on canvas, at the Grafton Gallery show in London this year.  In this exhibit, too, was his “Mademoiselle Hillsberg,”—­a tall and dark dancing woman, which he regarded as his best work.  Then there is that group of noble dames by him, which were engraved by Charles Wilkin and published under the title “Bygone Beauties,”—­Lady Charlotte Duncombe; Viscountess St. Asaph; Lady Charlotte Campbell, daughter of Elizabeth Gunning; Viscountess Andover; Lady Langham; the Countess of Euston, one of the three beautiful Ladies Waldegrave, painted by Reynolds; the Duchess of Rutland.  These are indeed “a select series of ladies of rank and fashion.”  And with these must be classed that sweet ideal face of Mrs, Arbuthnot, known as “Marcia.”  At this late date it gives us greeting from how many a parlor wall!  Its tender charm makes perpetual appeal to the passer-by from how many a print-shop window!

There seems to have been bitter feeling between Hoppner, who was an intense Whig, and Lawrence, who knew no politics, but was all things to all men.  “The ladies of Lawrence show a gaudy dissoluteness of taste, and sometimes trespass on moral as well as professional chastity,” and “Lawrence shall paint my mistress and Phillips my wife,” were the two rapier phrases Hoppner thrust at his rival.  But it is recorded that thenceforth Lawrence’s commissions from fair sitters multiplied.

Sir Thomas was a finished flatterer.  No man ever knew better, except it was Lely, how to pay the compliment of the brush.  This form is the substantial, the lasting compliment for which golden guineas are gladly paid.  Grace and elegance are the hall-mark of his every picture.  But the artist was a courtier in speech and manners as well, and this got him into trouble once.  He was attentive to the ill-used Princess Caroline,—­markedly attentive!  A royal commission inquired into his conduct, but absolved him from the charges of wrongdoing.  When Lady Grosvenor, who had become Marchioness of Westminster, was an old lady, in 1881, she wrote in a letter to Lord Leveson Gower her recollections of the painter:  “His manners were what is called extremely ‘polished’ (not the fault of the present times).  He wore a large cravat, and had a tinge about him of the time of George IV., pervading his general demeanor....  I should not say he was amusing, but what struck me most, during my two hours sitting in Russell Square, was the perfection of the drawing of his portraits.  Before any color was put on, the drawing itself was so perfectly beautiful that it seemed almost a sin to add any color.”  This portrait of her, which was painted at this one sitting, is considered the very best Lawrence ever painted.  The head has distinction and hauteur, albeit the face is sweetly ingenuous.  And the eyes!  Well, Sir Thomas always excelled here!  Never, since Titian, has painter given us such “strange sweet maddening eyes,”—­

   “Fathomless dusk by night, the day lets in
   Glimmer of emerald,—­thus those eyes of hers!”