NGLAND can boast a long and illustrious line of painters in miniature. From the time when the art assumed independent existence apart from the earlier work of the missal painter the tradition and practice of this delightful craft have remained unbroken, and it may be doubted whether any other country can show such a list of men famous in their own generation, and still remembered by the excellence of the work they have left behind them. Beginning with Hilliard, who may be reckoned as the founder of a school that was worthily represented in the work of the Olivers, father and son, and at a later date by such men as Cooper, Hoskins, and Flatman, we come at last to the fascinating portraits of the fashionable Cosway, whose daintily-painted ivories still keep alive the grace and elegance of the social life of his day.

The successive sovereigns of this country have always been the foremost patrons of the miniaturists, and the Royal Collection at the present day is rich in some of their finest works. Many examples have perished or disappeared, and others passed away from their ancestral abode, when the magnificent collection of Charles I. was dispersed by order of the Parliament; but enough remain to testify to its original wealth and splendour.

The collection as it now exists owes its preservation to the wisdom of the late Prince Consort, who, seeing these priceless historical treasures scattered about on the walls of the different palaces, exposed to every kind of No. 10

danger from damp, sunlight, or neglect, brought them all together and deposited them in the Royal Library, where both he and the Queen took the keenest interest and delight in arranging them in due order in the drawers of a cabinet specially constructed for their reception in the room where the other principal treasures of art are stored.

One peculiar interest therefore of this collection lies in the fact that in nearly every case these miniatures remain in the custody of the descendants of those for whom they were originally painted, and in its thus presenting an almost unbroken series of authentic portraits of the Royal Family from the time of Henry VIII. to the present day; for though photography has almost entirely obliterated and destroyed the art, and few now practice it, yet the Queen still remains its constant patron, and year by year portraits of members of the Royal Family and others of note and renown are added in their places to continue the long and storied line.

In the limits of a short article it would be impossible to mention a tithe of those miniatures which, either on account of the importance of the sitter or the beauty of the workmanship would deserve our notice. Let us confine our attention to a few. Of the works of Nicholas Hilliard, who, like so many others of our national portrait-painters was a West-countryman, the Royal Collection originally contained many examples. Fourteen are mentioned in the catalogue of King Charles I.'s collection of limnings, including those of Queen Elizabeth, but these last unfortunately are no longer to be found. Hilliard was appointed portrait-painter to

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her majesty to make pictures "of her body and person in small compasse in lymnynge only," and without shadows, to which injunction is due the flatness of most of his portraits. He painted in body colour much in the style of the old illuminators with a

Howard, a fine copy or replica of which is in the splendid collection which has been formed by the late Duke of Buccleuch.

Of a painter who must have worked in England between the times of Holbein and Hilliard, a capital specimen has within the last few years been added to the number of royal portraits. It is that of Lady Jane Grey, of which we give an engraving. It passed for many years as a portrait of the Princess, afterwards Queen Mary, but is unlike her in every feature. That it represents a Tudor princess is undoubted, as in her hair are the red and white roses. It corresponds with all that is known of the characteristics of the features of the unfortunate Lady Jane, and fills an important gap in the series of portraits of the Tudor line. This miniature came from the collection of the late Mr. Sackville Bale.

The portraits of the house of Stuart are richly represented, and they begin with one of the most interesting and undoubted portraits of Mary Queen of Scots, in fact it may be said that there is no

liberal use of gold, and his colours have faded in every instance where his work has been exposed to light.

Four beautiful specimens of his work which must have been done by royal command, are the portraits of Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., and his mother, Jane Seymour, the last three after Holbein, which were originally attached to a golden jewel, enamelled on one side with a representation of the Battle of BosworthField, and on the other with the roses of Lancaster and York, probably the work of Hilliard himself, who was also the court goldsmith. The portraits alone remain, the jewel has long ago disappeared.

Of the work of Holbein, who cannot be claimed as an English artist, though so much of his work was done in this country, the collection has numerous and beautiful examples, pre-eminent among them the pathetic portraits of Henry, son of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who died, with his younger brother on the same day, in 1551, of the sweating sickness. Almost as fine as this is the portrait of Catherine

CATHARINE HOWARD, WIFE OF HENRY VIII. By HOLBEIN.

portrait of that unhappy queen which can present so good a pedigree as that of which we here give an engraving. It was the property of her grandson Charles I., and used to hang with seven other miniatures "of his Majesty's progenitors," in his own