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she also diligently taught a Sunday School in the great hall of the hospital, for the children of the pensioners. The affection of the poor women and the old men was most unexpectedly shown by their presentation to her of a silver inkstand, subscribed for in the smallest imaginable sums, of course without the knowledge of any of the family. And in 1860, when the period of Lord Seaton's command had ceased, and the original Crimean Shop had become a permanent and prosperous establishment, as a branch of army-clothing work, the ladies who formed the superintending committee insisted on changing the name to the Seaton Needle-work Association, in memory of its commence

ment.

Soon after his return to England, Lord Seaton received the appointment of Field-Marshal, and he was also within the next year given the colonelcy of the rifles, on the death of the Prince Consort, and also of the 2d Life Guards. Thus had he risen to the highest grade in the army, without purchase of a single step, solely by personal merit, and by distinguished service. For the next two years his health remained unbroken, and he threw his usual energy into improvements on his estate, as well as in the quantity of business that his colonelcies brought upon him. The power of finding interest and occupation, and absence of all tedium or weariness in one who had led so varied a life were as remarkable as the undimmed eye, erect form, and the memory such as is hardly equalled in youth. Even when in January, 1862, a severe attack of illness had come on, which lasted many months, and caused intervals of acute suffering, his cheerful patience, interest in all around, and command of all his faculties, remained perfect, and he seemed partially recovering when in the summer of that same year, 1862, his beloved daughter Cordelia was taken from him by a sharp, sudden attack of illness. The bereavement was exceedingly bitter, for she had been his companion and helper, and though ever devoted to works of charity among the poor, she was still more precious among the charities of home, and her ready sympathies, her depth of thought and extent of reading, and diligent self-cultivation, rendered her such a companion that the loss could only be softened by the sense that the separation could be but brief.

The shock made no material difference in his condition, and there was no air of the feebleness of old age about him, no bending, no decay, but the same affectionateness, the same serenity and sweetness, the same quiet depth of dutiful trust and undemonstrative devotion that had been his through life, and thus he continued, his strength of constitution having somewhat rallied, until the spring of 1863, when an attack of bronchitis

came on, and he died at Torquay on the 17th of April, 1863, in his eighty-fifth year, having as we believe left a deep impress of himself wherever he went, both as a soldier and as a man.

To a character of manly gentleness and most unusual humility and modesty, he added the truly brave man's fearlessness of responsibility and great resolution, with all the fire and enthusiasm that make the soldier, together with the inspiration that forms the general; perfect coolness in trying circumstances, and authority that never failed to be felt even when scarcely exerted. We have seen what manner of soldiers were made by that guiding hand. Would that we could more completely depict one so great and so good!

286

ART. II. Catalogue of the Second Special Exhibition of National Portraits, commencing with the reign of William and Mary, and ending with the year 1800. On loan to the South Kensington Museum. London: Strangeways and Walden. May 1, 1867.

THE interest and mental pleasure awakened in the minds of those who go to see a portrait gallery differ in many points from the feelings experienced by the visitors to any other collection of pictures. The crowds who flock to our own National Gallery, to the Louvre, or to the yet brighter attractions of Florence and Rome, are urged thither by many and varied impulses. The man who takes a genuine pleasure in the noble art of painting, the real amateur, is jostled by the mob of those who come only to see and to be seen-worse even, come merely that they may say they have been there. But the connoisseur and the ignorant alike may find pleasure in such a collection as that held this year at South Kensington. Noble works of art are to be found among it; but the man, if there be such a man, who can contemplate a portrait by Sir Joshua, and a sign-post daub with equal satisfaction or equal indifference, may still find great interest within these walls. And let no one think slightingly of the collection as an exhibition of art, because it is merely a portrait gallery.' A portrait may be, sometimes is, a noble example of the work of consummate ability. Portrait painting,' it has been well said, 'may be to the painter what the practical 'knowledge of the world is to the poet, provided he considers 'it as a school by which he is to acquire the means of perfection ' in his art, and not as the object of that perfection.' How vast the difference between the memorial of a man, when the resemblance is preserved to us by the hand of genius, or mimicked by incapacity, may be seen by comparing the William Hunter of Chamberlin, and the William Hunter of Reynolds, both within this collection. The first is a picture which every one would, but for the name of the person represented, pass by without a glance: the second bears the stamp of real power. Great names, indeed, as well as great works abound on the walls; the portraits of the well-known, the noble, the lovely, as well as well-known and noble and lovely pictures. 'If perfect music unto perfect words' be, and who can deny it, the highest form of poetry, the portraits of the fairest and the highest, depicted by those who could appreciate all that was elegant and excellent, must be among the highest forms of painting. And the deeper,

broader interest of the most attractive history in the world to an Englishman, the history of his own country, pervades the whole. The complete sense of solitude experienced by a man alone in a crowd, has often been commented on by the moralist and the poet. The phrase of 'crowded loneliness 'the eloquent expression that faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal where there is no love,' are familiar as proverbs to our ears; and yet how completely for the time a collection of portraits appears to reverse these judgments. The gallery of pictures teems with living interest. The memories brought back to our minds are as full of pleasure as the most brilliant converse. We feel as if better acquainted with those we have so often read of, as their faces live over again for us, bright with intelligence, or beaming with beauty.

This second year's Exhibition of National Portraits, at South Kensington, is, chronologically speaking, a continuation of that of the year 1866. Both exhibitions were formed on the same plan, and took their rise from the admirable suggestions of the Earl of Derby, which were prefixed to the catalogues of both collections. The portrait exhibition last year extended in date, from what may fairly be termed the archaic period of portraiture, as far as the Revolution of 1688. The present collection takes up the story from that time, and carries the roll of history down to the commencement of the present century. The extreme interest possessed by the collection of this year is sufficiently indicated by the dates over which it extends. True, the period illustrated by last year's exhibition was fertile in great men. The Reformation, the stirring days of Elizabeth, the Civil War, the Commonwealth, suggest at once many wellknown names. The genius of Holbein and the skill of Vandyck were often employed in perpetuating the portraits of many of the worthies of their respective eras. But even on the ground of art, the present collection will well vie with that of last year, while the personal and historic interest alike are far deeper. In one point, to every Englishman, it has greatly the advantage; instead of the noblest works being by the hands of foreigners, as they were in the collection of 1866, they are by our own countrymen. Sir Peter Lely, Sir John Medina, and Michael Dahl, scarcely rise above mediocrity, while Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Hogarth well sustain the repute of their native island. And with every respect to the great men of earlier ages, an equal tribute at least is due to those mighty ones who were none the less heroic because they wore broadcloth instead of armour, whose lot was cast among early parliamentary contests instead of the days of the Civil War. Some, even, who served in both capacities are commemorated here. The chief

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events of their lives belong rather to the troubled times of the revolution, than to the peaceful days of Anne and her Hanoverian successors. Thus, a carefully painted portrait, by Wissing, preserves to us the remembrance of the first Earl of Warrington, who, as Lord Delamere, was tried before Jeffreys on the charge of being connected with Monmouth's insurrection; and to be tried before Jeffreys was almost equivalent to being ordered for execution. But, as a member of the House of Lords, Delamere had the privilege of being tried before his peers, and such a court was not to be overawed like an ordinary jury. He was acquitted: though every effort was made by the king, James II. to procure his execution. Not long after, the whirligig of time brought his revenges. Lord Delamere was one of the three peers deputed, on the 17th December, 1688, to bear to the same monarch, who had strained his prerogative to the uttermost to obtain his condemnation, the request that he would withdraw from London. The request, however courteously delivered, was equivalent to a command; and few hours elapsed after receiving it before James II. was on his road to Rochester, to fly thence from his country for ever. Close by is a very different character-Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee. The features give no idea of cruelty: the elegant face represents rather the young' Bonnie Dundee,' than the execrated persecutor of later days. The energy Claverhouse displayed in maintaining the cause of James II. in Scotland, and his death on the field of Killiekrankie have invested his character with an undeserved halo of romance among that large class of persons who think 'there is no excess of wickedness for which courage and ability 'do not atone.' Near hangs the portrait of one of those free lances whom the Thirty Years' War brought into so much prominence: a man grown when Dundee was born, the Duke of Schomberg; a successful general in many services-in those of Sweden, of France, and William of Orange. He had attained, by distinguished merit, the dignity of a Marshal of France; but when there came to be a choice between retaining that high station, or compromising his principles, he resigned at once all his honours and dignities, and firmly adhered to the Protestant cause. When an old man, he accompanied William III. to this country, and died at last in the field of battle, full of years, full of honours, at the crowning victory of the Boyne. This portrait, by Wissing, and that of one of Schomberg's opponents, James Fitzjames, Duke of Berwick, by N. Cassana, are both admirable specimens of a good technical style of painting, which, though far inferior to the works of Rubens or Vandyck, are among the most interesting examples of the last foreign followers of the old masters in the present exhibi

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