the last of the royal child marriages which was celebrated in England, and it was full of circumstances worthy of a painter's record. The ceremony took place on a May day, in 1641, in the Chapel Royal at Whitehall. The bride was in her tenth year. The bridegroom, William, afterwards second Prince of Orange, was only eleven. When Bishop Wren blessed the little couple the bevy of as little bridesmaids were in a flutter of delight and wonderment. The consequent festival was of an old-fashioned romping quality; and when king, queen, and court conducted the illustrious pair to their several rooms in the palace nursery, the little husband and his little wife were the most weary of all that joyous, romping party. In the year 1643 Van Tromp came hither and escorted the little bride over the seas to Holland; his ships of war accompanying the progress with thundering symphonies from the throats of their

guns.

At the time above named, Peter, looking about him in London, was taken by ever-generous Geldorp into his studio in Drury Lane. Geldorp welcomed the Westphalian to his house in the Lane as warmly as he had welcomed Vandyck to his former house and studio in Blackfriars. Charles the First, who loved to spend an hour with his courtiers in artists' studios, probably first saw Lely at Geldorp's in Drury Lane. It was at a later period that Peter painted the king's portrait. Lely may have worked for Charles before that. In the catalogue of Charles's pictures was "A Landscape done by Geldorp's Man." It was valued by the commissioners at £2 103., and it fetched the moderate price demanded.

Lely, for some time after this, was rather a painter of history and of landscapes than of portraits. There was no one to rival or follow him in the two former departments of art. Vandyck, in portraiture, was held to be a master not to be surpassed. Lely nevertheless resolved to pursue the path by which Vandyck had earned golden reputation and enchanted the world. The masterpieces of Vandyck moved the pulses of his heart and fired his aspirations. Lely probably never stood at his easel without his mind dwelling on the great artist whom he adopted as his master. When he grew rich enough he bought Vandycks for study and for increase of gracefulness to his house. When he looked at other men's labors he measured them by Vandyck. The highest praise he could give was, "That's the nearest to Vandyck of anything I have seen since I came to England;" and it was such praise that he gave to Mary Beale.

Lely was very soon at court. The earliest work in portraiture on which Lely was employed in England was in copying Vandyck. That portrait of Charles the First with his little son James, which Evelyn saw in 1658 at Northumberland House, and which he describes as "the last of our blessed Kings and the Duke of York,” and as Lely's work, was in fact Lely's admirable copy of one of the late pieces by Vandyck. From such work he passed to original efforts. He was to be seen not only in Aldersgate Street and Drury Lane, painting the ladies of those and similar aristocratic places, but in more exclusive Whitehall, with the king and queen sitting before him, graciously condescending to be limned.

After royalty had departed from Whitehall, Lely painted the portraits of leading Commonwealth men, and that of him who led the leaders-Cromwell. "Mr. Lely," said Oliver, "I desire you will use all your skill to paint my picture only like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me; otherwise I will never pay you a farthing for it." The Protector knew that a portrait could be an historical picture.

When Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, commissioned Lely to paint the handsomest women at the Court of Charles the Second, he naturally began with her Highness and her ladies. Twelve of these are known now as the Windsor Beauties," having long hung in the gallery at the Castle, before they joined Kneller's" Beauties" at Hampton Court. They are almost entirely free from the faults which have been laid to the artist's charge, and this in despite of the

free and flowing fashion of dress or undress which then prevailed. There was little covering to speak of, except from the waist downwards. Ladies hid their feet and revealed their bosoms. They came to court with trains, some of which reached from the foot of the throne far away into the outer chamber or staircase. Lely simply indicates the fashion of the period. In his Windsor Beauties," his Duchess of York is a cold English lady. In the quarter-length, in the National Portrait Gallery, she is a good natured looking person with a well-bred stare and a blue stomacher. His Queen Catherine of Braganza is a quiet, lady-like woman, with only her fine eyes to be proud of, and she has a slight expression of being "bored" at having to "sit" for such a special purpose.

Look at Lely's Duchess of Cleveland, that supreme "hussy of the hussies." He has represented her as Pallas. She has an air of Venus in her wiser cousin's panoply. She carries a spear, wears a helmet, and rests on, rather than grasps, a shield. She is manifestly more ready for love than war. She is calmly proud in the strength, less of her arms than of her beauty. She is lovely, but she is also wide awake, and the storm-cloud in the background is a fine indication of character in a lady whose humanity suffered a notable change when her remarkable temper was ruffled.

Then turn to Diana, alias Duchess of Richmond, whom Lely makes pass for the Goddess of Chastity (the belle Stuart being difficile) by putting a bow in her hand, and placing the Queen of the Nymphs in a forest. A necklace sparkles round her throat, but the pearls are from the royal jewellers. Her train will be troublesome to bear through the thick set forest; but she might woo Endymion himself in such a bodice: it is so discreetly fashioned that the most timid of swains might look on it and yet keep his senses.

From Diana, turn next to Mrs. Middleton, as Plenty, or as Pandora. In the first character she looks like the charming, modest, eldest daughter of the house, in whose service she is bearing from the garden, not a cornucopia, but a freight of fruit for the afternoon dessert. She is, perhaps, more characteristically painted as Pandora. A box full of evils was not a bad symbol. As Plenty, her dress has no particularly winning wave in it, and the full bosom is at least half veiled, as if more than that grace were not good for gods or men to behold. As for wantonness, or voluptuous negligence, or luxurious magnificence, the picture is full of honest, hearty nature.

In allegory, Lely was weak; yet his "Rape of Europa" has been pronounced worthy of Lairesse. But Lely cannot be compared with Lairesse in the lumbering apologue which mars Lely's portrait of Lady Falmouth. Yet, of all his portraits, this is said to be the one in which he most nearly equals Vandyck. The lady had been made a widow by the sea-fight off Harwich, in which her gallant husband was slain. Therefore, in the widow's lap lies a cannon-ball, a real four-and-twenty pounder, with her hand slightly resting on it. The grief, symbolized by the ball, is apparently heavy, but it was probably not so heavy as it seemed, for the lap bears hardly an impress of the weight. The lady's left hand is keeping the young widow's somewhat too loose drapery together, which falls from her bosom, as such drapery does from that of a péronnelle in the illustration to a French love-song. In truth, it fell to similar purpose, and accomplished Dorset was but too happy to lay his head on the bosom which had been the loved pillow of gallant Falmouth.

As it was impossible, even for Lely, to make the audacious Lady Southesk look like a repentant Magdalen, he has painted her trying to look like one, and he failed in the attempt. This lady carries her capacious bust, and a pile of drapery that might hedge in a thousand sacred virtues, to a covert in a wood; but she has not the air of a Mary who is likely to cast herself to the ground in sorrow, and lean painfully on her elbow in perusal of a book that teaches only wisdom. On the other hand, Lady Chesterfield's pure, grave expression might have subdued a Puri

tan. The figures in the background might be taken for little Loves, carrying away between them the sweet flowers of life, and leaving nothing in their place. Again, the inost strait-laced virtue might go abroad in such becoming folds as cling round Lady Rochester, and never be ashamed. Most of a precisian looks Anne Digby, subsequently Countess of Sunderland. This modest Anne shields her own breast that it may not be seen to sigh. The Earl of Sunderland, as versatile in love as he was in politics and in religion, was under promise to her; but he broke his vow, begged he might not be asked why, and then married the lady after all. He was the son of Dorothea, Countess of Sunderland, Waller's Sacharissa, whom Lely also painted during her long widowhood, and with an effect which again brought him in close affinity with Vandyck. There is no fear of Anne Digby's drapery falling, if she move an accident which some think would certainly happen to the Duchess of Somerset. But those who think so should mark how the lady's right hand so holds it as to make it safe under the most active emergency. Again, how true a lady is seen in the portrait of the Countess of Northumberland! The figure, full of life, and marked by grace, is worthy of Sir Joshua. The landscape has a natural beauty that would have won the generous praise of Gainsborough.

Walpole's objections to Lely are inapplicable to the portrait of Lady Whitmore, and more so to that of the belle Jenings (subsequently Duchess of Tyrconnel): she has no clinquant, no absurd superflux of robes to drag through woods and brooks. The belle Jenings is, in Lely's portraiture, a mild, modest beauty, quaintly but becomingly dressed. George Fox might have looked on the face without discerning wantonness, and on the dress without recognizing either voluptuousness or negligence. If there be one in the bevy of "Windsor Beauties" obnoxious to such censure as Walpole has showered indiscriminately on the whole, it is the Querouaille (Duchess of Portsmouth). She is a true French courtesan. Lorette, cocotte, and péronnelle are combined in her. She is here an Arcadian shepherdess, in skirts that would take Audrey's breath away only to look at. To suppose that Audrey could have stood under a tree as this "beauty" does, with no more of the woman about her veiled than there is in a mermaid, would be to do Audrey infinite wrong. She would cry heartily at the thought of it.

boundless expanse of bosom soon disperse the sug The character of the woman is perfectly interprete Lely painted Nell in more moods than one. casual glance at her likeness in the National Portr lery would not lead to the most transitory thought lady there is a nun. She is half-fashionably, half cally dressed. Her hair is of the court, not of the She is seated in a garden, attired in a dress that an almost dead-leaf color, and over it and about it and falls, and clings and hangs, one of the loveliest lovely blue draperies. The hands are exquisitely One of them is nearly laid on the heart, but a fing towards a side-walk, and there is a speaking, laug pression on the lips and in the eyes, as if she were some allusion to the king, and Lely had stirred h by some saucy reply.

Not merely as compared with Nell, but purely Lely's portrait of Mary Davies, another Miss king's, is that of the most modest, refined, and attr maidens. The face is sad and full of thought. T auburn hair falls about it in natural curls, and the life-like, liquid, and with a slightly startled expr if she would fain not be surprised sitting on a b retired garden nook, in that attire. Yet there dance of it, the ever exquisite Lely blue over now somewhat faded, white. In the sad, soft exp the lovely face, Lely has transmitted a warran touching effect with which Mary Davies sang, " ing is on the Cold Ground." Locking on the traits, the Lords Peter might justifiably be proude Davies for an ancestress than the Dukes of St. Nell Gwynn.

Now here has Lely given better proof of his paint character than in his portraits of the Duke ingham and the infamous Countess of Shrewsbu latter is very simple in its details. A circlet round the throat is the sum of all decoration. is not particularly loose. The face, however, wi luptuous lips, handsome animal flesh and feature dacious eyes, is the face of a woman who might st a page to see her husband murdered in a duel by And the portrait of that lover is a perfect penda grandly robed; but the peer's insignia cannot b face which is bursting with sensuality and a fat of its own. He is evidently the man who took the home to the house where his own wife, Fairfax's

trusion, the Duchess moved towards the door, wi mark that it was not fitting for her to be under roof with the woman who accompanied him. that," said the Duke, "and I have left my coad door, to take you to your father's."

a

When these portraits were hung up in the Duke of York's house, Pepys was among the many who went to gaze at them. His comment in his diary is "Good but not like." Dryden insinuates of Lely, under the guise of " late noble painter," that the common opinion was that Lely "drew many graceful pictures, but few of them were like." The reason assigned is that Lely "studied himself more than those who sat to him." A better judge, Vertue, attributes the cause of the work being less true in resemblance than in handling to the circumstance that Lely was not so firm and true in his lineaments, as he was an excellent colorist and of a fine freedom of pencil." This excellence of color and freedom of pencil are manifest in Lely's Nell Gwynn. The portrait may not be a perfect likeness, for Nell's saucy hilarity of expression is not represented. The head, however, has a certain boyishness of character in it. In her soft, pensive mood, innocence, sweetness, and delicacy of sentiment, with her hand tenderly resting on and carrying a lamb, the figure might suggest a young St. John. The wanton undress and the

66

Lely's portraits of the second Duchess of Yo wards Queen Mary of Modena) are sufficient to he was not a mere meretricious painter. She wa teen when she came a bride to England. Lely the her in the character of Innocence; and the exqui and simplicity of the work, its power in desig purity in color and sentiment, charmed every one both heart and eyes. Lely is said to have never of portraying this duchess, who was such a cont her heavy predecessor, Anne Hyde. Indeed, the power is manifested in his contrasts. Lely's Mar dena is almost a spiritual being. His Sharp, A of St. Andrew's, is a living, vigorous substantiali may believe that the painter looked not only at bi that most unhappy of villains. The passion in th reflected in the expression on the face. There is v in many of Lely's female portraits Walpole ground for saying that Lely, wanting taste, supp quant. Lely did not always dress his nymphs in tic night-gowns fastened with a single pin." did, the lapses of dress, the hair flung free, these the fashion of the time. "The sleepy eye that s melting soul" was the languid mode of the day, matched it by costume, or the lack of it. Yet the l ladies still; saucy, it may be, in a high and haugh

Wh

Lely acquired more money and contemporary fame by bis female portraits than by those of men. In his flattery to old female sitters he has scarcely been outdone by Lawrence or by Ross. His flattery (let it be avowel) trenched on caricature. His second portrait of Catherine of Braganza, when old, in a chemise relieved by a broad scarf, has been not inappropriately described as looking more like a bloated child cheated of a box of sugar plums than a corpulent, middle-aged, ill-used woman. Lely's Prince Rupert is reckoned to be as near to Vandyck as any male portrait Sir Peter ever painted, and there is in it the presentment of a soldier and a gentleman, of a leader in the field, and of a man who would not be out of place either in a library or a boudoir. Lely's Earl of Essex, at Knole, is full of dignity, and also of a commonplace nature bespeaking a gentleman who had every-day work to do in the world and was prepared to do it. Fifty years after Lely was dead, Harris of Salisbury was looking at the artist's portrait of Sir William Temple, "where," as he wrote to Highmore, "the austerity of everything that surrounds seems purposely intended to give life and vigor to the countenance and there fix the attention of the spectator." It is the best possible guess at a true master's intention. Nagle asserts that Lely's Horace Townshend, his Alderman La Neve, in Robes, his Earl of Sandwich (an object of Pepys' idolatry), and his last portrait of Charles the First, manifest a master-power in heroic portraiture quite equal to that of Vandyck. As much may be said of Lely's portrait of Thomas Stanley, the author of a now forgotten "History of Philosophy." In this work Lely, in painting the eyes, has reflected the philosophy or heroism, the thought or resolution, of the mind. You may see that Stanley's head is full of brains. Even when Lely had to deal with fashions against which Vandyck had never to contend, he contrived to keep the man intact. His Henry Jermyn (afterwards Earl of St. Albans) is all heavy robes and cataract peruke. The individual is not heroic, though Henrietta Maria loved, if she did not marry him. He looks like a man who would play cards till and after he was blind, as he did, some one telling him the points. Under all that heap of robes there is a breathing being of so many stone weight. The head is wig and nothing else, but the face is not a mere mask on a block, as in the careless portraits of Verrio and Kneller.

After Lely established himself in Covent Garden in 1662 his pupils could not have much profited by the study of their master, if he was as reserved to all as he is said to have been to Greenhill and Buckshorn. He would not permit them, we are told, to see him mix his colors, to observe how he laid them on, nor how he marked or distribated them with his pencil. They were obliged, so goes the story, to watch him by stealth, and peep at him from hidng-places. On the other hand we learn from Vertue's MSS. that the two Beales, brother and sister, were allowed o look over Sir Peter as he worked, and even to criticise im most freely, that from his explanations they might earn to snatch graces of their own when before their own asels in the street hard by. While Lely was engaged, in 666, on the portrait of the Duchess of York at the Duke's odgings in Whitehall, Pepys contrived to overlook him. He has recorded his delight at observing that the painter had ot succeeded nearly so well at getting a likeness of the Duchess, in two or three sittings, as he had of Mrs. Pepys, on he first attempt. Pepys gave Lely's "fellow" a piece of oney for permission to enter the artist's studio and to see, mong other rare things, this portrait of the Duchess of ork, just finished. Pepys saw at once the hand of no ordiary master in his work, "her whole body sitting in state a chair, in white satin, and another of the king's that is ot finished, most rare things!" He was still more ecstatic hen he saw gratis what he calls "the so much desired by e picture of my Lady Castlemaine. A most blessed pictre" The amateur compared the foreign artist with nglish painters. He weighed Lely's "Duchess" with right's; "but Lord, the difference!" is his summary iticism. He measured the Westphalian against Hailes, had painted Pepys' father, and was one of Lely's

rivals. Pepys is sorry, but "Lely's pictures are without doubt much beyond Mr. Hailes's."

Lely was modest when estimating himself. "Sir Peter," said one of the sons of Folly, at Charles the Second's court, “how did you get your reputation? You know you are no great painter." "I know I am not," said Lely calmly, but I am the best you have." His royal patrons were munificent for the time. For the portraits of Charles the Second and his queen, Lely received one hundred pounds.

In the estimation of Pepys, Lely was fond of a pompous way of living. The Lord Keeper Guilford found him a perfect gentleman. Lely conversed so charmingly on his own art that his hearers, if they could not become, by listening, infallible judges, at least fell in love with the art itself, and had a longing to buy pictures. Lely knew the history of his art better than he knew any other history; and he had the materials of knowledge curiously arranged for the sake of reference. He cut out of the "Colonna Trajani" all the historical part, "contenting himself with so much, and no more, as touched the profession of a painter, without that of a scholar." Pepys, who tells us this, calls Lely "a proud man and full of state," because Pepys saw "in what pomp Lely's table was laid," in his house in Covent Garden, "for himself to go to dinner." Pepys was astonished at the extent of Lely's practice. Lely's portrait of the Earl of Sandwich had inspired Pepys with a desire to have a copy of the work. The painter answered that his time was fully engaged for the next three weeks. Subsequently, when the Duke of York had given Lely a commission to paint the Duke's flagcaptains, one of those heroes, Sir William Penn, accompanied Pepys to arrange for a sitting. Lely was so "full of work" that "he was fain to take his table-book out to see how his time is appointed; and appoints six days hence for him to come, between seven and eight in the morning." At a later period, Lely's hours for work were from nine to four; and he was very independent in his bearing with the noblest and proudest of his sitters. If the most imperious duke or most wayward duchess failed to appear at the time appointed, Lely, or Lely's porter, would transfer the name of the offender to the bottom of the artist's list of engagements, and the transgressor had to wait for a new turn till that list had been duly worked out. On this point Lely was inexorable.

There are two different accounts of the rate at which Lely worked. A well-known story runs, that the Duke of York and the Duke of Monmouth being desirous of possessing a portrait of Charles the Second, the first commissioned Lely, while Monmouth gave the work to Kneller. It was to be a sort of "match," whereby the qualities of the respective artists were to be settled. Kneller's rapid hand and fiery pencil combined to finish the portrait at one sitting. Lely, though bold, was discreet; he took his time, and impatient people pronounced him slow, while fashion went over to Kneller. Even if this be true, it must be remembered that Lely was then in his last days. At an earlier period his pencil could be rapid without failing to be effective; he is known to have executed two heads of Tillotson (for Mr. Beale and for the Rev. Dr. Cradock, Mrs. Beale's father) in chalks and color in one hour. "Fa Presto" could hardly have outdone that: Kneller would have fallen short of it.

When Charles the Second dubbed Peter Lely knight, and made him a gentleman of the bedchamber, Sir Peter had acquired the right to live like a knight and a gentleman. The painter had saved money, had put it out at interest, and invested it in land. He had estates and honest tenants in both Lincolnshire and Herts; and the great artist was not a stern landlord. When he had the vapors, or when his lady had, a woman of good family, but so totally unremarkable that she fades out of the household picture altogether, he could change from his town house to his suburban cottage at Kew, or to a country residence, as easily as any nobleman, and with as little uneasy thought about the cost. But he was most at "home" in Covent Garden, where he lived indeed a deservedly

"mighty proud man," with infinite grandeur but without selfishness. His table was not laid out in state exclusively for his own gratification. He gathered his friends around it, enjoyed with them the delights he had earned, and partook with them of the generous fare he had already paid for. His cellars were rich in favorite liquids, from rare wines to the then still popular mum. Curious clocks, rich furniture, antique cabinets, stately beds, quaint mirrors, costly plate and jewels, these were only small matters in a house where the artist had brought together the noblest private collection of pictures then existing in England, and among them were six-and-twenty Vandycks. Next to them and to the art by cunning exercise of which they were produced, Sir Peter loved music. Half a dozen caged singing-birds made his house and garden joyous. His violins, his bass-viols, his theorbos, and his harpsicals discoursed him most exquisite music while he sat at dinner, when, Nagle says, he was fed with sweet sounds as well as with rich viands. In summer, fancy may see him and his group of familiars assembled on his lawn, which extended up to Long Acre, while amateurs or professional friends touched the instruments he kept for harmonious use. Lely's books of devotion" may justify us in the conclusion that he was not far from godliness; and his "bathing tubs" show that he was beyond his age, and loved what is next to godliness cleanliness. These items we gather from his executors' accounts.

Lely was adding money to money, and acre to acre, by his daily work in Covent Garden, when a thought came over him of the great hereafter, and a desire to set his house in order, that his two young children might enter without trouble on their succession. A courtier, who loved art and Sir Peter, took the latter by the sleeve and introduced him to the then Attorney-General North. North frightened "the old gentleman,' as North called him, by urgent counsel to make an immediate settlement, as in spite of his naturalization, if he were to die intestate his estate might go to the Crown. North arranged this important affair, and took no fees. He was well paid, nevertheless. Lely gave him several portraits, "and between them," says Roger North, in his Life of the Lord Keeper, "this was called commuting of faculties."

In the beginning of the year 1679 Lely made his will. In a few words, he leaves all to his young daughter Anne and his little son John. His Lincolnshire estates, his rents, in short, all he possessed was then bequeathed, with ample means for the education of the son, and an especial three thousand pounds to Anne, to be put out at the interest of five or six per cent., and to be applied for her support till she was eighteen, or got married. In case of the children dying before they were of age to execute a testament, Lely thought of the sole survivor of his old home in Westphalia. To his sister Kate Maria Weck, widow of Conrad Weck, once burgomaster of Groll, in Guelderland, and to her children, he gave the reversionary interest. And having thus provided for his kin, Sir Peter seems to have thought of his friends and of something to be done for them by and by. "As to legacies," he says quaintly, "to my particular friends and to servants, I hope it will please God to afford me leisure and opportunity to declare my mind therein by a codicil." Sir Peter, however, does not appear to have found either, during the troubled year in which he signed the document.

He still had time to work. Among Lely's latest productions was his best known portrait of the second Duchess of York. The Duchess sat for it previous to the journey which she made to Scotland in company with the Duke. She is, moreover, in her habit as she lived; in a dress of scarlet and gold, with a tucker and under-sleeves of the fairest lawn. Over the shoulders and bosom there is a "cataract" of beautiful hair, falling from the most classical of heads. A scarf of blue (the edges of gold and pearls) crosses the dress obliquely, rests in rich profusion in the lap, and descends in copious folds of drapery to the ground. She is sitting in one of Lely's best garden scenes, beneath a tree entwined by roses and honeysuckles. The portrait is remarkable for its feminine dignity and its

sweet expression. It was painted as a gift to the D Rothes, who was to be the host of the royal pair in land, and it is still one of the chief ornaments of House. This portrait is probably the very last o works which Lely lived to finish. It was begun year 1679, and the career of the great artist was drawing to a close. In the following February (16) young lady of great fame, rank, and beauty was sitt him in his room in Covent Garden Elizabeth, da of Josceline, Earl of Northumberland, and wife of Ogle, whom she had married in the previous Nove when she was only fourteen years of age. She was wards contracted to "Tom of ten thousand," Thy Longleat, and was subsequently Duchess of So One of the first portraits painted by Lely, in E was that of her father, Josceline, Earl of Northumb when the Earl was a little boy. His last, but unfil portrait was that of Josceline's daughter. While e upon it, the pencil slipped from his hand, and apoplexy closed the career of this great painter He died the same day; and his enemies said that l all the sooner at hearing his doctor speak in p

Kneller!

The succession to his formal Court appointme vacant till March, 1685, when Antonio Verrio was words of Luttrell's Diary, made the King's "ch first painter in the place of Sir Peter Lely, decease

Sir Peter was buried, like a knight and a gentler torchlight. The procession had not far to go to church of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. The torch wax cost more than the coffin. Seven pounds the and five pounds additional to the bearers, while th cost but six. The apothecary received twelve po embalming Sir Peter, and the herald-painter a few over sixteen pounds for executing the bright an scutcheons of arms which glittered in the torchligh admiration of the Piazza mob. Altogether, the charges reached a hundred and seventy-five pound five shillings.

The executors' accounts show what activity rei Lely's studio immediately after his death. Wal there appraising and varnishing the part of the co that was to be first sold. Lancrinck was running fro from his lodgings in the northwest corner Piazza to his old master's house in the northeas he made the inventory, estimated prices, and pla pictures in the best lights. At other times, Laneri Sonnius (Van Son) were busily engaged in comple portraits or the backgrounds and accessories w Peter had left unfinished. On some occasions, th was crowded with artists giving last touches, for money, to pieces which Lely had not had leisure minate. Among them were brilliant Roestraten Tilson, and eccentric Wissing, with inferior w such as Nason, Warton, and Landervert, a trio o neymen painters" of the time. Mr. Baptist figure the more dignified artists engaged in conveying g Sir Peter's uncompleted pictures. "Mr. Baptist," familiar name of Gaspars, the Antwerp painte Lely had long retained as an assistant. Gaspar at this work £56; Wissing was paid about £30; £20, and Lancrinck about £12. Of the latter was paid to him for finishing Sir Peter's portra Thomas Deerham; a few shillings were considere for completing copies from other masters, which commenced and had then put aside.

The most curious scene in Lely's studio occurr his brother artists looked over his properties. sessed a variety of costumes and materials for the would have made wardrobes for a score of There was Lancrinck turning over the emb dresses, and Wissing and Gaspars holding up to tion the glittering tiffanies, the gay taffetas, the s and light-colored, the pearl satins, the gray s ash satins, the crimson, violet, blue, and emerald the sleeves, the skirts, the "tiffany white and red the laced shirts, the gorgeous petticoats, the ms

waistcoats, and the Isabella cloth of gold; and they bought largely, as if from the old materials they could catch the master's power. Wissing carried off silken gear, and by help of it imitated Lely more closely than ever. "Mr. Baptist" doubtless turned all his bright purchases to good account in his draperies and tapestry. As for Lancrinck, he bought not only such brilliant articles as those above mentioned, but Sir Peter's palettes and pencils. Lancrinck, indeed, purchased so largely, that he was fain to complete more of Lely's unfinished works, in part payment. Moreover, "for pains at the first sale," Lancrinck was allowed a commission of ninepence in the pound, and he put nearly a hundred pounds in his pocket by an agency which a respectable artist would not in these days think becoming. At the first sale, Lancrinck purchased fortynine pictures for £206. Among them was a Psyche," by Rubens, £41. For "Van Tromp," he gave £6, and 10s. more for "A Lucrece of Sir Peter's after Titian." Richard Cromwell was not in favor; his portrait (it is not said by whom) was knocked down at £2 10s. À " Cupid of Fiamingo" fetched more than Rubens's" Psyche," namely, £145; Mr. Baptist being the buyer. Tilson succeeded in obtaining "an original of Sir Peter," for a poor £10. Wissing gave one pound more for an original of "Mr. Hughes;" while Streater, the scene painter, bought a whole-length, a half, and two heads, for £6 and an odd shilling; Sonnius (Van Son), perhaps as an agent for other artists, laid out nearly £400 in originals, and about £50 for copies. In purchasing for himself he was as fortunate as Wissing or Streater, in obtaining seven pictures out of the collection-originals and copies for £24. Riley, luckier still, carried off from Lely's collection to his own studio, portraits of the Duchess of Lauderdale, the Dukes of York, Monmouth, and Ormond, and Sir William Swan, for £20. Beale, however, perhaps surpassed Riley in good fortune. For himself, or for his more clever wife, Beale bought portraits of the Duchess of Mazarin and Lady Norris, with a girl's head, and three or four pictures on panel, and all for £8 15s. With the above group of lively artists there appeared the greatest actor of his own, and perhaps of any time-the grave, handsome Thomas Betterton. He was a well-known collector of pictures, and he came now to Covent Garden, to take from the colelection there, and add to his own, close by, in Great Russell Street. His purchases comprised: "Venus and Adonis, a scisse (sic) of Titian," for £13, a "Fortune Teller of Giorgione," £24, and a "Man and Dog of Antony More," £22. Three pictures by three foremost men, and not £60 for the three!

Among the company, too, was Anthony Grey, Earl of Kent, who was so famous for his collection of books. Philip Sydney, Earl of Leicester, was there, looking out for pictures wherewith to decorate the great house his father had built in Leicester Fields. Charles Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, who with one eye was as good a judge of a picture as any man with two, with Lords Grandison, Vaughan, Berkeley, and Newport, also took personal interest in the great sale. The first was uncle of the Duchess of Cleveland, and honest man enough to scowl at Lely's glowing portrait of his niece. Old Lord Vaughan was an object of attraction as the protector of Jeremy Taylor. Lord Berkeley was probably there in search of pictorial decorations for the house which his father had erected in Piccadilly. Connoisseurs and amateurs were exceedingly well represented. Among them were Sir Peter Parker, Sir Nathaniel Napier, Sir Richard Temple, Sir Allen Apsley, Sir John Brownlow, and Sir James Oxenden. The chief singularity about Sir Allen Apsley's purchases, or rather his payments for them, was, that when he went to deposit the money at Child the banker's, £15 of it were refused by the clerk or cashier as "suspicious"!

Lord Peterborough, for a Christ, by Paul Veronese, gave £200. Mr. R. Mountague, for "37 Grizailles," of Vandyck, £115. Mr. Drax, of Dorsetshire, bought a "Dutch Family" for £100. The Earl of Kent, for a “ Venus and Cupid, of Paris Perdon" (sic) gave £105. For a portrait of Tom Killigrew, by Vandyck, Lord Newport

gave £83. For two pounds less, the Earl of Shrewsbury obtained "A Tantalus of Titian," and for 30s., "A little picture with a ruff." Sir James Oxenden took away with him to his old house at Dene, in Kent, six pictures, including "A Jeweller of Anthony More," at the cost of £245, the "Jeweller" being worth all the money. Sir Richard Temple was quite as fortunate. Four pictures from this Lely collection cost him £51, and among them was the "Wife of Rubens," which was sold for £15. The highest sum given for a foreign pic: ure was £252 for "The Four Bassas," but the name of artist or purchaser is not given.

Among Sir Peter's pictures, the work of his own hand, are recorded, an unfinished half-length of the Duke of Grafton, sold for £15, and an unfinished sketch of Nell Gwynn, £25. For a copy of Sir Peter's half-length of Charles the Second, Roger North gave £2 10s. Lord Grandison gave £20 for a half-length of "Mrs. Villers," an original of Sir Peter's, while Lord Berkeley got a threequarter Cromwell for 18s. This was as cheap as Ravenscroft's bargain, "The Judgment of Solomon," of Peter Van Teed, £6! The first sale realized nearly £6000, and subsequently, an eight days' sale of part of Sir Peter's wonderful collection of drawings and prints brought in nearly £2500. The prices seldom varied, or, rather, there was always the same variety. Of twenty-four portraits described in the executors' accounts as "originals," twelve were of ladies. Altogether, they fetched £473. highest bid was for the "Duchess of Richmond," namely, £50. The lowest, for a half-length outline of " Lady Mundy," and an unfinished portrait of "Lord Hyde," £1 each. Thirteen "copies" were sold for £46 13s. at rates varying between £1 and £12.

The

At no time during this protracted sale was any agent present to purchase on the part of Government. Esteemed as Lely had been by the king and royal family, they seem to have been satisfied with such portraits as he had painted of or for them. Of his other works, or of the Titians, Claudes, Paul Veroneses, Rubens, and Vandycks (more than two dozen of the latter), not one was bought by the court. Lely's "Prince Rupert" and a "Charles the Second" are at Windsor, the National Gallery containing no sample of the artist's handiwork.

The home life of Lely is brought before us in the executors' accounts of sums paid to creditors. Mr. Soaper, the artist's "barber," was paid £7, and Mr. Valentine £6 for the last periwig which Sir Peter wore. The collector of "chimney money" called for his obnoxious due, and received 18s. The last half year's rent of the fine old house is paid. The sum is in one place put down as £20, it is called a quarter's rent, and the sum in another £25. Sir Peter's "great bed, bedding, and chair" fetched £56. The "great clock" realized £35; more than the musical instruments were sold for, though these had some lofty personages among the buyers. Lord Chief Justice North carried off many lots, pearls, lace, and among other things, Lely's bass-viol. The violin went for £15, the "harpsicals for £10, the theorbo for half the latter sum, and the half-dozen birds and four cages were handed over to the purchaser for the respectable sum of £8. While some bid for the wine and claret, one individual carried off a memorial of the defunct in the shape of his wig-block. Whoever got the painter's "eight books of devotion" obtained so many aids to a pious life at a low rate, 11s. ; and as for the "bathing tubs," they were part of a miscellaneous lot, and are not to be estimated. The popular story runs that the sale of the pictures continued for forty days. It continued, at intervals, for many years. As soon as the first enthusiasm a little subsided, the executors stopped the sale; and when the public appetite was whetted for more of the rich supply from Lely's stores, the sale was renewed, being again occasionally interrupted, as the world was busy about lords getting their necks into peril through treason, or while the Londoners were flocking to see the "great straunge beaste, the Rhynoceros," which was being exhibited at Belle Sauvage, on Ludgate Hill. In this way the sale of Lely's pictures and drawings was carried on till towards the close