ANECDOTES of PAINTING, &c.
CHAP. I.
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 litterature. A Prince who thought puns and quibbles the per­fection of eloquence, would have been charmed with the monkies 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 trowser 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, instead 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 vast­ness seem to have made their whole ideas of grandeur. The palaces [Page 2] erected in the reign of Elizabeth by the memorable 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 moveable, was not commonly perfect enough to be real magnificence. Fretted cielings, gracefull 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 at Hardwicke, still preserved as it was furnished for the reception and emprisonment of the Queen of Scots, is a curious picture of that age and style. Nothing can exceed the expence in the bed of state, in the hangings of the same 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 cloths to cast over the tables are embroi­dered and embossed with gold, on velvets and damasks, The only moveables of any taste are the cabinets and tables themselves, carved in oak. The chimnies are wide enough for a hall or kitchen, and over the arras are freezes 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, ^*

[Page 3] 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 [Page 4] colouring and stiff in his drawing ^*. Both these portraits are bold and round, and the chiaro 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 purple; 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 Justice Raymond.

Marquis of Hamilton with the white staff, at Hampton-court.

Vansomer died about the age of forty-five, and was buried at St.

[Page 5] Martin's in the Fields as appears by the register; Jan. 5, 1621. Pau­lus Vansomer, pictor eximius, sepultus fuit in ecclesiâ.

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 ^* distinguished by their clearness, neatness and smoothness. They are generally painted on board, and except being a little stiff, are often stronglly marked with a fair charac­ter of nature, and remarkable for a lively tranquillity in the counte­nances. 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 of his hands rests on the head of a greyhound, as fine as the animals of Snyder.

Jansen's first works in England are dated about 1618. He dwelt in the Black-friars, and had much business. His price for a head was five broad pieces. He painted too in small in oil, and often copied his [Page 6] own works in that manner. In the family of Verney were the por­traits 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 shou'd doubt it's 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 neighbour­hood, 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, tho' not equal to another at the same seat, a half length of her mother, Eliza­beth, daughter of John Vernon, wife of Earl Henry. Her cloaths are magnificent, and the attire of her head, singular, a veil turned quite back. The face and hands are coloured with incomparable lustre, and equal to any thing this master executed. There is also a half length in black satten 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 ^* on the arrival of Vandyck, and the civil war [Page 7] breaking out, Cornelius, at the importunity of his wife, quitted Eng­land. His pass is recorded in the Journals of the Commons:

October 10, 1648. Ordered, that Cornelius Johnson, picture-drawer, shall have Mr. Speaker's warrant to pass beyond seas with Emanuel Passe, George Hawkins; and to carry with him such pictures and co­lours, bedding, houshold stuff, pewter, and brass, as belongs unto him­self.

He retired first to Midelburg and then to Amsterdam, where he continued to paint and died in 1665. ^* 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 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 ^† 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, godmother. Theodore Russel, an elder son was born in 1614, and lived nine years with his uncle Cornelius Jansen, and afterwards with Vandyck, whose pictures he copied very tolerably on small pannels; many of them are in a private apartment at Windsor, at Warwick­castle, 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. [Page 8] 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 neice, 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 back grounds of his por­traits 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 Con­way papers in these words;

The office of one of his majesty's picture-drawers in ordinary, with the fee of 20 l. per ann. graunted to Daniell Mitens during his life. Subscribed by order from the Lord Chamberlain. Procured by Mr. Endimyon Porter, May 30, 1625.

And among the same MSS. is the following docquet-warrant;

July 31, 1626. A warrant to the exchequer to paie unto Daniell Mittens his majesty's picturer the somme of 125 l. 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 houshold, procured by the Lord Conway.

[Page]

Ant. van Dyck pinx. T.Chambars sculp.

[Page 9] At Hampton-court are several whole lengths of Princes and Prin­cesses of the house of Brunswick-Lunenburgh, and the portrait of Charles Howard Earl of Nottingham; at Kensington is Mytens's own head. At Knowle, Lionel Cranfield Earl of Middlesex, Lord Trea­surer, 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 ^* 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 Charles 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 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 pye, 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 [Page 10] of the court. Sir William Davenant wrote a poem called Jeffreidos, on a battel between him and a ^* turkey-cock, 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, &c. written by Microphilus, with a little print of Jeffery prefixed. Before this period Jeffery was employed on a negotiation of great importance: He was sent to France to fetch a midwife 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. ^† Jeffery, thus made of consequence, grew to think himself really so. He had born with little temper the teazing of the courtiers and dome­stics, and had many squabbles with the King's gigantic porter; ^‡ at last being provoked by Mr. Crofts, a young gentleman of family, a chal­lenge ensued, and Mr. Crofts coming to the rendezvous armed only with a squirt, the little creature was so enraged that a real duel ensued, and the appointment being on horseback with pistols, to put them more [Page 11] on a level, Jeffery with the first fire shot his antagonist dead. This happened 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 probable, with his rival, for the head of ^* 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 cieling of the town-hall there; the subject is, Truth writing history on the back of Fame.

[Page 12] 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. ^*

Christophano Roncalli, pittore, andò per la Germania, per la Fian­dra, per l' Olanda, per l' Inghilterra, per la Francia; e finalmente ca­rico d' honori e di 74 anni finì il corso 1626. ^† I should not mention such slight notices, but that they may lead to farther discoveries. An other was a more remarkable person, especially 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 however 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 ^‡ books of the Lord Harrington Treasurer of the Chambers, No. 78, 79. being accounts of monies received and paid by him;

Item, paid to Robert Peake, picture-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 the First then) Duke of York; but that Peake painted in oil is ascer­tained

[Page 13] by Peacham in his book of limning, where he expresly cele­brates his good friend Mr. Peake and Mr. Marquis ^* 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 Holbourn-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 disorders 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 Basing-house when it was besieged, where he persuaded his disciple Faithorn to inlist under him, as the latter in his dedication of the art of graving to Sir Robert ex­presly tells him, and where Peake himself was taken prisoner. ^† He was buried in the chuch of St. Stephen London. ^‡

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 his talent to single heads. Peter copied in water­colours several capital pictures with signal success. By the catalogues [Page] [...] [Page 13] [...] [Page 14] 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 a-sleep, eight inches wide and five high. On it was written his name, with the termination French, P. Olivier 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 Embassador for 600 l. 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 6th. when an infant, the drapery highly ornamented and finished; a copy from Holbein. ^* 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 black lead on the leaf of a vellom pocket-book; on the reverse is his own portrait in profile; both masterly: And in black and 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 Hanneman, who painted the wise too; but I know not where the latter is.

[Page 15] It is extraordinary ^* that more of the works ^† 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 disper­sed in the troubles, among which were several of the Olivers, Charles 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 ^‡ 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: 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 [Page 16] away what he liked, and sent Rogers to Mrs. Oliver with the option of 1000 l. or an annuity of 300 l, for her life. She chose the latter. Some years afterwards it happened that the King's mistresses 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 Mrs. Russel's 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 1616, 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 Black­sryars.

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 university of Cambridge in 1638 on the death of Mr. Edward King, Milton's Lycidas, one of the English copies is inscribed, Isaac Oliver, ^* who, I suppose, was the glass-painter, and then about the age of twenty-two, as appears from the following inscription on a painted window in Christ-church Oxford, [...]liver 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. [Page 17] The long life of this person, ^* estimable for his 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. 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 a-new 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 I. 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 1518.

[...] 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.

[Page 18] 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 ^* pinxit, 1687. There are eight or ten more dated 1640.

— at Christ-church, Isaac Oliver, aged 84, 1700.

Window in Merton-chapel, William Price, ^† 1700.

Windows at Queen's, New-college and Maudlin, by William Price, the son, now living, whose colours are fine, whose drawing good, and whose taste in ornaments and mosaic is far superior to any of his pre­decessors, is equal to the antique, to the good Italian masters, and only surpassed by his own singular modesty. ^‡

[Page]

[Page 19]EDWARD NORGATE,

though of a very inferior walk in the profession, deserves to be remem­bered 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 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 purchase 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 [Page 20] to walk many hours every day on the cours in a disconsolate 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. ^* 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 paynes taken to write and lymne in gold and colours certain letters written from his majesty to the King of Persia, the sum of ten pounds.

These letters were undoubtedly in answer to those brought by that singular adventurer Sir Antony Shirley, embassador from the Sophy to his own sovereign.

The warrant for restoring the use of the old English march, which I 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 Alexan­der 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 [Page 21] master having painted in this manner, I cannot doubt but it was the work of Norgate, allowed the best illuminator of that age, and gene­rally employed, says Fuller, to make the initial letters in the patents of Peers and commissions of Embassadors. Fuller concludes his account of him in these words; "He was an excellent herald by the title of [...] , ^* and which was the crown of all, a right honest man. Exem­plary his patience in his sickness (whereof I was an eye witness) though a complication of diseases, stone, ulcer in the bladder, &c. 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 ^† we know of him is that in 1612, the year of the Prince's death, he published a book, intituled, La Perspective ou Raison des ombres et miroirs, with several engraved plates, folio. 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, 1628.

This young Prince was a great lover of the arts, and laid the foun­dation of the collection, which his brother compleated. 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 [Page 22] from Sir Edward Conway, in one ^* of which he mentions having bought a picture of the Four Evangelists, whom he calls affectedly, the most faithfull, glorious and excellent secretaries that ever were to tbe in­finite incomprehensible Prince; desiring Mr. Adam Newton, 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 solli­citations 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 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 [Page 23] was set up at Mortlack in Surrey, Aubrey in his history of that county dates it's institution in the subsequent reign; but Loyd ^* is not only positive for the former aera, 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 Foedera ^† is an acknowledgment from King Charles in the very first year of his reign that he owes 6000 l. to Sir Francis Crane for tapestry; ‘Francisco Crane militi A. D. 1625.’

For three suits of gold tapestry for our use we stand indebted to Sir Francis Crane for 6000 l. Granted to him an annuity of 1000 l. To Sir Francis Crane also allowed more 2000 l. yearly for the better main­tenance of the said worke 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 for 270 l. At Hampton-court are some of the cartoons.

The beautifull 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 2500 l. for the four se [...]ns.

At Knowle is a piece of the same tapestry, wrought in silk, contain­ing [Page 24] the portraits of Vandyck and Sir Francis himself. Mrs. Mark­ham, whose maiden name was Crane, and a descendent 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 Redlinch 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 1st. and one of the months represents a Gentleman and Lady riding together to hawk.

Of this person I find no farther 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 ^* The manu­facture 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. [Page]

[Page 25]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 office­book of the board of works;

Maximilian Colte, master sculptor at 8 l. a year, 1633.

EPIPHANIUS EVESHAM

was another sculptor of that time: In the translation of Owen's epi­grams by John Penkethman printed in 1624, the translator says, "give me leave to insert his (Owen's) epitaph, which is engraved in a plate of brass, and fixed under his monumental image, formed and 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 distinction. [Page 26] In 1616 he was sent to Edinburgh to work in the King's chapel there. In 1619 he was engaged on the building of the banquetting-house; and in the beginning of the reign of King Charles he received his pa­tent as master mason, recorded in Rymer's Foedera ^* of which this is the substance; "Know ye that we do give and graunt unto our trusty and well-beloved servant Nicholas Stone the office and place of our master mason and architect for all our buildings and reparations be­longing to our castle of Windsor during the term of his natural life; and further, for the executing the said office, we do give him the wa­ges and fee of twelve pence by the day in as ample and as large a man­ner as ^† William Suthis or any other person heretofore did enjoy. A. D. 1626, April 20."

The history of his works 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 pay­ments he received: A copy of this ^‡ pocket-book Vertue obtained, from which I shall extract the most remarkable and curious articles.

"In June 1614, I bargained with Sir Walter Butler for to make a tomb for the Earl of Ormond, and to set it up in Ireland; for the which I had well paid me 100 l. in hand, and 300 l, when the work was set up at Kilkenny in Ireland."

[Page 27] "1615. Agreed with Mr. Griffin for to make a tomb for my ^* Lord of Northampton and to sett it in Dover-castle, for the which I had 500 l. well payed. I made master Isaac James a partner with me in cour­tesy, because he was my master three years, that was, two years 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 l. good money."

"In November 1615 Mr. Jansen in Southwark and I did sett up a tomb for Mr. Sutton at Charter-house, for the which we had 400 l. well payed, but the little monument of Mr. Lawes was included, the which I made and all the carven work of Mr. Sutton's tomb."

"July 1616 was I sent into Scotland, where I undertook to do work in the King's chapple and for the King's clossett, and the organ, so much as came to 450 l. of wainscot-worke, the which I performed and had my money well payed, and 50 l, was given to drink, whereof I had 20 l. given me by the King's command."

"1616. A bargain made with Mr. Chambers for the use of the Right Honorable ^† Luce Countes of Bedford, for one fair and stately [Page 28] tomb of touchstone and white marble for her father and mother and brother and sister, for the which I was to have 1020 l. and my lady was to stand at all charges for carridge and iron and setting up."

"1619. A bargain made with Sir Charles Morison of Cashioberry in 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, as great as the life of alabaster, for the which I had well payed 260 l. and four pieces given me to drink."

"1619, I was sent for to the officers of his majesty's workes to un­dertake 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 6 l.—13 s.—4 d. And I took down the fountain at Theobalds, and sett it up again, and the fountain at Nonsuch, and I was payed for both 48 l."

"And in 1622 I made the great ^* diall in the Privy-garden at Whitehall, for the which I had 46 l."

"And that year 1622 I made a diall for my Lord Brook in Hol­bourn, for the which I had 8 l.—10 s."

"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 l. 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, [Page 29] 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 l."

"I also made a monument for Mr. Spencer the poet, and set it up at Westminster, for the which the Countess of Dorsett payed me 40 l.

"And another there for Mr. Francis Holles, the youngest son of the Earl of Clare, for the which the sayd Earl payed for it 50 l. [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 Holles, 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 l."

"And in the same church I made an inscription for Sir Richard Cox for the which I had 30 l."

"And another fast by for Monsieur Casabon, the Lord Bishop of Durham payed for it 60 l."

"And about this time (1625) I made for the Old Exchange in London four statues, the one Edward 5, Richard 3, and Henry 7. for these three I had 25 l. a piece, and one for Queen Elizabeth, which was taken down and sett up again were now it standeth at Guildhall gate, for the which I had 30 l."

And in 1629 I made a tomb for mylady Paston of Norfolk, and [Page 30] set it up at Paston, and was very extraordinarily entertained there, and payed for it 340 l."

"In 1631, I made a tomb for the Right Hon. Lady the Countess of Buckingham, and set it up in Westminster-abbey, and was payed for it 560 l."

"In 1631, I made a ^* tomb for Dr. Donne, and sett it up in St. Paul's London, for the which I was payed by Dr. Mountford the sum of 120 l. I took 60 l. in plate, in part of payment."

"In 1634 I made a chemny-peece for Sir John Holland, and sett it up at Godnon [Quidnam] in Norfolke, for the which I had 100 l."

"And 1632, I made a chemny-peece for Mr. Paston sett up at Oxnett in Norfolke, for the which I had 80 l. and one statue of Venus and Cupid, and had 30 l. for it; and one statue of Jupiter 25 l. and the three-headed dog Cerberus with a pedestal 14 l. and Seres, and Hercu­les, and Mercury 50 l. and a tomb for mylady Catherine his dear wife 200 l. and a little chemny-peece in a banquetting-house 30 l. and one Rance marbel tabel with a foot 15 l. 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 l. a piece, with pedestals."

"In 1635 I made a tomb for the two sonns of Sir Thomas Little­ton, and sett it up in Malden-college in Oxford, where the boys were drowned, for the which work I had 30 l."

"In 1650 I made a tomb for my Lord Castleton Vycount Dorches­ter, and sett it up at Westminster-abbey, for the which I had 200 l. [Page 31] and old monument that stood in the same place before sett up for his Lady some eight years before." ^*

The whole receipts as they were cast up by Stone's kinsman Charles Stoakes amounted to 10889 l.

[Page 32] 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 tho' removed to greater distance from each other) was 100 l.

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 l. In 1638 he built Tarthall near Buckingham-house for the Countess of Arundel, and had paid to him at different times to pay workmen 634 l. 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;

1629. John Hargrave made a statue of Sir Edward Cook for 15 l.—0 s.—0 d.

1631. Humphrey Mayor finisht the statue for Dr. Donne's monu­ment, 8 l.—0 s.—0 d.

1638. John Hargrave made the statue to the monument of Lord Spencer, 14 l.—0 s.—0 d. and Richard White made the statue of Lady Spencer, 15 l.—0 s.—0 d.

1643. John Schurman, carver.

Nicholas Stone died in 1647, and was buried in St. Martin's, where [Page 33] 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 life time 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 departed this life on the 24th of August 1647, aged sixty-one, and lyeth buried near the pulpit in this church. Mary his wife and Nicholas his son, lye also buried in the same grave. She died November 19th, and He on the 17th of September, 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 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 twelve-month, 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-dissentions. John at last found means of retiring to France, where he lived some years, and, I conclude, applied himself to the arts, 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 [Page 34] 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 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, entituled 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 the Lord Ashley, for which we had 60 l.

"Formerly I made a little tomb of white marble, being an eagle with an escutcheon upon his breast, sett up at Sunning in Barkshire, for 7 l.

"In Ano. 1656 I sett up a little tomb in the Temple church for Sir John Williams, and had for it 10 l. 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 l. 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

[Page 35] engraved by T. Cross in 1649 from a painting by Henry Stone, ^* whose house, garden, and work-yard in Long-acre, the same that had been his father's, were rented from the crown at 10 l. 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.

"To the memory of Henry Stone of Long-acre, painter and statuary, who having passed the greatest part of thirty-seven years in Holland, France, and Italy, atchieved a fair renown for his excellency in arts and languages, and departed this life on the 24th day of August, A. D. 1653, and lyeth buried near the pulpit in this church:

John Stone to perfect his fraternal affections erected this monument."

And a little lower, June 1699,

In memory of whom their near kinsman, Charles Stoakes, repaired 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, &c. 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 fashiona­ble statuary. They were employed together, as appears by the foregoing memorandums, on the tomb of Mr. Sutton the founder of the Char­terhouse. Of what country Jansen ^* 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 Netherlands, [Page 37] who wrote several books on architecture. Jansen was engaged on many great works ^* here; he built Audley-inn, ^† and the greater part of Nor­thumberland-house, except the frontispiece, which Vertue discovered to be the work of the next artist

[Page 38]GERARD CHRISMAS.

Before the portal of that palace was altered by the present Earl of Nor­thumberland, there were in a freeze near the top in large capitals C. AE. an enigma long inexplicable to antiquarians. 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 basrelief on it of James I. on horseback, and thence concluded that those letters signified, Chrismas aedificavit. ^* 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, sons of Gerard. ^†

JOHN SMITHSON

was an architect in the service of the Earls of Newcastle. He built part of Welbeck in 1604, the riding-house ^‡ there in 1623, and the stables in 1625; and when William Cavendish, Earl and afterwards [Page 39] 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 compleated, Smithson dying in 1648. Many of Smithson's drawings were purchased by the late Lord Byron from his descendents who lived at Bolsover, in the chancel of which church Smithson is buried with this inscription;

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, "who, he adds, as he favoureth all learning and ex­cellency, so he is a principal patron of this art, having lately employ­ed Mr. Butler and many excellent artists for the beautifying his [...] especially his chapel at Hatfield.

[Page 40]STEPHEN HARRISON

who calls himself joyner 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 at Chatsworth.

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 materials, 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 compleating this article, by having recourse to Mr. Evelyn's Discourse on Medals, but was extremely disappointed to sind that in a folio volume, in which he has given the plates and in­scriptions 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 re­presented, he who had it in his inclination, and generally in his power, to inform posterity of almost every thing they would wish to learn. Had Mr. Evelyn never regretted his ignorance of the names of the workmen of those inimitable medals of the Seleucidae, of the fair [Page 41] coins of Augustus, and of the Denarii of the other Roman Emperors? Was he satisfied 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 Charles 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 Charles I. p. 113, under the King's bust are the letters N. R. F. I cannot discover who this N. R. was. ^* Thomas Rawlins was a graver of the mint about that time; perhaps he had a brother who worked in partnership with him. I was so surprized at this omis­sion, that I concluded Mr. Evelyn must have treated of the gravers in some other part of the work. I turned to the index, and to my greater surprize found almost every thing 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;

In short, Mr. Evelyn, who loved to know, was too fond of telling [Page 42] the world all he knew. ^* 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 ^† of our medallists is, that we had Symons, Rawlins, Mr. Harris, Christian, &c. and then refers us to his Chalco­graphy, ^‡ 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 the preceding 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 [Page 43] King, paid by warrant 40 l. for gold and workmanship, for graving an offering piece of gold, Anthony having then the title of the King's graver. ^* 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. 1617. 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, Bacon Viceco. Sct. Alb. Angliae Cancell. On the reverse, Thomas Bushell. Deus est qui clausa recludit.

NICHOLAS BRIOT

was a native of Lorrain, and graver of the mint to the King of France, in which kingdom he was the inventor, or at least one of the first pro­posers [Page 44] 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 litterary controversy was car­ried on in France on the subject of this new invention, to which, ac­cording to custom, the old practicioners 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 à l'advenir uni­formes et semblables, &c.

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. 1618. qu ^o.

Examen d'un avis presentè au conseil de sa majestè 1621 pour la re­formation des monoyes par Nicolas Briot. composè par Nicolas 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 favorably 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 1631, as appears by [Page 45] Rymer's Foedera, tom xix. p. 287, a special commission 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, 1631, at Westminster. This was the project he had attempted in France, by instruments, mills and presses, to make better money and with less ex­pence 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 monies of gold and silver within the tower of London, in the reign of King Charles I. from November 8, 1628, to August 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.

"And delivered to his majestie in fair silver monies at Oatlands by Sir Thomas Aylesbury, viz. iij crownes, and iij half crownes of Briot's moneys, and iij crownes, and iij half crownes, and ten shillings of the monoyers making."

These comparative pieces were probably presented to the King by Sir Robert Harley, Briot'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 peachstone, 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 [...]. The tradition in that family was, that the carver having been [Page 46] 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 [...] 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 [...] on each.

ANECDOTES OF PAINTING, &c.
CHAP. II.
CHARLES I. His Love and Protection of the Arts, Ac­counts of Vanderdort and Sir Balthazar Gerbiere. Dispersion of the King's Collection, and of the Earl of Arundel's.

THE accession of this Prince was the first aera of real taste in England. As his temper was not profuse, the expence 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 oeconomist. 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 [Page 48] horseman, would shoot well at a mark, had singular skill in limning, was a good judge of pictures, a good mathematician, not unskillfull 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; "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 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. [Page 49] He comprehended the art of printing. There was not any one gentle­man of all the three kingdoms that could compare with him in an uni­versality of knowledge. 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." ^*

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 them all of whose hand that was? some guest at it; others were of 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 one hand. [Page 50] Said the King, "I am sure there are two hands have workt in it, for I know the hand that drew the heads, but the hand that did 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, 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 painter that drew it wanting money, got the best master she could find 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 gentleman who stood by and was so long before he recollected so circumstantial 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 prac­ticed it; it is affirmed that Rubens corrected some of his ^* majesty's drawings.

It was immediately after his accession that Charles began to form his collection. The crown was already in possesssion of some good pictures: Henry VIII. had several. What painters had been here had added others. Prince Henry, as I have said, had begun a seperate collection both of paintings and statues. All these Charles assembled, and sent commissions into France and Italy to purchase more. Cross ^† was dis­patched into Spain to copy the works of Titian there: and no doubt [Page 51] as soon as the royal taste was known, many were brought over and offered to sale at court. The ministers and nobility were not back­ward with presents of the same nature. Various are the accounts of the jewels and bawbles 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: He purchased at a great ^* price the entire cabinet of the Duke of Mantua, then reckoned the most valuable in Europe. But several of those pictures 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, valu­able as it is, notwithstanding all it's blunders, inaccuracy, and bad [Page 52] English, was I believe never compleated, 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.

Abraham 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 l. a year; ^† a contract voided by the death

[Page 53] of the Prince. However, upon the accession of King Charles, Vander­dort was immediately retained in his service with a salary of 40 l. a year, and appointed keeper of the cabinet. This room was erected about the middle of Whitehall, running across from the Thames to­wards the banquetting-house, and fronting westward to the privy­garden. ^* Several warrants for payments to Vanderdort as follow 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.

"The second day of April 1625, at St. James. His majesty was pleased by my Lord Duke of Buckingham's meanes to send for Sir Edward Villiers, warden of his majesties 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 majesties coynes, and also give his assistance to the ingravers and his furtherance that the same may be well engraven according to their abilities. For which he desireth a warrant with an annual fee of 40 l. a year, whereby it may appear that it was his majesties 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 beforementioned to be paid out of the exchequer duringe his life."

The patent itself is in Rymer. ^†

"A warrant under the signet to the officers of his majesty's hous­hold [Page 54] for the allowance of five shillings and six-pence by the day unto Abraham Vanderdoorte for his boorde wages, to begyne from Christ­mass last and to contynue during his life. By order of the Lord Con­way and by him procured. March 24, 1625." ^*

"Docquett. 11 ^o. 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 l. per annum, and of provider of patternes for the punches and stampes for his majesties coyne in the mynt with the al­lowaunce of 40 l. per annum for the same paiable quarterly out of the exchequer, the first payment to begynne at Midsommer next 1628. With further warrant to pay unto him the several arrearage of 120 l. 100 l. and of 10 l. due unto him upon privy seales for and in respect of his imployment in the said office and place which are to bee surrender­ed before this passe the greate seale. His majesties pleasure signyfied by the Lord Viscount Conway and by him procured. Subscribed by Mr. Sollicitor 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 l. per ann. duringe plea­sure. To which purpose you will be pleased to draw a bill for his ma­jesties signature. ^†

"Docquett. 11 ^o. Octobr. 1628. A letter to Sir Adam Newton Knight and Baronett, receaver generall of his majesties revenue whilest he was Prince, to pay unto Abraham Vanderdort for the keeping of his [Page 55] majesties cabinett room at St. James's, and other service the some of 130 l. in arreare due unto him for the said service from our Lady-day 1625, 'till Midsommer 1628; procured by Lord Viscount Conway."

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.

"Docquett. 28 November. 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 ^* I no where find. Vanderdort, in his catalogue, ^† mentions presents made by him to the King, of a book of prints by Albert Durer, of a head in plaister of Charles V. and of the arm of the King of Denmark, ^‡ modelled from the life. It is certain that the poor man had great gratitude 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. ^‖ After his [Page 56] 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.

The King who spared neither favours, nor money, to enrich his collection, invited ^† 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 ^‡ had drawn for that Duke the portraits of a Prince and Princess of Brunswic, 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 [Page 57] the King. Simon Vouet, an admired French painter, who while very young had 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. ^* 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. ^† It was on [Page 58] 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 an hundred broad pieces for his, but for the King's Bernini received a thousand Roman crowns. The King was so pleased with his own, that he desired to have one of the Queen too; but that was prevented by the war. ^*

Among the Strafford papers is an evidence of this Prince's affection for his pictures: In a ^† letter from Mr. Garrard, dated November 9, 1637, speaking of two masks that were to be exhibited that winter, he says, "A great room is now ^‡ building 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 cost too [Page 59] much money to be pulled down, and yet down it must when the masks are over."

In another of December 16, the same person says, "Here are two masks intended this winter; the King is now in practicing 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 l. only of deal boards, because the King will not have his pictures in the banquetting­house 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 [...] or [...] on his drawings a large star thus [...] on the Earl's 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 Hill, and placed in the same garden. One or two of these may still be extant; Vertue saw them at Buckingham­house in St. James's park, from whence they were sold.

[Page 60] It looks as if Charles had had some thoughts of erecting a monument for his father. In the lodgings of the warden of New-college Oxford was a mausoleum with arms, altar-tomb, columns and inscriptions 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 beautifull 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 Bucking­ham as early as 1613. In Finette's master of the ceremonies it is said, "Alonzo Contarini Embassador from Venice came to Mr. Gerbier, a gentleman serving the Duke of Buckingham." Sanderson ^* calls him a common penman, who pensiled the dialogue (probably the decalogue) in the Dutch church London, his first rise of preferment." It is cer­tain that he ingratiated himself much with that favorite 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. ^† Among the Harleian MSS. is a letter from the Duchess of Buckingham to her

[Page 61] Lord in Spain, "I pray you, if you have any idle time, ^* sit to Ger­bier for your picture that I may have it well done in little." 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 is some appearance 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 I. 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 blamed—one Eglesham printed a scurrilous ^† libel, 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 guilders to defray the char­ges] [Page 62] to imprint his recantation, of which the Duke bid Gerbier join malice and knavery together, and spit their venom 'till they split, 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 very treaty in which Rubens was commissioned on the part of the Infanta, and for which end that great painter came to England. Among the Conway­papers 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 my subject from the part these painters had in so important a business, but as it is more particular than any thing 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 Leicester, Embassador to Paris, writes ^* to Mr. Secretary Windebank Nov. 24. "I received a packet from Garbier to Monsieur d d [French King's brother.]

July 13, 1641, he took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, ha­ving a bill of naturalization. ^† From that time to the death of the [Page 63] 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 complection. However, whe­ther miscarrying or neglected, ^* in 1648 he appears not only in the character of author, but founder of an academy. In that year he pub­lished a thin quarto, intituled, The interpreter of the academie for for­rain languages and all noble sciences and exercises. To all fathers of families and lovers of vertue, the first part, by Sir Balthazar Gerbier Knight. Lond. French and English; with a ^† print of his head in oval and this motto, Heureux qui en Dieu se confie. It is a most trifling superficial rhapsody, and deserved the sarcasm that Butler passed on so incompetent ^‡ an attempt: In his fictitious will of Philip Earl of Pem­broke that Lord is made to say, "All my other speeches, of what co­lour soever, I give to the academy, to help Sir Balthazar's art of well­speaking."

In 1649 he published the ^‖ first lecture of Geography read at Sir Bal­thazar Gerbier's academy at Bednal-green; by which it seems that at [Page 64] 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 the 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 had 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 might be gained by a settlement there."

This perhaps was one among the many provocations, which, meet­ing 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 designed by Sir Balthazar.

In France he published a book on fortification, and in 1662 at London a small discourse on magnificent buildings, dedicated to the [Page 65] King, in which he principally treats of solidity, convenience and orna­ment, and glances at some errors of Inigo Jones in the banquetting­house. Here too he mentions a large room built by himself near the watergate ^* at York-stairs, thirty-five feet square, and says, that King Charles I. being in it in 1628 at some representation of scenery, com­mended it, and expressed as much satisfaction with it as with the ban­quetting-house. In the piece he proposes to the Lords and Commons to level the streets, Fleet-bridge and Cheapside, and erect a sumptuous 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 ribband and a medal, inscribed C. R. 1653. The medal I suppose was given 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 l. at the sale of Betterton, the player.

Gerbier's last piece is a small manual, intituled, Counsel and Advice to all builders, &c. 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 dedications, 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 [Page 66] 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 ^* 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, &c. d'Empereurs, Rois, Papes, Princes, Ducs et Comtes, an­ciens et modernes, blazonnès et enluminès par Balthazar Gerbier.

Among the Harleian MSS. N ^o. 3384, is one, intituled, Sir Baltha­zar Gerbier, his admonitions and disputes with his three daughters, re­tired into the English nunnery at Paris, 1646.

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 l. at Lord Radnor's sale, and which Mr. Scawen ^† 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 [Page 67] 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 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 Capt. 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 I. 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 arts and sciences, foreign languages, mathematics, painting, architec­ture, riding, fortification, antiquities and the science of medals. Pro­fessors were appointed, and Sir Francis Kingston, ^* 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 it's rules and orders, printed in 1636. ^† But it fell to the ground with the rest of the King's [Page 68] plans and attempts—and so great was the inveteracy to him, that it seems to have become 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, but lest the 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. ^*

Ordered, that all such pictures and statues there (York-house) as 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.

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 star­chamber-business of a man who broke some painted glass in the cathe­dral 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 doated 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 [Page 69] 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 history of Surrey; ^* one Bleese was hired for half-a-crown a day to break the painted glass windows of the church of Croydon. The man probably took care not to be too expeditious in the destruction.

Immediately after the death ^† of the King, several votes were passed for sale of his goods, pictures, statues, &c.

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 farther ^‡ dispersion of the royal collection, and [Page 70] who even in this trifling instance gave an indication of his views, re­ported 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 and pictures there, be committed to the council of state, to be preserved by them.

However, in the ensuing month, ^* the house proceeded to vote, that the personal estate ^† 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 [Page 71] to the council of state to consider and direct, what parcels of the goods and personal estates aforesaid were fit to be reserved 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, provided such servants had not been delinquents; the rest to be applied to public uses; the first thirty thou­sand pounds 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 and officers of the late King's houshold, where many of them remained on sale with low prices affixed. The principal pieces were rated more highly, and some of them were even sold above their valuation.

Ireton on the 2d of June 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 after­wards, 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 applications of the money towards discharge of his debts. From that time I find no farther 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, &c. to be locked up. [Page 72] 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; ^* it had belonged to Henry VIII. and appears on his pictures and on a medal of him in Evelyn. His George, diamond and seales, 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 hand-writing of his daughter the Princess of Orange, and was given to the Earl of Portland by King William. ^†

[Page 73] A catalogue of the pictures, statues, goods, tapestries and jewels, with the several prices at which they were valued and sold, was disco­vered 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 Vertue obtained a transcript. The particulars are too numerous to insert here. The total of the contracts amounted to 118080 l.—10 s.—2 d. 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, ^* Whitehall, Nonsuch, Oatlands, Windsor, Wimbleton-house, St. James's, Hampton-court, Richmond, Theo­bald's, [Page 74] Ludlow, Carisbrook and Kenelworth 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 an hundred and eighteen thousand pounds. ^*

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, &c. The prices of the most remarkable lots were as follows: The cartoons of Raphael, 300 l. bought by his Highness (Cromwell.) The royal family (now in the gallery at Kensington) 150 l. The King on horseback (in the same place) 200 l. The triumphs of Julius Caesar by Andrea Mantegna (now at Hampton-court) 1000 l. Twelve Caesars by Titian, 1200 l. The muses by Tintoret, (at Kensington) valued at 80 l. sold for 100 l. Alexander VI. and Caesar Borgia by Titian, 100 l. Triumph of Vespasian and Titus by Julio Romano (at Paris) 150 l. The great piece of the Nativity by Julio Romano, 500 l. It seems the act for destroying what they called superstitious pieces was not [Page 75] well observed. Two pieces of tapestry of the five senses by Sir Francis Crane, 270 l. Mention is made of two sets more ancient, of the landing of Henry VII. and the ^* marriage of Prince Arthur. From Windsor a picture of Edward III. with a green curtain before it, 4 l. Mary, Christ, and many Angels dancing by Vandyck, valued only at 40 l. This is the picture at Houghton, for which my father gave 800 l. it was twice sold before for above 1000 l. whence I conclude there was some knavery in the valuation of it. Sleeping Venus by Correggio, 1000 l. Mary, Child and St. Jerome, by Parmegiano, 150 l. The Venus del Pardo by Titian, valued at 500 l. sold for 600 l. Marquis del Guasto haranguing his soldiers by Titian, 250 l. Venus dressing by the Gra­ces, Guido (at Kensington) 200 l. Herodias with the head of St. John, by Titian, 150 l. (with his Highness.) The little Madonna and Christ by Raphael, 800 l. St. George by Raphael, 150 l. Marquis of Mantua by ditto, 200 l. Frobenius and Erasmus by Holbein, 200 l. Our Lady, Christ and others by Old Palma, 200 l. A man in black by Holbein, 120 l. St. John by Leonardo da Vinci, 140 l. Duke of Bucks and his brother by Vandyck, (now at Kensington) valued at 30 l. sold for 50 l. This is one of the finest pictures of that master. A Satyr flayed by Correggio, 1000 l. Mercury teaching Cupid to read, Venus standing by, by Correggio, 800 l. The King's head by Bernini, 800 l. A statue of Tiberius larger than life, 500 l. The Gladiator in brass (now at Houghton) 300 l. Christ washing the feet of his disciples, 300 l.

[Page 76] 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 l.—5 s.—0 d. and on the 15th are sold to the Right hon, 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 purchasers much of what they had contracted for. This appears by a ^* petition, 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,

"That in the year 1651, the petitioners did buy of the contractors for the sale of the late King's goods, the several parcels there under­named, and did accordingly make satisfaction unto the Treasurer for 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 petition­ers do humbly desire their honour's order, whereby they may receive the said goods, they having been great sufferers by the late General Cromwell's detaining thereof; and the petitioners, &c."

The goods specified are hangings, and statues in the garden at Whitehall. It is very remarkable that in this piece they style the Pro­tector, the late General Cromwell.

Whence Charles had his statues we learn from Peacham; "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 coasts, to come and do him homage, and attend him in palaces of [Page 77] St. James's and Somerset-house. A great part of these belonged to 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 Digby Knight." ^*

Some of the most capital pictures were purchased by the King of Spain, which arriving there while the Embassadors of Charles II. were at that court, they were desired, by an odd kind of delicacy, to with­draw, they supposing that this dismission was owing to an account re­ceived at the same time of Cromwell's victory over the Marquis of Argyle; "but, says Lord Clarendon, ^† they knew afterwards that the true cause of this impatience to get rid of them, was that their minister in England, having purchased many of the King's pictures and rich furniture, had sent them to the Groyne; from whence they were ex­pected to arrive about that time at Madrid; which they thought could not decently be brought to the palace while the ambassadors 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, &c. 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. ^‡ Some of the pic­tures had been purchased by Gerard Reyntz, ^‖ a Dutch collector, after whose death they were bought of his widow by the states and presented [Page 78] to Charles II. One only picture [the King on horseback by Vandyck] was recovered by a process at law from Remèe or Remigius 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 destroyed 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 Chamber­lain, 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 I. It contained the collection belonging to the crown, among which were se­veral fine editions on vellom, sent as presents from abroad, on the re­storation of learning, to Henry VII. Henry 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 Gorlaeus. Mr. Young, li­brarian to Charles I. ^* 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, [Page 79] where he says, "All the rarities in the King's library at St. James's are vanished." Yet it is evident many remained, for in June 1659 a Vote passed "that the Lord Whitlocke be desired and authorized 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 recover all such as have been embezzled or taken out of the same." Charles II. after his return ordered Ashmole ^* 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 pro­fessors whom he countenanced. If this chapter has not been thought tedious and too circumstantial, the readers who excuse it, will not per­haps be sorry if I add a little more to it on that other patron of genius, the Earl of Arundel.

^† Thomas Howard Earl of Arundel is sufficiently known in his pub­lic character by that admirable portrait drawn of him by Lord Claren­don. Living much within himself, but in all the state of the ancient [Page 80] 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. "I cannot, says Peacham, ^* but with much reverence mention the every way Right Honorable 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 ^† liberal charges and magnifi­cence this angle 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 twenty ^‡ years ago, and hath ever since continued to transplant 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, ^‖ that no man was ever better qualified for such an employment than Mr. Petty; "He en­counters, [Page 81] says Sir Thomas, ^* all accidents with unwearied patience, eats with Greeks on their work-days, lies with fishermen on planks, is all things that may obtain his 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 searches.

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 af­terwards 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 collection. 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 Charles II. and li­ved in esteem in London for a considerable time, but returned to Ant­werp and died there. ^† There are prints by Hollar of both father and son; the former done from a painting of the latter.

The Earl was not a meer selfish virtuoso; he was bountifull to men of talents, retaining some in his service, and liberal to all. ^‡ He was [Page 82] one of the first who discovered the genius of Inigo Jones, ^* and was himself, says Lilly, ^† the first who "brought over the new way of building with brick in the city, greatly to the safety of the city, and preservation of the wood of this nation." Norgate whom I have men­tioned partook of his favours. On his ^‡ embassy 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 Earl's seat in Surrey. "Lord Arundel thought, ^‖ says Evelyn, that one who could not design a little, would 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 Harrison, 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. ^§

At the beginning of the troubles the Earl transported himself and [Page 83] 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 Stafford. 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 ^* 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 ^† are now in the possession of his widow Lady Elizabeth Germayne. ^‡ Among them is that inimi­table cameo, the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, which I should not scruple to pronounce the finest remain of antique sculpture in that 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 re­mainder of the collection was preserved at Tarthall, without the gate of St. James's park near Buckingham-house. Those curiosities too were sold by auction in 1720, ^‖ and the house itself has been lately demo­lished. [Page 84] At that sale Dr. Meade bought the head of Homer, ^* 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 pro­cure the obelisk, since erected in the Piazza Navona at Rome; and he offered the value of 7000 l. in money or land to the Duke of Bucking­ham 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 himself and family: Vandyck actually made the design, but by the in­tervention 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 ^† 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 Floddenfield, by the Earl [Page 85] 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 Fran­ciscus Junius ^* 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 Pirkeymerus; Henry Duke of Norfolk, by persuasion of Mr. Evelyn, bestowed it on the Royal Society. ^†

ANECDOTES of PAINTING, &c.
CHAP. III.
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 conoisseurs. Familiar subjects, familiar histories, treated with great lustre and full­ness of colouring, a richness of nature and propriety of draperies, re­commend themselves at first sight to the eyes of the vulgar. The just boldness of his drawing, the wonderfull chiaro scuro 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 endear 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

[Page 87] 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 staid but little here, in which light only he belongs to this treatise.

^* 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 Cologn, where on the feast of St. Peter and Paul his wife was delivered 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 pictures a toleration of all religions. In one of the compartments of the Luxem­burgh gallery, a cardinal introduces Mercury to Mary de' Medici, and Hymen supports her train at the sacrament of marriage, before an al­tar on which are the images of God the Father and Christ. ^† 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 [Page 88] that court, and was painting the story of Turnus and Aeneas, intend­ing to warm his imagination by the rapture of poetry, he repeated with energy those lines of Virgil. ^* ‘Ille etiam patriis agmen ciet, &c.’ The Duke who over heard him and entered the chamber, was surpriz­ed to find the mind of his painter cultivated with a variety of gracefull litterature. Rubens was named Envoy to Spain, and carried magnifi­cent presents to the favorite 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 continued a correspondence of letters.

The fame of the young painter reached Don John of Braganza, af­terwards King of Portugal, who invited him to Villa Viciosa. Rubens set out with such a train, that the Duke apprehended the expence 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 in­tended 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 [Page 89] 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 back grounds 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 practiced 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. How could a genius like his overlook the ruins of Rome, the designs of Raphael and Michael Angelo, and the restorers of ancient architec­ture at Venice, and waste his time on the very moderate beauties that he found at Genoa, where their greatest art lay in crowding magnifi­cence 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 favorite, who was bent on the purchase, gave, it is said, ten thousand pounds for what had not cost above a thousand.

[Page 90] 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 challenged 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 chymist 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, "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. ^* 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, compleated 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 England. The In­fanta Isabella sent him to Madrid for instructions, where he ingratiated [Page 91] himself so much with the Conde-Due 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 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 Embassador the ta­lents of the Painter. The King engaged him to paint the cieling of the Banquetting-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 three thousand pounds for his work. The building itself cost seventeen thousand pounds. What had it been, if compleat­ed! 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 cieling.

During his residence here Rubens painted for the King a St. George, ^* four feet high and seven feet wide. His majesty was repre­sented [Page 92] in the Saint, the Queen in Cleodelinde; each figure one foot and half high; at a distance a view of Richmond and the Thames. In another picture the benefits of peace and miseries of war. ^*

Theodore Rogiers ^† modelled for the King a silver ewer designed by Rubens, with the judgment of Paris. There is a print from this vase by James Neffs.

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 Britanniae regis ad confaederatos in Belgio ordines legato, pictoriae artis egregio ^‡ admiratori, P. P. Rubens, gratitudinis et benevolentiae ergo, nuncupat, dedicat.

We have in England several capital works of Rubens. Villiers Duke of Buckingham had thirteen, and Sir Peter Lely five. ^‖ The [Page 93] Duchess of Marlborough gave any price for his pictures. They ^* 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. ^† 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; 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 seperate 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 satyrist 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 [Page 94] 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 Wimbleton 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 above a year. He died of the gout in his own country in 1640. A catalogue of his works may be seen in Descamps. ^*

Mr. Maurice Johnson of Spalding in Lincolnshire, a great antiqua­rian, 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, &c. 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 hand-writing and different inks being exactly imi­tated [Page 95] This book was brought from Brussels by Capt. 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 raisonnè de monsieur Quintin de L'orangerie, par Frederic Gersaint, 1744.

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. "Diepenbeck, says De Piles, was born at Boisleduc, and in his youth was much employed in painting upon glass, ^* and en­tering afterwards into the school of Rubens, became one of 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, ^† and his portraits of Les­sius and Bellarmine by Bolsvert, ^‡ and of Sir Hugh Cartwright 1656 by Vosterman.

[Page 96]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 Vandyck 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 ^* are finished with a minuteness of truth not demanded in historic compositions; besides his invention was cold and tame, nor does he any where seem to have had much idea of the passions, and their expression: Portraits require none. If Rubens had been jealous of Vandyck, 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

[Page 97] 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 Anthony had more delicacy than the latter, but like him never reached the grace and dignity of the antique. He seldom even arrived at beauty. His Madonnas are homely; his ladies so little flattered, that one is surprized 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 conversa­tion 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 par­tiality for their artists, and as he celebrated their history with his pen, was in return almost immortalized 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, then at the age of ninety-one. But the plague soon drove him from Sicily; [Page 98] 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 practiced both history and portrait. Of the former kind were many applauded Altar-pieces; in the latter, were particularly the heads of his cotemporary artists. He drew them in Chiaro scuro on small pannels, thirty-five of which are in the collec­tion of the Countess of Cardigan at Whitehall. Admirable is the va­riety of attitudes and airs of heads; but in those pieces he meaned to surpass as well as 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 Verdussen, 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 Vandyck, to invite him over. He came, and was lodged among the King's artists at Black-fryars, which Felibien, according to the dignity of ignorance which the French affect, calls L'Hotel de Blaifore. ^* 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 [Page 99] honour of knighthood ^* on him at St. James's July 5, 1632. This was soon attended by the grant of an annuity of 200 l. 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; ^† the head has been engraved by Vertue among the Kings of England. Ano­ther in armour on a dun horse at Blenheim. ^‡ A whole length in armour at Houghton. Another, a large piece at the Duke of Grafton's, in which the King (a most gracefull figure) in white sattin, with his hat on, is just descended from his horse; at a distance, a view of the Isle of Wight. The ^‖ King in armour on a white horse, Mons. de St. Antoine, ^§ 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, [Page 100] very young standing at his knee; the Duke of York, an infant, on hers. ^* 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 beautifull 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 ^† of this master. The holy family with a dance of Angels; it belonged to King Charles, is a capital picture, but has it's faults. Inigo Jones, a head; Rubens's wife in black sattin; Henry Danvers Earl of Danby whole length, in the robes of the garter; and a half length of Sir Thomas Chaloner, governor of Prince Henry. Besides 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 an 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 [Page 101] Queen, very indifferent, Sir Thomas Wharton: Of the half lengths, Laud, a celebrated but not very fine picture; Sir Christopher Wandes­ford, Lady Wharton, Mrs. Wharton, Mrs. Wenman and the Lely's. ^*

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 Queensberry, 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 Spenser'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, though very doubtfull 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 [Page 102] figure being so mean and inconsiderable. The Duke has Van­dyck's travelling 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 galant compli­ment is a little explained in the new life of Lord Clarendon, who men­tions Sir Kenelm's marriage with a Lady, "though of an extraordinary beauty, of as extraordinary fame." ^* Mr. Walker's collection was chiefly chosen for him by a set of virtuosi called Vandyck's or the club of St. Luke, and it is plain from the pictures they recommended, 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 [Page 103] of Oxford; and a fine half length of Sir Kenelm alone is at Kensington. Vandyck painted too for the King a twelfth Roman Emperor, to com­pleat the set of Titian, in the room of one which was spoiled and left at Mantua. They cost the King 100 l. a piece, and after his death were bought by the Spanish Embassador, 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 l. in those purchases with Harrison (possibly the person mentioned p. 75.) the King's em­broiderer by Somerset-house, and of Murray his taylor he bought a half figure of a Venus. ^* The Flemings gave any price for the works of Vandyck from that collection. Sir Peter Lely, as may be 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 [Page 104] Titian. What heads both of age and youth are in the family of Cornaro at Northumberland-house! How happily is the disposition of a religious act chosen to throw expression into a groupe 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, written on the same occasion.

I have reserved to the last ^* the mention of the finest picture in my 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 Glocester are two cumbent figures of an alder­man 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, [Page 105] are easy and gracefull, and the draperies have a peculiar freedom. ^*

Vandyck had 40 l. for a half, and 60 l. 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.

He was indefatigable, ^† 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, notwith­standing, 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. ^‡

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.

At the Duke of Grafton's is a fine half length of ^‖ Vandyck by him­self, 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 sun-flower. At Hampton-court in the apart­ment [Page 106] below is his ^* mistress Mrs. Lemon 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 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 com­pany." This was Endymion Porter, of the bedchamber to King Charles, of whom and his family there was a large piece by Vandyck at Buck­ingham-house. ^†

He was much addicted to his pleasures and expence; I have men­tioned how well he lived. He was fond of musick 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 meaned 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 ambitious, [Page 107] 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 disappointed ^* —their own Poussin was then deservedly the favorite 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 ban­quetting-house, of which the cieling 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 ^† in chiaro scuro for the procession, in which, though very faint, some portraits are distinguisha­ble, it looks as if 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 completion of it. He died in Black-fryars December 9, 1641, and was buried on the 11th in St. Paul's 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 descen­dent, [Page 108] died on the road from Bath to Wales in 1748. Lady Vandyck 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 Hesther, daughter of Sir Hugh Middleton; by Vandyck's widow he had no issue. ^*

Besides his legitimate children Vandyck had a natural daughter called Maria Teresa, to whom, as appears by his will in Doctor's Com­mons, 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 entails 4000 l. on another sister, married to Mr. Derick, and her chil­dren. To his wife Mary and his newborn daughter Justiniana Anna he gives all his goods, effects and monies, 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 daughter 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 Black-friar's, 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 [Page 109] 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 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 ^* of Vandyck was ^†

DAVID BECK,

born at Arnheim in 1621; he was in favour with Charles I. and taught the Prince and the Dukes of York and Glocester to draw. Descamps says that Beck's facility in composition was so great, that [Page 110] Charles I. said to him, "faith! Beck, I believe you cou'd paint riding post." ^* 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; ^† 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 l. per ann. and afterwards in 1653 in Archer-street. He had been concerned in keeping the King's pictures, and when Sir Peter Lely first came over, he worked for Gel­dorp, who lived 'till after the restoration, and was buried at Westmin­ster. Another 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 [Page 111] engaging the French commanded by the Count de Toulouse, was en­graved in 1714 from a design of Sailmaker, who lived to the age of eighty-eight, 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 Bishopgate-street told me that 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 ^* cabinet of ebony, bought by her father the Earl of Oxford from the Arundelian collec­tion at Tart-hall. On each of the drawers is a small history by Polen­burg, 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 [Page 112] 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 descendent. In the mansion was a portrait 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 preferable 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 very curious picture at Earl Poulet's at Hinton St. George, represent­ing 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, ^* which are co­pied from Vandyck, either of Polenburg or Van Bassen.

[Page]

[Page]

[Page 113] The works of Polenburg are very scarce; ^* 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 Midleton'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 ^† of the famous painter of architecture, and learned that man­ner 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. ^‡ The ground to the portrait of that Prince, in the royal palace at Turin, I believe, was painted by him. ^‖ In a MS. catalogue of King Charles's [Page 114] 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. Steenwyck'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 admi­rably in small, but his subjects were not calculated to procure him ma­ny avowed admirers. He painted from the lectures of Petronius and Aretine, had the confidence to dogmatize on the same subjects, and practiced at least what he preached. To profligacy he added impiety, 'till the magistrates thought proper to put a stop to his boldness. He underwent the question, and was condemned to an imprisonment of twenty years; but obtained his liberty by the intercession of some men of quality, and particularly of the English Embassador—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 [Page 115] fifty-one. King Charles had two pieces of his hand; one representing two glasses of Rhenish; the other, a naked man. ^*

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, ^† and a few small figures added by Polen­burg. 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 brightness and neatness, and does not want freedom. Upon it is written Johannes [Page 116] Priwitzerus de Hungariâ faciebat 1627. I have never met with any other mention of this name.

GEORGE JAMESONE ^*

was the Vandyck of Scotland, to which title he had a double preten­sion, not only having surpassed his countrymen as a portrait-painter, but from his works being sometimes attributed to Sir Antony, who was his fellow-scholar; both having studied under Rubens at Ant­werp.

Jamesone was son of Andrew Jamesone, an architect, and was born 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 inde­fatigable industry to portrait in oil, tho' he sometimes practiced in mi­niature, and in history and landscape too. His largest portraits ^† were generally somewhat less than life. His excellence is said to con­sist in delicacy and softness, with a clear and beautifull 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 Jame­sone, his descendent, in 1728, and now in the possession of Mr. John Alexander, limner at Edinburgh his great grandson, with several other

[Page 117] 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 1st. 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 indulged 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 Tay­mouth, 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 vellom, containing the genealogy of the house of Glenorchy, begun in 1598, are taken the following extracts, written in 1635, page 52;

"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 1st King of Great Brittane France and Ireland, and his Majesties Quein, and for nine more of the Queins of Scotland their portraits, quhilks are set up in the hall of Ballock [now Taymouth] the sum of tua hundreth thrie scor punds."

[Page 118] "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."

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 Argylle, and of 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 inter-marriages, 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, [...]amesone 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 pu­blick records that he died possessed of an easy fortune, which he left to his three daughters, two of whom were honorably married. One of them, named Mary, distinguished herself by admirable needlework, a piece of which used to be exhibited on festivals in the Church of St. Nicholas at Aberdeen. Her descendent Mr. Thomson of Portlethem has an original picture of her father by himself. Three small portraits [Page 119] 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 Sibyls 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 Pem­broke, 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 fore ground.

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.

Jamesone had many scholars, particularly Michael Wright, men­tioned in the third Volume of these Anecdotes. His own portrait is in the Florentine chamber of Painters.

Though Jamesone is little known in England, his character as well 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 [Page 120] printed on his death, which happened in 1644 at Edinburgh, where he was interred in the church-yard 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 three hundred marks; and Lord Maxwell for his own picture and his Lady's, to their knees, one hundred marks; both sums of Scots money.

Mr. Jamisone ^* has likewise a memorandum written and signed by this Painter, mentioning a MS. in his possession, "containing two hun­dred leaves of parchment of excellent write adorned with diverse hi­storys of our Saviour curiously limned," which he values at two hun­dred pounds sterling, 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 1610, in St. Andrew's parish in Holbourn; his family had been gentlemen of

[Page 121] good rank at St. Alban's, but having fallen into decay, he was put ap­prentice ^* 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 in the high-street almost over against St. Mary's church in a house where some of his works remained 'till of late years. At Oxford his Majesty, Prince Rupert, and several of the Nobility ^† 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 ex­cellence. His pictures are thought the best imitations of Vandyck; they are undoubtedly very faithfull transcripts of nature. He painted [Page 122] 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 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 Russel Earl of Orford, in one piece are Prince Rupert, Colonel John Russel 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. ^† The man holds a pair of compasses. I have seen nothing of Dobson preferable to this; there is the utmost truth in it. At Devonshire-house [Page 123] house is another family piece of Sir Thomas Brown, author of Reli­gio Medici, his wife, two sons and as many daughters. Mr. Willett, merchant in Thames-street, has a small family-piece of Dr. Hibbard, physician, his wife and five children. The father and mother are par­ticularly 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 afterwards, 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. ^* 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 helmet; 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 following epigram, published by John Elsum among his epigrams on [Page 124] painting, a work I have mentioned before, though of no merit but by ascertaining some particular pictures;

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 wastecoat. 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. Henry III. and IV. with two dogs, a popish and protestant cur, fighting be­fore them. This sketch is still preserved in the family, and in 1729 was engraved in London for the history of Thuanus. He etched his own portrait. ^†

[Page]

[Page 125] In a collection of poems called Calanthe is an elegy on our painter.

GERARD HONTHORST,

The favorite painter of the Queen of Bohemia, was born in 1592 at Utrecht, and instructed in painting by Bloemart, but he compleated 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 candlelights. 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 children, ^* among whom the Princess ^† Sophia and the Abbess of Maubuisson chiefly distinguished themselves. King Charles invited [Page 126] him to England where he drew various ^* pictures, 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 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 he compleated ^‖ in six months, and was re­warded with three thousand 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 and clearness. She is in black, leaning on her hand. Mr. West has the portraits of the Marquiss of Montrose, of the Princes Rupert and Maurice with his name written to them thus, Honthorst. Ano­ther of their eldest brother Charles Lodowick, Count Palatine, ^§ is dated 1633. A print of Mary de' Medici is inscribed, G. Honthorst effigiem pinxit 1633. Rubens was a great admirer of Honthorst's

[Page 127] 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 8000 florins for his labour. He died at the Hague 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 8th, 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 K. 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, tho' 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 copyer of the King's ^* pictures, and was reckoned to succeed. The whole length of Edward IV. in his night-gown and slippers, (the face in profile) which hangs over the chimney in the anti-chamber 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 [Page 128] the Black Prince are still in an anti-room 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 Northamp­tonshire, are whole lengths of Henry 7th. and 8th. 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 to restore, my wife's picture in blew sattin sitting in a chair you must send to ^* Mrs. Kirk. My eldest daughter's picture copied by Belcam to the ^† Countess of Anglesey; and my ^‡ Lady Stanhope's picture to

[Page 129] Carey Raleigh. There is a fourth which I had almost 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." 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 8th. Elizabeth, James, and Charles 1st. 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, to the 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 employed him in his palaces, particularly at Greenwich, in painting cielings. Nine pieces, which were in that palace, were sold after the King's death for 600 l. and are now the ornaments of the hall at Marlborough-house. [Page 130] He worked too for Villiers ^* 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, engraved by Lucas Vosterman. He made several attempts at portrait painting, but with little success, and after residing here about twelve years, died at the age of eighty-four, 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, ^† for her amours ^‡ as for her painting.

[Page 131]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 made for the royal collection, ^† and proba­bly was even employed in the treaty of Mantua. One picture is said expresly in the King's catalogue to have been changed with Mr. La­niere. His fame was most considerable as a musician. In Ben John­son's works is a masque performed at the house of the Lord Hay in 1617 for the entertainment of the French Embassador, 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 melancho­ly manner; a vocal composition for a funeral hymn on his royal mas­ter, written by Thomas Pierce, was set by Laniere. ^‡ It was in this capacity that he had a salary of 200 l. a year. The patent is dated July 11, 1626. ^‖ 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; [Page 132] his own portrait ^* 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 Lÿvÿus, and en­engraved 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 etched ^† himself, he has put in Italian, done in my youthfull age of 74. At the sale of the King's goods he gave 230 l. for four pictures. His brothers ^‡ Clement and Jerome were likewise purcha­sers. In one of R. Symonds'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 mixt it with warm milk, and those would not do. At last he cleansed them with aqua-vitae alone, and that took off all the spots and he says 'twill take off old varnish." ^‖

Nicholas died at the age of 78, and was buried in St. Martin's Nov. 4, 1646.

[Page 133]FRANCIS WOUTERS

of Lyere, was born in 1614, and bred in the school of Rubens, but chiefly practiced in landscape, to which he added small naked figures, as Cupids, Nymphs, &c. He was much in favour with the Emperor Ferdinand II. but coming to England with the Embassador of that Prince in 1637, his pictures pleased at court, and he was made chief painter to the Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles II. In a MS. ca­talogue of King Charles's pictures he is said to have painted a cieling with Hercules and other Gods, in a room there called, the Contractor's room, but in which palace is not specified. ^* On the misfortunes of the royal family he retired to Antwerp, where in 1659 he was shot 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, saying, "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.

[Page 134]JOHN DE CRITZ

has been mentioned in the former volume. Though serjeant painter to Charles I. 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, then at the house of De Critz, and now in the possession of Lord Chesterfield. At Oatlands he paint­ed a middle piece for a cieling, which on the dispersion of the King's effects was sold for 20 l. 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 serjeant­painter, for his annuity at 40 l. 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, for painting and gilding with good gold the body and carriages of [Page 135] two coaches and the carriage of one chariot and other necessaries, 179 l. 3 s. 4 d. 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 12000 l. Indeed I can produce no precedent of any great master who painted and gilded 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 following, viz. For repayreing, refreshing, washing and varnishing the whole body of his majesty's privy barge, ^* and mending with fine gould and faire colours many and divers parts thereof, as about the chaire of state, the doores, and most of the antiques about the windowes, that had bene galled and defaced, the two figures at the entrance being most new coloured and painted, the Mercury and the lion that are fixed to the sternes of this and the row barge being in several places repayred both with gould and colours, as also the taffarils on the top of the barge in many parts guilded and strowed with fayre byse. The two figures of Justice and Fortitude most an end being quite new painted and guilded. The border on the outside 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 thirty-six."

[Page 136] On the other side of this scrap of paper is another bill. "For seve­rall times oyling and laying with fayre white a stone for a sun-dyall opposite to some part of the King and Queen's lodgings, the lines thereof being drawn in severall colours, the letters directing to the howers guilded with fine gould, as alsoe the glory, and a scrowle guilded with fine gould, whereon the number and figures specifying the planetary howers are inscribed; likewise certain letters drawne in black informing 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 men­tioned. De Critz and others were buyers of the King's goods to the value of 4999 l. Rich. Symonds says that at De Critz's house in Au­stin-fryars 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

[Page 137] love, as is said before, to the niece of Cornelius Johnson 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 favorite painter of Mary Princess of Orange. There is a picture of her and the Prince in armour at Lord Strafford's at Went­worth-castle, painted, I believe, by Hanneman. At Windsor, ^* a por­trait of 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 descendents. 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 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.

[Page 138] Cornelius Neve drew the portraits of Richard Lord Buckhurst and Mr. Edward Sackville in one piece in 1637. It 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. ^*

K. Coker, painted a head 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; and in Mr. Harene's sale 1764, was an octagon landscape 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 of the King's col­lection for copying two pictures of Albert Durer by the 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 ^‡ expresses surprize, "that pious painters should have exhibited to the public very licenti­ous [Page 139] 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 promiscu­ous crusado to the Holy-land; they were stored with crosses, relicks, &c. and on the road made many proselytes of both sexes. A baker's wife in particular was so devout, that she thought it a meritorious 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 it's apostle painted indecent altar-pieces.

Povey lived in this reign and painted a head which was in the possession of Mr. Leneve, Norroy.

One Hamilton an Englishman, is mentioned by ^* Sandrart 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.

Holderness 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 1651, which hangs on the stairs of the library belonging to the cathedral.

Reurie is mentioned by ^† Sanderson as a painter in little in 1658.

[Page 140]FRANCIS BARLOW

was of more note than the preceding artists. ^* He 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 fortune to have some of them engraved by Hollar and Faithorn. ^† There are six books of animals from the drawings of Barlow, and a set of cuts for Aesop's Fables. Some cielings for birds he painted for noblemen and ^‡ gentle­men in the country; and he drew some of the monuments in West­minster-abbey, designed for an edition of Mr. Keep's history of that cathedral. Mr. 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 laid in state, for three

[Page 141] weeks, waiting alternately twenty each day. Barlow, though inherit­ing 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 any where. 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. ^* The famous Countess of Carlisle, as meddling as Matthews, and as affected, was the object of his adoration. He drew a character of her, ^† which commends her so impertinently, that with scarce straining, it might pass for a satire. For instance, he says, "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 people at first, she would rather show what she could do, than let her nature con­tinue in it, and that she never considered merit in others but in propor­tion as they had any to her. That she affected particularity 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 condition but plenty [Page 142] and glory, was fickle, and gay only out of contradiction because her physicians had told her she was inclined to melancholy"—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." ^* Sir Toby Matthews's title to a place in this work depends singly upon a letter from the Duchess of Buckingham to the Duke, ^† in which she tells him 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. However as it is 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 Athenae Oxonienses. But I have not yet done with these motley characters; the King's taste made his court affect to be painters and virtuosi; among these was

Sir JAMES PALMER,

often mentioned in the catalogue of the royal collection; in which he [Page 143] sold, gave and painted pictures. Of the latter was a ^* piece of Tarquin and Lucretia copied from Titian. 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. ^† 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 practiced music and painting. I have seen, adds the writer, some pictures said to be of his drawing which remained ^‡ 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 [Page 144] art; for which also he was afterwards entirely beloved by Mr. Samuel Cooper, one of the most eminent 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, I reser­ved him 'till I had dispatched 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 beautifull 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 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 Copenhagen and finish a work he had begun there, and promising to pay the expence of his journey. The letter is preserved by Fuller. ^* The request was granted, and Cleyn returned to London at the end of the summer. The King had just then given two thousand pounds 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

[Page 145] thither to be copied by him in tapestry. His pension is recorded by Rymer. ^* "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, Il famosissimo pittore Francesco Cleyn, miracolo del secolo, e molto stimato del re Carlo della gran Britania, 1646." Cleyn was not em­ployed 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 cieling of a room near the gal­lery with histories and compartments in gold. The outside of Wimble­don-house he painted in fresco. Bolsover in Nottinghamshire, Stone­park in Northamptonshire, and Carew-house at Parson's-green (since Lord Peterborough's) were ornamented by him. There is still extant a beautifull chamber adorned by him at Holland-house, with a cieling in grotesque, and small compartments on the chimnies, 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 ^† from Lord Cottington to Lord Strafford, describing the former's house at Han­worth, mentions Cleyn, though not by name. "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 painted by the hand of a second Titian. Aug. 1629." In King Charles's catalogue is mention of four [Page 146] patterns for the great seal, drawings ^* on blue paper by Cleyn. He made designs for various artists; particularly for several of Hollar's plates to Virgil and Aesop: for these he received fifty shillings a piece. 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 F. C. inv. 1646. And two books for carvers, goldsmiths, &c. containing 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, act. 4, 1668, with these letters, P. C. which he thought signified Penelope Cleyn. ^† 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. Cleyn besides his own [Page 147] sons, instructed Dobson; and died himself about 1658. Mr. English ^* a painter who died at Mortlack in 1718 had a picture of Cleyn and his wife and several of his designs for tapestries, all which came to Mr. Crawley of Hempsted Hertfordshire. Richard Symonds in one of his pocket-books mentions another piece of Cleyn and his family by can­dlelight, 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.

JOHN HOSKINS.

For the life of this valuable master I find fewer ^† 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 "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 of whom became much the more eminent limner." Hoskins, though [Page 148] surpassed by his scholar, the younger Cooper, was a very good painter; there is great truth and nature in his heads; but the carnations 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. Meade. ^* There is indeed one ^† work 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 satten wastecoat. The clearness of the colouring is equal to either Oliver; the dishevelled hair touched with exquisite freedom. It is in the possession of Mr. Fanshaw, but not known whose portrait. Vertue mentions a son of Hoskins of the same name, and says, that this mark [...] 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. ^‡ One Peter Hoskins is entered into the re­gister of Covent-garden as buried July 1, 1681. Hoskins the father was buried in that church Feb. 22, 1664. In the ^‖ catalogue of King Charles are mentioned two drawings by Hoskins for the great seal. [Page 149] 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 ensuing volume, was instructed in water-colours by their uncle. Alexander painted landscapes in this manner as well as portraits. At Burleigh is the Story of Acteon and Diana 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 ^* says, she was in such favour with King Charles, that he presented her and Vandyck 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. It would be a very long time before the worth of 200 l. 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.

[Page 150]JOHN PETITOT

was patronized by the two monarchs, who of late years have given the noblest encouragement to artists, Charles 1st. and Louis 14th. 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, pro­duced works that might stand in competition with any single per­formance 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 occasion 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.

[Page 151] Mayern introduced Petitot to the King, who knighted and gave him an apartment in Whitehall. The French author of the Abregè de la Vie des plus fameux Peintres, whom I copy, and am sorry to criticize 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 Rachel de Rouvigny Countess of Southampton, in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire, is painted from the origi­nal in oil by Vandyck, 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 beautifull 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; consequently a copy performed ^* after the Duke's death. In the same collection is a portrait of a middle-aged man in armour, in­closed in a case of tortoishel, 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 [Page 152] 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 1st. in armour, for which he probably sat, as it is not like any I have seen by Vandyck; James 2d. 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 sometime longer, having been employed by the parliament to paint a memorial of the battle of Naseby, which they presented to Fairfax their victorious general. This singular curiosity is now in my posses­sion, purchased from the Museum of Thoresby, who ^* 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 [Page 153] suppose, 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 Commons, 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 that 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 absorbed in the renown of his brother-in-law. Charles 2d. during his abode in that kingdom 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 common, and of the two Queens, his mother and wife.

In 1651 he married Margaret Cuper; the celebrated Drelincourt performed the ceremony at Charenton; for Petitot was a zealous pro­testant, 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 favorite a painter, and who perhaps thought that an enameller's religion was not compo­sed of sterner stuff, than the great Turenne's, eluded his demand; and at last being pressed with repeated memorials, sent Petitot to Fort-l'eveque, and Bossuet to convert him. The subtle apostle, who had woven such a texure of devotion and ambition, that the latter was [Page 154] scarce distinguishable from the former, had the mortification of not succeeding, and Petitot's chagrin bringing on a fever, he at last ob­tained 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 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 bonmot—but a very flat witticism cannot depreciate the glory of a confessor, who has 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'or's.

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 1st. came from one of his sons, who was a ma­jor [Page 155] in our service. Of the rest, one only attached himself to his father's art and practiced in London, his father often sending him his works for models. This son painted in miniature too, and left descendents, who are settled at Dublin.

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 ^* 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. A collec­tor at Paris possesses more than thirty of this great master's perfor­mances, particularly the portraits of Mesdames de la Valiere, Mon­tespan, Fontanges &c. Another has those of the famous Countess 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 farther discoveries concerning him!

[Page 156] I come now to other artists in the reign of Charles; and first of statuaries.

ANDREW KEARNE

a German, was brother of Nicholas Stone the elder, for whom he worked. Kearne too carved many statues for Sir Justinian Isham, at his house near Northampton. At Somerset-stairs he carved the River­god 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 Emden, 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 was paid eighteen pounds, and fifty shillings for polishing and glazing; the same for a statue on ^* Lord Belhaven's tomb; 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

[Page 157] 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 ^* and architecture; but the greater part of his works consisting of altar-pieces and cielings of churches were destroyed in the fire of London. One of his cielings was in the church of 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 freeze-work in eight leaves, etched in 1640, was I suppose by the hand of the father; as 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, Feb. 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, ^† 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 Ed­ward 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, the 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 [Page 158] on the monument, at fifty pounds each. The whole cost of that co­lumn, exclusive of the dragons, and of the basrelief which is not men­tioned in the account, appears by the survey of Hooke, Leybourn and others, to have amounted to 8000 l. 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 sew we have had that may be called a clasfic artist, was a Frenchman, and disciple of John of Boulogne. He arrived at least as early as 1630, and by the only ^* 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 of Charles I. in brass, with a helmet surmounted by a dragon à la Romaine, three feet high, on a black pedestal: The fountain at Somerset-house with several statues; and six brazen statues at St. James's. Of those extant are, the statue in brass of William Earl of Pembroke in the picture-gallery at Oxford, given by the grand-father 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 unpracticed eye. This piece was cast in 1633 in a spot of ground near the church of Covent-garden, and not being erected before the commencement of ^‡

[Page 159] the civil war, it was sold by the parliament to John Rivet a brazier li­ving at the dial near Holbourn-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 expence 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 expence 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 inflammeable eyes of that devout generation.

ZACHARY TAYLOR

lived near Smithfield, was a surveyor and carver to the King, as he is called in a book belonging to the board of works in 1631. In 1637 he is mentioned for carving the frames of the pictures in the cross-gallery at Somerset-house at two shillings and two-pence per foot. He carved some things too at ^* Wilton. Mr. Davis of the Tennis-court [Page 160] 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 tortoise-shell of Frederic 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 land­scapes from nature, selecting the most beautifull views of England, which he executed, it is said, ^* with much judgment, freedom and warmth of colouring. His works are scarce. He died about the be­ginning of the reign of James II.

[...] GREEN,

a seal-cutter, is only mentioned in a letter ^† 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.

[Page 161]CHRISTIAN VAN VIANEN. ^*

As there was no art, which Charles did not countenance, the chacers and embossers of plate were among the number of the protected at court. The chief was Vianen, whose works are greatly commended by Ashmole. ^† Several pieces of plate of his design were at Windsor, particularly two large gilt water-pots, which cost 235 l. 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 l. 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 expence of the work, and the treble-gilding, he was a great loser, and desired to be considered. The designs themselves were thought so admirable, as to be preserved in the royal collection. King Charles had besides four plates chased with the story of Mercury and Argus. ^‡ Mr. West has two oval heads [Page 162] in alto relievo six inches high of Charles and his Queen, with the ini­tial letters of the workman's name, C. V. Lond. There were others of the name, I do not know how related to him. The ^* King had the portrait of a Venetian captain by Paul Vianen; and the offering ^† of the wisemen by Octavian Vianen. There is a print of a head of Adam Van Vianen, painted by Jan. Van Aken, and etched by Paul Vianen, above-mentioned. Christian Vianen had a very good disciple

FRANCIS FANELLI,

a Florentine, who chiefly practiced 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 Italian. The figures of Charles I. and his Queen in niches in the quadrangle of St. 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, 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 horseback, 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 Chirbury, the Author, in the possession of the [Page 163] Earl of Powis; 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 p. 102. Fanelli pu­blished two books of designs, of architecture, fountains, vases, &c. 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, ^* 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 be­ginning of the troubles, when Simon falling off to the parliament, ^† [Page 164] 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 The Rebellion. ^* and afterwards a Comedy, called Tom Essence. ^† 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. ^‡ The next year he struck another, after many offers of peace had been made by the King and been reject­ed; on the reverse are a sword and a branch of laurel; the legend, 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 inscription, Guliel. Park­hurst Eq. aurat. custos Camb. et monet. totius Angliae 1623. Oxon. 1644. [...] sculps. I take for granted this Mr. Parkhurst had been [Page 165] 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 collection 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 workmanship than the preceding. There is but one piece more certainly known for his, a cast in lead, thus inscribed, Rob. Bolles de Scampton in com. Lincol. Baronet; 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 medalion of Archbishop Laud, struck in 1644. He 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 cymelist or sculptor in gold and precious stones, &c. Tho. Rawlins.

JOHN VARIN or WARIN

was an eminent medallist in France, but appears by some works to 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 medalion cast, Guil. sil. Rob. Ducy mil. et baronet. aetat suae 21, 1626. Another, a cast medal of Philip Howard S. R. E. Card. Nor­folk. Endymion Porter aetat. 48, 1635. And Margareta, uxor, aet. 25, 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.

[Page 166] 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 emulation, and King Charles was ready to encourage, employ, and reward his talents. This is the history of Inigo Jones as a genius. The particu­lars 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 volumes] 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 obscure 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 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

[Page 167] 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 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 distinguished themselves in a spot where they certainly had no opportunity to act, ^* we are not told, 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 perfected 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 littleness of parts and a weight of ornaments, with which the revival of the Grecian taste was encumbered, and which he shook of in his grander designs. The surveyor's place fell and he returned to England, and as if architecture was not all he had [Page 168] 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 paymaster 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 expence was twenty pounds.

In the Foedera ^* 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 Stone-henge. His ideas were all romanized; consequently his partiality to his favorite 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 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 vision, the Phoenicians could not avoid coming in for their share of the foundation; and for [Page 169] Mr. Toland's part, he discovered a little stone-henge in Ireland, built by the Druidess Gealcopa, (who does not know the Druidess Gealcopa?) who lived at Inisoen in the county of Donnegal. ^*

In the same year Jones was appointed one of the commissioners for the repair of St. Paul's, but which was not commenced 'till the year 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 beautifull 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 successfull when he attempted Gothic. The chapel of Lincoln's-inn has none of the characteristics of that architecture. The cloyster beneath seems oppressed by the weight of the building above. ^†

The authors of the life of Jones place the erection of the banquet­ting-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 compleat in itself, that it stands a model of the most pure and beautifull taste. Several plates of the intended palace of [Page 170] 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 proposterous 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 it's not being executed, the confirmation of our liberties obtained by a me­lancholy scene that passed before the windows of that very banquet­ting-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. ^* The 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 four-pence per day, with an allowance of forty-six pounds a year for house-rent, besides a clerk, and incidental expences. 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.

[Page 171] 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 it's time the most polite court in Europe. Ben Johnson was the lau­reat; Inigo Jones, the inventor of the decorations; Laniere and Fera­bosco composed the simphonies; the King, the Queen, and the young nobility danced in the interludes. We have accounts of many of these entertainments, called masques: They had been introduced by Anne of Denmark. I shall mention those in which Jones was concerned.

Hymenaei, or solemnities of masque 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 Johnson. 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.

February 16, 1613, a masque at Whitehall on the nuptials of the Palsgrave and the Princess Elizabeth, invented and fashioned by our kingdom's most artfull and ingenious architect Inigo Jones; digested and written by the ingenious poet, George Chapman. ^*

[Page 172] Jones had dabled 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 book into ridicule, but which at least is not so foolish as their verses.

Pan's anniversary, a masque at court before King James I. 1625. Inventors Inigo Jones and Ben Johnson.

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, 1631; by Inigo and Johnson.

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.

Coelum Britannicum, a masque at Whitehall in the banquetting-house on Shrove-tuesday-night; the inventors, Thomas Carew, Inigo Jones.

A masque presented by Prince Charles September 12, 1636, after the King and Queen came from Oxford to Richmond.

Britannia triumphans, 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 tuesday January 21, 1639. The invention, ornaments, scenes and apparitions, with their descriptions, were made by Inigo [Page 173] 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. Hey­wood gives the highest commendation of Inigo's part in this perfor­mance.

Lord Burlington had a folio of the designs for these solemnities, by Inigo's own hand, consisting of habits, masks, scenes, &c.

The harmony of these triumphs was a little interrupted by a war that broke out between the composers, Inigo and Ben; in which who­ever was the aggressor, the turbulent temper of Johnson 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 cotem­poraries were willing to think wit, because they were afraid of it; and which only serves to shew 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 writ absolute nonsense. Johnson translated the ancients, Shake­speare transfused their very soul into his writings.

Another person who seems to have born much resentment to Jones was Philip Earl of Pembroke; ^* in the Harleian library was an edition of Stone-henge which formerly belonged to that Earl, and the margins of which were full of strange notes writ by him, not on the work, but on the author or any thing else. I have such another common-place book, if one may call it so, of Earl Philip, the life of Sir Thomas More. In the Stonehenge are memorandums, jokes, witticisms and [Page 174] abuse on several persons, particularly on Cromwell and his daughters, and on Inigo, whom his Lordship calls, Iniquity Jones; and says, he had 16000 l. a year for keeping the King's houses in repair. This might be exaggerated, 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 him his having been maintained in Italy by Earl Wil­liam; nor does Webb in his preface to the Stone-henge, though he speaks of Inigo's being in Italy, say a word of any patron that sent him thither. Earl Philip's resentment to 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 principal 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 compleated 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 cielings, 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 [Page 175] 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 strangly crouded in over the niches; but I have seen instances of his over-doing 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 colonades 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 remark­able; 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 ^* as it could do if it covered nothing but a barn. The expence of building that church was 4500 l. 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 doubtfull; Gunnersbury near Brent­ford was certainly his; the portico is too large, and engrosses the whole [Page 176] front except a single window at each end. The stair-case and salon are noble, but destroy the rest of the house; the other chambers are small, and crouded by vast chimney-pieces, placed with an Italian negligence in any corner of the room. Lindsey-house ^* in Lincoln's-inn-fields has a chaster front, but is not better disposed for the apartments. In 1618 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, ^† 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 Pleydell, 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 Northamptonshire. Shaftsbury-house, now the London-lying-in hospital, on the east side of Alders­gate-street, is a beautifull 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 Brympton, 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 sometime 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 Gwydder in Wales, on the estate of the Duke of [Page 177] Ancaster. Some alterations and additions he made at Sion. At Oatlands remains a gate of the old palace, but removed to a little dis­tance, and repaired, with the addition of an inscription, 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 staircase adjoining, are beautifull models of the purest and most classic antiquity. The gate of Beaufort-garden at Chelsea, designed by Jones, was purchased by Lord Burlington and transported to Chiswick, where 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. The last, and one of the most beautifull 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 chim­nies and cielings, &c. may be seen in the editions of Kent, Ware, Var­dy, and Campbell.

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 Vandyck. Hollar engraved one of them. Villamena made a print of him while he was in Italy. Among the Strassord 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.

[Page 178] Inigo tasted early of the misfortunes of his master: He was not only a favorite ^* but a Roman catholic. In 1646 he paid 545 l. for his delinquency 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 informers of such concealments, and four persons being privy to the spot where the money was hid, it was taken up and reburied in Lambeth-marsh.

Grief, misfortunes. and age, terminated his life. He died at Somer­set-house July 21, 1651, and on the 26th of the same month was bu­ried in the church of St. Bennet's Paul's-wharf, where a monument ^† 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 favorite monarch.

The next scarce deserves the name of a chapter; it contains the few names we find of

[Page]

ANECDOTES of PAINTING, &c.
CHAP. III.
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 en­courager of painting and a good performer in flowers; some of his works were at the Duke of Leeds's at Wimbleton; and it was suppo­sed that he received instructions from Baptist Gaspars, whom he re­tained in his service. The General's 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, whose picture [Page 180] he drew more than once. One of those portraits represented him with a gold chain about his neck, to which was appendent a gold medal with three crowns, the arms of Sweden and a pearl; sent to him by Christina in return for his picture by Cooper, on which Milton wrote a Latin epigram. This head by Walker is in the possession of Lord Mountford at Horseth in Cambridgeshire, and was given to the late Lord by Mr. Commissary Greaves, who found it in an Inn in that County. ^* 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 sollicitation, to put him off, she asked 500 l.—and was paid it. It was on one of these portraits that Elsum wrote his epigram, which is no better than the rest.

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 twenty five pounds for the Venus putting on her smock (by Titian) which was the King's, and valued it at sixty-pounds, as he was told by Mrs. Board­man,

[Page 181] who copied it; a paintress of whom I find no other ^* mention; and that Walker copied Titian's famous Venus, which was purchased by the Spanish Embassador, and for which the King had been offered 2500 l. 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 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 106, 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 l. a year at Trewellin in Herefordshire. He had several pictures painted by Mascall. Of the latter there is an indifferent print, inscribed, Effigies Edwardi Mascall, pictoris, sculpta ab exemplari propriâ manu depicto. James Gammon sculpsit.

[...] HEYWOOD

Of this person I find no mention but that in 1650 he drew the portrait of General Fairfax, which was in the possession of Mr. Brian Fairfax. [Page 182] 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 l. per ann.

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 l.—13 s.—4 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.

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 malon,
• Mr. Thomas Simon, chief graver of the mint.