Lely’s Portrait of Cromwell

is thus introduced in the second volume: 

“Oliver now stood erect, with his back to a fire-place, and resembled the picture which had been lately painted of him by Lely.  The artist flattered him perhaps in the general air, as far as it implied ordinary good breeding, and an habitual urbanity of carriage; and yet the momentary look may not have been flattered even in that respect; for as the greater includes the less, so the princely serenity which Cromwell could assume as well as any man, or rather which was natural to him in his princely moments, involved of necessity whatever is of the like quality in the self-possession of an ordinary gentleman.  You have heard what Cromwell said, when Lely was about to paint this picture?  He desired him to omit nothing that could complete the likeness, however it might tell against smoothness and good looks.  Not a wart, or a wrinkle was to be left out.  Lely accordingly produced a stronger and bluffer face than is usual with him; though it is to be doubted, whether the sense of beauty to which he afterwards made such a sacrifice of his pencil, would have permitted him to go to the extent of Cromwell’s direction, granting even that the instinct of a courtier had not prevented it.  Nor are we to suppose, that Cromwell himself, however great a man, was displeased to think that his warts and wrinkles had been found less inimical to pleasingness of aspect, than might have been looked for.  Be this as it may, I was afterwards when I came to see the picture, highly struck with the resemblance it bore to him at the period of this interview.  If there was any defect on the wrong side it was, that the eyes were not fine enough; not sufficiently deep and full of meaning.  And yet they are not vulgar eyes, in Lely’s picture.  The forehead, and the open flow of hair on either side, as if he was looking out upon the realm he governed, and the air of it was breathing upon him, are wonderfully like; and so is the determined yet unaffected look of the mouth.  The nose, which in every face is, perhaps, the seat of refinement or coarseness, (at least I have never found the symptom fail) is hardly coarse enough; and in a similar proportion, it is wanting in power.  Cromwell’s nose looked almost like a knob of oak.  Indeed, throughout his face there was something of the knobbed and gnarled character of that monarch of our woods.  I will add, that as this picture was painted immediately after Cromwell’s accession to the sovereign power, the princely aspect of the sitter was never more genuine, perhaps, than at that moment.  But there was one thing which Lely assuredly took upon himself to qualify; to wit, the redness of the nose.  It was too red in ordinary, though not so much so as his libellers gave out, nor so distinguished in colour from the rest of his face.  When he was moved to anger, the whole irritability of his nature seemed to rush into both nose and cheeks; and this produced an effect, the consciousness of which was, perhaps, of no mean service in helping him to control himself.  Upon the whole if many princes have had a more graceful aspect, few have shown a more striking one, and fewer still have warranted the impression by their actions.”