Being a Tory, at the Revolution he refused to paint for King William; but was employed by the Earl of Exeter at Burleigh House, and the Earl of Devonshire, at Chatsworth, where plenty of his works remain. Dr. Waagen says he received more from Lord Exeter alone than Raphael or Michael Angelo received for all their immortal works. The earl paid him for twelve years one thousand five hundred pounds a year—that is, eighteen thousand pounds, besides his keep and equipage at his disposal. At length the earl persuaded him to work for King William at Hampton Court, where, besides other things, he painted the staircase so badly that he was suspected to have done it on purpose.

In the wake of Verrio came Jacques Rousseau and Charles de la Fosse, the painters of the dome of the Invalides in Paris. Some few Englishmen, too, were employed in fresco-painting. Among them were Isaac Fuller, remains of whose performance may be seen in the dome of St. Mary Abchurch, in London; John Freeman, a scene painter; and Robert Streater, a man of superior skill, who painted the ceiling of the theatre at Oxford, and many other ceilings, besides historical subjects, and even still life.

Lely, the painter of Charles's beauties, now at Hampton Court, was a native of Germany, but had studied chiefly in Holland, where Charles is supposed to have met with him. His ladies are endowed with remarkable beauty and grace, but there is a certain likeness running through them all, especially in the complexion, the tone and tint of the flesh, as well as the disposal of the drapery, which gives one the inevitable impression that they are to a great degree got up, and made rather after his peculiar model than their own real appearance. However, whether they are striking likenesses or not, they are beautiful pictures. His draperies are arranged in broad folds, and he relieves his figures by a landscape background, which made Walpole say, "His nymphs trail fringes and embroidery through meadows and purling streams." The essence of Lely's painting is Court artifice. It is showy, affected, and meretricious. Besides his Court portraits he occasionally attempted the historic, one of the best of this kind which he executed being "Susannah and the Elders," at Burleigh House. Amongst a crowd of foreigners who sought to share Sir Peter Lely's popularity were Henry Gascar, James Huysman, and Sunman, from the Netherlands—all excellent portrait painters. Netscher also came to England for a time; and William Wissing, of Amsterdam, an admirable artist, succeeded Lely at his death, and was only eclipsed by the rising fame of Kneller, a German, who afterwards became King William's Court painter. Of the French school was Philip Duval, a pupil of the celebrated Le Brun.

EVELYN "DISCOVERING" GRINLING GIBBONS. (See p. [372].)

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Amongst native portrait painters may be mentioned Michael Wright, a Scotsman, who painted the judges for the Guildhall of London; though he is more noted for his portrait of Lacy, the actor, in three characters; of Henry Anderton, a pupil of Streater's, who became very popular; of John Greenhill, and Thomas Flatman, the last being also a poet of some note.

A number of Dutch and Flemish painters of still life were also employed in England at this period, of whom the most celebrated were Vansoon, Hoogstraten, Roestraten, and Varelst, who also attempted portraiture. There were also Abraham Hondius, animal painter, and Danker, Vosterman, Griffier, Lancrinck, and the two Vanderveldes, landscape painters. The Vanderveldes were justly in high esteem; Lancrinck was the painter of Lely's backgrounds.

The two great sculptors were Caius Gabriel Cibber, a native of Holstein, and Grinling Gibbons, whom Macaulay calls a Dutchman, but who, though supposed to be of Dutch extraction, was an Englishman, born in Spur Alley, London. Cibber—who was the father of Colley Cibber, afterwards Poet Laureate, and immortalised by Pope in the "Dunciad"—is now chiefly known by his two figures of "Raging" and "Melancholy Madness," which adorned the principal gate of old Bethlehem Hospital, and were afterwards removed to South Kensington—works of real genius. He also erected the bas-reliefs on the pedestal of the London Monument, and did much work at Chatsworth.

Grinling Gibbons was found by John Evelyn in a cottage at Deptford, carving his celebrated "Stoning of St. Stephen," after Tintoretto, and by him introduced at Court. He executed a marble statue of Charles II. for the area of the Royal Exchange, and another in bronze of James II. for the garden at the back of Whitehall, which fixed his high merit as a sculptor; but his unrivalled genius in carving soon drew him from sculpture, and he became extensively employed at Windsor, Chatsworth, Petworth, and other great houses, carving flowers, feathers, foliage, and like ornaments, which rival in wood the lightness and accuracy of nature. In the chapel at Windsor he executed abundance of carving of doves, pelicans, palm-branches, etc. At St. Paul's he did much of the foliage and festoons of the stalls and the side aisles of the choir. At Chatsworth there are feathers in lime-wood that rival those of the living goose; and he there executed in wood a point-lace cravat of marvellous delicacy. At Southwick, in Hants, he embellished an entire gallery, and a room at Petworth, which is generally regarded as amongst his very finest performances.