Varelst was a witness on the divorce between the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk; one who had married Varelst's half sister was brought to set aside his evidence, and deposed his 236 FAMED VARELST, THE PAINTER. having been mad and confined. He was so, but not much more than others of his profession have been ; his lunacy was self-admiration ; he called himself the god of flowers; 1 and went to Whitehall, saying he wanted to converse with the king for two or three hours. Being repulsed, he said, 'He is king of England, I am king of painting; why * should not we converse together familiarly ?' He showed an historic piece on which he had laboured twenty years, and boasted that it contained the several manners and excellencies of Raphael, Titian, Rubens, and Vandyck. When Varelst, Kneller, and Jervase have been so mad with vanity, to what a degree of frenzy had Raphael pre- tensions ! but he was modest. Varelst was shut up towards the end of his life, but recovered his senses at last, not his genius, and lived to a great age, certainly as late as 1710, and died in Suffolk Street. In King James's collection were six of his hand; the king, queen, and Duchess of Portsmouth, half lengths; a landscape, flowers, and fruit: in Lord Pomfret's were nine flower-pieces. His brother Harman Varelst lived some time at Vienna, till the Turks besieged it in 1683. He painted history, fruit, and flowers, and dying about 1700 was buried in St. Andrew's, Holborn. He left a son of his profession called Cornelius, and a very accomplished daughter, who painted in oil, and drew small histories, portraits both in large and small, understood music, and spoke Latin, German, Italian, and other languages. ANTONIO VERRIO, a Neapolitan ; an excellent painter for the sort of subjects on which he was employed ; that is, without much invention, and with less taste, his exuberant pencil was ready at pouring out gods, goddesses, kings, emperors, and triumphs, over those public surfaces on which the eye never rests long enough to criticise, and where one should be sorry to place the works of a better master, — I mean ceilings and staircases. The New Testament or the Roman History cost him nothing but ultra- marine; that and marble columns and marble steps he never spared. He first settled in France, and painted the high altar of the Carmelites at Thoulouse, which is described in Du Puy's 'Traits sur la Peinture,' p. 219; Thoul., 1699. Charles II. having a mind to revive the manufacture of tapestry at Mortlake sent for Verrio to England, but, changing his purpose, con- signed over Windsor to his pencil. The king was induced to this by seeing some of his painting at Lord Arlington's, at the end of St. James's Park, where of late stood Buckingham House. The first 1 * When famed Varelst this little wonder drew, Flora vouchsafed the growing work to view : Finding the painter's science at a stand, The goddess snatched the pencil from his hand ; And finishing the piece, she smiling said, Behold one work of mine that ne'er shall fade. ' — Pricr. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 237 picture Verrio drew for the king was his majesty in naval triumph, now in the public dining-room in the castle. He executed most of the ceilings there, one whole side of St. George's Hall, and the chapel. On the ceiling of the former he has pictured Antony, Earl of Shaftes- bury, in the character of Faction, dispersing libels; as in another place he revenged a private quarrel with the housekeeper of Mrs. Marriot, by borrowing her ugly face for one of the Furies. With still greater impropriety he has introduced himself, Sir Godfrey Kneller, and Bap. May, surveyor of the works, in long periwigs, as spec- tators of Christ healing the sick. He is recorded as operator of a.l these gaudy works in a large inscription over the tribune at the end of the hall: 1 — . Antonius Verrio Neapolitanus non ignobili stirpe natus ad honorem Dei, Augustissimi Regis Caroli Secundi et Sancti Georgii molem hanc felicissima manu decoravit. The king paid him generously. Vertue met with a memorandum of moneys he had received for his performances 2 at Windsor : as the comparison of prices in different ages may be one of the most useful parts of this work, and as it is remembered what Annibal Caracci received for his glorious labour in the Farnese palace at Rome, it will not perhaps be thought tedious if I set down this account. An account of moneys paid for painting done in Windsor Castle for his majesty by Signior Verrio since July, 1676. 3 £ s. d. King's guard-chamber 300 o o King's presence-chamber 200 o o Privy-chamber 200 o o Queen's drawing-room 250 o o Queen's bed-chamber 100 o o King's great bed-chamber 120 o o King's little bed-chamber . . • . . 50 o o King's drawing-room 250 o o King's closet 50 c o King's eating-room . . . , . 250 o o Queen's long gallery 250 o o Queen's chapel . . . , . . no o o King's privy back stairs . • • • 100 o o The king's gratuity 200 o o The king's carved stairs . . . . 150 o o Carried forward ^2580 o o 1 There is a description of St. George's Hall in the Musae Anglicanse. St. George's Hall is not specified ; I suppose it was done afterwards. 3 Copied, says Vertue, from a half sheet of paper fairly written in a hand of the time. 238 MONEY PAID VERRIO FOR PAINTINGS AT WINDSOR. Queen's privy-chamber • . • • 200 iving S glial G-ClldlilULl blallb e • t 200 V/UCtiJ b pi CbCilvC tUaUlUtA • • • • • 200 Queen's great stairs <.•••• 200 queens guaici-ciidinut.r • • • • 200 STLlyy S^dllCiy •••••• • 200 Court-yard ..••<•• ■ 200 Pension at Midsummer, 1680 . • • • 1 00 J. i. glctLLllty Ul ZUU gUlUCdo r • • a 2T C 8 Pension at Christmas, 1680 IOO O Pension at Midsummer, 1681 ♦ IOO O X 11C lYlilg L/ilctjJCl • • • • • • QOO O W VvJI - vVUiiv 111 Lilt. t.licijJt.1 • « • • • I50 C C A C 5545 8 4 WI1 LllC UdLK Ul lillb Uclutr ,— — nis majesty s gutj a goiu cnam . • ♦ c 200 \j More, by the Duke of Albemarle for a ceiling 60 O More, my Lord of Essex . 40 O More, from Mr. Montague, of London , 800 O More, of Mr. Montague, of Woodcutt . 1300 O In all £7945 8 4 The king's bounty did not stop here ; Verrio had a place of master- gardener, and a lodging at the end of the park, now Carlton House. He was expensive, and kept a great table, and often pressed the king for money with a freedom which his majesty's own frankness indulged. Once at Hampton Court, when he had but lately received an advance of 1000/., he found the king in such a circle that he could not approach. He called out, ' Sire, I desire the favour of speaking to your majesty.' ' Well, Verrio/ said the king, 'what is your request?' ' Money, sir; I i am so short in cash that I am not able to pay my workmen, and your 1 majesty and I have learned by experience that pedlars and painters e cannot give credit long.' The king smiled, and said he had but lately ordered him 1000/. ' Yes, sir,' replied he; 'but that was soon paid ' away, and I have no gold left.' 6 At that rate,' said the king, 6 you 6 would spend more than I do to maintain my family.' 6 True,' answered Verrio ; 6 but does your majesty keep an open table as I do?' He gave the designs for the large equestrian picture of that monarch in the hall at Chelsea College; but it was finished by Cook, and presented by Lord Ranelagh. On the accession of James II. Verrio was again employed at Windsor in Wolsey's tomb-house, then destined for a Romish chapel. He painted that king and several of his courtiers in the hospital of HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 239 Christ Church, London. Among other portraits there is Doctor Hawes, a physician ; Vertue saw the original head, from whence he translated it. into the great piece, which Verrio presented to the hospital. He painted too at that of St. Bartholomew. The revolution was by no means agreeable to Verrio's religion or principles. He quitted his place, and even refused to work for King William. From that time he was for some years employed at the Lord Exeter's house at Burleigh, and afterwards at Chatsworth. At the former he painted several chambers, which are reckoned among his best works. He has placed his own portrait in the room where he represented the history of Mars and Venus; and for the Bacchus bestriding a hogshead, he has according to his usual liberty, borrowed the countenance of a dean with whom he was at variance. 1 At Chats- worth is much of his hand. The altar-piece in the chapel is the best piece I ever saw of his, the subject, the incredulity of St. Thomas. He was employed too at Lowther Hall, 2 but the house has been burnt. At last by persuasion of Lord Exeter, he condescended to serve King William, and v/as sent to Hampton Court, where among other things, he painted the great staircase, and as ill as if he had spoiled it out of principle. His eyes failing him, 3 Queen Anne gave him a pension of 200/. a year for life, but he did not enjoy it long, dying at Hampton Court in 1707. SchefTers of Utrecht was employed by Verrio for 25 years. At his first arrival he had worked for picture sellers. Lanscron was another painter in Verrio's service, and assisted him seven or eight years at Windsor. JAMES HUYSMAN OR HOUSMAN was born at Antwerp in 1656, and studied under Bakerel, a scholar of Rubens, and competitor of Vandyck. Bakerel was a poet too, and a satiric one, and having written an invective against the Jesuits, was obliged to fly. Huysman, deprived of his master, came to England, and painted both history and portraits. In the latter he rivalled Sir Peter Lely, and with reason. His picture of Lady Byron over the chimney in the beauty room at Windsor, is at least as highly finished, and coloured with as much force, as Sir Peter's works in that chamber, though the 1 It was more excusable, that when his patron obliged him to insert a Pope in a procession not very honourable to the Romish religion, he added the portrait of the Archbishop of Can- terbury then living. 2 In Nichols's Collection of Poems, vol. v., p. 37, is one by Tickell, called Oxford, and in- scribed to Lord Lonsdale, in which is this couplet, at once descriptive of Verrio's paintings, and worthy of being preserved in the Bathos : * Such art as this adorns your Lowther's Hall, Where feasting gods carouse upon the wall.' 3 It was not only this decay, but his death that prevented his being employed at Blenheim, as probably was intended, for the author of some verses addressed to Verrio in the sixth volume of Dryden's Miscellanies, carried his prophetic imagination so far as to behold the duke's triumphs represented there by our painter ; who died before the house was built. 240 PAINTINGS AT WINDSOR CASTLE BY M. WRIGHT. lady who sat for it is the least handsome of the set. 1 His Cupids were admired ; himself was most partial to his picture of Queen Catherine. There is a mezzotinto from it, representing her like St. Catherine. King James 2 had another in the dress of a shepherdess, and there is a third in Painter's Hall. He created himself the queen's painter, and to justify it, made her sit for every Madonna or Venus that he drew. His capital work was over the altar of her chapel at St. James's, now the French church. He died in 1696, and was buried in St. James's church. Vertue mentions another painter of the same surname, whom he calls Michlaer Huysman of Mecklin, and says he lived at Antwerp ; that he studied the Italians, and painted landscapes in their manner, which he adorned with buildings and animals. He came to England, and brought two large landscapes, which he kept to show what he could do ; for these he had frames richly carved by Gibbons, and gave the latter two pictures in exchange. ~ In a sale in 1743, Vertue saw three small landscapes and figures by him of great merit. On the revolution he returned to Antwerp, and died there 1 707, aged near 70. MICHAEL WRIGHT was born in Scotland, but came to London at the age of 16 or 17, and proved no bad portrait painter. In 1672 he drew for Sir Robert Vyner a whole length of Prince Rupert in armour, with a large wig. On the back he wrote the prince's titles at length, and his own name thus : 'Jo. Michael Wright Lond. pictor regius pinxit 1672.' The Earl of Oxford had a half length by him of Sir Edward Turner, son of Sir Edward, Speaker of the House of Commons and Chief Baron. On that he called himself 1 Jos. Michael Wright Anglus, 1672/ but on the portraits of the judges in Guildhall he wrote • Scotus.' Sir Peter Lely was to have drawn these pictures, but refusing to wait on the judges at their own chambers, Wright got the business, and received 60/. for each piece. Two of his most admired works were a highland laird, and an Irish tory, whole lengths, in their proper dresses, of which several copies were made. At Windsor is his large picture of John Lacy the comedian, in three different characters, Parson Scruple in the Cheats, Sandy in the Taming of the Shrew, and Monsieur de Vice in the Country Captain. 3 It was painted in 1675, an( * several copies 1 I find in Vertue's notes, that he had been told it is not Lady Byron, but Lady Bellassis. If it was the Lady Bellassis who was mistress to King James, it becomes more valuable ; and while Charles paid his brother the compliment of enrolling the latter's mistress with his own, he tacitly insinuated how much better a taste he had himself. I have an unfinished head by Cooper of King James's Lady Bellassis, which is historically plain. Huysman's picture has certainly some resemblance to the mezzotinto of her from Sir Peter Lely. 2 See his catalogue. There too is mentioned the Duchess of Richmond in man's apparel, by Huysman. It is a pretty picture, now at Kensington ; the dress is that of a cavalier about the time of the civil war, buff with blue ribbands. 3 In Dodsley's Theatric Records, printed in 1756, instead of Sandy and De Vice, the other two characters are said to be Teague in the Committee, and Gallyard in the Variety. P. 67. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 241 taken from it. He twice drew a Duke of Cambridge, son of King James (vide Catalog.), perhaps the two children who bore that title; one of them is in the king's closet at St. James's. He painted too a ceiling in the king's bed-chamber at Whitehall. Wright attended Roger Palmer, Earl of Castlemaine, as steward of his household, on his embassy to the Pope ; 1 and at his return published a pompous account of it, first in Italian, then in English. He had been in Italy before. At his return from the embassy he was mortified to find that Sir Godfrey Kneller had engrossed most of his business. In 1700, upon a vacancy of the king's painter in Scotland, he solicited to succeed, but a shopkeeper was preferred : and in truth Wright had not much pretensions to favour in that reign ; yet as good as his fellow-labourer Tate, who wrote panegyrics in Wright's edition of the Embassy, and yet was made poet laureate to King William. Orlandi mentions Wright : 1 Michaele 2 Rita Inglese notato nel Catalogo 1 degli Academici di Roma nel anno 1688.' Wright left a son at Rome, who was master of languages, and died there. He had a nephew too of his own name, educated at Rome, but who settled in Ireland, where he had so much success that he gained 900/. the first year, and was always paid 10/. a head. Pooley and Magdalen Smith were there at the same time ; the latter and young Wright were rivals. Wright the uncle had a fine collection of gems and coins, which were purchased by Sir Hans Sloane after his death, which happened about the year 1700, in James Street, Covent Garden. He is buried in that church. EDMUND ASHFIELD, scholar of Wright, was well descended, and painted both in oil and crayons, in which he made great improvements for multiplying the tints. He instructed Lutterel, who added the invention of using crayons on copper-plates. Vertue had seen ahead of Sir John Bennet, afterwards Lord Ossulston, painted neatly by Ashfield, though not in a good manner; but at Burleigh is a small portrait of a Lady Herbert by him, highly finished and well painted. PETER ROESTRATEN was born at Harlaem in 1627, and learned of Francis Hals, whose daughter he married, and whose manner for some time he followed ; 1 It is well known with what neglect and indifference this embassy was received by the Pope. The Jesuits endeavoured to compensate for the pontiff's contempt ; they treated Castlemaine in a most magnificent manner, and all the arts were called in to demonstrate their zeal, and compliment the bigot monarch. But the good fathers were unlucky in some of their inscriptions, which furnished ample matter for ridicule ; particularly speaking of James, they said, * Alas Carolo addidit;' and that the former might choose an ambassador worthy of sending to heaven, ' He dispatched his brother.' Vide Hist, of England, in two volumes, vol. ii., p. 113, 5th edit., 1723. 2 Lord Pelham has a small three-quarters of Mrs. Cleypole, on which is written, M. Ritus, fee. It is an emblematic piece, the allegory of which is very obscure, but highly finished. There is another exactly the same, except that it wants the painter's name, at East Horsley, formerly the seat of Sir Edward Nicholas. 17 242 STYLE OF PORTRAITS OF GERARD ZOUST. but afterwards taking to still-life, painted little else. Sir Peter Lely was very kind to him at his arrival in England, 1 and introduced him to King Charles ; but it does not appear that he was encouraged at court, nothing of his hand appearing in the palaces or royal catalogue; he found more countenance from the nobility. There is a good picture by him at Kiveton, the seat of the Duke of Leeds, one at Chatsworth, and two were at Lord Pomfret's. At Lord Radnor's sale in 1724, were three or four of his pictures, particularly one representing the crown, sceptre, and globe. He was particularly fond of drawing wrought plate. At the Countess of Guildford's, at Waldeshare in Kent, are some of his works. I have one, well coloured, containing an ivory tankard, from figures in bronze, and a medal of Charles II. appendant to a blue ribbon. It is certain that he arrived early in this reign ; for he hurt his hip at the fire of London, and went lame for the rest of his life. Graham says, that having promised to show a whole length by Francis Hals to a friend, and the latter growing impatient, he called his wife, who was his master's daughter, and said, ' There is a whole 'length by Hals.' These are trifling circumstances; but what more im- portant happens in sedentary and retired lives? They are at least as well worth relating as the witticisms of the old philosophers. Roe- straten died in 1698, in the same street with Michael Wright, and was buried in the same church. GERARD SOEST, called ZOUST, was born in Westphalia, and came to England probably before the restoration, for Sanderson mentions him as then of established repu- tation. 2 By what I have seen of his hand, particularly his own head at Houghton, he was an admirable master. It is animated with truth and nature ; round, bold, yet highly finished. His draperies were often of satin, in which he imitated the manner of Terburgh, a Dutch painter of conversations, but enlarged his ideas on seeing Vandyck. * He was enlisted among the rivals of Sir Peter Lely ; the number of them is sufficient honour to the latter. Emulation seldom unites a whole pro- fession against one, unless he is clearly their superior. Soest is com- mended by Vertue and Graham for his portraits of men; both confess that his taste was too Dutch and ungraceful, and his humour too rough to please the softer sex. The gentle manners of Sir Peter carried them all from his competitor. Soest, who was capricious, slovenly and covet- ous, often went to the door himself, and if he was not in a humour 1 Descamps says that Lely, growing jealous of Roestraten, proposed to him a partition of the art : portraits were to be monopolised by Lely ; all other branches were to be ceded to Roestraten, whose works were to be vaunted by Lely, and for which by these means he re- ceived 40 and 50 guineas. It is very improbable that an artist should relinquish that branch of his business, which such a proposal told him he was most capable of executing. 2 Printed in 1685. Describing a picture of a husband and wife, he says, ' It must be valued ' an ornament to the dyning-room , being besides well known to be the art of Sowst's handy- ' work, and he a master of sufficiencie.' Graphice, p. 43. At Welbeck is Lucy Lady Hollis by him, 1657. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING, 243 to draw those who came to sit, or was employed in the meaner offices of his family, he would act the servant, and say his master was not at home; his dress made him easily mistaken. Once, when he lived in Cursitor's Alley, he admitted two ladies, but quitted the house himself. His wife was obliged to say, that since he could not please the ladies, he would draw no more of them. Greenhiil carried Wildt 1 the painter to Soest, who then lived at the corner house in Holborn Row, and he showed them a man and horse large as life on which he was then at work, out of humour with the public and the fairer half of it. In Jer- vase's sale was a portrait of Mr. John Norris by Soest, which Jervase esteemed so much, that he copied it more than once, and even imitated it in his first pictures. On the back was written 1685, but that was a mistake; Soest died in Feb. 1681. I have a head by him, I believe of Griffiere ; it has a mantle of purple satin admirably coloured. At the Royal Society is a head of Dr. John Wallis ; at Draper's Hall' Sheldon lord mayor whole length; in the audit-room of Christ Church, Oxford, a head of Fuller, Bishop of Lincoln ; and at Wimpole was a good double half-length of John, Earl of Bridgwater, and Grace his countess, sit- ting. Vertue describes another head of Sir Francis Throckmorton, in a full wig and a cravat tied with a ribband, and the painter's name; a fine head of Loggan, the engraver ; and another which he commends extremely of a gentleman in a full dark periwig, and pink-coloured drapery ; on the straining frame was written Gerard Soest pinxit ebdomeda Pentecostes j ^^j^^^^o^' ■o . r) Picture 3/. Price of{ Frame 4_ Vertue saw too a small oval painted on paper and pasted on board, the portrait of a Mr. Thompson. Soest was not only an able master himself, but formed Riley. WILLIAM READER, another scholar of Soest, was son of a clergyman, and born at Maid- stone, in Kent. He lived some time at a nobleman's in the west of England, and at last died in the Charterhouse. JOHN LOTEN, a Dutch landscape painter, lived here long and painted much ; chiefly glades, dark oaken groves, land-storms, and waterfalls ; and in Swit- zerland, where he resided too, he drew many views of the Alps. He died in London about 1680. In King James's catalogue, where are mentioned three of his landscapes, he is called Loaton. Except this little notice, all the rest is taken from Graham, as are the three next articles entirely. 1 Of this person I find no other account. 17 * 244 JOHN GRIFFIERE, THE ' GENTLEMAN OF UTRECHT. THOMAS MANBY, an English landscape-painter, who had studied in Italy, from whence he brought a collection of pictures that were sold in the banqueting- house. He lived ten years after the preceding. NICHOLAS BYER. born at Drontheim, in Norway, painted both history and portraits. He was employed by Sir William Temple, for three or four years, at his house at Shene, near Richmond, where he died. All that Graham knew remarkable relating to him was, that he was the first man buried in St. Clemenfs Danes after it was rebuilt, which had been founded by his countrymen. ADAM COLONI, of Rotterdam, lived many years in England, and was famous for small figures, country wakes, cattle, fire-pieces, etc. He copied many pictures of Bassan, particularly those in the royal collection. He died in London, 1685, at the age of 51, and was buried in St. Martin's. His son, Henry Adrian Coloni, was instructed by his father and by his brother-in-law, Vandiest, and drew well. He sometimes painted in the landscapes of the latter, and imitated Salvator Rosa. He was buried near his father in 1701, at the age of 33. JOHN GRIFFIERE. an agreeable painter, called the Gentleman of Utrecht, was born at Amsterdam in 1645, an d placed apprentice to a carpenter, a profession not at all suiting his inclination. He knew he did not like to be a car- penter, but had not discovered his own bent. He quitted his master, and was put to school ; but becoming acquainted with a lad who was learning to paint earthenware, young Griffiere was struck with the science, though in so rude a form, and passed his time in assisting his friend instead of going to school, yet returning regularly at night as if he had been there. This deception however could not long impose on his father, who prudently yielded to the force of the boy's genius ; but, while he gratified it, hoped to secure him a profession, and bound him to the same master with his friend the tile-painter. Griffiere improved so much even in that coarse school, that he was placed with a painter of flowers, and then instructed by one Roland Rogman, whose land- scapes were esteemed. He received occasional lessons too from Adrian Vandevelde, Ruysdale, and Rembrandt, whose peculiarity of style, and facility of glory, acquired rather by a bold trick of extravagant chiaroscuro than by genius, captivated the young painter, and tempted him to pursue that manner. But Rogman dissuaded him; and Griffiere, though often indulging his taste, seems to have been fixed by his mas- HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 245 ter to landscapes, which he executed with richness and neat colouring, and enlivened with small figures, cattle, and buildings. When he quitted Rogman and Utrecht, he went to Rotterdam, and, soon after the fire of London, came to England, married and settled here ; received some instructions from Loten, but easily excelled him. He drew some views of London, Italian ruins, and prospects on the Rhine. Such mixed scenes of rivers and rich country were his favour- ite subjects. He bought a yacht, embarked with his family and his pencils, and passed his whole time on the Thames, between Windsor, Greenwich, Gravesend, etc. Besides these views, he excelled in copy- ing Italian and Flemish masters; particularly Polenburgh, Teniers, Hondecooter, Rembrandt, and Ruysdale. After staying here many years, he sailed in his own yacht to Rotter- dam; but being tempted by a pilot who was coming to England, suddenly embarked again for this country, but was shipwrecked, and lost his whole cargo except a little gold which his daughter had wrapped in a leathern girdle. He remained in Holland ten or twelve years ; and returning to England, struck upon a sand-bank, where he was eight days before he could get off. This new calamity cured him of his passion for living on the water. He took a house in Milbank, where he lived several years, and died in 1718, aged above 72. 1 In Lord Orford's collection are two pretty pictures by him, a seaport and a landscape. He etched some small plates of birds and beasts from drawings of Barlow, and five large half-sheet plates of birds in a set of twelve ; the other seven were done by Fr. Place. Robert Griffiere, his son, born in England 1688, was bred under his father, and made good progress in the art. He was in Ireland when his father was shipwrecked, and, going to him in Holland, imitated his manner of painting and that of Sachtleven. John Griffiere, a good copyist of Claud Lorrain, and who died in Pall Mall a few years ago, was, I believe, the younger son of old Griffiere. GERARD EDEMA, born, according to Vertue, in Friesland, Graham says at Amsterdam, was scholar of Everding, whose manner he followed, and of whom there is a small book of mountainous prospects, containing some 50 plates. Edema came to England about 1670, and made voyages both to Norway and Newfoundland, to collect subjects for his pictures among those wildnesses of nature ; he delighting in rocky views, falls of water, and scenes of horror. For figures and buildings, he had no talent, and where he wanted them, was assisted by Wyck. The latter, Vandevelde 1 His pictures were sold in Covent Garden after his death, with a collection by Italian and Flemish masters, brought from Holland by his son Robert. Among the father's paintings were some in imitation of the different manners of Elsheimer, Polenburgh, Poussin, Wouver- man, Berghem, Titian, Salvator Rosa, Gerard Dou, Bassan, Guido, and Vanderwerffe. In the same catalogue is mentioned a piece in water-colours by Polenburgh. 246 PORTRAITS BY PHILIP DUVAL. and Edema lived some time at Mount Edgcumbe with Sir Richard, grandfather of the present Lord Edgcumbe, and painted several views of the mount in concert, which are now in a manner decayed. Edema's temper was not so unsociable as his genius; he loved the bottle, and died of it at Richmond, about the year 1 700 ; Graham says in the 40th year of his age, which probably is a mistake, if he came to England in 1670 — he could not have learnt much of Everding, if he quitted his school at ten years old. THOMAS STEVENSON, scholar of Aggas, 1 who painted landscape in oil, figures and architec- ture in distemper. The latter is only a dignified expression, used by Graham, for scene-painting ; even in which kind he owns, Stevenson's works grew despised. The designs for the pageant, called Goldsmith's Jubilee, on the mayoralty of Sir Robert Vyner, were given by this man. PHILIP DUVAL, a Frenchman, studied under Le Brun, and afterwards in Italy, the Venetian school. He came to England, and painted several pictures. One for the famous Mrs. Stuart, Duchess of Richmond, represented Venus receiving armour from Vulcan for her son. The head-dress of the goddess, her bracelets, and the Cupids, had more the air of Ver- sailles than Latium. On the anvil was the painter's name, and the date 1672. Notwithstanding the good breeding of his pencil, Duval was unsuccessful ; but Mr. Boyle finding in him some knowledge of chemistry, in which he had hurt his small fortune, generously allowed him an annuity of 50/. On the death of his patron, Duval, fell into great indigence, and at last became disordered in his senses. He was buried at St Martin's, about 1709. EDWARD HAWKER succeeded Sir Peter Lely in his house, not in his reputation. He painted a whole length of the Duke of Grafton, from which there is a print, and a head of Sir Dudley North; was a poor knight of Windsor, and was living in 1721, aged fourscore. The reader must excuse such brief or trifling articles. This work is but an essay to- wards the history of our arts ; all kinds of notices are inserted, to lead to farther discoveries ; and if a nobler compendium shall be formed, I willingly resign such minutiae to oblivion. SIR JOHN GAWD IE, born in 1639, was deaf an d dumb, but compensated part of these mis- fortunes by a talent for painting, in which he was not unsuccessful. 1 Aggas, whom I have mentioned before in this volume, was little more than a scene- painter ; for which reason I do not give him a separate article here. All the account we have of him is from Graham. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 247 He had learned of Lely, intending it for his profession, but on the death of his elder brother, only continued it for his amusement : died 1708. B. FLESSHIER, another obscure painter mentioned by Vertue, and a frame-maker too, lived in the Strand, near the Fountain tavern ; yet probably was not a very bad performer, as a large piece of fruit painted by him was thought worthy of a place in Sir Peter Lely's collection. Another was in that of King Charles the First. At Lord Dysart's, at Ham House, are a landscape and two pretty small sea-pieces by Flesshier. BENEDETTO GENARO, nephew and disciple of Guercino, and, if that is much merit, resem- bling him in his works. He imitated his uncle's extravagantly dark shades, caught the roundness of his flesh, but with a disagreeable lividness, and possessed at least as much grace and dignity. He came to England, and was one of Charles's painters. In King James's catalogue, are mentioned twelve of his hand ; most of them, I believe, are still in the royal palaces ; four are at Windsor. At Chatsworth, are three by him; and Lot and his daughters at Coudray. His Hercules and Deianira was sold at Streater's sale for ill. He was born in 1633, and died in 1715. It is said that he had a mistress of whom he was jealous, and whom he would not suffer the king to see. GASPAR NETSCHER 1 painted small portraits in oil. He was invited to England by Sir William Temple, and recommended to the king, but stayed not long here. 2 Vertue mentions five of his pictures ; one, a lady and a dog, with his name to it; another of a lady, her hands joined, oval on copper; the third, Lord Berkeley, of Stratton, his lady, and a servant, in one piece, dated 1676. The others, small ovals, on copper, of King William and Queen Mary, painted just before the Revolution, in the 1 He was disciple of Terburg, who, Descamps and the French author that I shall mention presently say, was in England ; and the former adds, that he received immense prices for his works, and that he twice drew King William III. However, his stay here was certainly short ; and as I cannot point out any of his works, it is not worth while to give him a separate article. His life may be seen in the authors I quote. Teniers, who, according to the same writers, was here too, came only to buy pictures, and therefore belongs still less to this catalogue. 2 The French author of the Abrege de la Vie des plus fameux Peintres affirms that he never was here, being apprehensive of the tumult of a court, and that he compounded with the king by sending him several pictures, p. 39. One would think that Charles had invited Netscher to his parties of pleasure, or to be a minister. The solitude of a painter's life is little dis- turbed by working for a court. If the researches of Vertue were not more to be depended on than this inaccurate writer, the portraits of Lord Berkeley and his lady would turn the balance in his favour. Did Netscher send them for presents for the king ? I do not mean in general to detract from the merits of this writer ; he seems to have understood the profession, and is particularly valuable for having collected so many portraits of artists, and for giving lists of engravers after their pictures. His works consist of three volumes quarto. Paris, 1745. 248 JOHNSON, THE COMEDIAN, A PUPIL OF PETER STOOP. collection of the Duke of Portland. Netscher died of the gravel and gout, in 1684. JACOB PEN, a Dutch painter of history, commended by Graham. There is a St. Luke by him in Painter's Hall. He died about 1686. WILLEM SUNMAN, of the same country with the preceding, came to England in the reign of Charles II., and got into good business after the death of Sir Peter Lely ; but, having drawn the king with less applause than Riley, he was disgusted, and retired to Oxford, where he was employed by the University, and painted for them the large pictures of their founders now in the picture-gallery. He drew Dean Fell, father of the bishop, and Mr. William Adams, son of him who published the Villare Angli- canum. In term-time, Sunman went constantly to Oxford ; the rest of the year he passed in London, and died at his house in Gerard Street, about 1707. WILLIAM SHEPPARD, an English artist, of whom I can find no record, but that he lived in this reign near the Royal Exchange, painted Thorn. Killigrew with his dog, now at Lord Godolphin's, and retired into Yorkshire, where he died. STEINER, a Swiss, scholar of one Warner, whose manner he imitated, was also an architect. Standing on the walls at the siege of Vienna, he was wounded in the knee. The latter part of his time 'he lived in England, and died at Mortlake. PETER STOOP, a Fleming, was settled with his family at Lisbon, from whence they followed Catherine of Portugal to England. Peter painted battles, huntings, processions, etc., and his brothers, Roderigo and Theodore, ^graved them. If the pictures were equal to the plates from them, which are extremely in the manner of Delia Bella, Peter was an artist of great merit. Graham says so, but that his reputation declined on the arrival of Wyck. Stoop was employed by one Doily, a dealer in pictures, stuffs, etc., and gave some instructions in painting to Johnson, that admirable old comedian, the most natural and of the least gesticu- lation I ever knew, so famous for playing the grave-digger in Hamlet, Morose, Noll Bluff, Bishop Gardiner, and a few other parts, and from whom Vertue received this account. Stoop lived in Durham Yard, and when an aged man retired to Flanders about 1678, where he died eight years afterwards. Vertue does not say directly that the other two were brothers of Stoop ; on the contrary, he confounds Roderigo HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 249 with Peter ; but I conclude they were his brothers or sons from the prints etched by them about the very time of Peter's arrival in England. They are a set of eight plates containing the public entry of Admiral Sandwich into Lisbon, and all the circumstances of the queen's depar- ture, arrival, and entries at Whitehall and Hampton Court. One, the entry of the earl, is dedicated to him by Theodore Stoop, ipsus regise majestatis pictor, and is the only one to which Vertue mentions the name of Theodore. Another is the queen's arrival at Hampton Court, but the name is wanting. Vertue describes besides a picture, seven feet wide and two high, containing the king's cavalcade through the gates of the city the day before his coronation, but printed in 1662. He says not where he saw it, but calls the painter Roderigo Stoop, as he does the engraver of the rest of the above-mentioned plates. It is not impossible but Peter might have assumed the Portuguese name of Roderigo at Lisbon. Some of the plates among Hollar's to Ogleby's ^Esop, were done by the same person, but very poorly. He etched a book of horses in a much better manner. 1 WAGGONER, another unknown name, by whom there is a view of the fire of London in Painter's Hall. 2 ALEXANDER SOUVILLE, a Frenchman, as little known as the preceding, and discovered only by Vertue from a memorandum in the account books at the Temple : ' Oct. 17, 1685. The eight figures on the north-end of the Paper ' Buildings in the King's Bench Walks in the Inner Temple were painted * by Monsieur Alexander Souville.' WILLIAM VANDEVELDE, distinguished from his more famous son of the same name by the ap- pellation of the Old/ was born at Leyden in 1610, and learned to paint ships by a previous turn to navigation. It was not much to his honour that he conducted the English fleet, as is said, to burn Schelling. Charles II. had received him and his son with great marks of favour; it was pushing his gratitude too far to serve the king against his own country. Dr. Rawlinson, the antiquary, gave Vertue a copy of the fol- lowing privy seal, purchased among the papers of Secretary Pepys : — c Charles the Second, by the grace of God, etc., to our dear cousin i Prince Rupert, and the rest of our commissioners for executing the ( place of lord high admiral of England, greeting. Whereas wee have 1 thought fitt to allow the salary of one hundred pounds per annum 1 Gilpin's Essay on Prints, 3rd edit., p. 139. 2 There was another obscure painter, among others who have not come to my knowledge, called Bernart, who in 1660 painted the portraits of Sir Gervase and Lady Elizabeth Pier- point, now at the Hoo in Hertfordshire, the sent of Thomas Brand, Esq. 250 WILLIAM VANDEVELDE, NOTED PAINTER OF SEA-FIGHTS. ' unto William Vandevelde the elder for taking and making draughts ' of sea-fights ; and the like salary of one hundred pounds per annum 6 unto William Vandevelde the younger for putting the said draughts ' into colours for our particular use ; our will and pleasure is, and wee e do hereby authorize and require you to issue your orders for the pre- e sent and future establishment of the said salaries to the aforesaid ' William Vandevelde the elder and William Vandevelde the younger, f to be paid unto them and either of them during our pleasure, and for 6 so doing these our letters shall be your sufficient warrant and dis- * charge. Given under our privy-seal at our pallace of Westminster, ' the 20th day of February in the 26th year of our reign.' The father, who was a very able master, painted chiefly in black and white, and latterly always put the date on his works. He was buried in St. James's Church ; on the grave-stone is this inscription : ' Mr. 6 William Vandevelde, senior, late painter of sea-fights to their majes- ties King Charles II. and King James, dyed 1693/ WILLIAM VANDEVELDE THE SON.— [Born 1633; Died 1707.] was the greatest man that has appeared in this branch of painting : the palm is not less disputed with Raphael for history, than with Vande- velde for sea-pieces : Annibal Caracci and Mr. Scott have not surpassed those chieftains. William was born at Amsterdam in 1633, and wanted no master but his father till the latter came to England ; then for a short time he was placed with Simon de Vlieger, an admired ship painter of that time, but whose name is only preserved now by being united to his disciple's. Young William was soon demanded by his father, and graciously entertained by the king, to whose particular in- clination his genius was adapted. William, I suppose, lived chiefly with his father at Greenwich, who had chosen that residence as suited to the subjects he wanted. In King James's collection were eighteen pieces of the father and son ; several are at Hampton Court and at Hinchinbrook. At Buckingham House was a view of Solebay fight 1 by the former, v/ith a long inscription. But the best chosen collection of these masters is in a chamber at Mr. Skinner's in Clifford Street, Burlington Gardens, assembled at great prices by the late Mr. Walker. Vandevelde, the son, having painted the junction of the English and French fleets at the Nore, whither King Charles went to view them, and where he was represented going on board his own yacht, two com- missioners of the admiralty agreed to beg it of the king, to cut it in two, and each to take a part. The painter, in whose presence they concluded this wise treaty, took away the picture and concealed it till the king's death, when he offered it to Bullfinch, the printseller (from whom Vertue had the story), for fourscore pounds. Bullfinch took time 1 Vandevelde, by order of the Duke of York, attended the engagement in a small vessel. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 25 1 to consider, and returning to the purchase, found the picture sold for 130 guineas. Afterwards it was in the possession of Mr. Stone, a mer- chant retired into Oxfordshire. William the younger died in 1707, as appears by this inscription under his print : 6 Gulielmus Vanden Velde junior, navium et prospec- 'tuum marinarum pictor, et ob singularem in ilia arte peritiama Carolo 'et Jacobo 2do Magnae Britannise regibus annua mercede donatus. 'Obiit 6 Apr., A.D. 1707, set. suas 74.' William, the elder, had a brother named Cornelius, 1 who like him painted shipping in black and white, was employed by King Charles, and had a salary. The younger William left a son, a painter too of the same style, and who made good copies from his father's works, but was otherwise no considerable performer. He went to Holland, and died there. He had a sister who was first married to Simon du Bois, whom I shall mention hereafter, and then to Mr. Burgess. She had the portraits of her grandfather and father by Sir Godfrey Kneller, of her brother by Wissing, and of her great uncle Cornelius. JOHN VOSTERMAN, of Bommel, son of a portrait painter and disciple of Sachtleven, was a neat and excellent painter of small landscapes in oil, as may be seen by two views of Windsor, still in the gallery there. After the rapid con- quests of the French in 1672, he removed from Utrecht to Nimeguen, and pleasing the Marquis de Bethune, was made his major-domo, employed to purchase pictures, and carried by him to France, from whence he passed into England and painted for King Charles a chimney-piece at Whitehall, and a few other things ; 2 but demanding extravagant prices, as 150 and 200/. for his pictures, he had not many commissions from court ; and being as vain in his expense as of his works, he grew into debt and was arrested. He sued in vain to the king for delivery : his countrymen freed him by a contribution. Sir William Soames being sent ambassador to Constantinople by James II., Vosterman accompanied him, intending to paint the delights of that situation ; but Sir William dying on the road, it is not certain what became of the painter : it is said that before his departure from England he had been invited to Poland by his old patron, the Marquis de Bethune, and probably went thither on the death of the ambassador. 3 1 The anonymous author* of the Abrege de la Vie des plus fameux Peintres mentions three other Vandeveldes ; Adrian, who, he ignorantly says, was le ftlus conuit, was no relation of the others, and John an engraver, and Isaiah a battle-painter, both brothers of the first William, as well as this Cornelius, p. 102. 2 He painted a view of Stirling Castle, the figures by Wyck, from whence we may conclude that they took a journey to Scotland. > 3 Francisco Mile, a landscape painter of Antwerp, was here towards the end of Charles's reign, but probably stayed not long. Abrege, etc., vol. ii., p. 214. * Antoine D'Argenville. 252 PORTRAIT OF DUKE OF MONMOUTH BY WISSING. WILLIAM WISSING [born 1656, died 1687] was born at Amsterdam, and bred under Dodaens, an historic painter of the Hague, from whence Wissing passed into France, contracted the furbelowed style of that country and age, and came into England, where at least he learned it in its perfection from Sir Peter Lely> for whom he worked, and after whose death he grew into fashion. He drew all the royal family, and particularly the Duke of Monmouth several times, which ingratiated him with the king and the ladies. Sir Godfrey Kneller, then the rising genius, was a formidable rival ; but death put an end to the contest in the thirty-first year of Wissing's age, who deceased at Burleigh, the Lord Exeter's, in 1687, He was buried at the expense of that earl in St. Martin's Stamford, where, against a pillar in the middle aisle of the church, is a monumental table to his memory ; the inscription may be seen in Graham. There are several prints from his works, particularly one of Queen Catherine with a dog. Prior 1 wrote a poem on the last picture he painted. A mezzotinto of Wissings is thus inscribed : 1 Gulielmus Wissingus, inter pictores sui ' saeculi celeberrimos, nulli secundus, artis suae non exiguum decus et ' ornamentum.— Immodicis brevis est aetas.' ADRIAN HENNY or HENNIN, one of the last painters who arrived in the reign of Charles II. Little is known of him but that, having been two years in France, he adopted the manner of Gaspar Poussin. Vertue thought he came in 1680; if so, the title-plate to a history of Oxford designed by him, and engraved by White in 1674, must have been done antecedent to his arrival. He painted much at Eythorp, the seat of Dormer Lord Carnarvon, now of Sir William Stanhope, and died here in 1710. HERBERT TUER was second son of Theophilus Tuer, by Catherine, niece of Mr. George Herbert, the poet; his grandfather and great-grandfather were vicars, the former of Elsenham'in Essex, the latter of Sawbridge worth in Hert- fordshire, towards the latter end of Elizabeth. Herbert, who received his name from his maternal uncle, withdrew with his youngest brother Theophilus into Holland, after the death of Charles I. The latter followed arms ; Herbert applied to painting, and made good progress in portraits, as appears by some small ones of himself and family, now in England, where, however, they are little known. A print of Sir Lionel Jenkins, probably drawn at Nimeguen, is from a picture by Tuer. He married two wives: Mary Van Gameren, daughter of a procurer of Utrecht, and Elizabeth Van Heymenbergh. John, his son 1 Prior early in his life was patronized by that noble family, and by his pleasing verses has added celebrity to that venerable palace, sacred by the memory of Burleigh, and ornamented with a profusion of Carlo Maratti's and Luca Jordano's works. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 2 53 by the first, was resident at Nimeguen with his mother-in-law in 1680, at which time Herbert was dead. It is believed that he died at Utrecht, where in the Painters' Hall is said to be a head finely- coloured by him. TEMPESTA and TOMASO, two painters who worked at Wilton, painting ceilings and panels of rooms. Tempesta was, I believe, son of a well-known painter of the same name. Tomaso, and a brother of his, who was employed at Wilton too, were brought over by Sir Charles Cotterel ; for which reason I have placed them here, though I do not know exactly whether their performances were not dated a little later than this period. I find no other mention of them 1 or Tempesta in England. There are at Wilton two pieces of tapestry after the Cartoons of Raphael, with the workman's name, Stephen Mayn, and his arms, a cross of St George ; probably executed long before this period, and perhaps not in England. If our painters in oil were not of the first rate during the period I have been describing, in water-colours that reign has the highest pretensions. SAMUEL COOPER [born 1609.— died 1672] owed great part of his merit to the works of Vandyck, and yet may be called an original genius, as he was the first who gave the strength and freedom of oil to miniature. Oliver's works are touched and retouched with such careful fidelity, that you cannot help perceiving they are nature in the abstract ; Cooper's are so bold, that they seem perfect nature only of a less standard. Magnify the former, they are still diminutively conceived ; if a glass could expand Cooper's pictures to the size of Vandyck's, they would appear to have been painted for that proportion. If his portrait of Cromwell* could be so enlarged, I do not kn.w but Vandyck would appear less great by the comparison. To make it fairly, one must not measure the Fleming by his most admired piece, Cardinal Bentivoglio; the quick finesse of eye in a florid Italian writer was not a subject equal to the protector ; but it would be an amusing trial to balance Cooper's Oliver and Vandyck's Lord Strafford. To trace the lineaments of equal ambition, equal intrepidity, equal art, equal presumption, and to compare the skill of the masters in representing the one exalted to the height of his hopes, yet perplexed with a command he could scarce hold, did not dare to relinquish, and yet dared to exert ; the other, dashed in his career, 1 Lord Delawar has a picture of Apollo and the Muses, evidently a copy of Rubens j in one corner is the painter's name, J. Tomaso. 2 This fine head is in the possession of the Lady Franklin, widow of Sir Thomas, a descendant of Cromwell. The body is unfinished, Vertue engraved it, as he did another, in profile, in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire, 254 cooper's women were seldom handsome. willing to avoid the precipice, searching all the recesses of so great a soul to break his fall, and yet ready to mount the scaffold with more dignity than the other ascended the throne. This parallel is not a picture drawn by fancy; if the artists had worked in competition, they could not have approached nigher to the points of view in which I have traced the characters of their heroes. Cooper with so much merit had two defects. His skill was confined to a mere head ; his drawing even of the neck and shoulders so incor- rect and untoward, that it seems to account for the numbers of his works unfinished. It looks as if he was sensible how small a way his talent extended. This very poverty accounts for the other, his want of grace, a signal deflcience in a painter of portraits ; yet how seldom possessed ! Bounded as their province is to a few tame attitudes, how grace atones for want of action ! Cooper, content, like his country- men, with the good sense of truth, neglected to make truth engaging. Grace in painting seems peculiar to Italy. The Flemings and the French run into opposite extremes. The first never approach the line, the latter exceed it, and catch at most but a lesser species of it, the genteel; which if I were to define, I should call familiar grace, as grace seems an amiable degree of majesty. Cooper's women, like his model Vandyck's, are seldom very handsome. It is Lely alone that excuses the gallantries of Charles II. He painted an apology for that Asiatic court. The anecdotes of Cooper's life are few; nor does it signify; his works are his history. He was born in 1609, and instructed, with his brother Alexander, by their uncle Hoskins, who, says Graham, was jealous of him, and whom he soon surpassed. The variety of tints that he introduced, the clearness of his carnations, and loose manage- ment of hair, exceed his uncle, though in the last Hoskins had great merit too. The author I have just quoted mentions another capital work of Cooper, the portrait of one Swingfield, which recommended the artist to the court of France, where he painted several pieces larger than his usual size, and for which his widow received a pension during her life. He lived long in France and Holland ; and, dying in London, 1 was buried in Pancras Church, where is a monument for him. The inscription is in Graham, who adds that he had great skill in music, and played well on the lute. His works are too many to be enumerated ; seven or eight are in Queen Caroline's closet at Kensington; one of them, a head of Monke, is capital, but unfinished. Lord Oxford had a head of Archbishop 1 Mr. Willett in Thames Street, has a head of a young man in armour, of the family of Deane, in Suffolk, not equal to most of Cooper's works. My reason for mentioning it is, its being set in an enamelled case, on the outsides of which are two beautiful Madonnas, cnch with a child, freely-painted, in a light style ; within, is likewise an enamelled landscape. The picture is dated 1649. This, collated with my enamel of General Fairfax, seems to corrobor- ate my opinion that Eordier (by whom I take these enamels to be painted) remained here after Petitot left England. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 255 Sheldon ; and the bust of Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury on his monu- ment by Rysbrach was taken from a picture of Cooper*. It is an anecdote little known, I believe, and too trifling but for such a work as this, that Pope's mother was sister of Cooper's wife. 1 Lord Carleton had a portrait of Cooper in crayons, which Mrs. Pope said was not very like, and which, descending to Lord Burlington, was given by his lordship to Kent. It was painted by one Jackson, a rela- tion of Cooper, of whom I know nothing more, and who, I suppose, drew another head of Cooper in crayons, in Queen Caroline's closet, said to be painted by himself; but I find no account of his essays in that way. He did once attempt oil, as Murray the painter told Vertue, and added, that Hayls thereupon applied to miniature, which he threatened to continue unless Cooper desisted from oil, which he did ; but such menaces do not frighten much, unless seconded by want of success. Among Orinda's poems is one to Cooper on drawing her friend Lucasia's picture in 1660. RICHARD GIBSON [born 1615— died 1690I. the dwarf, being page to a lady at Mortlake, was placed by her with Francesco Cleyne, to learn to draw ; in which he succeeded, perfecting himself by copying the works of Sir Peter Lely, who drew Gibson's picture leaning on a bust, 1658: another evidence of Sir Peter being here before the restoration. It was in the posssession of Mr. Rose, 2 the jeweller, who had another head of the dwarf, by Dobson, and his little wife in black, by Lely. This diminutive couple was married in the presence of Charles I. and his queen, who bespoke a diamond ring for the bride ; but the troubles coming on she never received it. Her name was Anne Shepherd. 3 The little pair were each three feet ten inches high. Waller has celebrated their nuptials in one of his prettiest poems. The husband was page to the king, and had already attained such excellence, that a picture of the man and lost sheep painted by him, and much admired by the king, was the cause of Vanderdort's death, as we have seen in our account of that artist. Thomas, Earl of Pembroke, 4 had the portraits of the dwarfs hand in hand, by Sir Peter Lely; and exchanging it for another picture, it fell into the possession of Cock, the auctioneer, who sold it to Mr. Gibson the painter, in T712. It was painted in the style of Vandyck. Mr. Rose 5 had another small piece of the dwarf and his master Francesco Cleyne, in green habits as archers, with bows and arrows, and he had 1 I have a drawing of Pope's father as he lay dead in his bed, by his brother-in-law Cooper. It was Pope's. 2 He married Gibson's daughter, a paintress, that will be mentioned hereafter. 3 S~e notes to Fenton's Waller. 4 Gibson had been patronised by Philip, Earl of Pembroke, and painted Cromwell's picture several times. Mrs. Gibson is represented by Vandyck in the picture with the Duchess of Richmond at Wilton. 5 Sir W. Hamilton, envoy to Naples, had a drawing of Gibson by Vandyck. 256 JOHN DIXON, KEEPER OF THE KING'S PICTURE CLOSET. preserved Gibson's bow, who was fond of archery. Gibson taught Queen Anne to draw, and went to Holland to instruct her sister, the Princess of Orange. The small couple had nine children, five of which lived to maturity, and were of a proper size. Richard the father died in the 75th year of his age, and was buried at 1 Covent Garden: his little widow lived till 1709, when she was 89 years old. WILLIAM GIBSON, nephew of the preceding, was taught by hirn and Sir Peter Lely, and copied the latter happily; but chiefly practised miniature. He bought great part of Sir Peter's collection, and added much to it. Dying of a lethargy in 1702, at the age of 58, he was buried at Richmond, as was EDWARD GIBSON, I suppose, son of the dwarf. This young man began with painting portraits in oil, but changed that manner for crayons. His own picture done by himself in this way, 1690, was at Tart Hall. Edward died at the age of 33. JOHN DIXON, scholar of Sir Peter Lely, painted both in miniature and crayons, but mostly the former. In the latter was his own head. In water colours there are great numbers of his works ; about sixty were in Lord Oxford's collection, both portraits and histories, particularly, Diana and her nymphs bathing, after Polenburgh, and a sleeping Venus, Cupids, and a satyr. These were his best works. He was keeper of the king's picture closet ; and in 1698, was concerned in a bubble lottery. The whole sum was to be 40,000/. divided into 12 14 prizes, the highest prize in money 3000/., the lowest 20/. One prize, a collec- tion of limnings, he valued so highly, that the person to whom it should fall might, in lieu of it, receive 2000/. Each ticket twenty shillings. Queen Anne, then princess, was an adventurer.' This affair turned out ill ; and Dixon, falling into debt, removed for security from St. Martin's Lane, where he lived, to the King's Bench Walks, in the Temple, and latterly to a small estate he had at Thwaite, near Bungay, in Suffolk, where he died about 1715, and where his widow and children were living in 1725. Dixon, adds Vertue, once bought a picture for a trifle at a broker's, which he sold to the Duke of Devon- shire for 500/., but did not specify the hand or subject. ALEXANDER MARSHALL, another performer in water colours, who painted on vellum a book of Mr. Tradescant's 2 choicest flowers and plants. At doctor Freind's Vertue saw several pretty large pieces after Vandyck, the flesh painted 1 From the register. Richard Gibson died July 23, 1690. 2 Vide Museum Tradescantianum. It is a small book containing a catalogue of the rarities in that collection at Lambeth, with two prints by Hollar of the father and son. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 257 very carefully. He mentions too one Joshua Marshall, a sculptor, who in 1664 executed the monument of Baptist Lord Noel and his lady in Gloucestershire. WILLIAM HASSEL, another painter, known only to the industry of Mr. Vertue, who saw an oval miniature of a Scotch gentleman, which being engraved by P. Vanderbank was falsely inscribed ' Lord Marr.' The mark on the pic- ture was W. H., 1685. This, says Vertue, I think, was William Hassel. Since the first edition I am informed that Mr. Hassel not only painted in miniature, but in oil, in which way he executed an oval head of Mr. Hughes, author of the Siege of Damascus, who joined the sister arts, and painted several small pieces in water colours for his amusement. That seraphic dame, Mrs. Rowe, also painted. A gentleman from whom I received these notices has a bust of the above-mentioned Mr. Hughes done by her in Indian ink. There lived about the same time one Constantine, a landscape painter, and Mr. White, a limner ; Mr. Hughes addressed a poem to the former. MATTHEW SNELLING a gentleman who painted in miniature, and that (being very gallant) seldom but for ladies. In Mr. Rose's sale 1723, was a head of Snel- ling, by Cooper, 1644, finely painted, but the hands and drapery poor. Mr. Beale mentions him in one of his pocket-books, for sending presents of colours to his wife in 1654 and 1658; and that in 1678, Mr. Snelling offered him thirty guineas for a Venus and Cupid after Rottenhamer, for which he asked forty guineas, and which was worth fifty. I do not know whether this person was related to Thomas Snelling, a poet recorded in Wood's Athcnas, vol. ii., p. 135. MARY BEALE [born 1632, died 1697] was daughter of Mr. Cradock, minister of Walton ^upon-Thaifies, and learned the rudiments of painting from Sir Peter Lely, and had some instructions, as Vertue thought, from Walker. She painted in oil, water-colours, and crayons, and had much business : her portraits were in the Italian style, which she acquired by copying several pictures and drawings from Sir Peter Lely's and the royal collections. Her master was supposed to have had a tender attachment to her; but as he was reserved in communicating to her all the resources of his pencil, it probably was a gallant passion, rather than a successful one. Dr. Woodford wrote several poems to her honour, under the name of Belisa ; but the fullest history of her life and works was recorded by her own husband, who in small almanack pocket-books minuted down almost daily accounts of whatever related to himself, his business, and 1 Where Mr. Beule afterwards erected a monument for him. 18 2 $8 ENTRIES IN THE DIARY OF CHARLES BEALE. his wife's pictures. Of these almanacs there were above thirty, which with most of Beale's papers came into the hands of Carter, colour- man, to whom Beale bequeathed them. Some were sold to a clergy- man, named Brooke. His share Carter lent to a low painter, whose goods being seized, the pocket-books were lost ; but seven of them a friend of Vertue's met with on a stall, bought, and lent to him. Most of his extracts I shall now offer to the reader, without apprehension of their being condemned as trifling or tiresome. If they are so, how will this whole work escape ? When one writes the lives of artists, who in general were not very eminent, their pocket-books are as important as any part of their history — I shall use no further apology — if even those that are lost should be regretted ! The first is ' 1672. 20 April. Mr. Lely was here with Mr. Gibson ' and Mr. Skipwith, to see us, and commended very much her (Mrs. ' Beale's) coppy after our Saviour praying in the garden, &c. after * Anto. da Correggio : her coppy in little after Endimion Porter his ' lady and three sons he commended extraordinarily, and said (to use ' his own v/ords) it was painted like Vandyke himself in little, and that ' it was the best coppy he ever saw of Vandyke. Also he very well * liked her two coppyes in great of Mr. Porter's little son Phil. He * commended her other works, coppyes and those from the life. Both t he and Mr. Gibson commended her works. ' Mr. Lely told me at the same time, as he was most studiously i looking at my bishop's picture of Vandyke's, and I chanced to ask 'him how Sir Antony cou'd possibly divise to finish in one day a 1 face that was so exceeding full of work, and wrought up to so extra- f ordinary a perfection — I believe, said he, he painted it over fourteen t times. And upon that he took occasion to speake of Mr. Nicholas 'Laniere's picture of Sr. Anto. V. D. doing, which, said he, Mr. 1 Laniere himself told me he satt seaven entire dayes for it to Sr. Anto. ' and that he painted upon it of all those seaven dayes both morning f and afternoon, and only intermitted the time they were at dinner. I And he said likewise that tho' Mr. Laniere satt so often and so long ' for his picture, that he was not permitted so much as once to see it till 'he had perfectly finished the face to his own satisfaction. This was f the picture which being show'd to king Charles I., caused him to give ^order that V. Dyck shou'd be sent for over into England. il 20 Feb. 1671-2. My worthy and kind friend Dr. Belk caused the 'excellent picture of Endimion Porter, his lady and three son% alto- ' gether done by Sr. Anto. Vandyke, to be brought to my house that I my deare heart might have opportunity to study it, and coppy what I shee thought fitt of itt. Also at the 'same time wee return'd Mrs. f Cheek's picture of Mr. Lely's painting back to my lord chamberlain, 1 This transcript should have preceded the former, but I give them exactly as I find them in Vertue's extract. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 259 ' Pink remaining in stock Sept. 1672. Some parcells containing some 'pels, weight of tryalls made July 1663, 6 .19 April, 1672. My dearest painted over the third time a side face. ' This Mr Flatman liked very well. ' 24 April, 1672. My most worthy friend Dr. Tillotson sat to Mr. i Lely for his picture for me, and another for Dr. Cradock. He drew j them first in chalk rudely, and afterwards in colours, and rubbed upon f that a little colour very thin in places for the shadows, and laid a I touch of light upon the heightning of the forehead. He had done ( them both in an hour's time. * Lord bishop of Chester's picture painted by Mrs. Beale for lord ' George Berkeley. 6 Sunday, May 5th, J672. Mr. Samuel Cooper, the most famous i limner of the world for a face, dyed. 4 18 May, 1672. Pd. Mr. Tho. Burman in part, due for my honoured 4 father and mother's monument set up for them at Walton in Bucks, ' at the expence of my brother Henry Beale and myself, the whole cost 6 paid in full 45/. * ' 23. Ld. and lady Cornbury's pictures dead colour'd. Dr. Sidenham's £ picture began. ' 5 June. Dr. Tillotson sat about three hours to Mr. Lely for him to f lay in a dead colour of his picture for me. He apprehending the colour 4 of the cloth upon which he painted was too light, before he began to * lay on the flesh-colour he glazed the whole place, where the face and ' haire were drawn in a colour over thin, with Cullen's-earth, and a * little bonn black (as he told us) made very thin with varnish. 'June 1672. Received for three pictures of sir Rob. Viner, his lady *' and daughter 30/. ' 20 June. My most worthy friend Dr. Tillotson sat in the morning ( about three hours to Mr. Lely, the picture he is doing for me. This ' is the third setting. c Mr. Fuller the painter died 17 July, 1672, as Mr. Manby told me. f 22 July. Mrs. Beale painted her own picture, second setting. ' 23 July. Received of Col. Giles Strangeways 1 for Dr. Pierce's, Dr. * Cradock's, Dr. Tillotson's, Dr. Stiliingfleet's, Mr. Crumholem's pic- tures, 25/. 2 ' 1. Aug. 1672. Dr. Tillotson sat to Mr. Lely about three hours for ' the picture he is doing for me, this is the fourth time, and I believe 4 he will paint it (at least touch it) over again. His manner in the * painting of this picture, this time especially, seem'd strangely different ' both to myself and my dearest heart from his manner of painting the 1 These five heads, and three more, are still at the Earl of Ilchester's at Melbury in Dorset- shire, the fine old seat of the Strangways. Each head is inched in a frame of stone-colour; a mark that very generally distinguishes Mrs. Beale's works. 2 Mrs. Beale had 5/. for a head, and 10/. for a half-length, in oil, which was her most common method of painting. 18 * 260 CHARGES FOR WORK AND MATERIALS OF THE ARTISTS. £ former pictures he did for us. This wee thought was a more conceiled ' misterious scanty way of painting then the way he used formerly, which 6 wee both thought was a far more open and free, and much more was 4 to be observed and gain'd from seeing him paint then, then my heart 6 cou'd with her most carefull marking learn 1 from his painting either 6 this, or Dr. Cradock's picture of his doing for Dr. Patrick. ' Delivered up to Mr. Lely one ounce of ultramarine at 2/. 10s., one 6 ounce towards payment for Dr. Tillotson's picture for me. '30 Sept. I carryd my two boys Charles and Batt. to Mr. Lely's, and ' shewed them all his pictures, his rare collection. 1 Octob. I went ■ again to Mr. Lely's, and shew'd Mr. W. Bonest the same excellent ' pictures. This person was a learner then. 6 1 have paid Mr. Lely towards the pictures of Mr. Cos. Brooke 6 Bridges and Dr. Tillotson which he is doing for me, by several par- ' cells of lake of my own makeing, which he sent for 17 Aug. 1671, ' and ultramarine and money, 13/. 12^. ' Received this year 1672 moneys at interest, rents, or for colours, 'upon Mrs. Beale's account, 101/. lis. Received this year for pictures ( done by my dearest heart 202/. 5^/ Then follows a list of pictures done from the life by Mrs. Beale since 1671-2, with the months in which they were painted. There were thirty-five paid for, besides several begun and not paid for; among the former were, portraits of Sir Robert Viner and his daughter in one piece, Dr. Tillotson and Dr. Stillingfleet, Dr. Outram, Dr. Patrick, Col. Strangways ; and a Magdalen painted from Moll Trioche, a young woman who died 1672. Among the latter, his sister's, his wife's own, Lady Falconberg, and Lady Elizabeth Howard's pictures. From the almanac of 1674 were the following memorandums: e In Aug. Mr. Lely had one ounce of ultramarine the richest at 4/. icxr. e per oz. in part of payments betwixt us for dean of Cant. Tillotson, and ' Dr. Stillingfleet, which he has done for me, and by lakes and ultra- 1 marines, according to account of the particulars 1673, 24/. 9^. : toge- ther 28/. igs. So there is due to him 1/. is. in full payment for the e two fore-mentioned pictures. c Aug, 1674. Mr. Lely dead-colour'd my son Charles picture — took ' a drawing upon paper after an Indian gown 2 which he had put on his ' back, in order to the finishing the drapery of it. 6 Nov. Borrowed of Wm. Chiffinch esq. eleaven of his majesties ' Italian drawings. 6 1674. Received this yearefor pictures done by my dearest, 216/. 5s.' 1 I think it clear from this whole passage, that what I have asserted in the text from Graham of Mrs. Beale being scholar to Lely, is a mistake of that writer. Beale does not hint at it— on the contrary, they seem to have procured their friends to sit to Sir Peter, that she might learn his method of colouring, and Sir Peter seems to have been aware of the intention. 2 This was so established a fashion at that time, that in Chamberlain's Present State of England for 1684, I find Robert Croft, Indian-gown-maker to the king, Mrs. Mary Mandove, Indian-gown-maker to the queen. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 26 1 At the end of this book are more lists of pictures begun or finished by Mrs. Beale. From the almanac of 1677. * June 4. Mr. Comer the painter being at our house told my dearest 'as a secret, that he used black chalk ground in oil instead of blue ' black, and found it much better and more innocent colour. '22 May. Mr. Francis Knollys came himself and fetched away the 'original picture of the old earl of Strafford and Sr. Philip Man- ' waring which had been left here for some years. It was carried away ' by two of the lord Hollis's servants, whom Mr. Knollys brought with ' him for that purpose. 'April. I saw at Mr. Bab May's lodgings at Whitehall these pictures 'of Mr. Lely's doeing: 1. The king's picture in buff half-length. 2. ' First dutches of York, h. L 3. Dutches of Portsmouth, h. 1. 4. Mrs. ' Gwin with a lamb, h. 1. 5. Mrs. Davis with a gold pot, h. 1. 6. Mrs. 'Roberts, h. 1. 7. Dutches of Cleveland being as a Madonna, and a ' babe. 8. Mrs. May's sister, h. 1. 9. Mr. Wm. Finch, a head by Mr. ' Hales. 10. Dutches of Richmond, h. 1. by Mr. Anderton. 'Jan. 1676-7. Mr. Lely came to see Mrs. Beale's paintings, several 'of them he much commended, and upon observation said Mrs. Beale ' was much improved in her painting. ' Mrs. Beale painted Sr. Wm. Turner's picture from head to foot for ' our worthy friend Mr. Knollys. He gave it to be sett up in the hall 'at Bridewell, Sr. Wm. Turner haveing been president in the year he ' was Lord-mayor of London. ' Feb. 16. I gave Mr. Manby two ounces of very good lake of my 'making, and one ounce and half of pink, in consideration of the ' landskip he did in the countess of Clare's picture. Feb. Borrowed ' six Italian drawings out of the king's collection for my sons to prac- ' tice by. ' Mon. Mar. 5. I sent my son Charles to Mr. Flatman's in order to ' his beginning to learn to limme of him. The same time I sent my ' son's Barth. picture done by my dearest for Charles to make an essay ' in water-colours. Lent my son Charles 3/. which he is to work out. ' Moneys paid my son Barth. for work, laying in the draperys of his 'mother's pictures, from the beginning of this year 1676-7. About ' twenty-five half-lengths, and as many more heads layd in. Paid my ' son Charles upon the same account, near as many.' — The father, Charles Beale, had some employment in the board of Green-cloth. This year Mrs. Beale had great business, and received for pictures 429/. Among others whose portraits she drew were, the Earl of Clarendon, Lord Cornbury, Bishop Wilkins, Countess of Derby, Sir Stephen Fox, Lord Halifax, Duke of Newcastle, Lady Scarsdale, Earl of Bolingbroke, Lady Dorchester, Lady Stafford, Mr. Th. Thynne, Mr. Secretary Coventry, several of the family of Lowther, Earl of 262 MEMORANDA LEFT BY CHARLES BEALE. Clare, Mr. Finch, son of the chancellor, and Mr. Charles Stanley, son of the Countess of Derby. In the almanac of 1661 are no accounts of portraits painted by her, as if she had not yet got into business ; but there are memorandums of debts paid, and of implements for painting bought, and an inventory of valuable pictures and drawings in their possession. Mention too is made of three portraits by Walker, her own, her husband's, and her father's ; of Sir Peter Lely's by himself, half-length, price 20/. Hanne- man's picture and frame 18/. 4 Item. Given several ways to Mr. Flat- man for limning my own picture, my daughter Mall's, father Cradock, and the boys, 30/.' It concludes with an inventory of their goods, furniture, colours, plate, watches, etc. Another pocket-book. 'May 19, 1676. Mr. Greenhill the painter dyed. 3d of May. I 6 made exchange with Mr. Henny, half an ounce of ultramarine for ' four pound of his smalt, which he valued at eight shillings a pound, ' being the best and finest ground smalt that ever came into England. ' Sep. Lent to Mr. Manby a little Italian book ' II Partito di Donni 9 6 (Sic orig.) about painting. 26. Sent Mr. Lely an ounce of my richest 'lake in part of payment for Mr. Dean of Cant. Dr. Stillingfleet's and 4 my son Charles picture which he did for me.' Then follow lists of lives of painters, which he thought to translate, and of pictures begun that year, as, the Earl of Athol's, Lady Northum- berland's, etc., and of pictures copied from Sir Peter, as the Duchess of York, Lady Cleveland, Lady Mary Cavendish, Lady Elizabeth Percy, Lady Clare, Lady Halifax, Mrs. Gwin, etc., and of others from which she only copied the postures. Another book, 1681. 6 The king's half length picture which I borrow'd of Sir Peter was ' sent back to his executors, to sir Peter Lely's house. March. Dr. ' Burnet 1 presented the second volume of the History of the Refor- mation to Mrs. Beale as he had done the first volume. April. Lent ' Mr. Tho. Manby my Leonardo da Vinci, which I had from Mr. Flat- 'man. July. My dear heart finisht the first coppy of the half-length 6 of lady Ogle's picture, after Sr. P. Lely at Newcastle-house — 3d ' painting — both lord and lady Ogle's pictures. ' Nov. My dear heart and self and son Charles saw at Mr. Walton's 2 ' the lady Carnarvon's picture half-length, by Vandyk iu blue satin, a * most rare complexion exceeding fleshy done without any shadow. It 'was lately bought by Mr. Riley for 35/. also another lady in blue 1 This, and other circumstances in these notes, confirm Graham's account of the regard the clergy had for Beale and his wife. There are several prints of Tillotson and other divines from her paintings, which have much nature, but the colouring is heavy and stiff, her usual merits and faults. 8 Keeper of the king's pictures. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 263 'satin, another lady, black; others, and a rare head by Holben of the 'lord Cromwell Hen. VIII. dayes. 'Feb. 11, 1680-1. Mr. Soest the painter died. Mr. Flessiere the 'frame-maker said he believed he was neare 80 years old when he 'died. April 1681. Paid by Mr. Hancock's order for two quarters ' expence at Clare-hall for my son for half a year's, charges ending at ' Lady-day 12/. is. 6d. Paid the same sum at Clare-hall. ' Paid my son Charles for what he had done to the pictures of lord 'and lady Ogle at Newcastle-house, after Sr. P. Lely. Our worthy ' friend the dean of Peterburgh Moor's picture, one of the best pictures 'for painting and likeness my dearest ever did. Dec. 1681. Mr. Flat- ' man's picture finisht. Lent Thomas Flatman, esq., my wife's coppy ' in little half-length of the countess of Northumberland's picture after ' Sr. P. Lely. 'Pictures begun in 1681. Lady Dixwell. Doctor Nicholas. Earl ' of Shaftsbury half-length for lord Paget. Dutchess of Newcastle h. 1. ' Lord Downe, etc., in all amounting to 209/. 17^.' At the end of this book some notes in short characters of moneys put into the poor's-box for charitable uses, these good people bestowing this way about two shillings in the pound. 1 Mrs. Beale died in Pall Mall at the age of 65, Dec. 28, 1697, and was buried under the communion-table in St. James's church. Her son Bartholomew had no inclination for painting, and, relinquishing it, studied physic under Dr. Sydenham, and practised at Coventry, where he and his father died. The other son, CHARLES BEALE, who was born May 28, 1660, painted both in oil and water-colours, but mostly in the latter, in which he copied the portrait of Doctor Tillotson. His cypher he wrote thus on his works CB. The weakness in his eyes did not suffer him to continue his profession above four or five years. He lived and died over against St. Clement's at Mr. Wil- son's a banker, who became possessed of several of his pictures for debt; particularly of a double half-length of his father and mother, and a single one of his mother, all by Lely. I have Mrs. Beale's head and her son Charles's, in crayons by her ; they were Virtue's : and her own and her son's, in water-colours, strongly painted, but not so free as the crayons. ELIZABETH NEAL is only mentioned in De Bie's Golden Cabinet, published in 1662: he speaks of her as residing in Holland, and says she painted flowers so 1 G. Steevens has a quarto volume of studies in red chalk by Mrs. Beale and her son Charles. Several by her from nature, Vandyck and Lely. are highly finished and very lively, though hard, and the drawing not very correct. There is nothing but human figures. 264 ARTISTS IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES II. well, that she was likely to rival their famous Zeghers ; but he does not specify whether she worked in oil or water-colours. CHAPTER XIII. Statuaries, Carvers, Architects, and Medallists, in the Reign of Charles II. THOMAS BURMAN Is only known by being the master of Bushnell, and by his epitaph in the church-yard of Co vent Garden : i Here lyes interred Thomas Burman, sculptor, of the parish of St. 6 Martin's in the Fields, who departed this life March 17th, 1673-4, 'aged 56 years.' He is mentioned above in Mr, Beale's notes for executing a tomb at Walton-upon-Thames. BOWDEN, LATHAM, and BONNE, three obscure statuaries in this reign, of whom I find few particulars ; the first was a captain of the trained-bands, and was employed at Wilton; so was Latham; 1 his portrait leaning on a bust was painted by Fuller; Latham and Bonne worked together on the monument of Archbishop Sheldon. The figure of John Sobieski, which was bought by Sir Robert Vyner, and set up at StockVmarket for Charles II., came over unfinished, and a new head was added by Latham ; but the Turk on whom Sobieski was trampling remained with the whole group, till removed to make way for the lord mayor's mansion house. WILLIAM EMMETT was sculptor to the crown before Gibbons, and had succeeded his uncle, one Philips. There is a poor mezzotinto of Emmett by himself. CAIUS GABRIEL CIBBER, or CIBERT, son of a cabinet maker to the King of Denmark, was born at Flens- burg, in the duchy of Holstein, and, discovering a talent for sculpture, was sent at the king's expense to Rome. More of his early history is not known. He came to England not long before the Restoration, and worked for John Stone, son of Nicholas ; who going to Holland, and being seized with a palsy, Cibber, his foreman, was sent to conduct him home. We are as much in the dark as to the rest of his life ; that singularly-pleasing biographer, his son, who has dignified so many 1 I suppose this is the same person who petitioned the council of state, after the death of Cromwell, for goods belonging to the king, which he had purchased, and the Protector detained. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 265 trifling anecdotes of players by the expressive energy of his style, has recorded nothing of a father's life who had such merit in his profession. I can only find that he was twice married, and that by his second wife, descended from the ancient family of Colley 1 in Rutlandshire, he had 6000/. and several children, among whom was the well-known laureat, born in 1671, at his father's, in Southampton Street, facing Southamp- ton House. Gabriel Cibber the statuary was carver to the king's closet, and died about 1700, at the age of 70. His son had a portrait of him by old Laroon, with a^medal in his hand. I have one in water colours with a pair of compasses, by Christian Richter; probably a copy from the former, with a slight variation. What is wanting in cir- cumstances is more than compensated by his works, The most capital are the two figures of Melancholy and Raving Madness before the front of Bedlam. The bas-reliefs 2 on two sides of the monument are by his hand too. So are the fountain in Soho Square, and one of the fine vases at Hampton Court, said to be done in competition with a foreigner who executed the other ; but nobody has told us which is Cibber's. He carved most of the statues of kings round the Royal Exchange, as far as King Charles, and that of Sir Thomas Gresham in the piazza beneath. The first Duke of Devonshire employed him much at Chatsworth, where two sphinxes on large bases, well execu- ted and with ornaments in good taste, are of his work, and till very lately there was a statue of Neptune in a fountain still better. He carved there several door-cases of alabaster with rich foliage, and many ornaments in the chapel ; and on each side of the altar is a statue by him, Faith and Hope ; the draperies have great merit, but the airs of the head are not so good as that of the Neptune. Cibber built the Danish Church in London, and was buried there himself, with his second wife, for whom a monument was erected in 1696. The son will be known as long as The Careless Husband and the Memoirs of his Own Life exist ; and so long the injustice of calling the figures at Bedlam his brazen brainless brothers, and the peevish weakness of thrusting him into the Dunciad in the room of Theobald, the proper hero, will be notorious. FRANCIS DU SART, of Hanau, is mentioned in De Bie's Golden Cabinet, who says he was employed by the King of England to adorn his palace with works in 1 By this alliance his children were kinsmen to William of Wickham, and on that foundation one of them, (afterwards a fellow of New College, Oxford, and remarkable for his wit) was admitted of Winchester College; in consideration of which the father carved and gave to that society a statue of their founder. He also executed some statues for the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. Life of Colley Cibber, chap. iii. 2 A description of them may be seen in the New Account of London and the Environs, vol. v., p. 3. One of the statues was the portrait of Oliver Cromwell's porter, then in Bedlam. 2 66 THE BENEVOLENCE AND TASTE OF JOHN EVELYN. marble, and models in clay, and that he died in London i66r. It is uncertain whether this king was Charles I., or_ whether Du Sart came over and died soon after the Restoration. GRINLING GIBBONS, 1 an original genius, a citizen of nature ; consequently, it is indifferent where she produced him. When a man strikes out novelty from him- self, the place of his birth has little claim on his merit. Some become great poets or great painters because thei*-talents have capital models before their eyes. An inventor is equally a master whether born in Italy or Lapland. There is no instance of a man before Gibbons who gave to wood the loose and airy lightness of flowers, and chained toge- ther the various productions of the elements with a free disorder natural to each species. Vertue had received two different accounts of his birth ; from Murray the painter, that he was born in Holland of English parents, and came over at the age of nineteen ; from Stoakes (relation of the Stones), that his father was a Dutchman, but that Gibbons him- self was born in Spur Alley, in the Strand. This is circumstantial; and yet the former testimony seems most true, as Gibbons is an English name, and Grinling probably Dutch. He afterwards lived, added Stoakes, in Bell Savage Court, on Ludgate Hill, where he carved a pot of flowers which shook surprisingly with the motion of the coaches that passed by. It is certain that he was employed by Betterton on the decorations of the theatre in Dorset Garden, where he carved the cap- itals, cornices, and eagles. He lived afterwards at Deptford, in the same house with a musician, where the beneficent and curious Evelyn found and patronized them both. This gentleman, Sir Peter Lely, and Bap. May, who was something of an architect himself, recommended Gibbons to Charles II., who, though too indolent to search for genius, and too indiscriminate in his bounty to confine it to merit, was always pleased when it was brought home to him. He gave the artist a place in the Board of Works, and employed his hand on the ornaments of most taste in his palaces, particularly at Windsor, where, in the chapel, the simplicity of the carver's foliage at once sets off and atones for the glare of Verrio's paintings. Gibbons, in gratitude, made a present of his own bust in wood to Mr. Evelyn, who kept it at his house in Dover Street. The piece that had struck so good a judge was a large carving in wood of St. Stephen stoned, long preserved in the sculptor's own house, and afterwards purchased and placed by the Duke of Chandos at Cannons. At Windsor too, Gibbons, whose art penetrated all mate- rials, carved that beautiful pedestal in marble for the equestrian 2 statue 1 So he wrote his name himself, and not ' Grinlin/ as it is on his print. 2 Under the statue is an engine for raising water, contrived by Sir Samuel Morland, alias Morley ; he was son of Sir Samuel Morland, of Sulhamsted Banister, in the county of Berks, created a baronet by Charles II., in consideration of services performed during the king's exile. The son was a great mechanic, and was presented with a gold medal, and made HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 267 i of the king in the principal court. The fruit, fish, implements of shipping i are all exquisite ; the man 1 and horse may serve for a sign to draw a passengers eye to the pedestal. The base of the figure at Charing Cross was the work of this artist; so was the statue 2 of Charles II. at the Royal Exchange ; but the talent of Gibbons, though he practised ! in all kinds, did not reach to human figures, unless the brazen statue of James II., in the Privy Garden be, as I have reason to believe it, of his hand. There is great ease in the attitude, and a classic simplicity. Vertue met with an agreement, signed by Gibbons himself, for a statue of James II., the price, 300/., half to be paid down on signing the agreement ; 50/. more at the end of three months, and the rest when the statue should be completed and erected. Annexed were receipts for the first 200/., Aug. 1 1, 1687. The paymaster, Tobias Rustat. 3 Gibbons made a magnificent tomb for Baptist Noel Viscount Camden, ; in the church of Exton, in Rutlandshire ; it cost 1000/. ; is 22 feet high, and 14 wide. There are two figures, of him and his lady, and bas- reliefs of their children. The same workman performed the wooden throne at Canterbury, which cost 70/., and was the donation of Arch- bishop Tenison. The foliage in the choir of St. Paul's, is of his hand. At Burleigh, is a noble profusion of his carving, in picture-frames, chimney-pieces, and door-cases, and The Last Supper in alto relievo, finely executed. At Chatsworth, where a like taste collected ornaments by the most eminent living masters, are many by Gibbons, particularly in the chapel; in the great antechamber are several dead fowl over the chimney, finely executed, and over a closet-door, a pen not distinguish- able from real feather. When Gibbons had finished his works in that palace, he presented the duke with a point cravat, a woodcock, and a Magister Mechanicorum by the king, in x68i. He invented the drum capstands for weighing heavy anchors, and the speaking trumpet and other useful engines. He died and was buried at Hammersmith, in Middlesex, 1696. There is a monument for the two wives of Sir Samuel Morland, in Westminster Abbey. His arms were sable a leopard's head jessant a fleur de lys, or. There is a print of the son, by Lombart after Lely. This Sir Samuel built a large room in his garden at Vauxhall, which was much admired at that time ; on the top was apunchinello holding a dial. See Aubrey's Survey, vol. i., p. 12. 1 On the hoof of the horse, says Pote, is cast Josias Ibach Stada, Bramensis. This last word should be Bremensis. I know nothing more of this Ibach Stada. Vide History and Antiq. of Windsor Castle, p. 38. Gibbons made a design for the statues in the intended mausoleum of Charles I., by Sir Chr. Wren. Vide Parentalia, p. 332, in the margin. 2 Vertue says, the king gave Gibbons an exclusive licence for the sole printing of this statue, and prohibiting all persons to engrave it without his leave ; and yet, adds my author, though undertaken by Gibbons, it was actually executed by Quellin of Antwerp, who will be mentioned hereafter. 3 One might ask, whether Vertue did not in haste write James II. for Charles II. The statue of the latter at Chelsea College is said to be the gift of this Rustat ; and one should doubt whether he paid for a statue of the king in his own garden, but as Charles II. per- mitted such an act of loyalty in the court at Windsor, perhaps his brother was not more difficult.* I am the rather inclined to attribute the statue at Whitehall to Gibbons, because I know no other artist of that time capable of it. * Both did accept such a present. In Peck's Desid. Curiosa. vol. ii., p. 50, is a list of the charities and benefactions of Tobias Rustat, keeper of Hampton Court, and yeoman of the robes to Charles II., before and after his restoration. Among others is this entry, 'A free ' gift to their majesties k. Charles II., and k. James II., of their statues in brass ; the former c placed upon a pedestal in the royal hospital at Chelsea, and the other in Whitehall— one * thousand pounds.' 268 THE FAME AND WORKS OF GRINLING GIBBONS. medal with his own head, all preserved in a glass case in the gallery. I have another point cravat by him, the art of which arrives even to deception, and Herodias with St. John's head, alto relievo in ivory. In Thoresby's collection was Elijah under the juniper- tree, supported by an angel, six inches long and four wide (Ducatus Leodiensis, p. 488). At Houghton, two chimneys are adorned with his foliage. At Mr. Norton's, at Southwick, in Hampshire, was a whole gallery embroidered in pannels by his hand ; but the most superb monument of his skill is a large chamber at Petworth, enriched from the ceiling, between the pictures, with festoons of flowers and dead game, etc., all in the highest perfection and preservation. Appendant to one is an antique 1 vase with a bas-relief, of the purest taste, and worthy the Grecian age of cameos. Selden, one of his disciples and assistants — for what one hand could execute such plenty of laborious productions? — lost his life in saving this carving when the seat was on fire. The font in St. James's church was the work of Gibbons. If these encomiums 2 are exaggerated, the works are extant to con- tradict me. Let us now see how well qualified a man, who vaunts his having been in England, was, to speak of Gibbons. It is the author of the Abrege\ whom I have frequently mentioned. ' Les Anglois,' 'says he (Vol. ii., p. 216), 'n'ont eu qu'un bon sculpteur, nomme 1 Gibbons, mais il n'etoit pas excellent. La figure de marbre de Charles ' II., placed au milieu de la bourse a Londres est de sa main.' What would this author have said of him, if he had wasted his art on rib- bands and ringlets flowing in one blended stream from the laurel of Louis XIV. to the tip of his horse's tail? 3 Gibbons died Aug. 3rd, 1721, at his house in Bow Street, Covent Garden ; and in November of the following year, his collection, a very considerable one, of pictures, models, etc., was sold by auction. Among other things were two chimney-pieces of his own work, the one valued at 100/., the other at 120/. ; his own bust in marble, by himself, but the wig and cravat extravagant ; and an original of Simon, the engraver, by Sir Peter Lely, which had been much damaged by the fall of Gibbons's house. There are two different prints of Gibbons, by Smith, both fine ; the one with his wife, after Closterman ; the other from a picture at Hough- ton, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, who has shown himself as great in that portrait as the man who sat to him. Gibbons had several disciples and workmen ; Selden I have men- tioned; Watson assisted chiefly at Chatsworth, where the boys and many of the ornaments in the chapel were executed by him. Dievot, of Brusssels, and Laurens, of Mechlin, were principal journeymen — 1 At the Earl of Halifax's, at Stanstead, is another chimney-piece, adorned with flowers and two beautiful vases. m m 2 Tate wrote a poem on the sight of a bust in marble of Gibbons. * This is literally the case in the equestrian statue at Lyons. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING 269 Vertue says, they modelled and cast the statue I have mentioned in the Privy Garden ; which confirms my conjecture of its being the figure intended in the agreement. If either of them 6 modelled' it, and not Gibbons himself, the true artist deserves to be known. They both retired to their own country on the Revolution ; Laurens performed much both in statuary and in wood, and grew rich. Dievot lived till 1 715, and died at Mechlin. LEWIS PAYNE engraved two signet seals for Charles II., to be used in Scotland, by the Duke of Lauderdale. Dr. Rawlinson had the original warrant for them signed by the king; one was to have been in steel, the other in silver. At top was the draught and magnitude, neatly drawn, and a memorandum that they were finished and delivered in Oct., 1678. ARCHITECTURE. though in general the taste was bad, and corrupted by imitations of the French, yet, as it produced St. Paul's, may be said to have flourished in this reign ; whole countries, an age, often gets a name for one capital work. Before I come to Sir Christopher Wren, I must despatch his seniors. JOHN WEBB, a name well known as a scholar of Inigo Jones, and yet I cannot find any particulars of his life. 1 He built the seat of Lord Mountford, at Horseheath, in Cambridgeshire, and added the portico to the Vine, in Hampshire, for Chaloner Chute, speaker to Richard Cromwell's parlia- ment, and now belonging to his descendant, John Chute, Esq. Am- bresbury, in Wiltshire, was executed by him from the designs of his master. Mr. Talman had a quarto volume, containing drawings in Indian ink, of capitals and other ornaments in architecture, which Webb had executed in several houses. The frontispiece (containing architecture and figures) to Walton's Polyglot Bible was designed by Webb, and etched by Hollar. Vertue says that Mr. Mills, one of the four surveyors appointed after the fire of London, built the large houses in Queen-street, Lincoln's-inn-fields ; but this must be a mistake, as we have seen in a former part of this volume, that Gerbier, a cotemporary and rival, ascribed them to Webb. Gerbier's own scholar was CAPTAIN WILLIAM WINDE, who was born at Bergen-op-Zoom. His performances were, the house at Cliefden, the Duke of Newcastle's, in Lincoln's-inn-fields, Coomb Abbey, for Lord Craven ; and he finished Hempstead Marshal, for the same peer, which had been begun by his master, and in the plans of 1 He married a niece of Inigo Jones, and left a son named James, who lived at Butleigh in Somersetshire. The father died in 1672, aged 61. 2JO EDUCATION AND TALENTS OF SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN. which he made several alterations. In his son's sale of drawings and prints, in 1741, were several of the father's designs for both these latter houses. They were dated from 1663 to 1695. - — ■ MARSH, says Vertue, designed the additional buildings at Bolsover, erected after the Restoration, and was the architect of Nottingham Castle. Salmon, in his account of Essex, p. 329, mentions a Dr. Morecroft, who, he says, died in 1677, as architect of the Manor-house of Fitzwalters. Monsieur POUGET, a French architect, conducted the building of Montagu House, in 1678. What it wants in grace and beauty, is compensated by the spaciousness and lofty magnificence of the apartments. It is now the British Museum. SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN is placed here, as his career was opened under Charles II. The length of his life enriched the reigns of several princes — and disgraced 1 the last of them. A variety of knowledge proclaims the universality, a multiplicity of works the abundance, St. Paul's the greatness, of Sir Christopher's genius. The noblest temple, the largest palace, the most sumptuous hospital in such a kingdom as Britain, 2 are all works of the same hand. He restored London, and recorded its fall. 3 I do not mean to be very minute in the account of Wren, even as an architect. Every circumstance of his story has been written and repeated. Bishop Sprat, Anthony Wood, Ward in his Lives of the Gresham Professors, the General Dictionary, and the New Description of London and the Environs, both in the hands of everybody, are voluminous on the article of Sir Christopher; above all, a descendant of his own has given us a folio, called Parentalia, which leaves nothing to be desired on this sub- ject. Yet, in a work of such a nature as this, men would be disappointed should they turn to it and receive no satisfaction. They must be grati- fied, though my province becomes little more than that of a- mere transcriber. Sir Christopher Wren, of an ancient family in the bishopric of Durham, was son of a Dean of Windsor, and nephew of Matthew, bishop, successively, of Hereford, Norwich, Ely. He was born at London, in 1632, and educated at Oxford. His mathematical abilities unfolded themselves so early, that by twenty he was elected professor of astronomy at Gresham College, and eight years afterwards Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford. His discoveries in philosophy, mechanics, etc., contributed to the reputation of the new-established 1 At the age of 86 he was removed from being surveyor-general of the works, by George the First ! 2 St. Paul's, Hampton Court, and Greenwich: _ 8 He built above fifty parish churches, and designed the monument* HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 271 Royal Society; and his skill in architecture had raised his own name so high, that in the first year of the Restoration, he was appointed coadjutor to Sir John Denham, surveyor of the works, whom he suc- ceeded in 1668. Three years before that he had visited France, and unfortunately went no farther — the great number of drawings he made there from their buildings, had but too visible influence on some of his own — but it was so far lucky for Sir Christopher, that Louis XIV. had erected palaces only, no churches. St. Paul's escaped, but Hampton Court was sacrificed to the god of false taste. 1 In 1680, he was chosen president of the Royal Society; was in two parliaments, was twice married, had two sons and a daughter, and died 2 in 1723, at the age of 91, having lived to see the completion of St. Paul's; a fabric and an event which one cannot wonder left such an impression of content on the mind of the good old man, that, being carried to see it once a year, it seemed to recall a memory that was almost deadened to every other use. He was buried under his own fabric, with four words that com- prehended his merit and his fame: ' Si qu^ras monumentum, CIRCUMSPICE !' Besides from his works 3 in architecture, which I am going to men- tion, Wren is entitled to a place in this catalogue by his talent for design. He drew a view of Windsor, which was engraved by Hollar; and eight or ten plates for Dr. Willis's Anatomy of the Brain, 1664. Vertue thinks they are engraved by Loggan. He found out a speedy way of etching, and was the inventor of drawing pictures by micro- scopic glasses ; and he says himself, that he invented serpentine rivers (Parentalia, p. 142). His other discoveries 4 may be seen at large in the authors I have quoted. His principal buildings were, the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a piece of architecture opposite to it, to disguise the irregularity of that end. Over the library are four figures by Cibber. The chapel of Pembroke Hall. The theatre at Oxford. 5 The tower of St. Dunstan's church, attempted in the Gothic style with very poor success. The 6 church of St. Mary, at Warwick, 1 1 have been assured by a descendant of Sir Christoper, that he gave another design for Hampton Court in better taste, which Queen Mary wished to have had executed, but was overruled. 2 Elkanah Settle published a funeral poem on him, called Threnodia Apollinaris ; there is another in Latin in the Parentalia. 3 He wrote a poem, published in a collection at Oxford, on the revival of Anne Green, who had been executed. * Among them is reckoned the invention of mezzotinto, which some say he imparted to Prince Rupert, but the most common and cotemporary reports give the honour to the prince himself, as will be seen in his article in the account of engravers. 5 He was consulted, and advised some alterations in a plan of the chapel at Trinity College, Oxford. This was not worth mentioning with regard to Sir Christopher, but was necessary to introduce the name of Dr. Aldrich, who not only designed that chapel, but also the church of All Saint's, Oxford. A circumstance we learn from the life of Dr. Bathurst, pp, 68, 71, by the ingenious Thomas Warton, to whom the public has many obligations, and the editor of this work still greater. 6 I have been informed, since the first edition of this work, by Sir Christopher's descendant, that the tower only of this church, as it is at present, was designed by his grandfather. A fire happened in the church, and the damaged parts were restored by one Francis Smith, a mason in the town, who had also executed the tower, in which he made several mistakes. 272 FAMOUS BUILDINGS ERECTED BY SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN. f.W in the same manner, but still worse. Yet he was not always so wide; r< of his mark. The great campanile at Christ Church, Oxford, is noble, and though j 1 . not so light as a Gothic architect would perhaps have formed it, does 1 I not disgrace the modern. His want of taste in that ancient style is j 1 the best excuse for another fault, the union of Grecian and Gothic, t 1 The Ionic colonnade that crosses the inner quadrangle of Hampton j Court is a glaring blemish, by its want of harmony with the rest of j I n Wolsey's fabric. Kent was on the point of repeating this incongruity i I in the same place in the late reign, but was overruled by my father. Christ Church Hospital, London, rebuilt, and the old cloister re- 4 paired by him. St. Mary-le-bow. The steeple is much admired — for my part, I never saw a beautiful modern steeple. They are of Gothic origin, and have frequently great merit either in the solid dignity of towers, or in the airy form of taper spires. When broken into unmeaning parts, as those erected in later times are, they are a pile of barbarous ugliness, and deform the temples to which they are coupled. Sir Christopher lias shown how sensible he was of this absurdity imposed on him by custom, by avoiding it in his next beautiful work, St. Stephen Walbroke — but in vain — the lord mayor's mansion house has revenged the cause of steeples. The new royal apartments, at Hampton Court. Greenwich Hos- pital. Chelsea Hospital. The palace at Winchester — one of the ugliest 1 piles of building in the island. It is a royal mansion running backward upon a precipice, and has not an inch of garden or ground belonging to it. Charles II. chose the spot for health, and pressed (Life of Sir Dudley North) Sir Christopher to have it finished in a year. The impropriety of the situation and the haste of the execution are some excuse for the architect ; but Sir Christopher was not happy in all kinds of buildings. He had great abilities rather than taste. When he has showed the latter, it was indeed to advantage. The circular porticos and other parts of St. Paul's are truly graceful ; and so many great architects as were employed on St. Peter's, have not left it, upon the whole, a more perfect edifice than this work of a single mind. The gaudiness of the Romish religion has given St. Peter's one of its chief advantages. The excess of plainness in our cathedral disappoints the spectator after so rich an approach. The late Prince of Wales, I have heard, intended to introduce tombs into it, and to begin with that of his grandfather. Considering that Westminister Abbey is overstocked, and that the most venerable monuments of antiquity are daily removed there to make room for modern (a precedent that one should think 1 There is a copy of verses still worse in their kind, in praise of this building, in the second part of Dryden's Miscellanies. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 273 ^ would discourage even the moderns from dealing with the chapter), St. Paul's would afford a new theatre for statuaries to exert their ^ genius; 1 and the abbey would still preserve its general customers, by- new recruits of waxen puppets. The towers of the last mentioned 15 fabric, and the proposed spire, were designed by Sir Christopher. The Monument. The architect's intention was to erect the statue of Charles II. on the summit, instead of that silly pot of flames; but °f was overruled, as he often was by very inferior judgments. The theatre in Drury Lane, and the old theatre in Salisbury Court. ! The rest of his churches, publications, designs, etc., may be seen at I large in the Parentalia. Among the latter was the mausoleum of ! Char. I. It was* curious piety in Char. II. to erect a monument for the imaginary bones of Edward V. and his brother, and to sink 70,000?. actually given by parliament for a tomb for his father ! Many drawings by Sir Christopher, particularly for St. Paul's, were sold in his son's auction a few years ago. The medallists in this reign lie in a narrow compass, but were not the worst artists. THE ROTIERS were a family of medallists. The father, a goldsmith and banker assisted Char. II. with money during his exile; in return for which the king promised, if he was restored, to employ his sons, who were all gravers of seals and coins. The Restoration happened ; and Charles, discontent with the inimitable Simon, who had served Crom- well and the republic, sent for Rotier's sons. The two eldest, Jchn and Joseph, arrived (not entirely with their father's consent, who wished to have them settle in France, of which I suppose he was a native). They were immediately placed in the Mint, and allowed a salary and a house, where they soon grew rich, being allowed 200/. for each broad seal, and gaining 300/. a year by vending great numbers of medals abroad. On their success, Philip, the third brother, came over, and worked for the government too. He is the only one of the three, though John was reckoned the best artist, who has left his name 2 or initials on any of our medals ; and he it was, I believe, who, being in love with the fair Mrs. Stuart, Duchess of Richmond (vide Evelyn), represented her likeness, under the form of Britannia, on the reverse of a large medal with the king's head. Simon, discontent with some reason at the preference of such inferior performers, made the famous crown piece, which, though it did not explode the others, recovered 1 Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. West, and others of our principal painters, offered to adorn St. Paul's with pictures by their own hands and at their own expense, but the generous design was quashed by a late prelate — a memorable absurdity, that at an era in which the Romish faith received toleration from the government, its more harmless decorations should be proscribed. 2 Unless a medal which I have mentioned in Chap. VIII., art. 'Medallists/ was executed by Norbert. 19 274 SUSPECTED TREASON OF THE ARTIST ROTIER. his own salary, and from that time he and his rivals lived amicably- together. It was more than they themselves did. John had three sons, the eldest of which he lost ; but James and Norbert being much employed by him, their uncles grew jealous and left England, Joseph i going to France, Philip to Flanders ; where each being entertained by the respective governments, the three brothers were at the same time I in the service of three kings, of England, France, and Spain. James Rotier being hurt by a fall from his horse, and retiring to Bromley for the air, caught cold and died. Norbert and his father remained working for the crown till the revolution ; when, though offered to be j continued in his post, no solicitation could prevail on John the father to work for King William. This rendering him obnoxious, and there being suspicions 1 of his carrying on a treasonable correspondence, guards were placed round his house in the Tower, and Lord Lucas, j who commanded there, made him so uneasy that he was glad to quit his habitation. He was rich and very infirm, labouring under the stone and gravel ; additional reasons for his retiring. He took a house in Red Lion Square. Norbert, less difficult, executed some things for the government, particularly, as Vertue thinks, the coronation medal for William and Mary, 2 and some dies for the copper money. On the proofs were the king's and queen's heads on different sides, with a rose, j a ship, etc.; but in 1694 it was resolved, that the heads should be coupled, and Britannia be on the reverse. Hence arose new matter of complaint — some penetrating eyes thought they discovered a satyr's j head 3 couched in the king's. This made much noise, and gave rise to a report that King James was in England, and lay concealed in Rotier's house in the Tower. Norbert on these dissatisfactions left England, and retiring into France, where he had been educated in the academy, was received and employed by Louis XIV. where, what- ever had been his inclination here, he certainly made several medals of the young chevalier. 1 There are many evidences that these and other suspicions were not ill-founded. Rotier was believed to have both coined and furnished dies for coining money, I suppose with the stamp and for the service of King James. Smith in his memoir of secret service mentions his information and discovery of the dies in the Tower being conveyed away by one Hewet and others, by the help of Mr. Rotier, and that they were found at Mr. Vernon's in January 1695. In the Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xi., p. 686, is a report from the committee to examine what dies were gone out of the Tower, and by what means. From that ! report it appears that Rotier would not suffer Captain Harris, the patent officer, to enter the j house where the dies were kept ; that one Ware made a press for White, then under sentence of condemnation, who told Ware he could have dies from Rotier when he pleased ; that Rotier, who was a Catholic, kept an Irish papist in his house; and that the Lord Lucas, governor of the Tower, had complained that the Tower was not safe while so many papists were enter- tained in Rotier's house. It appears too from the journal of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, that when his lordship, who, by his own account, had dealt with the most disaffected persons, was committed to the Tower, in 1690, he asked Lord Lucas to let Rotier come to him, which the governor could not suffer him to do alone, because he was a papist. Lord Clarendon most probably had another reason for desiring Rotier's company. 2 He and his brother James struck a medal of King William alone, in 1693, which was advertised with another by them of Charles I. 3 I remember such a vision about the first halfpenny of the late King George II. The knee of Britannia was thought to represent a rat (a Hanoverian one) gnawing into her bowels. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 275 John, the father, survived King William. A medal being ordered of the who was pleased with his works, and carried him into Yorkshire, where he was building a new house, in which Cooke painted, and received 150/. He then lived five years with the father of Antony Russel, whom I have mentioned in a preceding part of this volume ; but quarrelling with a man about a mistress whom Cooke kept, by whom he had chil- dren, and whom he afterwards married, Cooke killed him and fled. He then went to Italy and stayed seven years; and returning, lived privately till the affair was forgotten. Towards the end of his life he was much employed. By order of King William he repaired the Car- toons, 1 and other pictures in the royal collection, though Walton had the salary. He finished the equestrian portrait of Charles II. at Chel- sea College, and painted the choir of New College Chapel, Oxford, the staircase at Ranelagh House, the ceiling of a great room at the water- works at Islington, and the staircase at Lord Carlisle's in Soho Square, where the assemblies are now kept. 2 He had sometimes painted por- traits, but was soon disgusted with that business from the caprices of those that sat to him„ He died Nov. 18, 1700, and was buried at St. Giles's. I have his own head by him, touched with spirit, but too dark, and the colouring not natural. PETER BERCHETT was born in France, 1659; and beginning to draw at the age of fifteen, under La Fosse, he improved so fast, that in three years he was em- ployed in the royal palaces. He came to England in 1681 to work under Rambour, a French painter of architecture, who, says Vertue, was living in 1721 ; but then stayed only a year, and returned to Marly. He came again, and painted for some persons of rank in the west. King William building a palace at Loo, sent Berchett thither, where he was engaged fifteen months, and then came a third time to England, where he had sufficient business. He painted the ceiling in the chapel of Trinity College, Oxford, the staircase at the Duke of Schomberg's in Pall Mall, and the summer-house at Ranelagh. His drawings in the academy were much approved. Towards the end of his life, being troubled with a phthisic, he retired to Marylebone, and painted only small pieces of fabulous history; his last was a bacchanalian, to which he put his name the day before he died : it was in January, 1 720, at 1 Graham says he copied the Cartoons in turpentine oil, in the manner of distemper, a way he invented. 8 Ampng Elsum's epigrams is one on a listening faun, by Cooke* HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 291 Marylebone, where he was buried. He left a son, that died soon after him, at the age of seventeen. LOUIS CHERON, born at Paris in 1660, was son of Henry Cheron, an enamel painter, and brother of Elizabeth Sophia Cheron, an admired paintress, and who engraved many ancient gems. Louis went to Italy, and, says the author of his life, 1 6 a toujours cherche Raphael et Jules Romain : ? a pursuit in which he was by no means successful. He came to England on account of his religion in 1695, and was employed at the Duke of Montague's at Boughton, at Burleigh, and at Chatsworth, where he painted the sides of the gallery — a very poor performance. He had before fallen into disesteem, when he painted at Montagu House, where he was much surpassed by Baptist, Rousseau, and La Fosse. On his ill success he turned to painting small histories ; but his best employment was designing for the painters and engravers of that time ; few books appeared with plates but from his drawings. Vanderbank, Vandergutch, Simpson, Kirkall, etc., all made use of him. His draw- ings are said to be preferable to his paintings. He etched several of his own designs, as The Labours of Hercules, which were afterwards retouched with the burin by his disciple, Gerard Vandergutch ; and towards the end of his life Cheron etched from his own drawings a suite of twenty-two small histories for the Life of David; they were done for, or at least afterwards purchased by, P. F. Giffart, a bookseller at Paris, who applied them to a version of the Psalms in French metre, published in 171 5. Some time before his death, Cheron sold his draw- ings from Raphael and his academic figures to the Earl of Derby for a large sum. He was a man of a fair character, and, dying in 1 713 of an apoplexy, left 20/. a year to his maid, and the rest of his fortune to his relations and to charita.ble uses. He was buried from his lodgings in the piazza of Covent Garden, and lies in the great porch of that church. JOHN RILEY, one of the best native painters that has flourished in England, whose talents while Jiving were observed by the fame rather than by the merit of Kneller, and depressed since by being confounded with Lely : an honour unlucky to his reputation. Graham, too, speaks of him with little justice, saying he had no excellence beyond a head, which is far from true. I have seen both draperies and hands painted by Riley, that would do honour to either Lely or Kneller. The portrait of Lord- Keeper North at Wroxton is capital throughout. Riley, who was hum- ble, modest, and of an amiable character, had the greatest diffidence of himself, and was easily disgusted with his own works, the source pro- 1 Abrege de la Vie des plus fameux Peintres, vol. ii., p. 371. 20 * 2Q2 RILEY AND HIS PORTRAIT OF CHARLES II. bably of the objections made to him. With a quarter of Sir Godfrey's vanity, he might have persuaded the world he was as great a master. He was born 1 in 1646, and received instructions from Fuller and Zoust, but was little noticed till the death of Lely ; when Chiffinch, being persuaded to sit to him, the picture was shown, and recommended him to the king. Charles sat to him, but almost discouraged the bash- ful artist from pursuing a profession so proper for him. Looking at the picture he cried, 6 Is this like me ? Then, odd's fish, I am an ugly 'fellow.' This discouraged Riley so much, that he could not bear the picture, though he sold it for a large price. James and his queen sat to him. So did their successors, and appointed him their painter. But the gout put an early end to Riley's progress; he died in 1691 at the age of forty-five, and was buried in Bishopsgate Church, in which parish he was born. Richardson married a near relation of Riley, and inherited about 800/. in pictures, drawings, and effects. JOHN CLOSTERMAN, son of a painter, was born at Osnabriick, and with his countryman, one Tiburen, went to Paris in 1679, where he worked for De Troye. In 1681 they came to England, and Closterman at first painted draperies for Riley; and afterwards they painted in conjunction, Riley still exe- cuting most of the heads. On his death Closterman finished several of his pictures, which recommended him to the Duke of Somerset, who had employed Riley. He painted the duke's children, but lost his favour on a dispute about a picture of Guercino which he had bought for his Grace, and which was afterwards purchased by Lord Halifax; and on which occasion the duke patronised DahL Closterman however did not want business. He drew Gibbons the carver and his wife in one piece, 1 which pleased, and Closterman was even set in competition with Sir Godfrey. He painted the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough and all their children in one picture, and the duke on horseback ; on which subject however he had so many disputes with the duchess, that the duke saidj ' It has given me more trouble to re- ' concile my wife and you, than to fight a battle.' Closterman, who sought reputation, went to Spain, where he drew the king and queen, and from whence he wrote several letters on the pictures in that country to Mr. Richard Graham. He also went twice to Italy, and brought over several good pictures. The whole length of Queen Anne at Guildhall is by him, and another at Chatsworth of the first Duke of Rutland; and in Painter's Hall a portrait of Mr. Saunders. Elsum has bestowed an epigram on his portrait of Dryden : yet Closterman was a very moderate performer; his colouring strong, but heavy, and 1 One Thomas Riley, was an actor, and has a copy of verses addressed to him in Randolph's poems. This might be the painter's father. In the same place are some Latin verses by Riley, whom I take to be our painter himself. 8 There is a mezzotinto from it. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING 2 93 his pictures without any idea of grace. Latterly he married a woman who wasted his fortune, and disordered his understanding; he died some time after 1710, and was buried in Covent Garden, where he lived. WILLIAM DERYKE of Antwerp, was bred a jeweller, but took to painting history, which he practised in England, and died here about 1699, leaving a daughter whom he had brought up to his art. DIRK MAAS, OR THEODORE MAAS, a Dutch painter of landscapes and battles, was in England in this reign, and painted the battle of the Boyne for the Earl of Portland. There was a print in two sheets from that picture. PETER VANDER MEULEN, brother of the battle-painter so well known for his pictures of the military history of Louis Ouatorze. Peter, who came into England in 1670, lived to be employed in the same manner by Louis's rival, King William. Originally this Vander Meulen was a sculptor. Largilliere and Peter Van Bloemen followed him into England ; the former drew the portrait of Peter Vander Meulen, from which there is a mezzotinto by Becket. PAUL MIGNART, another painter who overflowed to us from France, was son of Nicholas Mignart of Avignon, and nephew of the celebrated Mignart. There is a print by Paul Vansomer, from a picture of the Countess of Meath, painted by Paul Mignart, and another, by the same hands, of the ladies Henrietta and Anne, the two eldest daughters of the Duke of Marlborough. EGBERT HEMSKIRK of Harlem, a buffoon painter, was scholar of De Grebber, but lived in England, where he painted what were called pieces of humour ; that is, drunken scenes, quakers-meetings, wakes, etc. He was patronised by Lord Rochester, and died in London 1704, leaving a son of his profession. FREDERIC KERSEBOOM 1 was born at Solingen in Germany in 1632, and went to Amsterdam to study painting, and from thence to Paris in 1650, where he worked for some years under Le Brun, till he was sent to Rome at the expense of the chancellor of France, who maintained him there fourteen years, two of which he passed with Nicolo Poussin, whose manner he imi- 1 I have been told that his true name was Casaubon, and that he was descended from, or allied to, the learned men of that appellation. 294 PORTRAITS BY SIR JOHN MEDINA. tated ; not so well, I should suppose, as Graham asserts, since, having been supported so long by a French minister, he probably would have fixed in France if he had made any progress proportionable to that expense. On the contrary, he came to England to paint history ; in which not meeting with much encouragement, he turned to portraits. Graham says he was the first who brought over the art of painting on glass. I suppose he means, painting on looking-glass. Kerseboom died in London in 1690, and was buried in St. Andrew's, Holborn. ANTHONY SEVONYANS, a name 1 of which I have heard, but can learn nothing, except that he painted a staircase in a house called Little Montagu House, the corner of Bloomsbury Square, and the head of Doctor Peter of St. Martin's Lane. Yet from his own portrait in the possession of Mr. Eckardt the painter, 2 he appears to have been an able master. SIR JOHN MEDINA [born 1659, died 1711]. was son of Medina de PAsturias, a Spanish captain who had settled at Brussels, where the son was born, and instructed in painting by Du Chatel. He married young, and came into England in 1686, where he drew portraits for several years. The Earl of Leven encouraged him to go to Scotland, and procured him a subscription of 500/. worth of business. He went, carrying a large number of bodies and postures, to which he painted heads. He came to England for a short time, but returned to and died in Scotland, and was buried in the church-yard of the Grey Friars at Edinburgh in 171 1, aged 52.* He painted most of the Scotch nobility, but was not rich, having twenty children. The portraits of the professors in the Surgeon's Hall at Edinburgh were painted by him, and are commended. At Wentworth Castle is a large piece containing the first Duke of Argyle and his sons, the two late dukes, John and Archibald, in Roman habits ; the style Italian, and superior to most modern performers. In Surgeon's Hall are two small histories by him. The Duke of Gordon presented Sir John Medina's head to the great duke for his collection of portraits by the painters themselves ; the Duke of Gordon too was drawn by him, with his son the Marquis of Huntley and his daughter Lady Jane in one piece. Medina was capable both of history and landscape. He was knighted by the Duke of Queensberry, lord high commissioner, and was the last knight made in Scotland before the Union. The prints in the octavo edition of Milton were designed by him; and he composed another set for Ovid's Metamorphosis, but they were never engraved. 1 He is often called Schonians, by which appellation he is recorded in the printed catalogue of the collection in the gallery of Dusseldorp, where are three or four pieces painted by him, particularly his own head with a long beard. 2 It is now in my possession at Strawberry Hill. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 295 MARCELLUS LAROON was born at the Hague in 1653, and learned to paint of his father, with whom he came young into England. Here he was placed with one La Zoon, a portrait-painter, and then with Fleshier, but owed his chief improvement to his own application. He lived several years in York- shire ; and, when he came to London again, painted draperies for Sir Godfrey Kneller, in which branch he was eminent ; but his greatest excellence was in imitating other masters, and those considerable. My father had a picture by him that easily passed for Bassan's. He painted history, portraits, conversations, both in large and small. Several prints were made from his works, and several plates he etched and scraped himself. A book of fencing, the cries of London, and the procession at the coronation of William and Mary, were designed by him. He died of a consumption March 11, 1702. His son, Captain Laroon 'who had a genius both for painting and music, had his father's picture painted by himself. 1 THOMAS PEMBROKE was disciple of Laroon, and imitated his manner both in history and portraits. He painted several pictures for Granville Earl of Bath in conjunction with Woodfield 1 and died at the age of 28. FRANCIS LE PIPER, a gentleman 2 artist, with whose lively conversation Graham was so struck that he has written a life of him five times longer than most of those in his work. The substance of it is, that though born to an estate, he could not resist his impulse to drawing, which made him ramble over great part of Europe to study painting, which he scarcely ever practised, drawing only in black and white, and carried him to Grand Cairo, where, as he could see no pictures, I am surprised he did not take to painting. Most of his performances were produced over a bottle, and took root where they were born ; the Mitre tavern at Stock's market, and the Bell at Westminster were adorned by this jovial artist. At the former was a room called 6 the Amsterdam/ from the variety of sects Le Piper had painted in it, particularly a jesuit and a quaker. One branch of his genius, that does not seem quite so good humoured as the rest of his character, was a talent for caricaturas. He drew land- scapes, etched on silver plates for the tobacco" boxes of his friends, and understood perspective. Towards the end of his life his circumstances were reduced enougli to make him glad of turning his abilities to some account. Becket paid him for designing his mezzotintos. Several heads of grand signiors in Sir Paul Rycaut's history were drawn by 1 The son sold his collection of pictures (among which were many painted by his father) by auction, Feb. 24, 1725. The son, called also Marcellus, died at Oxford, June 2, 1772. 2 His father was a Kentish gentleman of Flemish extraction. 296 THOMAS SADLER, A PUPIL OF SIR PETER LELY. him, and engraved by Elder. At last Le Piper took to modelling in wax, and thought he could have made a figure in it, if he had begun sooner. On the death of his mother, his fortune being re-established, he launched again into a course of pleasure, contracted a fever, and being bled by an ignorant surgeon, who pricked an artery, he died of it in 1698, in Aldermanbury, and was buried in the church of St. Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey, in Southwark. Vertue had a large picture by Fuller, containing the portraits of several painters and of one woman ; the person in the middle was Le Piper. THOMAS SADLER was second 1 son of John Sadler, 2 a master in chancery, much in favour with Oliver Cromwell, who offered 3 him the post of Chief Justice of Munster in Ireland, with a salary of 1000/. a year, which he refused. Thomas Sadler was educated at Lincoln's Inn, being designed for the law; but having imbibed instructions from Sir Peter Lely, with whom he was intimate, he painted at first in miniature for his amusement, and portraits towards the end of his life, having by unavoidable mis- fortunes been reduced to follow that profession. There remain in his, family a small moonlight, part of a landscape on copper, and a miniature of the Duke of Monmouth, by whom and by Lord Russel he was trusted in affairs of great moment — a connection very natural, as Mr. Sadler's mother 4 was of the ancient and public spirited family of Trenchard. A print of John Bunyan after Sadler has been lately published in mezzotinto. His son, Mr. Thomas Sadler, was deputy clerk of the Pells, and drew .too. His fine collection of agates, shells, drawings, etc., were sold a few years ago on his death. GODFREY SCHALKEN, a great master, if tricks in an art, or the mob, could decide on merit ; a very confined genius, when rendering a single effect of light was all his excellence. 5 What should one think of a poet, if he wrote nothing but copies of verses on a rainbow? He was born at Dort in 1643. His father, who was a school-master, wished to bring him up to the same profession ; but finding the boy's disposition to painting, he placed him with Solomon Van Hoogstraten, and afterwards with 1 This article is readjusted from the information of his grandson, Robert Seymour Sadler, Esq., of the Inner Temple ; Vertyie having confounded Thomas Sadler with his second cousin Ebenezer Sadler, who was the person that was steward to Lord Salisbury. 2 For a more particular account of him, see the Hist, and Critical Diet., vol. ix., pp. 19, 20, and Dugdale's Origines Juridiciales. 3 The original letter is still in the possession of his great grandson. 4 See her descent from Sir Henry Seymour in the two last editions of Collins's Peerage. 5 Elsum has this epigram on a boy blowing a firebrand by Schalken : — ' Striving to blow the brand into a flame, He brightens his own face and th' author's fame.' 6 There is a print of Gerard Dou, with this inscription; — * G. Dou. pictor Lugd. Batav. ' honoris ergo, prseceptorem suum delineavit G. Schalken.' HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 297 Gerard Dou, from whom he caught a great delicacy in finishing — but his chief practice was to paint candle-lights. He placed the object and a candle in a dark room, and, looking through a small hole, painted by daylight what he saw in the dark chamber. Sometimes he did portraits, and came with that view to England, but found the business too much engrossed by Kneller, Closterman, and others. Yet he once drew King William ; but as the piece was to be by candle- light, he gave his majesty the candle to hold, till the tallow ran down upon his fingers. As if to justify this ill-breeding, he drew his own picture in the same situation. Delicacy was no part of his character. Having drawn a lady who was marked with the small-pox but had handsome hands, she asked him, wjien the face was finished, if she must not sit for her hands. 6 No/ replied Schalken, ' I always draw 1 them from my housemaid/ Robert, Earl of Sunderland, employed him at Althorp ; at Windsor is a well-known picture in the gallery. He came over twice, the last time with his wife and family, and stayed long, and got much money. He returned to Holland, and was made painter to the King of Prussia, with a pension, which he enjoyed two or three years, and died at Dort, in 1706. Smith made mezzotintos from his Magdalen praying by a lamp, and from another picture of a woman sleeping. ADRIAN VANDIEST was born at the Hague, and learned of his father, a painter of sea pieces. Adrian came to England at the age of seventeen, and followed both portrait and landscape painting; but was not much encouraged, except by Granville, Earl of Bath, for whom he worked at his seat, and drew several views and ruins in the West of England. One can- not think him a despicable painter, for seven of his landscapes were in Sir Peter Lely's collection. His own portrait with a kind of ragged stuff about his head, and a landscape in his hand, was painted by himself. He began a set of prints after views from his own designs ; but the gout put an end to an unhappy life, in the 49th year of his age, and he was buried in St. Martin's, 1704. He left a son, who painted portraits, and died a few years ago. GASPAR SMITZ, a Dutch painter, who came to England soon after the Restoration, and who, from painting great numbers of Magdalens, was called ' Magdalen Smith/ For these penitents sat a woman that he kept, and called his wife. A lady, whom he had taught to draw, carried him to Ireland., where he painted small portraits in oil, had great business and high prices. His flowers and fruit were so much admired, that one bunch of grapes sold there for 40/. In his Magdalens he generally introduced a thistle on the foreground. In Painter's Hall is a small 298 VIEW OF LONDON T5EF0RE THE FIRE, 13Y WYCK. Magdalen, with this signature J S (combined) 1662. He had several scholars, particularly Maubert, and one Gawdy, of Exeter. However, notwithstanding his success, he died poor, in Ireland, 1707. THOMAS VAN WYCK was born at Harlaem, 1616, and became an admired painter of seaports, shipping, and small figures. He passed some years in Italy, and imitated Bamboccio. He came to England about the time of the Restoration. Lord Burlington had a long prospect of London and the Thames, taken from Southwark, before the fire, and exhibiting the great mansions of the nobility then on the Strand. 1 Vertue thought it the best view he had seen of London. Mr. West has a print of it, but with some alterations. This Wyck painted the fire of London more than once. In Mr. Halsted's sale was a Turkish procession large as life, and Lord Ilchester has a Turkish camp by him. His best pieces were representations of chemists and their laboratories, which Vertue supposed ingeniously were in compliment to the fashion at court, Charles II. and Prince Rupert having each their laboratory. Captain Laroon had the heads of Thomas Wyck and his wife by Francis Hals. 2 Wyck died in England in 1682. He ought to have been in- troduced under the reign of Charles II., but was postponed to place him here with his son. JOHN VAN WYCK, an excellent painter of battles and huntings : his small figures, and his horses 3 particularly, have a spirit and neatness scarce inferior to Wouvermans ; the colouring of his landscapes is warm and cheerful. Sometimes he painted large pieces, as of the battle of the Boyne, the siege of Namur, 4 etc., but the smaller his pictures, the greater his merit. At Houghton, is a greyhound's head by him of admirable nature; in King James's collection, was a battle by him. He painted several views in Scotland, and of the isle of Jersey, and drew a book of hunting and hawking. John Wyck married in England, and died at Mortlake in 1702. Besides that eminent disciple Mr. Wootton, he had another scholar, SIR MARTIN BECKMAN, who drew several views, and pieces of shipping. He was engineer to Charles II., and planned Tilbury Fort, and the works at Sheerness. 5 1 It is still at Burlington House, Piccadilly ; as is a view of the Parade, with Cha. II., his courtiers, and women in masks, walking. The statue of the gladiator is at the head of the canal. 2 A gentleman informs me that he has nine etchings by Thomas Wyck. 3 The fine horse under the Duke of Schomberg, by Kneller, was painted by Wyck. 4 Lord Ilchester has the siege of Narden by him, with King William, when Prince of Orange, commanding at it ; and Lord Finlater, the siege of Namur with the same king and his attend- ants, extremely like. In Scotland there are many pieces by Wyck. 5 Description of London and the Environs, vol. vi., p. 143. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 299 HENRY VAN STRAATEN, a landscape painter, resided in London about the year 1690 and after- wards. He got much money here, but squandered it as fast. One day sitting down to paint, he could do nothing to please himself. He made a new attempt, with no better success. Throwing down his pencils, he stretched himself out to sleep ; when thrusting his hand inadvertently into his pocket, he found a shilling ; swearing an oath, he said, 6 It is always thus when I have any money. Get thee gone/ continued he, throwing the shilling out of the window; and returning to his work, produced one of his best pieces. This story he related to the gentle- man who bought the picture. His drawings are in the style of Ruis- dale and Berghem. J. WOOLASTON, born in London about 1672, was a portrait-painter, and happy in taking likenesses, but I suppose never excellent, as his price was but five guineas for a | cloth. He married the daughter of one Green, an at- torney, by whom he had several children, of which one son followed his father's profession. In 1704 the father resided in Warwick Lane, and afterwards near Covent Garden. He died an aged man in the Charterhouse. Besides painting, he performed on the violin and flute, and played at the concert held at the house of that extraordinary per- son, Thomas Britton, the smallcoal-man, whose picture he twice drew, one of which portraits was purchased by Sir Hans Sloane, and is now in the British Museum. There is a mezzotinto from it. T. Britton, who made much noise in his time, considering his low station and trade, was a collector of all sorts of curiosities, particularly drawings, prints, books, manuscripts on uncommon subjects, as mystic divinity, the philosopher's stone, judicial astrology, and magic; and musical in- struments, both in and out of vogue. Various were the opinions con- cerning him : some thought his musical assembly only a cover for sedi- tious meetings ; others for magical purposes. He was taken for an atheist, a presbyterian, a jesuit. But Woolaston the painter, and the father of a gentleman from whom I received this account, and who were both members of the music-club, assured him that Britton was a plain, simple, honest man, who only meant to amuse himself. The subscription was but ten shillings a year, Britton found the instru- ments, and they had coffee at a penny a dish. Sir Hans Sloane bought many of his books and MSS. (now in the Museum) when they were sold by auction at Tom's Coffee-house, near Ludgate. JOHN SCHNELL, of whom, or of his works, says Vertue, I never heard, except from his epitaph in St. James's churchyard at Bristol. IT. S. E. John Schnell, portrait painter, born at Basel, April 28, 1672, died Nov. 24, 1714. One 3°° PAINTINGS BY SIMON, THE BISHOP OF ELY. Linton was a painter of several citizens in this reign, from whose works there are prints. These trifling notices, as I have said, are only inserted to lead to farther discoveries, or to assist families in finding out the painters of their ancestors. The rest of this reign must be closed with a few names, not much more important. SIR RALPH COLE, BART., appears as the painter of a picture of Thomas Windham, Esq., from which there is a mezzotinto. There is also a mezzotint print of Charles II., scraped by him (Granger's Supplement, p. 319). HEFELE, a German, came over as a soldier in King William's Dutch troops, obtained his discharge, and remained here several years, dying, it is said, in Queen Anne's reign. He painted landscapes, flowers, and insects, neatly in water-colours, but with too little knowledge of chiaroscuro. He sold a few of his works to collectors, and the rest, being very poor, to printsellers. They are now very scarce. Mr. Willett, a merchant and virtuoso in Thames Street, has about thirty, and Mr. Chadd, jeweller in Bond Street, about a dozen. THE BISHOP OF ELY. Vertue says he had seen two drawings in black-lead by the Bishop of Ely, the one of Archbishop Dolben from Loggan, the other of Arch- bishop Tenison from White ; but he does not specify the name of the bishop. If these portraits were done at the time of Tenison being primate, it was probably Simon Patrick, Bishop of Ely, who, says his epitaph, was illustrious, 1 optimis artibus colendis promovendisque.' But if it was the bishop living when Vertue's M.S. is dated, which is 1725, it was Dr. Thomas Green. Graham mentions another prelate, SIMON DIGBY, Bishop of Elfin in Ireland (consecrated Jan. 12, 1691), whose limnings he much commends. 1 SUSAN PENELOPE ROSE, daughter of Gibson the dwarf, and wife of a jeweller, painted in water- colours with great freedom. In Mr. Rose's sale in 1723, was a half- length miniature of an ambassador from Morocco,- eight inches by six, painted by her in 1682, with the ambassador's names on it; he sat to her and to Sir Godfrey Kneller at the same time. I have the portrait 1 There are some of his lordship's miniatures at Sherburn Castle, particularly a head of Kildare, Lord Digbyy great grandfather of the present lord. The bishop's father was Bishop of^Dromore, a branch of the same family with Lord Digby, but settled in Ireland. I am told that a taste for the art continues in the Bishop of Elfin's descendants, one of whom has a genius for landscape. HORACE WALPOLEV ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 301 ; of Bishop Burnet in his robes as chancellor of the garter, by her. She died in 1700, at the age of 48, and was buried in Covent Garden. MARY MORE, a lady who, I believe, painted for her amusement, was grandmother of Mr. Pitfield ; in the family are her and her husband's portraits by her- self. In the Bodleian library at Oxford is a picture that she gave to it, which by a strange mistake is called Sir Thomas More, though it is evidently a copy of Cromwell, Earl of Essex. Nay, Robert Whitehall, a poetaster, wrote verses to her in 1674, on her sending this supposed picture of Sir Thomas More (Wood's Athene, vol. ii., fol. 786). The other arts made no figure in this reign ; I scarce find even names of professors. JOHN BUSHNELL, an admired statuary in his own time, but only memorable to us by a capricious character. He was scholar of Burman, who having debauched his servant-maid, obliged Bushnell to marry her. The latter in disgust left England, stayed two years in France, and from thence went to Italy. He lived some time at Rome and at Venice; in the last city he made a magnificent monument for a Procuratore di San Marco, repre- senting the siege of Candia, and a naval engagement between the Venetians and Turks. He came home through Germany by the way of Hamburgh. Some of his first works after his return were the statues of Charles I. and II. at the Royal Exchange, and Sir Thomas Gresham there above stairs. His best were the kings at Temple Bar. He carved several marble monuments, particularly one for Lord Ashburnham in Sussex; one for Dr. Grew's wife in Christ-church, London; one for Lord Thomond in Northamptonshire ; Cowley's and Sir Palmes Fair- born's in Westminster Abbey, and cut a head of Mr. Talman. He had agreed to complete the set of kings at the Royal Exchange ; but hear- ing that another person (I suppose Cibber) had made interest to carve some of them, Bushnell would not proceed, though he had begun six or seven. Some of his profession asserting that, though he was skilful in drapery, he could not execute a naked figure, he engaged in. an Alexan- der the Great, which served to prove that his rivals were in the right, at least in what he could not do. His next whim was to demonstrate the possibility of the Trojan Horse, which he had heard treated as a fable that could not have been put in execution. He undertook such a wooden receptacle, and had the dimensions made in timber, intending to cover it with stucco. The head was capable of containing twelve men sitting round a table ; the eyes served for windows. Before it was half completed, a storm of wind overset and demolished it ; and though two vintners, who had contracted with him to use his horse as a drink- ing booth, offered to be at the expense of erecting it again, he was too 302 BUSHNELL, FATHER AND SONS, GREAT HUMORISTS. much disappointed to recommence. This project cost him 500/. Another, of vessels for bringing coals to London, miscarried too, with deeper cost. These schemes, with the loss of an estate that he had bought in Kent, by a law-suit, quite overset his disordered brain. He died in 1701, and was buried at Paddington, leaving two sons and a daughter. The sons, of whom one had 100/. a year, the other 60/., were as great humorists as the father: they lived in a large house fronting Hyde Park, in the lane leading from Piccadilly to Tyburn, which had been built by the father, but was unfinished, and had neither staircase nor floors. Here they dwelt like hermits, recluse from all mankind, sordid and impracticable, and saying the world had not been worthy of their father. Vertue in one of his MSS., dated 1725, be- gins thus: 6 After long expectations I saw the inside of John BushnelPs 1 house, his sons being abroad both/ He describes it particularly, and what fragments he saw there, particularly a model in plaster of Charles II. on horseback, designed to have been cast in brass, but almost in ruins ; the Alexander and the unfinished kings. Against the wall a large piece of his painting, a triumph, almost obliterated too. He was desired to take particular notice of a bar of iron, thicker than a man's wrist, broken by an invention of Bushnell. THOMAS STANTON, a statuary, made a tomb in the church of Stratford-upon-Avon, which Vertue says is in a good taste. D. LE MARCHAND was a carver in ivory, born at Dieppe ; was many years in England, and cut a great number of heads in bas-relief, and some whole figures in ivory. Mr. West has his head carved by himself, oval. Lord Oxford had the bust of Lord Somers by him. He also did one of Sir Isaac Newton ; another was a profile of Charles Marbury, set in a frame of looking-glass. Mr. Willett has another head of a gentleman, pretty large, with the initial letters D.L.M. He died in 1726. WILLIAM TALMAN, born at West Lavington in Wiltshire, where he had an estate, was comptroller of the works in the reign of King William ; but of his life I find scarce any particulars, though he was an architect employed in considerable works. In 1671 he built Thoresby House in Nottingham- shire, burnt a few years ago, Dyrham House in Gloucesterhire, 1698, Swallowfield in Berkshire (Diary of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, for whom is was built), and Chatsworth; the elegance and lightness of the latter front do great honour to the artist ; the other sides are equally beautiful. The flight of steps by which you ascend from the hall to the apartments was thought noble enough by Kent to be borrowed for HORACE WALPOLE'S. ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 303 H I Holkam. His son, John Talman, resided much in Italy, and made a H large collection of prints and drawings, particularly of churches and ki altars, many of which were done by himself. Mr. Sadler had many H{ altars and insides of churches at Rome, washed by him in their proper U colours, and very well executed. In the same manner he drew several of Lord Oxford's curiosities. A few of his drawings are in the library of the Antiquarian Society. SIR WILLIAM WILSON was an architect, and rebuilt the steeple of Warwick Church after it had been burnt CHAPTER XVI. Painters and other Artists in the Reign of Queen ANNE. The reign of Anne, so illustrated by heroes, poets, and authors, was not equally fortunate in artists. Except Kneller, scarce a painter of note. Westminster Abbey testifies there were no eminent statuaries. One man there was who disgraced this period by his architecture as much as he enlivened it by his wit. Formed to please both Augustus and an Egyptian monarch, who thought nothing preserved fame like a solid mass of stone, he produced the Relapse and Blenheim ! Party, that sharpened the genius of the age, dishonoured it too — a halfpenny print of Sacheverel would have been preferred to a sketch of Raphael. Lord Sunderland and Lord Oxford collected books ; the Duke of Devonshire and Lord Pembroke, pictures, medals, 1 statues ; the per- formers of the time had little pretensions to be admitted into such cabinets. The period indeed was short ; I shall give an account of what I find in Vertue's notes. ANTONIO PELEGRINI. was brought from Venice in this reign by the Duke of Manchester, for whom he painted a staircase in Arlington Street, now destroyed. He performed several works of this kind for the Duke of Portland and Lord Burlington, a salon, staircase and ceilings at Castle Howard, the stair-case at Kimbolton, and a hall at Sir Andrew Fountain's at Narford in Norfolk. He made several designs for painting the dome of St. Paul's, and was paid for them though they were not executed, and was chosen one of the directors of the Academy. He painted besides many small pieces of history before he left England, 2 whither 1 Prince George of Denmark, the queen's husband, had a collection of medals, which her majesty took in her share of his personal estate, the whole of which amounted to 37,000/. The queen had half, the rest was divided among his nephews and nieces, who were so many, that they did not receive above 1500/. each. Secret Hist, of England. 2 When the famous system of Mr. Lawes was set on foot in France, the directors, as 304 BOGDANI NOTED FOR PAINTING FRUITS AND FLOWERS. he returned in 1718, but quitted it again in 1721, and entered into the service of the elector palatine. With him arrived MARCO RICCI OR RIZZI, who painted ruins in oil, and better in water-colours, and land-storms. He and Pelegrini disagreeing, Marco went to Venice and persuaded his uncle to come over, Sebastian Ricci, who had been Pelegrinr's master, and who was soon preferred to the disciple. Ricci's works are still admired, though there is little excellence in them; his colouring is chalky, and without force. He painted the chapel at Bulstrode for the Duke of Portland, and in the Last Supper has introduced his own portrait in a modern habit. At Burlington House the hall and some ceilings are by him, and a piece of ruins in the manner of Viviano. Ricci and Cassini, another painter here at that time, 2 passed off several of their own compositions as the works of greater masters. Sebastian painted the altar-piece in the chapel of Chelsea College, but left England on finding it was determined that Sir James Thornhill should paint the cupola of St. Paul's. Marco Ricci died at Venice in 1730. BAKER painted insides of churches, and some of those at Rome. In Mr. Sykes's sale was a view of St. Paul's since it was rebuilt, but with a more splendid altar. JAMES BOGDANI was born of a genteel family in Hungary ; his father, a deputy from the states of that country to the emperor. The son was not brought up to the profession, but made considerable progress by the force of his natural abilities. Fruit, flowers, and especially birds, were his excel- lence. Queen Anne bespoke several of his pieces, still in the royal palaces. He was a man of a gentle and fair character, and lived between forty and fifty years in England, known at first only by the name of the Hungarian. He had raised an easy fortune, but being persuaded to make it over to his son, who was going to marry a reputed fortune, who proved no fortune at all, and other misfortunes succeeding, poverty ostentatious as their apes the South Sea Company, purchased the Hotel de Nevers, and began to decorate it in the most pompous manner. Pelegrini was invited from England to paint the ceiling of the principal gallery, and wrote a description of his work — all that now remains of it ; for the system burst, and the king purchasing the visionary palace, it was converted into the Royal Library, and Pelegrini's labours demolished. France, the heathen gods, the river Mississippi, Religion and all the Virtues, and half the Vices, as allegoric personages, with which the flatterers of the former reign had fatigued the eyes of the public, were here again re- assembled ; and avarice and prodigality and imposture were perfumed out of the same censers with which ambition and vain-glory and superstition had been made drunk before. Pelegrini's account of that work may be seen inl'Histoire des Premiers Peintres du Roi, vol. ii., p. 122. 2 Sebastian Ricci excelled particularly in imitations of Paul Veronese, many of which he sold for originals, and once even deceived La Fosse. When the latter was convinced of the imposition, he gave this severe but just reprimand to Sebastian: 'For the future,' said he,, 'take my advice; paint nothing but Paul Veroneses, and no more Riccis.' Vide Life of Mignard in l'Histoire des Premiers Peintres du Roi, p. 152. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. and sickness terminated his life at his house in Great Queen Street. His pictures and goods were sold by auction at his house, the sign of the Golden Eagle, in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's-Inn-Fields. His son is in the board of ordnance, and formerly painted in his father's manner. WILLIAM CLARET imitated Sir Peter Lely, from whom he made many copies. There is a print from his picture of John Egerton, Earl of Bridgwater, done as early as 1680. Claret died at his house in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields in 1706, and being a widower, made his housekeeper his heiress. THOMAS MURRAY [born 1666— died 1724] painted many portraits. At the Royal Society is a picture of Dr. Halley by him, and the Earl of Halifax had one of Wycherley. There is a mezzotinto of Murray. HUGH HOWARD, better known by Prior's beautiful verses to him than by his own works, was son of Ralph Howard, doctor of physic, and was born in Dublin, Feb. 7, 1675. His father being driven from Ireland by the troubles that followed the revolution, brought the lad to England, who, dis- covering a disposition to the arts and belles lettres, was sent to travel in 1697, and, on his way to Italy, passed through Holland in the train of Thomas, Earl of Pembroke, one of the plenipotentiaries at the treaty of Ryswick. Mr. Howard proceeded as he had intended, and, having visited France and Italy, returned home in October, 1700. Some years he passed in Dublin, but the greatest and latter part of his life he spent entirely in England, practising painting, at least with applause; but having ingratiated himself by his fame and knowledge of hands with men of the first rank, particularly the Duke of Devon- shire and Lord Pembroke, and by a parsimonious management of his good fortune, and of what he received with his wife, he was enabled to quit the practical part of his profession for the last twenty years of his life, the former peer having obtained for him the posts of keeper of the state-papers and paymaster of his majesty's palaces. In this pleasing situation he amused himself with forming a large collection of prints, books, and medals, which at his death 1 (Mar. 17, 1737) he bequeathed to his only brother, Robert Howard, Bishop of Elphin, who transported them to Ireland. Mr. Howard's picture was drawn by Dahl, very like, and published in mezzotinto about a year before his death. Howard himself etched, from a drawing of Carlo Maratti, a head of Padre Resta, the collector, with his spectacles on, turning over a book of drawings. 1 He died in Pall Mall, and was buried at Richmond. 21 306 WALPOLE ON PAINTING. JAMES PARMENTIER, a Frenchman, born in 1658, was nephew of Bourdon, by whom he was first instructed; but his uncle dying he came to England in 1676, and was employed at Montague House by La Fosse to lay his dead colours. King William sent Parmentier to his new palace at Loo ; but he quar- relled with Marot, the surveyor of the buildings, and returned to Lon- don ; where not finding much employment, he went into Yorkshire, and worked several years both in portrait and historic painting. The altar-piece in a church at Hull, and another in St. Peter's, at Leeds, Moses Receiving the Law, much commended by Thoresby, are of his hand. His best work was a staircase at Worksop. To Painter's Hall he gave the story of Diana and Endymion. On the death of La- guerre in 1721, he returned to London, in hopes of succeeding to the business of the latter. He died in indifferent circumstances, Dec. 2, 1730, as he was on the point of going to Amsterdam, whither he had been invited by some relations. He was buried in St. Paul's, Covent Garden. JOHN VANDER VAART, of Harlem, came to England in 1674, and learned of Wyck the father, but did not confine hknself to landscape. For some time he painted draperies for Wissing, and portraits 1 for himself, and still life. He was particularly famous for representations of partridges and dead game. In old Devonshire House, in Piccadilly, he painted a violin against a door, that deceived everybody. When the house was burned this piece was preserved, and is now at Chatsworth. In 1 713 he sold his collection, and got more money by mending pictures than he did in the former part of his life by painting them. He built a house in Covent Garden, of which parish he was an inhabitant above fifty years. He was a man of an amiable character, and dying of a fever in 1721, at the age of 74, was buried in the right-hand aisle of the church of Covent Garden. Prints were taken from several of his works ; some he executed in mezzotinto himself, and others from Wissing; in which art he gave instructions to the celebrated John Smith. Vander Vaart, who was a bachelor, left a nephew, Arnold, who succeeded him in the business of repairing pictures. RHODOLPHUS SHMUTZ was born at Basil in Switzerland, and in 1 702 came into England, where he painted portraits ; Vertue says, ' They were well-coloured, his ' draperies pleasant, and his women graceful. 7 He died in 17 14, and was buried at Pancras. 1 He twice drew his own portrait, at the age of 30 and of 60, and one of Kerseboom. I have a portrait of him by himself in water-colours, about the former age, uncommonly well painted. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 307 PREUDHOMME, born at Berlin of French parents, and educated in the academy there, went for some time to Italy, returned to Berlin, and from thence came to England in 1712, where he was much employed in copying pictures, and making drawings in chalk from Italian masters for engravers. There was a design of engraving a set of prints from all the best pic- tures in this country, and Preudhomme went to Wilton with that view; where, after an irregular life, he died, in 1726, at the age of forty. He had contracted a French style in his pictures from his master, Monsieur Pesne. COLONEL SEYMOUR, nearly related to the present Duke of Somerset and the Earl of Hert- ford, had some fine pictures, and painted in water colours and crayons. In the latter he copied from Cooper a head of Sir John Robinson, lieu- tenant of the Tower. He also drew many historic heads and portraits with a pe/i. He lived in the house in Hyde Park, at the end of Ken- sington. Gardens. BOIT, well known for his portraits in enamel, in which manner he has never perhaps been surpassed but by his predecessor Petitot,and his successor Zincke. Before I give an account of him, I must premise that I do not answer for the truth of some parts of his story, which to me seem a little incredible. I give them as I find them in two different MSS, of Vertue, who names his authors, Peterson, a scholar of Boit, and another person. Vertue was incapable of falsehood — perhaps he was too credulous. Boit, whose father was a Frenchman, was born at Stockholm, and bred a jeweller, which profession he intended to follow here in England, but changed for painting ; but was upon so low a foot, that he went into the country, and taught children to draw. There he had engaged one of his scholars, a gentleman's daughter to marry him ; but the affair being discovered, Boit was thrown into prison. 1 In that confinement, which lasted two years, he studied enamelling : an art to which he fixed on his return to London, and practised with the greatest success ; Dahl chiefly recommended him. His prices are not to be believed. For a copy of Colonel Seymour's picture by Kneller, he had 30 guineas; for a lady's head not larger, double that sum, and for a few plates 500/. If this appears enormous, what will the reader think of the following anecdote ? He was to paint a large plate of the queen, Prince George, the principal officers and ladies of the court, and Victory introducing the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene; France and Bavaria prostrate on the ground ; standards, arms, trophies. The size of the 1 An act of tyranny, as the affair was not complete, nor was there then a marriage act. 21 # 3 o8 EXPERIMENTS IN ENAMEL BY BOIT. plate to be from 24 to 22 inches high, by 16 to 18 inches wide. La-i guerre actually painted the design for it in oil. Prince George, who ear-ji nestly patronized the work, procured an advance of 1000/. to Boit, who took a spot of ground in Mayfair, and erected a furnace, and built!] convenient rooms adjoining to work in. He made several essays beforejJ he could even lay the enamelled ground, the heat necessary being sol intense that it must calcine as much in a few hours, as furnaces in glass I houses do in 24 hours. In these attempts he wasted seven or eight; hundred pounds. In the meantime the prince, who had often visited 1 the operation, died. This put a stop to the work for some time : Boit however began to lay colours on the plate : but demanded and obtained 700/. more. This made considerable noise, during which happened j the revolution at court, extending itself even to Boit's work. Their graces of Marlborough were to be displaced even in the enamel, and her majesty ordered Boit to introduce Peace and Ormond, instead of Victory and Churchill. These alterations were made in the sketch, which had not been in the fire, and remained so in Peterson's hands when he related the story to Vertue. Prince Eugene refused to sit. The queen died. Boit ran in debt, his goods were seized by execution, and he fled to France ; where he changed his religion, was counte- nanced by the regent, obtained a pension of 250/. per ann. and an apartment, and was much admired in a country where they had seen no enameller since Petitot. Boit died suddenly at Paris about Christ- mas 1726. Though he never executed the large piece in question, there is one at Kensington of a considerable size, representing Queen Anne sitting, and Prince George standing by her. At Bedford House is another very large plate of the duke's father and mother. I have a good copy by him of the Venus, Cupid, Satyr, and Nymphs by Luca Jordano at Devonshire House, and a fine head of Admiral Churchill ; and Miss Reade, the paintress, has a very fine head of Boit's own daughter, enamelled by him from a picture of Dahl. This daughter was married to Mr. Graham, apothecary, in Poland Street. LEWIS CROSSE, a painter in water colours, who is not to be confounded with Michael Crosse or De La Crux, 1 whom I have mentioned in the reign of Charles I. Lewis Crosse painted several portraits in miniature in Queen Anne's time, many of which are in the collection of the Duchess of Portland, the Countess of Cardigan, etc. This Crosse repaired a little picture of the Queen of Scots in the possession of the Duke of Hamilton, and was ordered to make it as handsome as he could. It seems, a round face was his idea of perfect beauty ; but it happened not to be Mary's sort of beauty. However, it was believed a genuine picture, and innu- merable copies were made from it. It is the head in black velvet 1 It is Michael Crosse, of whom there is an account in Graham. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 309 trimmed with ermine. Crosse had a valuable collection of miniatures, the works of Peter Oliver, Hoskins and Cooper. Among them was a fine picture of Lady Sunderland by the latter, his own wife, and a head almost profile in crayons of Hoskins ; a great curiosity, as I neither know of any other portrait of that master, nor where the picture itself is now. That collection was sold at his house, the sign of the Blue Anchor in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, Dec. 5, 1722, and Crosse died in Oct. 1724. Statuary in this reign, and for some years afterwards, was in a manner monopolized by FRANCIS BIRD. The many public works by his hand, which inspire nobody with a curiosity of knowing the artist, are not good testimonies in his favour. He was born in Piccadilly, 1667, and sent at eleven years of age to Brussels, where he learnt the rudiments of his art, from one Cozins, who had been in England. From Flanders he went to Rome, and studied under Le Gros. At nineteen, scarcely remembering his own language, he came home, and worked first for Gibbons, then for Cibber. He took 1 another short journey to Italy, and at his return set up for himself. The performance that raised his reputation, was the monument of Busby. The latter had never permitted his picture to be drawn. The moment he was dead, his friends had a cast in plaster taken from his face, and thence a drawing in crayons, from which White engraved his print, and Bird carved his image. His other principal works, which are all I find of his history, were, — The Conversion of St. Paul, in the pediment of that cathedral. Any statuary was good enough for an ornament at that height, and a great statuary had been too good. The bas-reliefs under the portico. The statue of Queen Anne, and the four figures round the pedestal, before the same church. The author of the Abrege, speaking of English artists, says, ' a regard de la sculpture, le marble gemit, pour 1 ainsi dire, sous des ciseaux aussi peu habiles que ceux qui ont 1 execute' le groupe de la reine Anne, place devant TEglise de St. Paul, ' et les tombeaux de TAbbaye de Westminster/ This author had not seen the works of Rysbrach and Roubiliac ; and for the satire on the group of Queen Anne, we may pardon the sculptor who occasioned it, as it gave rise to another satire, those admirable lines of Dr. Garth. The statue of Cardinal Wolsey, at Christ Church. The brazen figure of Hen. VI., at Eton College ; a wretched performance indeed ! A magnificent monument in Fulham Church, for the Lord Viscount Mordaunt. Bird received 250/. for his part of the sculpture. The sumptuous monument of the last Duke of Newcastle, in West- minster Abbey, erected by the Countess of Oxford, his daughter. The recumbent figure is not the worst of Bird's works. 1 These two journeys, it is said, he performed on foot. SWIFT ON THE WORKS OF VANBRUGH. At Lord Oxford's auction was sold his copy of the faun. Bird died in 1 73 1, aged 64. SIR JOHN VANBRUGH belongs only to this work in a light that is by no means advantageous to him. He wants all the merit of his writings to protect him from the censure due to his designs. What Pope said of his comedies is much more applicable to his buildings — { How Van wants grace V — Grace ! He wanted eyes, he wanted all ideas of proportion, conveni- ence, propriety. He undertook vast designs, and composed heaps of littleness. 1 The style of no age, no country, appears in his works ; he broke through all rule, and compensated for it by no imagination. He seems to have hollowed quarries rather than to have built houses ; and should his edifices, as they seem formed to do, outlast all record, what architecture will posterity think was that of their ancestors ? The laughers, his cotemporaries, said, that having been confined in the Bastile, he had drawn his notions of building from that fortified dungeon. That a single man should have been capricious, should have wanted taste, is not extraordinary. That he should have been selected to raise a palace, 2 built at the public expense, for the hero of his country, surprises one. Whose thought it was to load every avenue to that palace with inscriptions, I do not know j altogether, they form an edition of the .acts of parliament in stone. However partial the court was to Vanbrugh, everybody was not so blind to his defects. Swift ridiculed both his own diminutive house at Whitehall, and the stupendous pile at Blenheim : of the first he says, — 6 At length they in the rubbish spy, A thing resembling a goose-pie/ And of the other, — 6 That if his grace were no more skilPd in The art of battering walls than building, We might expect to see next year A mousetrap-man chief engineer.' Thus far the satirist was well founded : party rage warped his under- 1 Two very good judges, and men of excellent taste, Sir J. Reynolds and Mr. Gilpin, have declared their admiration of the stupendous piles of Blenheim and Castle Howard ; and no doubt, vastness is very imposing, at a distance ; but if the design and details are defective, the merit of grandeur remains with the person who is at the expense of the fabric, not with the architect who executes his commands. St. Peter's, St. Paul's, each strikes as a magnificent whole ; but they charm too when the parts are examined, nor have any superfluous weight. Large edifices might be ereGted from unnecessary excrescences of stone that load the palaces above mentioned ; and however admirable Vanbrugh' s structures may be in their present state of ' perfection,' I will venture to guess that their ruins will have far greater effect, not only from their massive fragments, but from the additional piles which conjecture will supply, in order to give a meaning to the whole. 2 The duchess quarrelled with Sir John, and went to law with him ; but though he proved to be in the right, or rather 'because' he proved to be in the right, she employed Sir Christopher Wren to build the house in St. James's Park. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 3II standing when he censured Vanbrugh's plays, and left him no more judgment to see their beauties than Sir John had when he perceived not that they were the only beauties he was formed to compose. Nor is any thing sillier than Swift's pun on Vanbrugh's being Clarenceux- herald, which the dean supposes enabled him * to build houses/ Sir John himself had not a worse reason for being an architect. The faults of Blenheim did not escape the severe Dr. Evans, though he lays them on the master, rather than on the builder : — 1 The lofty arch his vast ambition shows, The stream an emblem of his bounty flows.' These invectives perhaps put a stop to Vanbrugh's being employed on any more buildings for the crown, though he was surveyor of the works at Greenwich, comptroller general of the works, and surveyor of the gardens and waters. His other designs were, St. John's Church, Wessminster, a wonderful piece of absurdity. Castle Howard, in Yorkshire. Eastberry, in Dorsetshire. King's Weston, near Bristol. Easton Neston, in Northamptonshire. One front of Grimsthorp. Mr. Duncombe's, in Yorkshire. Two little castles at Greenwich. The Opera House in the Haymarket. Durable as these edifices are, the Relapse, the Provoked Wife, the Confederacy, and ^Esop, will probably outlast them ; nor, so translated, is it an objection to the two last tha.t they were translations. If Vanbrugh had borrowed from Vitruvius as happily as from Dancour, Inigo Jones 1 would not be the first architect of Britain. Sir John Vanbrugh died at Whitehall, March 26, 1726. In his character of architect, Dr. Evans bestowed on him this epitaph : — 6 Lie heavy on him, earth, for he Laid many a heavy load on thee.' ROBERTI, an architect, who built the staircase at Coudray, the Lord Montacute's : Pelegrini painted it. - BAGOTTI is mentioned by Vertue, but not with much justice, for admirable -execution of a ceiling in stucco, at Cashiobury, Lord Essex's seat. It represents Flora and other figures, and boys in alto-relievo support- ing festoons. 1 Inigo Jones imitated the taste of the antique, but did not copy it so servilely as Palladio. Lord Burlington, who had exquisite taste, was a little too fearful of deviating from his models. Raphael, Michael Angelo, Vignola, Bernini, and the best Italian architects, have dared to invent, when it was it was in the spirit of the standard. Perhaps there could not be a more beautiful work, than a volume collected and engraved from the buildings and hints of buildings in the pictures of Raphael, Albano, Pietro Cortona, and Nicolb Poussin. It is surprising that Raphael's works in this manner have not been assembled. Besides thoughts in his paintings, he executed several real buildings of the truest delicacy. 312 WALPOLE on painting. JOHN CROKER was bred a jeweller, which profession he changed for that of medallist He worked for Harris; and, succeeding him, graved all the medals from the end of King William's reign, of whom he struck one large one, all those of Queen Anne, and George I., and those of George II. though Croker died many years before him — but none of our victories in that reign were so recorded. ADVERTISEMENT To the Fourth Volume of the Anecdotes of Painting, Edit. 4th. 1786, which commences with Chapter XVII. of the present Edition. This last volume has been long written, and even printed. The pub lication, 1 though a debt to the purchasers of the preceding volumes was delayed from motives of tenderness. The author, who could not resolve, like most biographers, to dispense universal panegyric especially on many incompetent artists, was still unwilling to utter even gentle censures, which might wound the affections, or offend the prejudices, of those related to the persons whom truth forbad him to commend beyond their merits. He hopes, that as his opinion is no standard, it will pass for mistaken judgment with such as shall be displeased with his criticisms. If his encomiums seem too lavish to others, the public will at least know that they are bestowed sincerely. He would not have hesitated to publish his remarks sooner, if he had not been averse to exaggeration. The work is carried as far as the author intended to go, though he is sensible he could continue it with more satisfaction to himself, as the arts, at least those of painting and architecture, are emerging from the wretched state in which they lay at the accession of George I. To architecture, taste and vigour were given by Lord Burlington and Kent — they have successors worthy of the tone they gave; if, as refinement generally verges to extreme contrarieties, Kent's ponderosity does not degenerate into filligraine : but the modern Pantheon, uniting grandeur and lightness, simplicity and ornament, seems to have marked the medium where taste must stop. The architect who shall endea- vour to refine on Mr. Wyat, will perhaps give date to the age of embroidery. Virgil, Longinus, and Vitruvius afford no rules, no ex- amples of scattering finery. This delicate redundance of ornament growing into our architecture might perhaps be checked, if our artists would study the sublime dreams of Piranesi, who seems to have conceived visions of Rome 1 It war, not published till October 9, 1780, though printed in 177T. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 313 beyond what it boasted even in the meridian of its splendour. Savage as Salvator Rosa, fierce as Michael Angelo, and exuberant as Rubens, he has imagined scenes that would startle geometry, and exhaust the Indies to realise. He piles palaces on bridges, and temples on palaces, and scales heaven with mountains of edifices. Yet what taste in his boldness ! what grandeur in his. wildness ! what labour and thought both in his rashness and details ! Architecture, indeed, has in a manner two sexes : its masculine dignity can only exert its muscles in public works and at public expense; its softer beauties come better within the compass of private residence and enjoyment How painting has rekindled from its embers, the works of many living artists demonstrate. The prints after the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds have spread his fame to Italy, where they, have not at present a single painter that can pretend to rival an imagination so fertile, that the attitudes of his portraits are as various as those of history. 1 In what age were paternal despair and the horrors of death pronounced with more expressive accents than in his picture of Count Ugolino? When was infantine loveliness, or embryo passions, touched with sweeter truth than in his portraits of Miss Price, and the baby Jupiter? What frankness of nature in Mr. Gainsborough's landscapes ; which may entitle them to rank in the noblest collections ! What genuine humour in Zoffani's comic scenes ; which do not, like the works of Dutch and Flemish painters, invite laughter to divert itself with the nastiest indelicacy of boors ! Such topics would please a pen that delights to do justice to its country — but the author has forbidden himself to treat of living pro- fessors. Posterity appreciates impartially the works of the dead. To posterity he leaves the continuation of these volumes; and recom- mends to the lovers of arts the industry of Mr. Vertue, who preserved notices of all his contemporaries, as he had collected of past ages, and thence gave birth to this work. In that supplement will not be for- gotten the wonderful progress in miniature of Lady Lucan, 2 who has arrived at copying the most exquisite works of Isaac and Peter Oliver, Hoskins and Cooper, with a genius that almost depreciates those masters, when we consider that they spent their lives in attaining per- 1 Sir J. Reynolds has been accused of plagiarism, for having borrowed attitudes from ancient masters. Not only candour but criticism must deny the ' force ' of the charge. When a single posture is imitated from an historic picture, and applied to a portrait in a different dress, and with new attributes, this is not plagiarism, but quotation ; and a quotation from a great author, with a novel application of the sense, has always been allowed to be an instance of parts and taste, and may have more merit than the original. When the sons of Jacob imposed on their father by a false coat of Joseph, saying, 4 Know now whether this be thy 'son's coat or not,' they only asked a deceitful question, but that interrogation became wit, when Rich. I., on the Pope reclaiming a bishop whom the king had taken prisoner in battle, sent him the prelate's coat of mail, and in the words of Scripture asked his holiness, whether that was the coat of his son or not ? Is not there humour and satire in Sir Joshua's reducing Holbein's swaggering and colossal haughtiness of Hen. VIII., to the boyish jollity of Master Crewe ? One prophecy I will venture to make : Sir Joshua is not a plagiary, but will beget a thousand ; the exuberance of his invention will be the grammar of future painters of portrait. 2 Margaret Smith, wife of Sir Charles Bingham, Baron Lucan in Ireland. 314 THE MINIATURE PAINTINGS OF LADY LUCAN. I fection; and who, soaring above their modest timidity, has transferred the vigour of Raphael to her copies in water-colours. There will be recorded the living etchings of Mr. H. Bunbury, the second Hogarth^ and first imitator who ever fully equalled his original ; and who, like Hogarth, has more humour when he invents than when he illustrates, 1 probably because genius can draw from the forces of nature with more spirit than from the ideas of another. Has any painter ever executed a scene, a character of Shakespeare, that approached to the prototype so near as Shakespeare himself attained to nature? Yet is there a pencil in a living hand as capable of pronouncing the passions as our unequalled poet ; a pencil not only inspired by his insight into nature, but by the graces and taste of Grecian artists. But it is not fair to excite the curiosity of the public, when both the rank and bashful merit of the possessor, and a too rare exertion of superior talents, confine the proofs to a narrow circle. Whoever has seen the drawings and bas-reliefs designed and executed by Lady Diana Beauclerc 2 is sensible that these imperfect encomiums are far short of the excellence of her works. Her portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire, in several hands, confirms the truth of part of these assertions. The nymph-like simplicity of the figure is equal to what a Grecian statuary would have formed for a dryad or goddess of a river. Bartolozzi's print of her two daughters, after the drawing of the seme lady, is another specimen of her singular genius and taste. The gay and sportive innocence of the younger daughter, and the demure application of the elder, are as characteristically contrasted as Milton's Allegro and Penseroso. A third female genius is Mrs. Darner, 3 daughter of General Conway, in a walk more difficult and far more uncommon than painting. The annals of statuary record few artists of the fair sex, and not one that I recollect of any celebrity. Mrs. Darner's busts from the life are not inferior to the antique, and those we are sure were not more like. Her shock dog, large as life, and only not alive, has a looseness and softness in the curls that seemed impossible to terra-cotta : it rivals the marble one of Bernini in the royal collection. As the ancients have left us but five animals of equal merit with their human figures, namely, the Barberini goat, the Tuscan boar, the Mattei eagle, the eagle at Strawberry Hill, and Mr. Jenning's, now Mr. Duncombe's dog, the talent of Mrs. Darner must appear in the most distinguished light. Aided by some instructions from that masterly statuary Mr. Bacon, she has attempted and executed a bust in marble. Ceracchi, from whom first she received four or five lessons, has given a whole figure 1 His prints to Tristram Shandy. 2 Eldest daughter of Charles Spencer, second Duke of Marlborough, married first to Fred. St. John Viscount Bolingbroke, and afterwards to Topham Beauclerc, only son of Lord Sidney Beauclerc. 3 Only child of General Henry Seymour, commander in chief in 1782 and 1783, by Lady Caroline Campbell, Countess Dowager of Aylesbury, Mrs. Darner was widow of John Darner, eldest son of Joseph, Lord Milton. HORACE WALPOLE J S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 315 of her as the muse of sculpture, in which he has happily preserved the graceful lightness of her form and air. Little is said here but historically of the art of gardening. Mr. Mason, in his beautiful canto on that subject, has shown that Spenser and Addison ought not to have been omitted in the list of our authors who were not blind to the graces of natural taste. The public must wish with the author of this work, that Mr. Mason would complete his poem, and leave this essay as unnecessary as it is imperfect. The historic compositions offered for St. Paul's by some of our first artists seemed to disclose a vision of future improvement — a period the more to be wished, as the wound given to painting through the sides of the Romish religion menaces the arts as well as idolatry — unless the methodists whose rigour seems to soften and adopt the artifices of the catholics (for our itinerant mountebanks already are fond of being sainted in mezzotinto, as well as their St. Bridgets and Teresas), should borrow the paraphernalia of enthusiasm now waning in Italy, and superadd the witchery of painting to that of music. WhitenekTs temples encircled with glory may convert rustics who have never heard of his or Ignatius Loyola's peregrinations. If enthusiasm is to revive, and tabernacles to rise as convents are demo- lished, may we not hope at least to see them painted ? Le Sueur's cloister, at Paris, makes some little amends for the imprisonment of the Carthusians. The absurdity of the legend of the reviving canon is lost in the amazing art of the painter ; and the last scene of St. Bruno expiring, in which are expressed all the stages of devotion from the youngest mind impressed with fear, to the composed resignation of the prior, is perhaps inferior to no single picture of the greatest master. If Raphael died young, so did Le Sueur : the former had seen the antique, the latter only prints from Raphael : yet in the Chartreuse, what airs of heads ! what harmony of colouring ! what aerial per- spective ! How Grecian the simplicity of architecture and drapery ! How diversified a single quadrangle, though the life of a hermit be the only subject, and devotion the only pathetic ! In short, till we have other pictures than portraits, and painting has ampler fields to range in than private apartments, it is in vain to expect the art should recover its genuine lustre. Statuary has still less encouragement. Sepulchral decorations are almost disused ; and though the rage for portraits is at its highest tide both in pictures and prints, busts and statues are never demanded. We seem to wish no longer duration to the monuments of our expense, than the inhabitants of Peru and Russia, where edifices are calculated to last but to the next earthquake or conflagration. Oct. 1, 1780. 3i6 W ALP OLE ON PAINTING. CHAPTER XVII. Painters in the Reign of King GEORGE I. We are now arrived at the period in which the arts were sunk to the lowest ebb in Britain. From the stiffness introduced by Holbein and the Flemish masters, who not only laboured under the timidity of the new art, but who saw nothing but the starch and unpliant habits of the times, we were fallen into a loose, and, if I may use the word, a 'dissolute' kind of painting, which was not less barbarous than the opposite extreme, and yet had not the merit of representing even the dresses of the age. Sir Godfrey Kneller still lived, but only in name, which he prostituted by suffering the most wretched daubings of hired substitutes to pass for his works, while at most he gave himself the trouble of taking the likeness of the person who sat to him. His bold and free manner was the sole admiration of his successors, who thought they had caught his style, when they neglected drawing, probability, and finishing. Kneller had exaggerated the curls of full-bottomed wigs, and the tiaras of ribands, lace, and hair, till he had struck out a graceful kind of unnatural grandeur; but the succeeding modes were still less favourable to picturesque imagination. The habits of the time were shrunk to awkward coats and waistcoats for the men ; and for the women, to tight-laced gowns, round hoops, and half-a-dozen squeezed plaits of linen, to which dangled behind two unmeaning pendants, called lappets, not half covering their strait-drawn hair. Dahl, Dagar, Richardson, Jervas, and others, rebuffed by such barbarous forms, and not possessing genius enough to deviate from what they saw into grace- ful variations, clothed all their personages with a loose drapery and airy mantles, which not only were not, but could not be the dress of any age or nation, so little were they adapted to cover the limbs, to exhibit any form, or to adhere to the person, which they scarce en- veloped, and from which they must fall on the least motion. As those casual lappings and flowing streamers were imitated from nothing, they seldom have any folds or chiaroscuro ; anatomy and colouring being equally forgotten. Linen, from what economy I know not, is seldom allowed in those portraits, even to the ladies, who lean care- lessly on a bank, and play with a parrot they do not look at, under a tranquillity which ill accords with their seeming situation, the slightness of their vestment and the lankness of their hair having the appearance of their being just risen from the bath, and of having found none of their clothes to put on, but a loose gown. Architecture was perverted to mere house-building, where it retained not a little of Vanbrugh ; and, if employed on churches, produced at best but corrupt and tawdry imitations of Sir Christopher Wren. Statuary still less deserved the name of an art. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 317 The new monarch was void of taste, and not likely at an advanced age to encourage the embellishment of a country to which he had little partiality, and with the face of which he had few opportunities of getting acquainted ; though, had he been better known, he must have grown the delight of it, possessing all that plain good-humoured sim- plicity and social integrity, which peculiarly distinguishes ' the honest I English private gentleman.' Like those patriots, it was more natural to Geo. L to be content with, or even partial to, whatever he found established, than to seek for improvement and foreign ornament. But the arts, when neglected, always degenerate. Encouragement must keep them up, or a genius revivify them. Neither happened under the first of the house of Brunswick. I shall be as brief as I can in my account of so ungrateful a period; for, though the elder Dahl and Richardson, and a very few more, had merit in some particulars, I can- not help again advertising my readers, that no reign, since the arts have been in any esteem, produced fewer works that will deserve the attention of posterity. As the reign too was of no long duration, most of the artists had lived under the predecessors of Geo. I., or flourished under his son, where several will be ranked with more propriety. Of the former class was LOUIS LAGUERRE, the assistant and imitator of Verrio, with whose name his will be pre- served when their united labours shall be no more, both being im- mortalized by that unpropitious line of Pope, 6 Where sprawl the saints of Verrio and Laguerre.* The same redundancy of history and fable is displayed in the works of both ; and. it is but justice to say that their performances were at least in as good a taste as the edifices they were appointed to adorn. Laguerre's father was a Catalan, who settled in France, and became master of the menagerie at Versailles. The son being born at Paris, in 1663, Louis XIV. did him the honour of being his godfather, and gave him his own name. At first he was placed in the Jesuits' college ; but having a hesitation in his speech, and discovering much inclination to drawing, the good fathers advised his parents to breed him to a profession that might be of use to himself, since he was not likely to prove serviceable to them. He brought away learning enough to assist him afterwards in his allegoric and historic works. He then studied in the royal academy of painting, and for a short time under Le Brun. In 1683, he came to England with one Ricard, a painter of architecture, and both were employed by Verrio. Laguerre painted for him most part of the large picture in St. Bartholomew's Hospital; and succeeding so well when little above twenty, he rose into much business, executing great numbers of ceilings, halls, and stair- LAGUERRE FAMOUS FOR PAINTING CEILINGS. cases, particularly at Lord Exeter's, at Burleigh, the staircase at old Devonshire House, in Piccadilly, the staircase' and saloon at Bucking-! ham House, the staircase at Petworth, many of the apartments at Burleigh-on-the-hill, where the walls are covered with his Csesars, some things at Marlborough House, in St. James's Park, and, which is his best work, the saloon at Blenheim. King William gave him lodgings at Hampton Court, where he painted the labours of Hercules in chiaro- scuro; and being appointed to repair those valuable pictures, the Triumphs of Julius Caesar, by Andrea Montegna, he had the judgment to imitate the style of the original, instead of new clothing them in vermilion and ultramarine ; a fate that befel Raphael even from the pencil of Carlo Maratti. Laguerre was at first chosen unanimously, by the commissioners for rebuilding St. Paul's, to decorate the inside of the cupola, but was set aside by the prevailing interest of Thornhill ; a preference not ravished from him by superior merit. Sir Godfrey Kneller was more just to him, though from pique to Thornhill, and employed him to paint the staircase of his house at Witton, where Laguerre distinguished himself beyond his common performances. On the union of England and Scotland, he was ordered by Queen Anne to make designs for a set of tapestry on that occasion, in- which were to be introduced the portraits of her majesty and the principal ministers ; but though he gave the drawings, the work went no farther. A few pictures he painted besides, and made designs for engravers. In 1711, he was a director of an academy of painting erected in London, and was likely to be chosen governor on the resignation of Kneller, but was again baffled by his competitor Thornhill. In truth he was, says Vertue, a modest unin- triguing man, and, as his father-in-law, John Tijou, 1 said, God had made him a painter, and there left him. The ever-grateful and humble Vertue commends him highly, and acknowledges instructions received from him ; the source, I doubt, of some of his encomiums. At a tavern in Drury Lane, where was held a club of virtuosi, he painted in chiaroscuro round the room a Bacchanalian procession, and made them a present of his labour. Vertue thinks that Sir James Thornhill was indebted to him for his knowledge of historic painting on ceilings, etc., and says he was imitated by others, 2 as one Riario, 3 Johnson, Brown, and several whose names are perished as well as that gaudy style. Laguerre towards his latter end grew dropsical and inactive ; and going to see the Island Princess at Drury Lane, which was acted for the benefit of his son, then newly entered to sing on the stage, he was seized with a stroke of apoplexy, and died before the play began, April 20, 1 721. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. 1 A founder of iron balustrades. 2 Lanscroon was another assistant of Verrio and Laguerre, on his first arrival from Flanders. He died poor, in 1737, leaving a son of his profession. 3 Riario painted a staircase at Lord Carpenter's. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 319 John Laguerre, the son, had talents for painting, but wanted applica- tion, preferring the stage to more laborious studies. After quitting that profession, I think he painted scenes, and published a set of prints of Hob in the Well, which had a great sale ; but he died at last in indigent circumstances in March, 1748. MICHAEL DAHL was born at Stockholm, and received some instructions from Ernstraen Klocke, an esteemed artist in that country, and painter to the crown, who, in the early part of his life, had been in England. At the age of 22, Dahl was brought over by Mr. Pouters, a merchant, who five years afterwards, introduced Boit from the same country. After a year's residence here, Dahl continued his travels in search of improvement, stayed about a year at Paris, and bestowed about three more on the principal cities in Italy. At Rome he painted the portrait of P. F. Garroli, a sculptor and architect, under whom Gibbs studied for sbme time. But it was more flattering to Dahl to be employed by one that had been his sovereign, the famous Queen Christina. As he worked on her picture, she asked what he intended she should hold in her hand? He replied, a fan. Pier majesty, whose ejaculations were rarely delicate, vented a very gross one, and added, i A fan! Give me a lion ; that is fitter for a queen of Sweden/ I repeat this, without any intention of approving it. It was a pedantic affectation of spirit m a woman who had quitted a crown to ramble over Europe in a motley kind of masculine masquerade, assuming a right of assassinat- ing her gallants, as if tyranny as well as the priesthood were an indelible character, and throwing herself for protection into the bosom of a church she laughed at, for the comfortable enjoyment of talking in- decently with learned men, and of living so with any other men. Contemptible in her ambition by abandoning the happiest opportunity of performing great and good actions, to hunt for venal praises from those parasites the literati, she attained, or deserved to attain, that sole renown which necessarily accompanies great crimes or great follies in persons of superior rank. Her letters discover no genius or parts, and do not even wear that now trite mantle of the learned, the affectation of philosophy. Her womanish passions and anger display themselves without reserve ; and she is ever mistaking herself for a queen, after having done everything she could to disgrace the character. Dahl returned to England in 1688, where he found Sir Godfrey Kneller rising to the head of the profession, and where he had yet merit enough to distinguish himself as no mean competitor. His colouring was good ; and attempting nothing beyond portraits, he has certainly left many valuable pictures, especially as he did not neglect everything but the head, like Kneller. and drew the rest of the figure much better than Richardson. Some of DahPs works are worthy 320 DAHL AND KNELLER COMPARED. of Riley. The large equestrian picture of his sovereign Charles; XI. at Windsor has much merit, and in the gallery of admirals 1 , at Hampton Court he suffers but little from the superiority of Sir: Godfrey. In my mother's picture at Houghton there is great grace,! though it was not his most common excellence. At Petworth are several whole lengths of ladies by him extremely well coloured. The more universal talents of Kneller, and his assuming presumption carried away the crowd from the modest and silent Dahl ; yet they seem to have been amicable rivals, Sir Godfrey having drawn his portrait. He did another of himself ; but Vertue owns that Sir God- frey deserved the preference for likeness, grace, and colouring. Queen Anne sat to him, and Prince George was much his patron. Virtuous and esteemed, easy in his circumstances and fortunate in his health, Dahl reached the long term of eighty-seven years, and dying October 23, 1743, was buried in St. James's Church. He left two daughters, and about three years before lost his only son, who was a very inferior painter, called the younger Dahl, but of whose life I find no particulars among Vertue's collections. PETER ANGELIS worked in a very different style from the two preceding painters, exe- cuting nothing but conversations and landscapes with small figures, which he was fond of enriching with representations of fruit and fish. His manner was a mixture of Teniers and Watteau, with more grace than the former, more nature than the latter. His pencil was easy, bright, and flowing, but his colouring too faint and nerveless. He afterwards adopted the habits of Rubens and Vandyck, more pic- turesque indeed, but not so proper to improve his productions in what their chief beauty consisted, familiar life. Pie was born at Dunkirk in 1685, and visiting Flanders and Germany in the course of his studies, made the longest stay at Dusseldorp, enchanted with the treasures of painting in that city. He came to England about the year 1712, and soon became a favourite painter; but in the year 1728 he set out for Italy, 1 where he spent three years. At Rome his pictures pleased extremely; but being of a reserved temper, and not ostentatious of his merit, he disgusted several by the reluctance with which he ex- hibited his works; his studious and sober temper inclining him more to the pursuit of his art than to the advantage of his fortune. Yet his attention to the latter prevented his return to England as he intended ; for, stopping at Rennes in Bretagne, a rich and parliamentary town, he was so immediately overwhelmed with employment there, that he settled in that city, and died there in a short time, in the year 1734, when he was not above forty-nine years of age. Hyssing painted his picture while he was in England. 1 After making an auction of his pictures, amongst which were copies of the four markets, then at Houghton, by Rubens and Snyder. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 3 21 ANTONY RUSSEL is recorded by Vertue as one of Riley's school (consequently a painter of portraits), as were Murray and Richardson, though he owns with less success and less merit : nor does he mention any other fact* relating to him, except that he died in July 1743, aged above fourscore. I should not be solicitous to preserve such dates, but that they some- times ascertain the hands by which pictures have been painted : and yet I have lived long enough since the first part of this work was printed, to see many pieces ascribed to Holbein and Vandyck in auctions though bearing dates notoriously posterior to the deaths of those masters ; such notices as these often helping more men to cheat than to distinguish. LUKE CRADOCK, who died early in this reign, was a painter of birds and animals, in which walk he attained much merit by the bent and force of his own genius, having been so little initiated even in the grammar of his pro- fession, that he was sent from Somerton, near Ilchester in Somerset- shire, where he was born, to be apprentice, to a house-painter in London, with whom he served his time. Yet there, without instruc- tions, and with few opportunities of studying nature in the very part of the creation which his talents led him to represent, he became, if not a great master, a faithful imitator of the inferior class of beings. His birds in particular are strongly and richly coloured, and were much sought as ornaments over doors and chimney-pieces. I have seen some pieces of his hand painted with a freedom and fire that entitled them to more distinction. He worked in general by the day, and for dealers who retailed his works ; possessing that conscious dignity of talents that scorned dependence, and made him hate to be employed by men whose birth and fortune confined his fancy and restrained his freedom. Vertue records a proof of his merit, which I fear will enter into the panegyrics of few modern painters — he says he saw several of Cradock's pictures rise quickly after his death to three and four times the price that he had received for them living. He died in 171 7, and was buried at St. Mary's, Whitechapel. PETER CASTEELS was, like Cradock, though inferior in merit, a painter of fowls, but more commonly of flowers ; yet neither with the boldness and relievo of a master, nor with the finished accuracy that in so many Flemish painters almost atones for want of genius. He was born at Antwerp in 1684, and in 1708 came over with his brother 1 Peter Tillemans. In 1 716 he made a short journey to his native city, but returned soon. 1 So Vertue. I suppose he means brother-in-law. 22 322 JERVAS, THE PAINTER, AN INTIMATE OF POPE. In 1726 he published twelve plates of birds and fowls, which he had designed and etched himself,, and did a few other things in the same way. In 1735 ne retired to Tooting, to design for calico-printers; and lastly, the manufacture being removed thither, to Richmond, where he died of a lingering illness, May 16, 1749. JACOPO DAGAR, the son of a French painter, and himself born in France, came young into England, and rose to great business, though upon a very slender stock of merit. He was violently afflicted with the gout and stone, and died in May 1723, at the age of fifty-four. He left a son whom he bred to his own profession. CHARLES JERVAS. No painter of so much eminence as Jervas is taken so little notice of by Vertue in his memorandums, who neither specifies the family, birth, or death of this artist. The latter happened at his house 1 in Cleveland Court, in 1739. Re would think that Vertue foresaw how little curiosity posterity would feel to know more of a man who has bequeathed to them such wretched d*iubings. Yet, between the badness of the age's taste, the dearth of good masters, and a fashion- able reputation, Jervas sat at the top of his profession ; and his own vanity thought no encomium disproportionate to his merit. Yet was he defective in drawing, colouring, composition, and even in that most necessary and perhaps most easy talent of a portrait-painter, like- ness. In general, his pictures are a light flimsy kind of fan-painting as large as the life. Yet I have seen a few of his works highly coloured ; and it is certain that his copies of Carlo Maratti, whom most he studied and imitated, were extremely just, and scarce inferior to the originals. It is a well-known story of him, that, having suc- ceeded happily in copying [he thought in surpassing] a picture of Titian, he looked first at the one, then at the other, and then with parental complacency cried, i Poor little Tit ! how he would stare !' But what will recommend the name of Jervas to inquisitive posterity was his intimacy with Pope, 2 whom he instructed to draw and paint, whom therefore these anecdotes are proud to boast of and enrol 3 among our artists, and who has enshrined 4 the feeble talents of the painter in the lucid amber of his glowing lines. The repeated name of Lady 1 He had another house at Hampton. 2 Jervas, who affected to be a free-thinker, was one day talking very irreverently of the Bible. Dr. Arbuthnot maintained to him that he was not only a speculative but a practical believer. Jervas denied it. Arbuthnot said he would prove it. : ' You strictly observe the ' second commandment,' said the doctor, ' for in your pictures you make not the likeness of * any thing that is in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the 'earth.' 3 See his Letters to Jervas, and a short copy of verses on a fan designed by himself on the story of Cephalus and Procris, There is a small edition of the Essay on Man, with a frontis- piece likewise of his design. 4 Pope's epistle to Jervas with Dryden's translation of Fresnoy's Art of Painting. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 323 Bridgwater 1 in that epistle was not the sole effect of chance, of the lady's charms, or of the conveniency of her name to the measure of the verse. Jervas had ventured to look on that fair one with more than a painter's eyes ; so entirely did the lovely form possess his imagination, that many a homely dame was delighted to find her picture resemble Lady Bridgwater. Yet neither his presumption nor his passion could extinguish his self-love. One day, as she was sitting to him, he ran over the beauties of her face with rapture — i But/ said he, ' T cannot 'help telling your ladyship that you have not a handsome ear/* i No ! ' said Lady Bridgwater; 'pray, Mr. Jervas, what is a handsome ear?* He turned aside his cap, and showed her his own. What little more I have to say of him is chiefly scattered amongst the notes of Vertue. He was born in Ireland, and for a year studied under Sir Godfrey Kneller. Norris, frame-maker and keeper of the pictures to King William and Queen Anne, was his first patron, and permitted him to copy what he pleased in the royal collection. At Hampton Court he copied the cartoons in little, and sold them to Dr. George Clarke of Oxford, who became his protector, and furnished him with money to visit Paris and Italy. At the former he lent two of his car- toons to Audran, who engraved them, but died before he could begin the rest. At Rome he applied himself to learn to draw ; for, though thirty years old, he said he had begun at the wrong end, and had only studied colouring. The friendship of Pope and the patronage of other men of genius and rank 2 extended a reputation built on such slight foundations, to which not a little contributed, we may suppose, The Tatler, No. VIII., April 18, 1709, who calls him 'the last great 'painter that Italy has sent us. ? To this incense a widow worth 20,000/. added the solid, and made him her husband, In 1738 he again tra-. veiled to Italy for his health, but survived that journey only a short time, dying November 2, 1739. He translated and published a new edition of Don Quixote. His collection of drawings and Roman fayence, called Raphael's earthen- ware, 3 and a fine cabinet of ivory carvings by Fiamingo, were sold, the drawings in April, 1741, and the rest after the death of his wife. It will easily be conceived, by those who know anything of the state of painting in this country of late years, that this work pretends to no more than specifying the professors of most vogue. Portrait-painting has increased to so exuberant a degree in this age, that it would be difficult even to compute the number of limners that have appeared within the century. Consequently, it is almost as necessary that the 1 Elizabeth , Countess of Bridgwater, was one of the beautiful daughters of the great Duke of Marlborough. 2 Seven letters from Jervas to Pope are printed in the two additional volumes to that poet's works, published by R. Baldwin, 1776. 3 There is a large and fine collection of this ware at the late Sir Andrew Fountain's, at Narford, in Norfolk. 22 * 324 CHARACTER OF RICHARDSON AS A PAINTER. representations of men should perish and quit the scene to their suc- cessors, as it is that the human race should give place to rising gene- rations. And indeed the mortality is almost as rapid. Portraits that cost twenty, thirty, sixty guineas, and that proudly take possession of the drawing-room, give way in the next generation to those of the new- married couple, descending into the parlour, where they are slightly mentioned as 'my father's and mother's pictures.' When they become 1 my grandfather and grandmother/ they mount to the two pair of stairs; and then, unless despatched to the mansion-house in the country, or crowded into the housekeeper's room, they perish among the lumber of garrets, or flutter into rags before a broker's shop at the Seven Dials. Such already has been the fate of some of those death- less beauties, who Pope promised his friend should Bloom in his colours for a thousand years. And such, I doubt, will be the precipitate catastrophe of the works of many more who babble of Titian and Vandyck, yet only imitate Gior- dano, whose hasty and rapacious pencil deservedly acquired him the disgraceful title of ' Luca fa presto. 7 JONATHAN RICHARDSON was undoubtedly one of the best English painters of the head that had appeared in this country. There is strength, roundness, and boldness in his colouring; but his men want dignity and his women grace. The good sense of the nation is characterised in his portraits. You see he lived in an age when neither enthusiasm nor fertility was predominant. Yet with a pencil so firm, possessed of a numerous and excellent col- lection of drawings, full of the theory, and profound in reflections on his art, he drew nothing well below the head, and was void of imagina- tion. His attitudes, draperies, and backgrounds are totally insipid and unmeaning; so ill did he apply to his own practice the sagacious rules and hints he bestowed on others. Though he wrote with fire and judg- ment, his paintings owed little to either. No man dived deeper into the inexhaustible stores of Raphael, or was more smitten with the native lustre of Vandyck. Yet though capable of tasting the elevation of the one and the elegance of the other, he could never contrive to see with their eyes when he was to copy nature himself. One wonders that he could comment their works so well, and imitate them so little. Richardson was born about the year 1665, and against his inclination was placed by his father-in-law 1 apprentice to a scrivener, with whom he lived six years ; when obtaining his freedom by the death of his master, he followed the bent of his disposition, and at twenty years old became the disciple of Riley ; with whom he lived four years, whose niece he married, and of whose manner he acquired enough to main- 1 His own father died when he was five years old. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 325 tain a solid and lasting reputation, even during the lives of Kneller and Dahl, and to remain at the head of the profession when they went off the stage. He quitted business himself some years before his death ; but his temperance and virtue contributed to protract his life to a great length in the full enjoyment of his understanding, and in the felicity of domestic friendship. He had a paralytic stroke that affected his arm, yet never disabled him from his customary walks and exercise. He had been in St. James's Park, and died suddenly at his house in Queen Square on his return home, May 28, 1745, when he had passed the eightieth year of his age. He left a son and four daughters ; one of whom was married to his disciple Mr. Hudson, and another to Mr. Grigson, an attorney. The taste and learning of the son, and the harmony in which he lived with his father, are visible in the joint works they composed. The father in 1719 published two discourses: 1. An essay on the whole art of criticism as it relates to painting; 2. An argument in behalf of the science of a connoisseur; 1 bound in one volume octavo. In 1722 came forth 'An account of some of the 1 statues, bas-reliefs, drawings, and pictures in Italy, etc., with remarks 'by Mr. Richardson, sen. and jun.' The son made the journey; and from his notes, letters, and observations, they both at his return com- piled this valuable work. As the father was a formal man, with a slow but loud and sonorous voice, and, in truth, with some affectation in his manner; and as there is much singularity in his style and expression, those peculiarities, for they were scarce foibles, struck superficial readers, and between the laughers and the envious the book was much ridiculed. Yet both this and the former are full of matter, 2 good sense, and instruction; and the very quaintness of some expressions, and their laboured novelty, show the difficulty the author had to convey more visible ideas through the medium of language. Those works remind one of Cibber's inimitable treatise on the stage. When an author writes on his own profession, feels it profoundly, and is sensible his readers do not, he is not only excusable, but meritorious, for illuminating the subject by new metaphors or bolder figures than ordinary. He is the coxcomb that sneers, not he that instructs in appropriated diction. If these authors were censured when conversant within their own circle, it was not to be expected that they would be treated with milder indulgence when they ventured into a sister region. In 1734 they pub- lished a very thick octavo, containing explanatory notes and remarks on Milton's Paradise Lost, with the life of the author, and a discourse on the poem. Again were the good sense, the judicious criticisms, and the sentiments that broke forth in this work, forgotten in the singulari- 1 He tells us, that being in search of a proper term for this science, Mr. Prior proposed to name it connoissance ; but that word has not obtained possession as connoisseur has . 2 Their criticisms on the works of Raphael and Michael Angelo at Rome are remarkably- acute and judicious. 326 VALUE OF PAINTINGS LEFT BY RICHARDSON. ties that distinguish it. The father having said, in apology for being little conversant in classic literature, that he had looked into them through his son; Hogarth, whom a quibble could furnish with wit, drew the father peeping through the nether end of a telescope, with which his son was perforated, at a Virgil aloft on a shelf. Yet how forcibly Richardson entered into the spirit of his author appears from his comprehensive expression, that 6 Milton was an ancient born two 'thousand years after his time.' Richardson, however, was as in- capable of reaching the sublime or harmonious in poetry as he was in painting, though so capable of illustrating both. Some specimens of verse, that he has given us here and there in his works, excite no curiosity for more ; J though he informs us in his Milton, that if Painting was his wife, Poetry has been his secret concubine. It is remarkable that another commentator of Milton has made the same confession : ' — sunt et mihi carmina, me quoque dicunt Vatem pastores • • says Dr. Bentley. Neither the doctor nor the painter adds, 6 sed 6 non ego credulus litis/ though all their readers are ready to supply it for both. Besides his pictures and commentaries, we have a few etchings by his hand, particularly two or three of Milton, and his own head. The sale of his collection of drawings, in Feb., 1747, lasted eighteen days, and produced about 2,060/., his pictures about 700/. Hudson, his son-in-law, bought many of the drawings. After the death of the son in 1 771, the remains of the father's collection were sold. There were hun- dreds of portraits of both in chalks by the father, with the dates when exe- cuted; for after his retirement from business, the good old man seems to have amused himself with writing a short poem, and drawing his own or son's portrait every day. The son, equally tender, had marked several with expressions of affection on his dear father. There were a few pictures and drawings by the son, for he too painted a little. GRISONI was the son of a painter at Florence, whence Mr. Talman brought him over in 1 715. He painted history, landscape, and sometimes portrait; ^but his business declining, he sold his pictures by auction in 1728, and returned to his own country with a wife whom he had married here, of the name of St. John. 1 More have been given. In June 1776, was published an 8vo volume of poems (and another promised) by Jonathan Richardson, senior, with notes by his son. They are chiefly moral and religious meditations ; now and then there is a picturesque line or image, but in general the poetry is very careless and indifferent. Yet such a picture of a good mind, serene in conscious innocence, is scarcely to be found. It is impossible not to love the author, or not to wish to be as sincerely and intentionally virtuous. The book is perhaps more capable of inspiring emulations of goodness than any professed book of devotion, for the author perpetu- ally describes the peace of his mind from the satisfaction of having never deviated from what he thought right. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 327 WILLIAM AIKMAN was born in Scotland, and educated under Sir John Medina. He came young to London, travelled to Italy, and visited Turkey, and returned through London to Scotland, where he was patronised by John, Duke of Argyle the general, and many of the nobility. After two or three years he settled in London, and met with no less encouragement ; but falling into a long and languishing distemper, his physicians advised him to try his native air; but he died at his house in Leicester Fields, in June, 1 73 1, aged fifty. His body, by his own desire, was carried to and interred in Scotland. Vertue commends his portrait of Gay for the great likeness, and quotes the following lines, addressed to Aikman on one of his performances, by S. Boyse : 1 As Nature, blushing and astonished, eyed Young Aikman ; s draught, surprised the goddess cried, Where didst thou form, rash youth, the bold design To teach thy labours to resemble mine ? So soft thy colours, yet so just thy stroke, That undetermined on thy work I look. To crown thy art couldst thou but language join, The form had spoke, and called the conquest thine.' In Mallet's works 1 is an epitaph on Mr. Aikman and his only son (who died before him), and who were both interred in the same grave. JOHN ALEXANDER, of the same country with the preceding, was son of a clergyman, and, I think, descended from their boasted Jamisone. He travelled to Italy, and in 1718 etched some plates after Raphael. In 1721 was printed a letter to a friend at Edinburgh, describing a staircase painted at the castle of Gordon with the rape of Proserpine by this Mr. Alexander. SIR JAMES THORNHILL [born 1678, died 1734], a man of much note in his time, who succeeded Verrio, and was the rival of Laguerre in the decorations of our palaces and public build- ings, was born at Weymouth in Dorsetshire, was knighted by George the First, and was elected to represent his native town in parliament. His chief works were : the dome of St. Paul's, an apartment at Hamp- ton Court, the altar-piece of the chapel of All Souls at Oxford, another for Weymouth, 2 of which he made them a present, the hall at Blenheim, the chapel at Lord Oxford's at Wimpole in Cambridgeshire, the salon and other things for Mr. Styles at More Park, Hertfordshire, and the 1 Vol. i., p. 13, printed by Millar, in 3 vols., small 8vo, 1769. 2 The altar-piece at Weymouth was engraved by a young man, his scholar, whom he set up in that business. 328 THE EARLY PATRONS OF SIR JAMES THORNHILL. great hall at Greenwich Hospital. Yet high as his reputation was, and laborious as his works, he was far from being generously rewarded for some of them, and for others he found it difficult to obtain the stipu- lated prices. His demands were contested at Greenwich; and though La Fosse received 2000/. for his work at Montagu House, and was allowed 500/. for his diet besides, Sir James could obtain but 40 s. a yard square for the cupola of St. Paul's, and I think no more for Greenwich. When the affairs of the Southsea Company were made up, Thornhill, who had painted their staircase and a little hall by order of Mr. Knight their cashier, demanded 1500/. ; but the directors learning that he had been paid but 25^. a yard for the hall at Blenheim, they would allow no more. He had a longer contest with Mr. Styles, who had agreed to give him 3500/. ; but not being satisfied with the execu- tion, a law-suit was commenced, and Dahl, Richardson, and others were appointed to inspect the work. They appeared in court, bearing testimony to the merit of the performance. Mr. Styles was condemned to pay the money, and by their arbitration 500/. more for decorations about the house, and for ThornhiiPs acting as surveyor of the building. This suit occasioning inquiries into matters of the like nature, it ap- peared that 300/. a year had been allowed to the surveyor of Blenheim, besides travelling charges; 200/. a year to others; and that Gibbs received but 550/. for building St. Martin's church. By the favour of that general Mecsenas, 1 the Earl of Halifax, Sir James was allowed to copy the Cartoons at Hampton Court, on which he employed three years. He executed a smaller set, of one-fourth part of the dimensions. Having been very accurate in noticing the defects and the additions by Cooke who repaired them, and in exa- mining the parts turned in to fit them to the places ; and having made copious studies of the heads, hands, and feet, he intended to publish an exact account of the whole for the use of students ; but this work has never appeared. In 1724 he opened an academy for drawing at his house in Covent Garden, and had before proposed to Lord Halifax to obtain the foundation of a royal academy at the upper end of the Mews, with apartments for the professors, which, by an estimate he had made, would have cost but 3139/. ; for Sir James dabbled in archi- tecture, and stirred up much envy in that profession by announcing a design of taking it up, as he had before by thinking of applying himself to painting portraits. Afflicted with the gout, and his legs swelling, he set out for his seat at Thornhill, near Weymouth; 2 where four days after his arrival he 1 It was by the influence of the same patron that Sir James was employed to paint the princess's apartment at Hampton Court. The Duke of Shrewsbury, lord chamberlain, intended it should be executed by Sebastian Ricci, but the earl, then first commissioner of the treasury, preferring his own countryman, told the duke that if Ricci painted it he would not pay him. 2 Sir James was descended of a very ancient family in Dorsetshire, and repurchased the seat HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 329 rdedfAxpired in his chair, May 4, 1734, aged fifty-seven, leaving one son e$tj Jnamed James, whom he had procured to be appointed serjeant-painter tfio^Band painter to the navy ; and one daughter, married to that original id^Band unequalled genius, Hogarth. t Sir James's collection, among which were a few capital pictures of rcjthe great masters, was -sold in the following year; and with them his 'e a J two sets of the Cartoons, the smaller for seventy-five guineas, the larger e ro fl for only 200/. : a price we ought in justice to suppose was owing to the nj J' few bidders who had spaces in their houses large enough to receive j^l them. They were purchased by the Duke of Bedford, and are in the rfiof gallery at Bedford House in Bloomsbury Square. In the same collec- :il M tion were drawings by one Andrea, a disciple of Thornhill, who died ?r$l about the same time at Paris. M ROBERT BROWN '^w was a disciple of Thornhill, and worked under him on the cupola of 5 1 St. Paul's. Setting up for himself, he was much employed in decorat- I ing several churches in the city, being admired for his skill in painting I crimson curtains, apostles, and stories out of the New Testament. He I painted the altar piece of St. Andrew Undershaft, and the spaces be- ' tween the gothic arches in chiaroscuro. In the parish church of St. I Botolph, Aldgate, he painted the transfiguration for the altar ; in St. ■ Andrew's, Holborn, the figures of St. Andrew and St. John, and two histories on the sides of the organ. In the chapel of St. John at the f end of Bedford Row he painted St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist; and even two signs that were much admired, that for the Paul's Head tavern in Cateaton Street, and the Baptist's Head at the corner of Aldermanbury. Correggio's sign of the Muleteer is men- I tioned by all his biographers. Brown, I doubt, was no Gorreggio. BELLUCCI, an Italian painter of history, arrived here in 1716 from the court of the Elector Palatine. In 1722 he finished a ceiling at Buckingham House, for which the duchess paid him 500/. He was also employed on the chapel of Canons ; that large and costly palace of the Duke of Chandos, which by a fate as transient as its founder's, barely survived him, being pulled down as soon as he was dead; and as if in mockery of sublunary grandeur, the site and materials were purchased by Hallet the cabinet maker. Though Pope was too grateful to mean a satire on Canons, while he recorded all its ostentatious want of taste, and too sincere to have denied it if he had meant it, he might without blame have moralised on the event, in an epistle purely ethic, had he lived to behold its fall and change of masters. of his ancestors, which had been alienated. There he gratefully erected an obelisk to the memory of George I., his protector. See his pedigree, and a further account of Thornhill, in Hutchins's History of Dorsetshire, vol. i., pp.* 410, 413; vol. ii., pp. 185, 246, 451. 330 PORTRAIT OF THE OLD WOMAN, BY DENNER. Bellucci executed some other works which Vertue does not specify, but being afflicted with the gout, quitted this country, leaving a nephew, who went to Ireland, and made a fortune by painting portraits there. BALTHAZAR DENNER [born 1685, DIED 1747], of Hamburgh, one of those laborious artists whose works surprise rather than please, and who could not be so excellent if they had not more patience than genius, came hither upon encouragement from the king, who had seen of his works at Hanover and promised to sit to him ; but Denner succeeding ill in the pictures of two of the favourite German ladies, he lost the footing he had expected at court. His fame however rose very high on his exhibiting the head of an old woman, that he brought over with him, about sixteen inches high, and thirteen wide, in which the grain of the skin, the hairs, the down, the glassy humour of the eyes, were represented with the most exact minuteness. It gained him more applause than custom, for a man could not execute many works who employed so much time to finish them. Nor did he even find a purchaser here, but the emperor bought the picture for 600 ducats. At Hamburgh he began a companion to it, an old man, which he brought over and finished here in 1726, and sold like the former. He painted himself, his wife and children, with the same circumstantial detail, and a half length of himself, which was in the possession of one Swarts, a painter totally unknown to me. He resolved however, says Vertue, to quit this painful practice, and turn to a bolder and less finished style; but whether he did or not is uncertain. He left England in 1728. The portrait of John Frederick Weickman of Hamburgh, painted by Denner, is said to be in the Bodleian library at Oxford. FRANCIS PAUL FERG, born at Vienna in 1689, was a charming painter, who had composed a manner of his own from various Flemish painters, 1 though resembling Polenburgh most in the enamelled softness and mellowness *of his colouring ; but his figures are greatly superior, every part of them is sufficiently finished, every action expressive. He painted small land- scapes, fairs, and rural meetings, with the most agreeable truth; his horses and cattle are not inferior to Wouvermans, and his buildings and distances seem to owe their respective softness to the intervening air, not to the pencil. More faithful to nature than Denner, he knew how to omit exactness when the result of the whole demands a less precision in parts. This pleasing artist passed twenty years here, but little known, and always indigent; unhappy in his domestic life, he 1 Hans Graf, Orient, and lastly, Alex. Thiele, painter of the court of Saxony, who invited him to Dresden to insert small figures in his landscapes. Ferg thence went into Lower Saxony, and painted for the Duke of Brunswick, and for the gallery of Saltzdahl. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 33 I was sometimes in prison, and never at ease at home, the consequence of which was dissipation. He died suddenly in the street one night, as he was returning from some friends, about the year 1738, having not attained his fiftieth year. He left four children. THOMAS GIBSON, a man of a most amiable character, says Vertue, had for some time great business ; but an ill state of health for some years interrupted his application, and about 1730 he disposed of his pictures privately amongst his friends. He not long after removed to Oxford, and I believe practised again in London. He died April 28, 1751, aged about seventy-one. Vertue speaks highly of his integrity and modesty, and says he offended his contemporary artists by forbearing to raise his prices ; and adds, what was not surprising in such congenial good- ness, that of all the profession Gibson was his most sincere friend. THOMAS HILL was born in 1661, and learned to draw of the engraver Faithorne. He painted many portraits, and died at Mitcham in 1734. P. M ON AMY, a good painter of sea pieces, was born in Jersey, and certainly from his circumstances, or the views of his family, had little reason to expect the fame he afterwards acquired, having received his first rudiments of drawing from a sign and house painter on London Bridge. But when nature gives real talents, they break forth in the homeliest school. The shallow waves that rolled under his window taught young Monamy what his master could not teach him, and fitted him to imitate the turbulence of the ocean. In Painter's Hall is a large piece by him, painted in 1726. He died at his house in Westminster the beginning of 1749. JAMES VAN HUYSUM, brother of John, that exquisite painter of fruit and flowers, came over in 1 721, and would have been thought a great master in that way, if his brother had never appeared. Old Baptist had more freedom than John Huysum, but no man ever yet approached to the finishing and roundness of the latter. James lived a year or two with Sir Robert Walpole at Chelsea, and copied many pieces of Michael Angelo Caravaggio, Claud Lorrain, Gaspar, and other masters, which are now over the doors and chimneys in the attic story at Houghton, but his drunken dissolute conduct occasioned his being dismissed. JAMES MAUBERT distinguished himself by copying all the portraits he could meet with 33 2 SMIBERT AND THE SCHEMES OF DEAN BERKELEY. of English poets, some of which he painted in small ovals. Dryden, Wycherley, Congreve, Pope, and some others, he painted from the life. He died at the end of 1746. Vertue says he mightily adorned his pictures with flowers, honeysuckles, etc. PESNE, a Parisian, who had studied at Rome, and been painter to the King of Prussia, great grandfather of the present king. Pie came hither in 1724, and drew some of the royal family, but in the gaudy style of his own country, which did not at that time succeed here. JOHN STEVENS, a landscape painter, who chiefly imitated Vandiest, painted small pictures, but was mostly employed for pieces over doors and chimneys. He died in 1722. JOHN SMIBERT, of Edinburgh, was born about 1684, all d served his time with a common house-painter; but eager to handle a pencil in a more elevated style, he came to London, where however for subsistence he was forced to content himself at first with working for coach-painters. It was a little rise to be employed in copying for dealers, and from thence he obtained admittance into the academy. His efforts and ardour at last carried him to Italy, where he spent three years in copying portraits of Raphael, Titian, Vandyck, and Rubens, and improved enough to meet with much business at his return. When his industry and abilities had thus surmounted the asperities of his fortune, he was tempted against the persuasion of his friends to embark in the uncertain but amusing scheme of the famous Dean Berkeley, afterwards Bishop of Cloyne, whose benevolent heart was then warmly set on the erection of a universal college of science and arts in Bermudas, for the instruction of heathen children in Christian duties and civil knowledge. Smibert, a silent and modest man, who abhorred the finesse of some of his profession, was enchanted with a plan that he thought promised him tranquillity and honest subsistence in a healthful elysian climate, 1 and in spite of remonstrances engaged with the dean, whose zeal had ranged the favour of the court on his side. The king's death dispelled the vision. Smibert, however, who had set sail, found it convenient or had resolution enough to proceed, but settled at Boston in New England, where he succeeded to his wish, and married a woman with a con- 1 One may conceive too how a man so devoted to his art must have been animated, when the dean's enthusiasm and eloquence painted to his imagination a new theatre of prospects, rich, warm, and glowing with scenery, which no pencil had yet made cheap and common by a sameness of thinking and imagination. As our disputes and politics have travelled to America, is it not probable that poetry and painting too will revive amidst those extensive tracts as they increase in opulence and empire, and where the stores of nature are so various, so magnificent, and so new ? HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 333 siderable fortune, whom he left a widow with two children in March 1 75 1. A panegyric on him, written there, was printed here in The Courant, 1730. Vertue, in whose notes I find these particulars, mentions another painter of the same country, one Alexander Nesbitt of Leith, born in 1682, but without recording any circumstance relative to him. TREVETT was a painter of architecture, and master of the Company of Painter- stainers, to whose hall he presented one of his works. He painted several views both of the inside and outside of St. Paul's, intending to have them engraved, for which purpose Vertue worked on them some time; but the design was never completed. He began too a large view of London, on several sheets, from the steeple of St. Mary Overy, but died in 1 723. HENRY TRENCH was a contemporary of Kent, and gained a prize in the academy of St. Luke at Rome at the same time. Trench was born in Ireland, but studied many years in Italy, and for some time under Gioseppe Chiari. Returning to England, he professed painting history, but not finding encouragement, went back to Italy and studied two years more. He came over for the last time in 1725, but died the next year, and was buried at Paddington. PETER TILLEMANS not only distinguished himself above most of his competitors, but, which is far more to his honour, has left works that sustain themselves even in capital collections. 1 He was born at Antwerp, 2 and made himself a painter, though he studied under very indifferent masters. In 1708 he was brought to England, with his brother-in-law Casteels, by one Turner, a dealer in pictures ; and employed by him in copying Bourgognon and other masters, in which he succeeded admirably, par- ticularly Teniers, of whom he preserved all the freedom and spirit. He generally painted landscapes with small figures, sea-ports, and views ; but when he came to be known, he was patronised by several men of quality, and drew views of their seats, huntings, races, and horses in perfection. In this way he was much employed both in the west and north of England, and in Wales, and drew many prospects for the intended History of Nottinghamshire by Mr. Bridges. He had the honour of instructing the late Lord Byron, who did great credit to his master, as may be seen by several of his lordship's draw- ings at his beautiful and venerable seat at Newstede Abbey in Notting- 1 His view of Chatsworth hangs among several fine pictures at Devonshire House, and is not disgraced by them. 2 His father was a diamond cutter. 334 PORTRAITS OF THE COMEDIANS JOHNSON AND GRIFFIN. H hamshire, and where Tillemans himself must have improved amidst | so many fine pictures of animals and huntings. 1 There are two long prints of horses and hunting designed and etched by him, and dedi- cated to his patrons, the Duke of Devonshire and Lord Byron. With Joseph Goupy he was prevailed upon to paint a set of scenes for the opera, which were much admired. . After labouring many years under an asthma, for which he chiefly resided at Richmond, he died at Norton 2 in Suffolk, December 5, I734,at about the fiftieth year of his age. JOHN VANDREBANK, a painter much in fashion in the reigns of the two last kings, is said by Vertue to be an Englishman (though by his name at least of foreign extraction), and to have attained his skill without any assistance from study abroad. Had he not been careless and extravagant, says my author, he might have made a greater figure than almost any painter this nation had produced, so bold and free was his pencil and so masterly his drawing. He died of a consumption when he was not above forty-five, in Hollis Street, Cavendish Square, Dec. 23, 1739. John Vandrebank gave the designs of a set of plates for Don Quixote. He had a brother of the same profession ; and a cousin, called SAMUEL BARKER, whom he instructed in the art ; but who having a talent for painting fruit and flowers, imitated Baptist, and would probably have made a good master, but died young in 1727. PETER VANBLEECK came into England in 1723, and was reckoned a good painter of por- traits. There is a fine mezzotinto, done in the following reign, from a picture which he painted of those excellent comedians, Johnson and Griffin, in the characters of Ananias and Tribulation, in the Alchymist. I have mentioned Johnson in this work before, as the most natural actor I ever saw. Griffin's eye and tone were a little too comic, and betrayed his inward mirth, though his muscles were strictly steady. Mr. Weston is not inferior to Johnson in the firmness of his counte- nance, though less universal, as Johnson was equally great in some tragic characters. In Bishop Gardiner he supported the insolent dignity of a persecutor ; and, completely a priest, shifted it in an in- stant to the fawning insincerity of a slave, as soon as Henry frowned. This was indeed history, when Shakespeare wrote it, and Johnson represented it. When we read it in fictitious harangues and wordy 1 These have since been sold by auction. There is a very scarce print of John West, first Earl of Delawarre, from a drawing by that Lord Byron. 2 In the house of Dr. Macro, by whom he had been long employed. ' He was buried in the church of Stow Langtoft. Brit. Topogr., vol. ii., p. 38. HORACE WALPOLF.'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 335 ^'^declamation, it is a tale told by a pedant to a school-boy. Vanbleeck ] ddej died July 20, 1764. HEROMEN VANDERMIJN, nJ ; another Dutch painter, came over recommended by Lord Cadogan the iindJj general, and in his manner carried to excess the laborious minuteness ■(i J of his countrymen ; faithfully imitating the details of lace, embroidery, !>a I confess my mistake and strange negligence, for I made those contradictory assertions within very few pages of each other. I am told too, that there was no blunder in the style of the building, which was intentional ; the library being built in conformity to the chapel, and it being the intention of the architect of the new buildings to build them in the same style, viz., in the Gothic.^ It was undoubtedly judicious to make the library consonant to the chapel, and the new buildings to both, which the editor says are Gothic. If the new buildings are just copies of Gothic, it is I who have blundered, not the architect — but I confess I thought the architect had imitated his models so ill, and yet had contrived to strike out so handsome a piece of scenery, that what I meant to express, was, that he had happily blundered into something- which, though it missed the graceful and imposing dignity of Gothic architecture, has yet some resemblance to it in the effect of the whole. When Hawksmoor lived, Gothic architecture had been little studied, nor were its constituent beauties at all understood ; and whatever the intention of the architect or of his directors was, I believed they blundered, if they thought that the new buildings at All Souls' are in the true Gothic style. I was in the wrong to impute that error to Gibbs ; but I doubt Hawksmoor will not remain justified, if, as it is said, he intended to make the new buildings Gothic, which I presume they are far from being correctly, as they might rather be taken for a mixture of Vanbrugh's and Batty Langley's clumsy misconceptions. Should the university be disposed to add decorations in the genuine style of the colleges, they possess an architect who is capable of thinking in the spirit of the founders. Mr. Wyat, at Mr. Barrett's at Lee, near Canterbury, has, with a disciple's fidelity to the models of his masters, superadded the invention of a genius. The little library has all the air of an abbot's study, except that it discovers more taste. 34^ GREAT VALUE OF THE DESIGNS OF JAMES GIBBS. no single one is beautiful, always struck me with singular pleasure, as it conveys such a vision of large edifices, unbroken by private houses, as the mind may entertain of renowned cities that exist no longer. 1 In 1728, Gibbs published a large folio of his own designs, which I think will confirm the character I have given of his works. His arched windows, his rustic-laced windows, his barbarous buildings for gardens, his cumbrous chimney-pieces, and vases without grace, are striking proofs of his want of taste. He got 1500/. by this publication, and sold the plates afterwards for 400/. more. His reputation was however established ; and the following compliment, preserved by Vertue, on his monument of Prior in Westminster Abbey, shows that he did not want fond admirers : — 1 While Gibbs displays his elegant design, And Rysbrack's art does in the sculpture shine With due composure and proportion just Adding new lustre to the finished bust, Each artist here perpetuates his name, And shares with Prior an immortal fame.* T. w. There are three prints of Gibbs; one from a picture of Huyssing, and another from one of Schryder, a Swiss, who was afterwards painter to the King of Sweden, and the third from Hogarth. Gibbs was afflicted with the gravel and stone, and went to Spa in 1749, but did not die till August 5, 1754. He bequeathed 100/. to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, of which he was architect and governor, the same to the Foundling Hospital, and his library and prints to the RatclifTe library at Oxford, besides charities, and legacies to his relations and friends. 2 COLIN CAMPBELL, a countryman of Gibbs, had fewer faults, but not more imagination. He published three large folios under the title of Vitruvius Britannicus, containing many of his own designs, with plans of other architects ; but he did not foresee with how much more justice that title would be worn by succeeding volumes to be added to his works. One has already been given. The best of Campbell's designs are Wanstead, the Rolls, and Mereworth, in Kent ; the latter avowedly copied from Palladio. 1 It is the same kind of visionary enchantment that strikes in the gardens at Stowe. Though some of the buildings, particularly those of Vanbrugh and Gibbs, are far from beautiful, yet the rich landscapes occasioned by the multiplicity of temples and obelisks, and the various pictures that present themselves as we shift our situation, occasion surprise and pleasure, sometimes recalling Albano's landscapes to our mind, and oftener to our fancy the idolatrous and luxurious vales of Daphne and Tempe. It is just to add, that the improvements made by Lord Temple have profited of the present style of architecture and gardening. The temple of Concord and Victory presiding over so noble a valley, the great arch designed by Mr. T. Pitt, and the smaller in honour of Princess Amelia, disclosing a wonderfully beautiful perspective over the Elysian fields to the Palladian Bridge, and up to the castle on the hill, are monuments of taste and scenes, that I much question if Tempe or Daphne exhibited. 8 There is a farther account of Gibbs in the European Magazine for Sept., 1789. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 343 Campbell was surveyor of the works at Greenwich Hospital, and died in 1734. JOHN JAMES, of whom I find no mention in Vertue's notes, was, as I am informed, ;onsiderably employed in the works at Greenwich, where he settled. He built the church there, and the house for Sir Gregory Page, at Blackheath, the idea of which was taken from Houghton. James like- wise built the church of St. George, Hanover Square, the body of the church at Twickenham, and that of St. Luke, Middlesex, which has a fluted obelisk for its steeple. He translated from the French some books on gardening. ■ CARPENTIERE, OR CHARPENTIERE, a statuary much employed by the Duke of Chandos, at Canons, was for some years principal assistant to Van Ost, an artist of whom I have found no memorials, and afterwards set up for himself. Towards the end of his life he kept a manufacture of leaden statues in Piccadilly, and died in 1737, aged above sixty. CHARLES CHRISTIAN REISEN, the celebrated engraver of seals, was son of Christian Reisen, of Drontheim, in Norway, 1 who had followed the same profession, and who with one Stykes were the first artists of that kind who had dis- tinguished themselves in England. The father died here, leaving a widow and a numerous family, the eldest of which was Charles Christian; who, though scarce twenty, had made so rapid a progress under his father's instructions, that he became the support of the family, and in a few years equalled any modern that had attempted the art of intaglia. He was born in the parish of St. Clement's Danes, and on account of his extraction was recommended to Prince George; but, being little versed in the language of his family, does not appear to have been particularly encouraged by his royal highness. The force of his genius, however, attracted the notice of such a patron as genius deserved, and always found at that time, Robert, Earl of Oxford, whose munificence and recommendation soon placed Christian (by which name he is best known) on the basis of fortune and fame. In the library and museum of that noble collector he found all the helps that a very deficient education had deprived him of ; there he learned to see with Grecian and Roman eyes, and to produce heads after the antique 1 The father, on his voyage to England, had been driven by a storm to Scotland, and worked at Aberdeen for one Melvin, a goldsmith, for two years before he came to London, where he arrived on the second day of the great fire in Sept., 1666. Here he first began to engrave seals, having been only a goldsmith before. Afterwards he was confined in the Tower for four years, on suspicion of engraving dies for coining, but was discharged without a trial. 344 THE BEAUTY OF THE WORKS OF CHRISTIAN REISEN. worthy of his models ; for, though greatly employed on cutting arms and crests, and such tasteless fantasies, his excellence lay in imitating the heroes and empresses of antiquity. I do not find that he ever attempted cameo. The magic of those works, in which by the help of glasses we discover all the beauties of statuary and drawing, and even the science of anatomy, has been restricted to an age that was ignorant of microscopic glasses ; a problem hitherto unresolved to satisfaction. Christian's fame spread beyond the confines of our island, and he received frequent commissions from Denmark, Germany, and France. Christian, as his fortune and taste improved, made a collection himself of medals, prints, drawings, and books ; and was chosen director of the academy under Sir Godfrey Kneller. On the trial of Bishop Atterbury, on a question relating to the impression of a seal, he was thought the best judge, and was examined accordingly. Vertue repre- sents him as a man of a jovial and free, and even sarcastic temper, and of much humour ; an instance of which was, that being illiterate, but conversing with men of various countries, he had composed a dialect so droll and diverting, that it grew into a kind of use among his acquaintance, and he threatened to publish a dictionary of it. His countenance harmonized with his humour, and Christian's mazard was a constant joke ; a circumstance not worth mentioning, no more than the lines it occasioned, but as they fell from the pen of that engaging writer, Mr. Prior. Sir James Thornhill having drawn an extempore profile of Christian, the poet added this distich, — 'This, drawn by candlelight and hazard, Was meant to show Charles Christian's mazard.' This great artist lived chiefly in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, 1 so long the residence of most of our professors in vertu. He died there of the gout, December 15, 1725, when he had not passed the forty-sixth year of his age, and was buried in the churchyard, on the north side, next to the steps. He appointed his friend, Sir James Thornhill, one of his executors, and, dying a bachelor, left the bulk of his fortune to a maiden sister who had constantly lived with him, and a portion to his brother John. CHAPTER XIX. Painters in the Reign of King GEORGE II. It is with complacency I enter upon a more shining period in the history of arts, upon a new era; for though painting made but feeble efforts towards advancement, yet it was in the reign of George II. that 1 He had a house too at Putney ; a view of which, under the satiric title of Bearsdenhall, was published about 1720. Brit. Topogr., vol. ii., p. 280. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 345 architecture revived in antique purity; and that an art unknown to every age and climate not only started into being, but advanced with master-steps to vigorous perfection : I mean the art of gardening, or, as I should choose to call it, ' the art of creating landscape.' 1 Rysbrack and Roubiliac redeemed statuary from reproach, and engraving began to demand better painters, whose works it might imitate. The king, it is true, had little propensity to refined pleasures ; but Queen Caroline was ever ready to reward merit, and wished to have their reign illus- trated by monuments of genius. She enshrined Newton, Boyle, and Locke; she employed Kent, and sat to Zincke. Pope might have enjoyed her favour, and Swift had it at first ; till, insolent under the mask of independence, and. not content without domineering over her politics, she abandoned him to his ill-humour, and to the vexation of that misguided and disappointed ambition that perverted and preyed on his excellent genius. To have an exact view of so long a reign as that of George II., it must be remembered that many of the artists already recorded lived past the beginning of it, and were principal performers. Thus the style that had predominated both in painting and architecture, in the two preceding reigns, still existed during the first years of the late king, and may be considered as the remains of the schools of Dahl and Sir Godfrey Kneller, and of Sir Christopher Wren. Richardson and Jervas, Gibbs and Campbell, were still at the head of their respective professions. Each art improved before the old professors left the stage. Vanloo introduced a better style of draperies, which by the help of Vanaken became common to and indeed the same in the works of almost all our painters ; and Leoni, by publishing and imitating Palladio, disencumbered architecture from some of the weight with which it had been overloaded. Kent, Lord Burlington, and Lord Pembroke, though the two first were no foes to heavy ornaments, restored every other grace to that imposing science, and left the art in possession of all its rights— yet still Mr. Adam and Sir William Chambers were wanting to give it perfect delicacy. The reign was not closed, when Sir Joseph Reynolds ransomed portrait-painting from insipidity, and would have excelled the greatest masters in that branch, if his colouring were as lasting as his taste and imagination are inex- haustible. But I mean not to speak of living masters, and must there- fore omit some of the ornaments of that reign. Those I shall first recapitulate were not the most meritorious. 1 I have not been able to please myself with a single term that will express ground laid out on principles of natural picturesque beauty, in contradistinction of symmetrical gardens ; but I am very clear that the designer of modern improvements in ' Landscape gardens ' (as I will call them for want of a happier appellation) ought by no means to be confounded with the domestic called a 'gardener;' especially as a word presents itself which will distinguish the different provinces of designing a garden, and of superintending it when laid out. The latter will remain ' the gardener,' the projector I should propose to denominate 'a gardenist.' 346 WALPOLE ON PAINTING. HANS HUYSSING, born at Stockholm, came over in 1700, and lived many years with Dahl, whose manner he imitated and retained. He drew the three eldest princesses, daughters of the king, in the robes they wore at the coronation. CHARLES COLLINS painted all sorts of fowl and game. He drew a piece with a hare and birds and his own portrait in a hat. He died in 1744. COOPER imitated Michael Angelo di Caravaggio in painting fruit and flowers. He died towards the end of 1 743. BARTHOLOMEW DANDRIDGE, son of a house-painter, had great business from his felicity in taking a likeness. He sometimes painted small conversations, but died in the vigour of his age. DAM IN I, an Italian painter of history, was scholar of Pelegrini. He returned to his own country in 1730, in company with Mr. Hussey, whose genius for drawing was thought equal to very great masters. JEREMIAH DAVISON was born in England, of Scots parents. He chiefly studied Sir Peter Lely, and, with the assistance of Vanaken, excelled in painting satins. Having got acquainted with the Duke of Athol at a lodge of free- masons, he painted his grace's picture, and presented it to the society. The duke sat to him again with his duchess, and patronized and carried him into Scotland; where, as well as in London, he had great business. He died the latter end of 1745, aged about fifty. JOHN ELLIS, born in 1701, was at fifteen placed with Sir James Thornhill, and afterwards was a short time with Schmutz : but he chiefly imitated Vandrebank, to whose house and business he succeeded ; and by the favour of the Duke of Montague, great master of the wardrobe, pur- chased Vanderbank's place of tapestry-weaver to the crown, as by the interest of Sir Robert Walpole, for whom he bought pictures, he was appointed master-keeper of the lions in the Tower. In these easy circumstances he was not very assiduous in his profession. PHILIP MERCIER [born 1689, died 1760], of French extraction, but born at Berlin, studied there in the academy, HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 347 nd under Monsieur Pesne. After visiting France and Italy, he went Hanover, where he drew Prince Frederick's picture, which he nought to England ; and when his royal highness came over, Mercier ,vas appointed his painter, became a favourite, and was taken into his service and household ; and by the prince's order drew several of the royal family, particulaily the three eldest princesses, which pictures were published in mezzotinto. After nine years, he lost the favour of the Prince of Wales, and was dismissed from his service. At first he talked of quitting his profession, retired into the country, and bought a small estate; but soon returned and took a house in Covent Garden, painting portraits and pictures of familiar life in a genteel style of his own, and with a little of Watteau, in whose manner there is an etching of Mercier and his wife and two of their children. There is another print of his daughter. Children too and their sports he painted for prints. From London he went to York, and met with encouragement ; and for a short time to Portugal and Ireland, and died July 18, 1760. JOSEPH FRANCIS NOLLIKINS, of Antwerp, son of a painter who had long resided in England, but who had settled and died at Roan. The son came over young, and studied under Tillemans, and afterwards copied Watteau and Paulo Panini. Fie painted landscape, figures, and conversations, and par- ticularly the amusements of children. He was much employed by Lord Cobham at Stowe, and by the late Earl of Tilney. He died in St. Anne's parish, January 21, 1748, aged forty-two, and left a wife and a numerous young family. 1 Slater painted in the same kind with Nollikins, and executed ceilings and works in fresco at Stowe, and at the Earl of Westmorland's, at Mereworth in Kent. ROBINSON, a young painter from Bath, had been educated under Vandrebank ; but marrying a wife with 4000/. or 5000/., and taking the house in Cleve- land Court, in which Jervas had lived, he suddenly came into great business, though his colouring was faint and feeble. He affected to dress all his pictures in Vandyck's habits ; a fantastic fashion, with which the age was pleased in other painters too, and which, could they be taken from the works of that great man, would only serve to perplex posterity. Vanaken assisted to give some credit to the delu- sion. Robinson died when he was not above thirty, in 1 745. ANDREA SOLDI, of Florence, arrived in 1735, being then about the age of thirty-three. He had been to visit the Holy Land; and at Aleppo having drawn the 1 There is an account of the eldest son Joseph, the statuary, in the Enrop. Mag., June 1788, p. 387. 343 VVALPOLE ON PAINTING. pictures of some English merchants, they gave him recommendations! to their countrymen. For some time he had much business, anc! painted both portraits and history, but outlived his income, and fell! into misfortunes. CHEVALIER RUSCA, a Milanese, came over in 1738, and painted a few pictures here in ail gaudy fluttering style, but with some merit. I think he stayed here butj very few years. STEPHEN SLAUGHTER succeeded Mr. Walton as supervisor of the king's pictures, and had been for some time in Ireland, where he painted several portraits. He had a sister that excelled in imitating bronzes and bas-reliefs to the highest degree of deception. He died at Kensington, whither he had retired, May 15, 1765. He was succeeded in his office of sur- veyor and keeper of the pictures by Mr. George Knapton, painter in crayons. JAMES WORSDALE would have been little known, had he been distinguished by no talents but his pencil. He was apprentice to Sir Godfrey Kneller, but marry- ing his wife's niece without their consent, was dismissed by his master. On the reputation, however, of that education, by his singing, excellent mimicry, and facetious spirit, he gained many patrons and business, and was appointed master-painter to the board of ordnance. He 1 published several small pieces, songs, etc., besides the following drama- tic performances : — 1. A Cure for a Scold, a ballad opera, taken from Shakespeare's Taming of a Shrew. 2. The Assembly, a farce, in which Mr. Worsdale himself played the part of old Lady Scandal admirably well. 3. The Queen of Spain. 4. The Extravagant Justice. He died June 13, 1767, and was buried at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, with this epitaph composed by himself : ' Eager to get, but not to keep the pelf, A friend to all mankind except himself.' RANELAGH BARRETT was a noted copyist, who, being countenanced by Sir Robert Walpole, copied several of his collection, and others of the Duke of Devonshire and Dr. Meade. He was indefatigable, and executed a vast number of works. He succeeded greatly in copying Rubens. He died in 1768, and his pictures were sold by auction in December of that yean 1 Baker's Companion to the Playhouse. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 349 JOHN WOOTTON, 1 scholar of Wyck, was a very capital master in the branch of his profession to which he principally devoted himself, and by which he was peculiarly qualified to please in this country ; I mean, by painting horses and dogs, which he both drew and coloured with consummate skill, fire, and truth. He was first distinguished by frequenting New- market and drawing racehorses. The prints from his hunting-pieces are well known. He afterwards applied to landscape, approached to- wards Gaspar Poussin, and sometimes imitated happily the glow of Claude Lorrain. In his latter pieces the leafage of his trees, from the failure of his eyes, is hard and too distinctly marked. He died in January 1765, at his house in Cavendish Square, which he built, and had painted with much taste and judgment. His prices were high; for a single horse he has been paid 40 guineas ; and 20, when smaller than life. His collection was sold before his death, on his quitting business; his drawings and prints January 21, 1 761, and his pictures March the 12, 13, following. JOSEPH HIGHMORE, nephew of Serjeant Highmore, was bred a lawyer, but quitted that profession for painting, which he exercised with reputation amongst the successors of Kneller, under whom he entered into the academy, and living at first in the city, was much employed there for family pieces. He afterwards removed to Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, and painted the por- traits of the Knights of the Bath, on the revival of that order, for the series of plates which he first projected, and which were engraved by Pine. Highmore published two pamphlets, one called A critical examination of the ceiling painted by Rubens in the Banqueting House, in which architecture is introduced, as far as relates to perspective ; together with the discussion of a question which has been the subject of debate among painters. Written many years since, but now first published, 1 764 quarto. 1 The other, The practice of perspective on the principles of Dr. Brook Taylor, etc. Written many years since, but now first published, 1 764, quarto, with 50 copper plates, price one guinea, in boards. He had a daughter who was married to a prebendary of Can- terbury, and to her he retired on his quitting business, and died there in March, 1780, aged 88. 2 THOMAS HUDSON, the scholar and son-in-law of Richardson, enjoyed for many years the chief business of portrait-painting in the capital, after the favourite artists, his master and Jervas, were gone off the stage ; though Vanloo 1 Gough's Topogr., art. London. 2 There is a larger account of Mr, Highmore in the Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1780, with a portrait of him. 350 THE STYLE OF HUDSON, THE PAINTER. first, and Liotard afterwards, for a few years diverted the torrent of' fashion from the established professor. Still the country gentlemen were faithful to their compatriot, and were content with his honest similitudes, and with the fair tied wigs, blue velvet coats, and white satin waistcoats, which he bestowed liberally on his customers, and which with complacence they beheld multiplied in Faber's mezzotintos The better taste introduced by Sir Joshua Reynolds put an end to Hudson's reign, who had the good sense to resign the throne soon after finishing his capital work, the family-piece of Charles, Duke of Marlborough. He retired to a small villa he had built at Twicken- ham, on a most beautiful point of the river, and where he furnished the best rooms with a well-chosen collection of cabinet-pictures and draw- ings by great masters, having purchased many of the latter from his father-in-law's capital collection. Towards the end of his life he married to his second wife, Mrs. Fiennes, a gentlewoman with a good fortune, to whom he bequeathed his villa, and died Jan. 26, 1779, a S e(i 7& On the death of his widow his collection of pictures and drawings was sold by auction in 1785. FRANCIS HAYMAN, a native of Devonshire, and scholar of Brown, owed his reputation to the pictures he painted for Vauxhall, which recommended him to much practice in giving designs for prints to books, in which he sometimes succeeded well, though a strong mannerist, 1 and easily distinguishable by the large noses and shambling legs of his figures. In his pictures his colouring was raw, nor in any light did he attain excellence. He was a rough man, with good natural parts, and a humourist — a charac- ter often tasted by cotemporaries, but which seldom assimilates with or forgives the rising generation. He died of the gout at his house in Dean Street, Soho, in 1776, aged 68. SAMUEL SCOTT, of the same era, was not only the first painter of his own age, but one whose works will charm in every age. If he was but second to Vande- velde in sea-pieces, he excelled him in variety, and often introduced buildings in his pictures with consummate skill. His views of London Bridge, of the Quay at the Custom-house, 2 etc., were equal to his marines, and his figures were judiciously chosen and admirably painted, nor were his washed drawings inferior to his finished pictures. Sir Edward Walpole has several of his largest and most capital works. The gout harassed and terminated his life; but he had formed a scholar that compensated for his loss to the public — Mr. Marlow. Mr. Scott died October 12, 1772, leaving an only daughter by his wife, who survived him till April, 1 781. 1 Churchill, in his first book of Gotham, objects that fault to him. 2 In the collection of Sir Edward Walpole, who had several of the best works of Scott, Lambert, Oram, and Wootton. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 35 1 Mr. TAVERNER, , proctor in the Commons, painted landscape for his amusement, but ould have made a considerable figure amongst the renowned profes- ors of the art. The Earl of Harcourt and Mr, Fr. Fauquier have .ach two pictures by him that must be mistaken for, and are worthy of Caspar Poussin. His father, Jeremiah Taverner, is said to have been a portrait-painter. The son, besides his profession, and painting, wrote six comedies ; but it is not mentioned whether they were acted or not. Dodsley's Theatr. Records, p. 105, 1756, duodecimo. Athenian Stuart had several of Taverner's landscapes, which were sold in Stuart's auction, 1788. GEORGE KNAPTON was scholar of Richardson, but painted chiefly in crayons. Like his master, he was very well versed in the theory of painting, and had a thorough knowledge of the hand of the good masters, and was con- cerned with Pond in his various publications. In 1765, Knapton was painter to the society of Dilettanti, and on the death of Slaughter was appointed surveyor and keeper of the king's pictures, and died at the age of eighty, in i77S y at Kensington, where he was buried. FRANCIS COTES, scholar of Knapton, painted portraits in oil and crayons, in the latter of which he arrived at uncommon perfection, though he died untimely of the stone in July, 1770, not having passed the 45th year of his age. His pictures of the queen holding the princess royal, then an infant, in her lap ; of his own wife ; of Polly Jones, a woman of pleasure ; of Mr. Obrien, the comedian; of Mrs. Child, of Osterley Park; and of Miss Wilton, now Lady Chambers, are portraits which, if they yield to Rosalba's in softness, excel hers in vivacity and invention. WILLIAM ORAM was bred an architect, but taking to landscape-painting, arrived at great merit in that branch, and was made master-carpenter to the board of works, by the interest of Sir Edward Walpole, who has several of his pictures and drawings. JOHN SHACKLETON was principal painter to the crown in the latter end of the reign of George II., and to his death, which happened March 16, 1767. GIACOMO AMICONI, a Venetian painter of history, came to England in 1729, when he was about forty years of age. He had studied under Bellucci in the Pala- tine Court, and had been some years in the Elector of Bavaria's service. 352 THE PAINTINGS OF GIACOMO AMICONI. His manner was a still fainter imitation of that nerveless mastei Sebastian Ricci, and as void of the glow of life as the Neapolitar, Solimeni ; so little attention do the modern Venetian painters pay tc' Titian, Tintoret, and Paul Veronese, even in Venice. Amiconi's women are mere chalk, as if he had only painted from the ladies who paint themselves. Nor was this his worse defect ; his figures are so entirel without expression, that his historical compositions seem to represent a set of actors in a tragedy, ranged in attitudes against the curtain draws up. His Mark Antonys are as free from passion as his Scipios Yet novelty was propitious to Amiconi, and for a few years he had great business. He was employed to paint a staircase at Lord Tan kerville's in St. James's Square, now destroyed. It represented stories of Achilles, Telemachus, and Tiresias. When he was .to be paid, he produced bills of workmen for scaffolding, etc., amounting to ninety- nine pounds, and asked no more ; content, he said, with the oppor- tunity of showing what he could do. The peer gave him 200/. more Amiconi then was employed on the staircase at Powis House, in Great Ormond Street, which he decorated with the story of Holofernes, but with the additional fault of bestowing Roman dresses on the person- ages. His next work was a picture of Shakespeare and the Muses over the orchestra of the new theatre in Covent Garden. But as portraiture is the one thing necessary to a painter in this country, he was obliged to betake himself to that employment, 1 much against his inclination ; yet the English never perhaps were less in the wrong in insisting that a painter of history should turn limner ; the barrenness of Amiconi's imagination being more suited to the inactive tameness of a portrait than to groups and expression. The Duke of Lorrain, afterwards emperor, was then at London, and sat to him. He drew the queen and the three eldest princesses, and prints were taken from his pictures, which he generally endeavoured to emblematicize by genii and Cupids. In 1736 he made a journey to Paris with the celebrated singer, Fari- nelli, and returned with him in the October following. His portrait of Farinelli was engraved. He then engaged with Wagner, an engraver, in a scheme of prints from Canaletti's views of Venice, and, having married an Italian singer, returned to his own country in 1739, having acquired here about 5000/. At last he settled in Spain, was appointed painter to the king, and died at Madrid, September, 1752. Amiconi's daughters, the Signora Belluomini and the Signora Castellini, the latter a paintress in crayons, were living at Madrid in 1773. Twist's Travels, p. 167, 4to. 1775. Brunetti, an Italian, who had arrived before Ami- coni, and was a painter of architecture and ornaments, assisted the latter at Lord Tankerville's and other places, and painted scenes for the opera. He etched some plates of grotesque ornaments, but left England for want of business. 1 For a whole length he was paid sixty guineas. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 353 JAMES SEYMOUR as thought even superior to Wootton in drawing a horse, but was too die to apply himself to his profession, and never attained any higher excellence. He was the only son of Mr. James Seymour, a banker md great virtuoso, who drew well himself, and had been intimate with aithorne, Lely, Simon, and Sir Christopher Wren, and died at the ge of 81, in 1739; the son in 1752, aged 50. 1 JOHN BAPTIST VANLOO, rother of Carlo Vanloo, a painter in great esteem at Paris, studied in the academy at Rome, and became painter to the King of Sardinia, in whose court he made a considerable fortune, but lost it all in the Mississippi, going to Paris in the year of that bubble. He was counte- nanced by the regent, and appointed one of the king's painters, though inferior in merit to his brother. At Paris he had the honour of drawing the portrait of King Stanislas. In 1737 he came to England with his son, when he was about the age of 55. His first works here were the portraits of Colley Cibber and Owen MacSwinney, whose long silver- grey hairs were extremely picturesque, and contributed to give the new painter reputation. MacSwinney was a remarkable person 2 of much humour, and had been formerly a manager of the operas ; but for several years had resided at Venice. He had been concerned in a publication of prints from Vandyck, ten whole lengths of which were engraved by Van Gunst. He afterwards engaged in procuring a set of emblematic pictures, exhibiting the most shining actions of English heroes, statesmen, and patriots. These were painted by the best masters then in Italy, and pompous prints made from them ; but with indifferent success, the stories being so ill told, that it is extremely difficult to decipher to what individual so many tombs, edifices and allegories belong in each respective piece. Several of these paintings are in the possession of his grace the Duke of Richmond. Vanloo soon bore away the chief business of London from every other painter. His likenesses were very strong, but not favourable, and his heads coloured with force. He executed very little of the rest of his pictures, the draperies of which were supplied by Vanaken, and VanWs own disciples Eccardt 3 and Root. However, Vanloo cer- 1 Charles, the old haughty Duke of Somerset, sent for Seymour to Petworth, to paint a room with portraits of his running horses, and one day at dinner drank to him with a sneer, 'Cousin Seymour, your health.' The painter replied, 'My lord, I really do believe that I ' have the honour of being of your grace's family.' The duke, offended, rose from table, and sent his steward to pay Seymour and dismiss him. Another painter of horses was sent for ; who finding himself unworthy to finish Seymour's work, honestly told the duke so, and humbly recommended to him to recall Seymour. The haughty peer did condescend to summon his 'cousin' once more. Seymour answered the mandate in these words, 'My lord, I will now ' prove I am of your grace's family, for I won't come.' 2 See more of him in Cibber's Apology for his own Life. 3 Eccardt was a German, and a modest worthy man. He remained here after Vanloo's return to France, and succeeded to some of his business ; but having married the daughter of Mr. Duhamel, watchmaker, in Henrietta Street, with whom he lodged, he retired to Chelsea, where he died in Oct., 1779, leaving a son, who is a clerk in the Custom-house. 24 354 THE FAMOUS VIEWS OF VENICE, BY CANALETTI. tainly introduced a better style : his pictures were thoroughly finished.! natural, and no part neglected. He was laborious, and demanded five sittings from each person. But he soon left the palm to be again contended for by his rivals. He laboured under a complication ofj distempers ; and being advised to try the air of his own country, Provence, he retired thither in Oct., 1742, and died there in April, 1746. JOSEPH VANAKEN. As in England almost everybody's picture is painted, so almost every painter's works were painted by Vanaken. He was born at Antwerp; and excelling in satins, velvets, lace, embroidery, etc., he 1 was employed by several considerable painters here to draw the attitudes and dress the figures in their pictures, which makes it very difficult to distinguish the works of the several performers. Hogarth drew the supposed funeral of Vanaken, attended by the painters he worked for, discovering every mark of grief and despair. He died of a fever, July 4, 1749, aged about fifty. He left a brother, who followed the same business. There was another of the same surname, Arnold Vanaken, who painted small figures, landscapes, conversations, and published a set of prints of fishes, or the wonders of the deep. Arnold had a brother who painted in the same way, and scraped mezzotintos. CLERMONT, a Frenchman, was many years in England, painted in grotesque foliages with birds and monkeys, and executed several ceilings and ornaments of buildings in gardens ; particularly a gallery for Frederic Prince of Wales, at Kew ; two temples in the Duke of Marlborough's island, near Windsor, called from his grotesques, Monkey Island; the ceiling of Lord Radnor's gallery, and of my gothic library, at Twicken- ham; the sides of Lord Strafford's eating-room in St. James's Square, from Raphael's loggie in the Vatican ; and a ceiling for Lord North- umberland, at Sion. Clermont returned to his own country in 1754. ANTONIO CANALETTI, the well-known painter of views of Venice, came to England in 1 746, when he was about the age of fifty, by persuasion of his country- man Amiconi, and encouraged by the multitudes of pictures he had sold to or sent over to the English. He w T as then in good circum- stances, and it is said came to vest his money in our stocks. I think he did not stay here above two years. I have a perspective by him of the inside of King's-college Chapel. At the queen's house are several large pieces far superior to his common views of Venice. They had belonged to Smyth, the English consul at Venice, who early engaged HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 355 "analetti to work for him for a long term of years at low rates, but etailed the pictures to travelling English at higher prices. JOLI, think a Venetian, was in England in this reign, and painted ruins ith historic figures in the manner of Paolo Panini. At Job's house saw one of those pictures, in which were assembled as many blunders and improprieties as could be well contained in that compass. The subject was Alexander adorning the tomb of Achilles — on a grave- stone was inscribed. 1 Hie jacet M. Achille, P. P., i.e. pater patriae.' The Christian Latin, the Roman M. for Marcus, the pater patriae, and the Italian termination to Achilles, all this confusion of ignorance, made the picture a real curiosity. GEORGE LAMBERT. In a country so profusely beautified with the amenities of nature, it is extraordinary that we have produced so few good painters of land- scape. As our poets warm their imaginations with sunny hills, or sigh after grottos and cooling breezes, our painters draw rocks and precipices and castellated mountains, because Virgil gasped for breath at Naples, and Salvator wandered amidst Alps and Apennines. Our ever verdant lawns, rich vales, fields of haycocks, and hop-grounds, are neglected as homely and familiar subjects. The latter, which I never saw painted, are very picturesque, particularly in the season of gathering, when some tendrils are ambitiously climbing, and others dangling in natural festoons ; while poles, despoiled of their garlands, are erected into easy pyramids that contrast with the taper and upright columns. In Kent such scenes are often backed by sand-hills that enliven the green, and the gatherers dispersed among the narrow alleys enliven the picture, and give it various distances. Lambert, 1 who was instructed by Hassel, and at first imitated Woot- ton, was a very good master in the Italian style, and followed the manner of Gaspar, but with more richness in his compositions. His trees were in a great taste, and grouped nobly. He painted many admirable scenes for the play-house, where he had room to display his genius ; and, in concert with Scott, executed six large pictures of their settlements for the East India Company, which are placed at their house in Leadenhall Street. He died Feb. i, 1765. He did a few landscapes in crayons. THOMAS WORLIDGE [born 1700, died 1766], for the greater part of his life painted portraits in miniature ; he after- wards with worse success performed them in oil ; but at last acquired reputation and money by etchings in the manner of Rembrandt, 1 There is a print by Smith of one John Lambert, Esq., painting an historic piece, from a portrait clone by himself; I do not know whether he was related to George Lambert. 24 * 35 6 THE ART OF MAKING LANDSCAPES IN NEEDLEWORK. proved to be a very easy task by the numbers of men who have counterfeited that master so as to deceive all those who did not know I his works by heart. Worlidge's imitations and his heads in blacklead have grown astonishingly into fashion. His best piece is the whole length of Sir John Astley, copied from Rembrandt; his print of the; theatre at Oxford and the act there, and his statue of Lady Pomfret's Cicero, are very poor performances. His last work was a book of gems from the antique. He died Sept. 23, 1766, at Hammersmith, thought latterly he resided chiefly at Bath. The following compliment ; to his wife, on seeing her copy a landscape in needlework, was printed I in the Public Advertiser: ■I 1 At Worlidge's as late I saw A female artist sketch and draw, Now take a crayon, now a pencil. Now thread a needle, strange utensil ! I hardly could believe my eyes, To see hills, houses, steeples rise ; While crewel o'er the canvas drawn Became a river or a lawn. Thought I — it was not said through malice, That Worlidge was obliged to Pallas ; For sure such art can be displayed By none except the blue-eyed maid ! To him the prude is tender-hearted. The paintress from her easel started — " Oh ! sir, your servant — pray sit down : My husband's charmed you're come to town." — For, would you think it ? — on my life, 'Twas all the while the artist's wife/ I chose to insert these lines, not only in justice to the lady celebrated, but to take notice that the female art it records has of late placed it- self with dignity by the side of painting, and actually maintains a rank among the works of genius. Miss Gray was the first who distinguished herself by so bold an emulation of painting. She was taught by a Mr. Taylor, but greatly excelled him, as appears by their works at Lord Spencer's, at Wimbledon. His represents an old woman selling fruit to a Flemish woman, after Snyder ; hers, a very large picture of three recruiting officers and a peasant, whole lengths— in each the figures are as large as life. This gentlewoman has been followed by a very great mistress of the art, Caroline, Countess of Aylesbury, who has not only surpassed several good pictures that she has copied, but works with such rapidity and intelligence, that it is almost more curious to see her pictures in their progress, than after they are finished. Besides several other works, she has done a picture of fowls, a water-dog HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 357 nd a heron, from Oudry, and an old woman spinning, whole length, from Velasco, that have greater force than the originals. As some ~f these masterly performances have appeared in our public exhibi- tions, I venture to appeal to that public, whether justice or partiality ictated this encomium. CHAPTER XX. Painters in the Reign of King GEORGE II. WILLIAM HOGARTH. 1 Having dispatched the herd of our painters in oil, I reserved to a class by himself that great and original genius, Hogarth ; considering him rather as a writer of comedy with a pencil, than as a painter. If catching the manners and follies of an age living as they rise, if general satire on vices, and ridicules, familiarized by strokes of nature heightened by wit, and the whole animated by proper and just ex- pressions of the passions, be comedy, Hogarth composed comedies as much as Moliere: in his Marriage a la Mode there is even an intrigue carried on throughout the piece. He is more true to character than Congreve ; each personage is distinct from the rest, acts in his sphere, and cannot be confounded with any other of the dramatis personse. The alderman's footboy, in the last print of the set I have mentioned, is an ignorant rustic ; and if wit is struck out from the characters in which it is not expected, it is from their acting conformably to their situation and from the mode of their passions, not from their having the wit of fine gentlemen. Thus there is wit in the figure of the alderman, who, when his daughter is expiring in the agonies of poison, wears a face of solicitude — but it is to save her gold ring, which he is drawing gently from her finger. The thought is parallel to Moliere's, where the miser puts out one of the candles as he is talking. Moliere, inimitable as he has proved, brought a rude theatre to perfection. Hogarth had no model to follow and improve upon. He created his art ; and used colours instead of language. His place is between the Italians, whom we may consider as epic poets and tragedians, and the Flemish painters, who are as writers of farce and editors of burlesque nature. 2 1 Since the first edition of this work, a much ampler account of Hogarth and his works has been given by Mr. Nichols, which is not only more accurate, but much more satisfactory than mine ; omitting nothing that a collector would wish to know, either with regard to the history of the painter himself, or to the circumstances, different editions and variations of his prints. I have completed my list of Hogarth's works from that source of information. 2 When they attempt humour, it is by making a drunkard vomit ; they take evacuations for jokes, and when they make us sick, think they make us laugh. A boor hugging a frightful frow is a frequent incident even in the works of Teniers. If there were painters in the Alps, I suppose they would exhibit Mars and Venus with a conjunction of swelled throats. I cannot deny myself the pleasure of observing that we actually possess a painter, who, finishing as ex- quisitely as the Flemish, is a true master of comic nature. Need I say his name isZoffani? I have been blamed for censuring the indelicacies of Flemish and Dutch painters, by com- 358 NO MALICE IN THE SKETCHES OF HOGARTH. They are the Tom Browns of the mob. Hogarth resembles Butler ; but his subjects are more universal, and amidst all his pleasantry he observes the true end of comedy, reformation ; there is always a moral to his pictures. Sometimes he rose to tragedy, not in the catastroph of kings and heroes, but in marking how vice "conducts insensibly am incidentally to misery and shame. He warns against encouraging cruelty and idleness in young minds, and discerns how the different vices of the great and the vulgar lead by various paths to the same unhappiness. The fine lady in Marriage a la Mode, and Tom Nero in The Four Stages of Cruelty, terminate their story in blood — she occasions the murder of her husband, he assassinates his mistress. How delicate and superior too is his satire, when he intimates in the College of Physicians and Surgeons that preside at a dissection, how the legal habitude of viewing shocking scenes hardens the human mind, and renders it unfeeling. The president maintains the dignity of insensibility over an executed corpse, and considers it but as the object of a lecture. In the print of The Sleeping Judges, this habitual indifference only excites our laughter. It is to Hogarth's honour, that, in so many scenes of satire or ridicule, it is obvious that ill-nature did not guide his pencil. His end is always reformation, and his reproofs general. Except in the print of the Times, and the two portraits of Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Churchill that followed, no man, amidst such a profusion of characteristic faces, ever pretended to discover or charge him with the caricatura of a real 1 person ; except of such notorious characters as Chartres and Mother Needham, and a very few more, who are acting officially and suitably to their professions. As he must have observed so carefully the operation of the passions on the countenance, it is even wonderful that he never, though without intention, delivered the very features of any identical person. It is at the same time a proof of his intimate intuition into nature ; but had he been too severe, the humanity of endeavouring to root out cruelty to animals would atone for many satires. It is another proof that he drew all his stores from nature and the force of his own paring them with the purity of Hogarth, against whom are produced many instances of inde- licacy, and some repetitions of the same indelicacy. I will not defend myself by pleading that these instances are thinly scattered through a great number of works, and that there is at least humour in most of the incidents quoted, and that they insinuate some reflection, which is never the case of the foreigners j but can I choose but smile when one of the nastiest examples specified is from the burlesque of Paul before Felix, professedly in ridicule of the gross images of the Dutch ? 1 If he indulged his spirit of ridicule in personalities, it* never proceeded beyond sketches and drawings ; his prints touched the folly, but spared the person. Early he drew a noted miser, one of the sheriffs, trying a mastiff that had robbed his kitchen ; but the magistrate's son went to his house, and cut the picture to pieces. * I have been reproved for this assertion, and instances have been pointed out that contra- dict me. I am far from persevering in an error, and do allow that my position was too positive. Still some of the instances adduced were by no means caricaturas. Sir John Gonson and Dr. Misaubin, in The Harlot's Progress, were rathesjexamples identified than satires. Others, as Mr. Pine's, were mere portraits, introduced by their own desire, or with their consent. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 359 genius, and was indebted neither to models nor books for his style, 'thoughts, or hints, that he never succeeded when he designed for the Sa DijBporks of other men. I do not speak of his early performances at the ftime when he was engaged by booksellers, and rose not above those ;they generally employ; but in his maturer age, when he had invented his art, and gave a few designs for some great authors, as Cervantes, '4« Gulliver, and even Hudibras, his compositions were tame, spiritless, ; f void of humour, and never reach the merits of the books they were xJf designed to illustrate. He could not bend his talents to think after LjJ I anybody else. He could think like a great genius rather than after i : one. I have a sketch in oil that he gave me, which he intended to engrave. It was done at the time (in 1729. Brit. Top., vol i., p. 636) Jig, ! that the house of commons appointed a committee to inquire into the ])J i cruelties exercised on prisoners in the Fleet to extort money from | them. The scene is the committee; on the table are the instruments 'jjj of torture. A prisoner in rags half starved appears before them ; the , a j ; poor man has a good countenance that adds to the interest. On the I? other hand is the inhuman gaoler. It is the very figure that Salvator J ! Rosa would have drawn for Iago in the moment of detection. Villany, J 1 fear, and conscience are mixed in yellow and livid on his countenance, I j his lips are contracted by tremor, his face advances as eager to lie, f ' his legs step back as thinking to make his escape ; one hand is thrust I precipitately into his bosom, the fingers of the other are catching un- I! certainly at his button holes. If this was a portrait, 1 it is the most speaking that ever was drawn; if it was not, it is still finer. It is seldom that his figures do not express the character he intended j ! to give them. When they wanted an illustration that colours could |j not bestow, collateral circumstances, full of wit, supply notes. The f! nobleman in Marriage a la Mode has a great air — the coronet on his crutches, and his pedigree issuing out of the bowels of William the Conqueror add his character. In the breakfast, the old steward reflects for the spectator. Sometimes a short label is an epigram, and is never introduced without improving the subject. Unfortunately, some circumstances that were temporary will be lost to posterity, the fate of all comic authors ; and if ever an author wanted a commentary that none of his beauties might be lost, it is Hogarth — not from being obscure (for he never was that but in two or three of his first prints, where transient national follies, as lotteries, freemasonry, and the South Sea were his topics), but for the use of foreigners, and from a multiplicity of little incidents, not essential to, but always heightening, the principal action. Such is the spider's web extended over the poor's box in a parish church ; the blunders in architecture in the nobleman's seat seen through the window, in the first print of Marriage a la Mode, and a thousand in the Strollers dressing in a barn, which for wit and 1 It was the portrait of Bambridge, the warden of the Fleet prison. Nichols. 360 CHARACTER OF THE DRAWINGS OF HOGARTH. imagination, without any other end, I think the best of all his works ; as for useful and deep satire, that on the methodists is the most sublime. The scenes of Bedlam and the gaming house are inimitable representations of our serious follies or unavoidable woes; and the concern shown by the lord mayor when the companion of his childhood is brought before him as a criminal, is a touching picture, and big with humane admonition and reflection. Another instance of this author's genius is his not condescending to explain his moral lessons by the trite poverty of allegory. If he had an emblematic thought, he expressed it with wit rather than by a sym- bol. Such is that of the whore setting fire to the world in The Rake's Progress. Once indeed he descended to use an allegoric personage, and was not happy in it ; in one of his election prints Britannia's chariot breaks down, while the coachman and footman are playing at cards on the box. Sometimes too, to please his vulgar customers, he stooped to low images and national satire, as in the two prints of France and England, ? and that of The Gates of Calais. The last, indeed, has great merit, though the caricatura is carried to excess. In all these the painter's purpose was to make his countrymen observe the ease and affluence of a free government, opposed to the wants and woes of slaves. In Beer Street, the English butcher tossing a French- man in the air with one hand is absolute hyperbole; and, what is worse, was an afterthought, not being in the first edition. The Gin Alley is much superior, horridly fine, but disgusting. His Bartholomew Fair is full of humour; the March to Finchley, of nature ; the Enraged Musician tends to farce. The Four Parts of the Day, except the last, are inferior to few of his works. The Sleeping Congregation, the Lecture on the Vacuum, the Laughing Audience, the Consultation of Physicians, as a coat of arms, and the Cockpit, are per- fect in their several kinds. The prints of Industry and Idleness have more merit in the intention than execution. Towards his latter end he now and then repeated himself, but sel- domer than most great authors who executed so much. It may appear singular, that of an author whom I call comic, and who is so celebrated for his humour, I phould speak in general in so serious a style ; but it would be suppressing the merits of his heart to consider him only as a promoter of laughter. I think I have shown that his views were more generous and extensive. Mirth coloured his pictures, but benevolence designed them. He smiled like Socrates, that men might not be offended at his lectures, and might learn to laugh at their own follies. When his topics were harmless, all his touches were marked with pleasantry and fun. He never laughed, like Rabelais, at nonsense that he imposed for wit ; but, like Swift, com- bined incidents that divert one from their unexpected encounter, and illustrate the tale he means to tell. Such are the hens roosting on the HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 36l pright waves in the scene of the Strollers, and the devils drinking porter on the altar. The manners or costume are more than observed in every one of his works. The very furniture of his rooms describes the characters of the persons to whom they belong: a lesson that light be of use to comic authors. It was reserved to Hogarth to write a scene of furniture. The rake's levee room, the nobleman's dining-room, the apartments of the husband and wife in Marriage a la Mode, the alderman's parlour, the poet's bed-chamber, and many others, are the history of the manners of the age. But perhaps too much has been said of this great genius as an author; it is time to speak of him as a painter, and to mention the circumstances of his life, in both of which I shall be more brief. His works are his history ; as a painter he had but slender merit. He was born in the parish of St. Bartholomew, London, the son of a low tradesman, who bound him to a mean engraver of arms 1 on plate ; but before his time was expired he felt the impulse of genius, and felt it directed him to painting, though little apprised at that time of the mode Nature had intended he should pursue. His apprenticeship was no sooner expired, than he entered into the academy in St. Mar- tin's Lane, and studied drawing from the life, in which he never attained to great excellence. It was character, the passions, the soul, that his genius was given him to copy. In colouring he proved no greater a master; his force lay in expression, not in tints and chiaroscuro. At first he worked for booksellers, and designed and engraved plates for several books ; and, which is extraordinary, no symptom of genius dawned in those plates. His Hudibras was the first of his works that marked him as a man above the common; yet what made him then noticed now surprises us, to find so little humour in an undertaking so congenial to his talents. On the success, however, of those plates he commenced painter, a painter of portraits : the most ill-suited employ- ment imaginable to a man whose turn certainly was not flattery, nor his talent adapted to look on vanity without a sneer. Yet his facility in catching a likeness, and the method he chose of painting families and conversations in small, then a novelty, drew him prodigious busi- ness for some time. It did not last : either from his applying to the real bent of his disposition, or from his customers apprehending that a satirist was too formidable a confessor for the devotees of self-love. He had already dropped a few of his smaller prints on some reigning follies ; but as the dates are wanting on most of them, I cannot ascer- tain which ; though those on the South Sea and Rabbit Woman prove that he had early discovered his talent for ridicule, though he did not then think of building his reputation or fortune on its powers. His Midnight Modern Conversation was the first work that showed his command of character; but it was the Harlot's Progress, published 1 This is wrong ; it was to Mr. Gamble, an eminent silversmith. NiclioFs Biog. Remarks. 362 THE NYMPHS OF DRURY IDEALS OF BEAUTY TO HOGARTH. (I in 1729 or 1730, that established his fame. The pictures were scarceB^" finished, and no sooner exhibited to the public, and the subscriptiopB^ opened, than above twelve hundred names were entered on his book.;* The familiarity of the subject and the propriety of the execution madeB ! it tasted by all ranks of people. Every engraver set himself to copy fyM v and thousands of imitations were dispersed all over the kingdom. It'lB: 1 was made into a pantomime, and performed on the stage. The Rake's jib' Progress, perhaps superior, had not so much success, from want ofllp novelty; nor indeed is the print of The Arrest equal in merit to- Hp the others. The curtain was now drawn aside, and his genius stood displayed in »• its full lustre. From time to time he continued to give those works it that should be immortal, if the nature of his art will allow it. Even the f receipts for his subscriptions had wit in them. Many of his plates he .1: engraved himself, and often expunged faces etched by his assistants H when they had not done justice to his ideas. Not content with shining in a path untrodden before, he was ambi- I tious of distinguishing himself as a painter of history. But not only feis colouring and drawing rendered him unequal to the task; the j! genius that had entered so feelingly into the calamities and crimes of j familiar life deserted him in a walk that called for dignity and grace. The burlesque turn of his mind mixed itself with the most serious sub- j jects. In his Danae, the old nurse tries a coin of the golden shower with her teeth to see if it is true gold ; in the pool of Bethesda, a ser- j vant of a rich ulcerated lady beats back a poor man that sought the !t same celestial remedy. Both circumstances are justly thought, but rather too ludicrous. It is a much more capital fault that Danae her- self is a mere nymph of Drury. He seems to have conceived no higher idea of beauty. So little had he eyes to his own deficiencies, that he believed he had discovered the principle of grace. With the enthusiasm of a discoverer, he cried, ' Eureka V This was his famous line of beauty, the ground- . work of his Analysis, a book that has many sensible hints and obser- \ vations, but that did not carry the conviction nor meet the universal acquiescence he expected. As he treated his cotemporaries with scorn, they triumphed over this publication, and imitated him to expose him. Many wretched burlesque prints came out to ridicule his system. There was a better answer to it in one of the two prints that he gave to illustrate his hypothesis. In the Ball, had he confined himself to such outlines as compose awkwardness and deformity, he would have proved half his assertion ; but he has added two samples of grace in a young lord and lady that are strikingly stiff and affected. They are a 1 Bath beau and a county beauty. 1 In the original plate that figure represented the present king, then prince ; but he was desired to alter it. The present figure was taken from the last Duke of Kingston ; yet, though like, is stiff and far from graceful. HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 363 But this was the failing of a visionary. He fell afterwards into a rosser mistake. From a contempt of the ignorant virtuosi of the age, nd from indignation at the impudent tricks of picture-dealers, whom e saw continually recommending and vending vile copies to bubble- Hectors, and from having never studied, indeed having seen, few ood pictures of the great Italian masters, he persuaded himself that he praises bestowed on those glorious works were nothing but the fifects of prejudice. He talked this language till he believed it ; and aving heard it often asserted, as is true, that time gives a mellowness to colours and improves them, he not only denied the proposition, but maintained that pictures only grew black and worse by age, not distin- guishing between the degrees in which the proposition might be true or false. He went farther; he determined to rival the ancients, and unfortunately chose one of the finest pictures in England as the object of his competition. This was the celebrated Sigismonda of Sir Luke Schaub, now in the possession of the Duke of Newcastle, said to be painted by Correggio, probably by Furino, but no matter by whom. It is impossible to see the picture, or read Dryden's inimitable tale, and not feel that the same soul animated both. After many essays Hogarth at last produced his Sigismonda, but no more like Sigismonda than I to Hercules. Not to mention the wretchedness of the colouring, it was the representation of a maudlin strumpet just turned out of keeping, and with eyes red with rage and usquebaugh, tearing off the ornaments her keeper had given her. To add to the disgust raised by such vulgar expression, her fingers were bloodied 1 by her lover's heart, that lay before her like that of a sheep for her dinner. None of the sober grief, no dignity of suppressed anguish, no involuntary tear, no settled meditation on the fate she meant to meet, no amorous warmth turned holy by despair; in short, all was wanting that should have been there; all was there that such a story would have banished from a mind capable of conceiving such complicated woe — woe so sternly felt and yet so tenderly. Hogarth's performance was more ridiculous than anything he had ever ridiculed. He set the price of 400/. on it, and had it returned on his hands by the person for whom it was painted. He took subscriptions for a plate of it, but had the sense at last to suppress it. I make no more apology for this account than for the encomiums I have bestowed on him. Both are dictated by truth, and are the history of a great man's excellencies and errors. Milton, it is said, preferred his Paradise Regained to his immortal poem. The last memorable event of our artist's life was his quarrel with Mr. Wilkes; in which, if Mr. Hogarth did not commence direct 1 In the biographic Anecdotes of Hogarth it is said, that my memory must have failed me, for that on repeated inspection it is evident that the fingers are unstained with blood. Were they always so? I saw it when first painted, and bloody they were. In page 46 it is confessed, that upon the criticism of one conoisseur or another the picture was so altered, that an old friend of Mr. Hogarth scarce knew it again. 364 CATALOGUE OF THE PICTURES OF WILLIAM HOGARTH. hostilities on the latter, he at least obliquely gave the first offence by an attack on the friends and party of that gentleman. This conduct was the more surprising, as he had all his life avoided dipping his pencil in political contests, and had early refused a very lucrative offer that was made to engage him in a set of prints against the head of a cou party. Without entering into the merits of the cause, I shall only state the fact. In September 1762, Mr. Hogarth published his print of The Times. It was answered by Mr. Wilkes in a severe North Briton. On this the painter exhibited the caricatura of the writer. Mr. Churchill, the poet, then engaged in the war, and wrote his epistle to Hogarth, not the brightest of his works, and in which the severest strokes fell on a defect that the painter had neither caused nor could amend — his age; and which however was neither remarkable nor decrepit, much less had it impaired his talents, as appeared by his having composed but six months before one of his most capital works, the satire on the Methodists. In revenge for this epistle, Hogarth caricatured Churchill under the form of a canonical bear, with a club and a pot of porter — Et vitula tu dignus et hie. Never did two angry men of their abilities throw mud with less dexterity. Mr. Hogarth, in the year 1730, married the only daughter of Sir James Thornhill, by whom he had no children. He died of a dropsy in his breast at his house in Leicester Fields, October 26, 1764. He sold about twenty-four of his principal pictures by auction in 1745. Mr. Vincent Bourne addressed a copy of Latin hendecasyllables to him on his chief pictures, and Roquetti, the enameller, published a French explanation, though a superficial one, of many of his prints, which it was said, he had drawn up for the use of Marshal Belleisle, then a prisoner in England. As I am possessed of the most complete collection of his prints that I believe exists, I shall for the use of collectors give a catalogue of them. Most of them were assembled by Mr. Arthur Pond, and some of them probably are now nowhere else to be found. I have added every other print that I could discover to have been designed or engraved by him. He had kept no suite himself, and had forgotten several in which he had been concerned. He gave me what few sketches had not been forced from him by his friends, particularly the Committee above mentioned, and the first thoughts for Industry and Idleness. Catalogue of Mr. Hogarth's Prints. Class I. Miscellaneotis. — 1. W. Hogarth, engraver, with two figures and two Cupids, April 28, 1720. 2. His own cypher, with his name under it at length; a plate he used for his books. 3. His own head in a cap, oval frame, a pug dog, and a pallet with the line of beauty, etc., inscribed Gulielmus Hogarth: se ipse pinxit et sculpsit, 1749: a square HORACE WALPOLE's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 3^5 Drint. 4. His own portrait, sitting and painting the muse of Comedy : ead profile in a cap : the Analysis of beauty on the floor : W. Hogarth, erjeant painter to his majesty: the face engraved by W. Hogarth, 1758. 5. The same, the face retouched, but not so like as in the preceding : Comedy also has the face and mask marked with black, and inscribed Comedy. 1764: no other inscription but his name, William Hogarth. 5. His own head with a hat on, mezzotinto: Weltdon and Hogarth pinx.: Charles Townley, fecit. 1 781. 6. People in a shop, under the king's arms; Mary and Ann Hogarth: a shop bill. 7. Small oval print for the Rape of the Lock, for the top of a snuff-box. 8. An emblematic print representing Agriculture and Arts : seems to be a ticket for some society. 9. A coat of arms, with two slaves and trophies : plate for books. 10. A foreign coat of arms, supporters a savage and angel: ditto. 11. A grifon with a flag: a crest. 12. Another coat of arms, and two boys as terms. 13. A Turk's head: a shop bill. 14. An angel holding a palm in the left hand: a shop bill. 15. A small angel, almost the same as the preceding. 16. Lord Ay liner's coat of arms. 17. Two ditto of the Duchess of Kendal. 18. A shop bill, representing trade and arms of Florence. 19. A ticket for the benefit of Milward the tragedian. 20. A ticket for a burial. 21. A large oval coat of arms, with terms of the four seasons. 22. Capt. Coram and the children of the Foundling Hospital : a ticket. 23. Five Muscovites : small plate for a book of travels. 24. Music introduced to Apollo by Minerva, 1727: frontispiece to some book, music, or ticket for a concert. 25. Minerva sitting and holding the arms of Holland, four Cupids round her : done for the books of John Holland, herald painter. 26. Christ and His disciples ; persons at a distance carried to an hospital : 6 Inasmuch as ye have done 'it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it 'unto me' (Matt. xxv. 40). W. Hogarth inv. C. Grignion, sculp.: ticket for a charity. 27. Another, almost the same as the preceding, but with a view of the London Hospital. 28. Another, with the arms of the Duke of Richmond. 29. Seven small prints for Apuleius's Golden Ass : W. Hogarth inv. et sculp. : on some, W. Hogarth fee. 36. Gulliver presented to the Queen of Babilary. W. Hogarth inv. Ger. Vandergucht sculp. : it is the frontispiece to the Travels of Capt. John Gulliver. 37. Five small prints for the translation of Cassandra : W. Hogarth inv. et sculp. 42. Six larger for Don Quixote: W. Hogarth inv. et sculp. 48. Two small for Milton: W. Hogarth inv. et sc. 50. Frontispiece to Terrae-filius : W. Hogarth fee. 51. Frontispiece to Tom Thumb : W. Hogarth inv. : Ger. Van- dergucht sc. : there is some humour in this print. 52. Frontispiece to The Humours of Oxford: W. Hogarth inv. Ger. Vandergucht sc. 53. Judith and Holofernes : Per vulnera servor, morte tua vivens : W. Hogarth inv. : Ger. Vandergucht sc. : a frontispiece. 54. Perseus, 3 66 PORTRAITS DRAWN BY WILLIAM KO GARTH. and Medusa dead, and Pegasus: frontispiece to the books of the entertainment of Perseus and Andromeda: W. H. fee. 55. A monk ! leading an ass with a Scotch man and woman on it : headpiece to the Jacobites Journal. Though this was done in 1748, I place it here j among his indifferent prints. 56. Twelve prints to Aubrey de la Motray's Travels: his name to each. The 13th has Parker scul. 68. Fifteen head pieces for Beaver's Military Punishment of the Ancients; but scarce any copies have these plates. 69. Impression from a bit of i plate. 70. Frontispiece to the Scots opera. 71. House at Chiswick; etched by himself. 72. Bust of Hesiod, prefixed to Cook's translation. 73. Another frontispiece to Perseus and Andromeda, different from 54. 75. Two plates to Moliere. Class 2. Portraits. — 1. The Right Hon. Frances Lady Byron: whole length, mezzotinto: W. Hogarth pinx. J. Faber fee. 1736. 2. The Right Hon. Gustavus Lord Viscount Boyne, etc., etc, : whole length, mezzotinto: W. Hogarth pinx.: Andrew Miller fecit: a very bad print, done in Ireland. 3. Martin Folkes : half length : engraved. Mine is a proof, and has no inscription. 4. Sarah Malcolm, executed in 1732 for murdering her mistress and two other women; drawn in Newgate : W. Hogarth (ad vivum) pinxit et sculpsit. This woman put on red to sit to him for her picture two days before her execution : I have the original. 5. Simon Lord Lovat, drawn from the life and etched in aquafortis by William Hogarth, 1746. 6. Mr. Pine, in the manner of Rembrandt : mezzotinto, by McArdell. 7. Another leaning on a cane, an unfinished mezzotinto. 8. Captain Thomas Coram, who obtained the charter for the Foundling Hospital: mezzotinto, by McArdell. 9. Jacobus Gibbs, architectus : W. Hogarth delin. : J. McArdell fee, partly mezzotinto, partly graved. 10. Daniel Lock, Esq., mezzotinto : Wm. Hogarth pinx. J. McArdell fecit. II. Benjamin Hoadley, Bishop of Winchester. W. Hogarth pinx. B. Baron sculp. 12. A small oval of ditto. 13. Thomas Herring, Archbishop of Canter- bury: W. Hogarth pinx. B. Baron sculp. 14. Mr. Garrick, 1 in the character of Richard III. : painted by William Hogarth; engraved by Wm. Hogarth and C. Grignion. 15. T. Morell, S.T.P., S.S.A. : W. Hogarth delin. : James Basire, sculp. 16. Mr. Huggins, with a bust of Ariosto: small round. 17. Henry Fielding, aetatis 48: W. Hogarth del.: James Basire, sculp. 18; John Wilkes, Esq.: drawn from the life and etched in aquafortis by Wm. Hogarth. 19. The Bruiser, C. Churchill in the * character of a Russian Hercules, etc. ; a Dutch dog on the Epistle to Hogarth; a pallet; the North Britons, and a begging box to collect subscriptions for them: designed and engraved by Wm. Hogarth. 20. The same ; but over the pallet lies a 1 Mr. Garrick had several of Hogarth's paintings ; and the latter designed for him, as president of the Shakespeare club, a mahogany chair richly carved, on the back of which hangs a medal of the poet, carved by Hogarth, out of a piece of the mulberry tree planted at Stratford, by Shakespeare. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 367 ilitical print, in which the painter is correcting the poet Churchill and le demagogue Wilkes in the characters of a bear and a monkey : ther satirical emblems behind. Class 3. Comic and Serious Prints. — A burlesque on Kent's altar- 'iece at St. Clement's, with notes : it represents angels very ill drawn, 1 ying on various instruments. 2. A midnight modern conversation. . Twelve prints for Hudibras, the large set. 4. The small set, contain- -g seventeen prints with Butler's head. 5. A woman swearing a child a grave citizen, with twelve English verses : W. Hogarth pinx. : J. ympson, jun., sculp. : a very bad print. 6. Mary Tofts, the rabbit oman of Godalming, in labour: no name to it. 7. The Lilliputians giving a clyster to Gulliver : a supposed Lilliputian painter's name to it: 1 Hogarth, sculp. 8. An emblematic print on the South Sea: per- sons riding on wooden horses : the devil cutting fortune into collops : a man broken on the wheel, etc, : W. Hogarth, inv. et sc. : there are four different impressions of this. 9. A masquerade : there is much wit in this print : invented for the use of ladies and gentlemen by the ingenious Mr. H r. (Heidegger) : three different. 10. Another, smaller, on masquerades and operas : Burlington Gate, as in the following: W. Hogarth, inv. et sculp. 11. The gate of Burlington House: Pope whitewashing it, and bespattering the Duke of Chandos's coach : a satire on Pope's Epistle on Taste : no name. 12. The Lottery : emblematic, and not good : W. Hogarth, inv. et sculp. 13. Taste in high life : a beau and a fashionable old lady : painted by Mr. Hogarth : this was probably not published by himself. 14. Booth, Wilkes and Cibber contriving a pantomime : a satire on farces : no name. 1 5. Charmers of the age : a satire on stage-dancers : a sketch : no name : the two last very scarce. 16. Hen. VIII. and Anne Boleyn: Hogarth design, et sculp. : very indifferent. .1 7. The mystery of masonry brought to light by the Gormogons : stolen from Coypel's Don Quixote : W. Hogarth, inv. et sculp. 18. Sancho starved at dinner by his physician: W. Hogarth, inv. et sculp. .19. A very rare hieroglyphic print in Mr. Walpole's collection, representing Royalty, Episcopacy, and Law, composed of emblematic attributes, and no human features or limbs ; with attendants of similar ingredients : beneath is this inscription, Some of the principal inhabitants of the moon, as they were perfectly discovered by a telescope, brought to the greatest per- fection since the last eclipse; exactly engraved from the objects, whereby the curious may guess at their religion, manners, etc. : price sixpence. 20. Boys peeping at Nature : the subscription ticket to The Harlot's Progress. 21. The Harlot's Progress, in six plates. 22. The Rake's Progress, in eight plates. 2 23. The fourth plate of the same, 1 Which contains the letters that form the name of Jonathan Swift. 2 The Rake's Progress was pirated by Boitard, on one very large sheet of paper, containing the several scenes represented by Mr. Hogarth. It came out about a fortnight before the genuine set, but was soon forgotten. However, this gave occasion to Hogarth to apply for an act of 368 PAUL BEFORE FELIX, BY HOGARTH, THE PAINTER. with variations. 24. Two prints : Before and After. 25. The sleeping congregation. 1 26. Bartholomew fair. 27. A festoon with a mask, a roll of paper, a pallet, and a laurel : subscription ticket for Garrick in Richard III. 28. The poor poet. 29. The lecture: Datur vacuum. 30. The laughing audience. 31. Consultation of physicians: arms of the undertakers. 32. Rehearsal of an oratorio: singing men and boys. 33. The four parts of the day. 34. Strolling actresses dressing in a barn. 35. The Search-night: W. Hogarth, inv. : a very bad print, and I believe an imposition. 36. The enraged musician. 37. Characters and caricaturas, to show that Leonardo da Vinci exaggerated the latter: the subscription ticket to Marriage a la Mode. 38. Marriage a la Mode, in six prints. 39. The pool of Bethesda, from the picture he painted for St. Bartholomew's Hospital, in which parish he was born : engraved by Ravenet. 40. Ditto ; large, by Ravenet and Picot 41. The good Samaritan; ditto, by Ravenet and Delatre. 42. Orator Henley christening a child: mezzotinto. 43. A stage-coach: an election procession in the yard. 44. Industry and Idleness, in twelve plates. 45. An auction of pictures, duplicates of the same pictures this was a ticket to admit persons to bid for his works at his auction 46. The gates of Calais : his own head sketching a view : he was arrested as he was making the drawing, but set at liberty when his purpose was known. 47. A stand of various arms, bagpipes, etc. the subscription ticket for The March to Finchley. 48. The March to Finchley ; dedicated to the King of Prussia, in resentment for the late king's sending for the picture to St. James's and returning it without any other notice. 49. Beer Street ; two of them with variations ; and Gin Lane. 50. The stages of cruelty, in four prints. 51. Paul before Felix, designed and scratched in the true Dutch taste, by W. Hogarth : this is a satire on Dutch pictures. 52. Paul before Felix, from the original painting in Lincoln's-inn Hall, painted by W. Hogarth : there is much less dignity in this than wit in the preceding. 53. The same, as first designed ; but the wife of Felix was afterwards omitted, because St. Paul's hand was very improperly placed before her. 54. Columbus breaking the egg: the subscription ticket to his Analysis. 55. The two prints to the Analysis: two other editions with variations. 56. parliament to secure the property of prints. He applied to Mr. Huggins, who took for his model the statute of Queen Anne in favour of literary property. The act passed ; but some years after appeared to be loosely drawn ; for on a cause founded on it, which came before Lord Hardwick in Chancery, he determined that no assignee, claiming under an assignment from the original inventor, could take any benefit by it. Hogarth, immediately after the passing the act, published a small print with emblematic devices, and an inscription expressing his gratitude to the three branches of the legislature. This plate he afterwards made to serve for a receipt for subscriptions to the election prints. N° 58 of this class.* 1 Sir Edward Walpole had the original picture. The clerk's head is admirably well painted and with great force ; but he is dozing, and not leering at the young woman near him, as in the print. * Chanceller Hoadley wrote verses to be placed under each plate of the Rake's Progress J they are printed in the 5th volume of Dodsley's Collection of Poems, p. 269. HORACE WALPOLE'S ANECDOTES OF PAINTING. 369 [France and England, two plates. 57. Two plates to Tristram Shandy, j 58. Crowns, mitres, maces, etc. : the subscription ticket to The Election. J 59. Four prints of an election. 60. The sleeping judges. 61. Ditto; 1 but with heads after L. da Vinci. 62. The cockpit. 63. Frontispiece to The farmer's return from London. 64. The wigs and head-dresses at the coronation of George III. 65. Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism: satire on the Methodists. 66. Frontispiece to Kirby's Perspective: satire on false perspective. 67. Frontispiece to Brook Taylor's Perspective : with an attempt at a new order. 68. Two small heads of men in profile in one plate, etched by Mr. Ireland, from a sketch in his own collection. 69. Frontispiece and tailpiece to the catalogue of pictures exhibited in 1761. 70. Time blackening a picture : subscription ticket for his Sigismunda : this and the preceding tailpiece are satires on connoisseurs. 71. Frontispiece to a pamphlet against the Hutchinsonians, never published : it represents a witch sitting on the moon, and watering on a mountain, whence issue mice which are devouring Sir Isaac Newton's Optics : one mouse lies dead on Hutchinson's works, probably to imply being choked : the conun- drum signifies, Front-is-piss. 72. Print of the weighing-house to Club's Physiognomy ; a humorous pamphlet in quarto, published in 1763, and dedicated to Hogarth. 73. The Times. 74. Tailpiece to his works : another satire on dealers in dark pictures. 1 75. Rich's glory. 76. Beggar's opera: doubtful. 77. Scene in an opera. 78. Orator Henley's chapel : doubtful. 79. -