sity for a lecture, at one end of the room; and the black muzzle and bushy eyebrows of the duke (a sort of saturnine double' of C. J. Fox), monstrously looming through the white clouds of the bed-clothes at the other, form a tableau worthy of being realised by the historic pencil of one of our popular painters.

Something similar to the inscriptions or notes required to a collection of portraits, is Rossi's Pinacotheca, a curious collection of biographic portraits in miniature, but the best models of the kind, notwithstanding some defects, are Walpole and Granger.

I have said that almost the first great or systematic collectors of Engraved Portraits in England were Evelyn and Pepys; the former having the start. It was not till about 1668 that Pepys began collecting portraits, getting many of Nanteuil, etc. from France, and being helped with the advice of Evelyn, as well as with specimens from his collection. In 1669 he went to France, and doubtless collected there many things (which are now in the Pepysian Library) on the recommendation of his friend, who says in one of his letters at this time, printed by Lord Braybrooke, "They will greatly refresh you in your study,

and by your fireside, when you are many years returned."

Yes, they will indeed refresh you! This is one of the great charms of such reminiscences of travel, that when you come home you are constantly travelling again in looking over sketches, pictures, and books. You see an engraving of the Madonna della Sedia, and away you are at once, quicker than the telegraph, to Florence the Fair, and to that sunny day, when crossing the Arno by the Ponte Vecchio, you first came to the Palazzo Pitti, and, passing by wonders and wonders of art, you stopped at last by the Raffaelle and forgot the world, absorbed by that which is indeed " a joy for ever." In the same way you turn over a folio of portraits. Here are Elizabeth, Leicester, Raleigh, Shakspere, Melville, and Mary of Scots-and you walk about London and Greenwich, and visit the world of 300 years ago! Or you take up a folio of a later period, where are Charles the 2nd, Buckingham, Rochester, Grammont, Sedley, Killigrew, York, Clarendon, Dryden, Lely, Castlemaine, Stewart, Nelly, and the Qucen― and you are dining at one o'clock with the learned Mr. Evelyn and the wondrous Pepys, talking and telling anecdotes (with a good deal of relish) of the

bad goings on of those times, A.D. 1666. Or, whisking out another folio, you rush off to Sir Joshua Reynolds's and laugh and criticise, mourn and moralize with Goldsmith, Johnson, Burke, and Garrick, and think of Hogarth over the way,' and of Chesterfield, Walpole, the Gunnings, Kitty Clive, Nelly O'Brien, and of many more who have, unconsciously to themselves and to us, moved the world a step more forward. These are among the charms, the pleasures and advantages of collections of Portraits.

D

III.

On Engraved Portraits,
and their Inscriptions.

HAVE spoken of the desirability of form-
ing collections of engraved portraits, as

in most cases they give a very sufficing idea of the form and expression of the original, particularly when they are engraved by an able engraver, from a fine and authentic picture. But even a coarse copy of a coarse original, or an outline sketch will tell us something more than may be expressed in words. In such a case, practice in judging of the merit of an engraving as a work of art, will enable us to look beyond the effort of the artist, and to see, partly, what the engraving as a portrait ought to have been, in spite of its existing demerit. In looking at portraits, besides the knowledge we gain of the features of persons we have heard or read of, we become impatient to know more of them, and we are led to seek out particulars of their lives and actions till we gradually form more than a

passing acquaintance with them. Thus, in studying biography, we usually become not only better versed in general history, but get a peep into various vistas of knowledge that may lead us into many pleasant byepaths of social life. I shall not dwell on the art-knowledge we may gain from the mere outward circumstances of pictures and engravings, but rather notice the fund of entertainment and information we may gather from that inner soul which pictures have; I mean the acquaintance obtained with the thoughts of those whose pictures are before us. To do justice to this it would be necessary to instance so many engravings that I shall content myself with simply mentioning the circumstance, particularly as my readers will easily recall to their mind many portraits that seem to tell their own story, to be what are termed ' speaking'

likenesses.

This leads to Physiognomy :-and there is no more powerful argument for that science than the production of a series of portraits. Take for instance halfa-dozen portraits, good engravings, after Holbein, Vandyke, Lely, Cooper, Kneller, Hogarth, Reynolds, or Romney, (I speak only of those known as English artists, and omit many that are eminent and good,)