GOSSIP ABOUT PORTRAITS.

T

I.

Introductory.

HE learned Benedict Baudouin, in his treatise on an old shoe ("de Solea

veterum"), if he does not exactly make Father Adam the first shoemaker, claims for him at least the glory of having been the first shoewearer, for he maintains that God in giving Adam skins of beasts for clothes, did not leave him to go barefooted, but gave him shoes of the same material; an assertion however that M. Lartet or Sir C. Lyell, with their experience of early civilization and aboriginal races, might be disposed to controvert. I am not going to enter into this argument, and only refer to it as an example of the practice of beginning all treatises by showing the immense anti

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quity of the subject the writer is descanting upon. As regards portraits, it would not be difficult in the same way to plead for them the excuse or justification of an equally old repute, for not only do Roman writers mention them, as Pliny and Martial of the collections of Atticus and Varro, but they may be traced through Greece and Egypt up to Adam and Eve, who, we know, wore each other's miniatures from the very day of their falling in love.* I shall content myself then, with citing the very respectable antiquity of such patronage, and, passing over the 700 portraits collected by Varro, coloured by a lady named Lala; the cabinet of Trajan in his palace on (now in) the Lake of Nemi; the more modern gallery of Paulus Jovius; and many collections of medallic portraits (of which collections Eneas Vico mentions by name about thirty in his time); I shall

"Look in my eyes, my blushing fair!

Thou'lt see thyself reflected there :

And, as I gaze on thine, I see

Two little miniatures of me."-MOORE.

And similar verses have been written by a hundred others. Lord Chesterfield, though sufficiently proud of his pedigree, and only bending in one direction, could not forbear ridiculing the pride of families clder than his own, by placing among the portraits of his ancestors two old heads, inscribed 'Adam de Stanhope,' and ' Eve de Stanhope. This, by the bye, is another proof that portraits are as old as Adam and Eve !

begin my gossip about portraits by alluding to the gallery which the Earl of Derby has caused to be collected for exhibition at South Kensington. This proposed Exhibition induced me to gather up some scattered memoranda and to put them into their present form, with the intention principally of claiming for a neglected form of portraits (I mean engraved portraits) a respect which I think they deserve, and which may some day secure for them a separate exhibition, or even a permanent location attached to the National Portrait Gallery.

But first, all honour to the Earl of Derby! For without his warm patronage and example of high authority, such a collection as we may hope to see exhibited at Kensington would have remained among those desiderata which, like the Marquis of Worcester's

Century of Inventions," lie neglected simply from lack of faith. But see what the magic of his noble name has achieved! The dearest treasures of old families from all parts of the kingdom, the portraits of their forefathers, those "old familiar faces" which for centuries have looked down from their high places on great clan gatherings, on the christenings, the comings of age, the marriages, the Christmas merry-makings, the deaths and funeral

pomps of their descendants;-those priceless treasures of great houses have been freely offered to the contemplation of the public, at great risk, often at considerable discomfort, because the Earl of Derby as a great leader-I speak of honour, not of politics-called on his peers to do their devoirs. And well has he been followed. The difficulty seems to have been, not to get the pictures, but to accept them. The 'effigies' of more than 800 celebrated men and women dear to Englishmen, though they all died 200 or more years ago, will be assembled in the saloons of the Kensington Museum; and the majority of them so finely painted and so life-like, that it will be no hard matter to believe that we live and move among them in the time of Charles, Elizabeth, or Henry.

The old monk in the Spanish monastery, who had seen so many of his brothers pass away, and said, as he looked on the picture of Velasquez in the Refectory, "I sometimes think we are the shadows,' only gave expression to the thought of many a one who has abided long in the presence of a noble portrait in some great house-ay, or of one who has lived long in the presence of some noble engraving of Vandyke or Reynolds in some humble household.

I think the passage which dwells most in my mind of all in Leslie's admirable "Life of Constable," is a little extract from a letter of Bishop Fisher, describing his visit to a poor clergyman, whose house contained but one picture, the print from Stothard, of Chaucer and his brother pilgrims journeying towards Canterbury, "with the early dawn breaking over the Dulwich hills"! As this humble priest baptized and married and buried his parishioners, and duly performed the services in the village church, and read his quiet sermon, and came back and sat under his picture and prepared his address for the next Sunday-how often did he think of the glorious permanence of art, and of the perishableness of all the strength of mortality! Roger Flail, the village champion, was drowned last week in the mill-dam; Bella Pearl died yesterday of the fever; and old Hearty, who looked as if he would last for ever, now lies cold and dead, though he ate a tremendous supper of cheese and cucumbers only last night:-but there, in the parson's study, in the evening sunshine, still calmly smiles Geoffrey Chaucer, hale and thoughtful and gentle, as he looked twenty years since as he looked four hundred years ago!