Engraving at this era fell also greatly into the hands of foreigners. Loggan, Booteling, Valet, Hollar, and Vanderbank were amongst the chief; but there were two Englishmen who were not less patronised by their countrymen. Robert White was a pupil of Loggan's, and, like his master, excelled in portraits. Walpole enumerates two hundred and fifty-five works of this artist, many of them heads drawn by himself, and striking likenesses. But William Faithorne was unquestionably at the head of his profession. Faithorne in his youth fought on the royal side, and was taken by Cromwell at the siege of Basing House along with Hollar. Hollar left England during the Commonwealth, and resided at Antwerp, where he executed his fine portraits from Leonardo da Vinci, Holbein, and other great masters. On the Restoration he returned to England, and did the plates in Dugdale's "Monasticon," "History of St. Paul's," and "Antiquities of Warwickshire," and in Thoroton's "Nottinghamshire;" and he made drawings of the town and fortress of Tangier for Charles, which he engraved, some of these drawings still remaining in the British Museum. Faithorne took refuge in France, and there studied under Nanteuil, and acquired a force, freedom, richness, and delicacy in portrait engraving which were unequalled in his own time, and have scarcely been surpassed in ours. He drew also in crayons.
The art of mezzotint was introduced at this period by Prince Rupert, who was long supposed to have invented it; this, however, has since then been doubted; but its introduction by him is certain; and it became so much cultivated as to become almost exclusively an English art.
The coins of this period were the work of the Roteri family. Of these there were John and Norbert (his son), Joseph and Philip. Their father was a Dutch banker, who had obliged Charles during his exile by the loan of money, on condition that, in case of restoration, he should employ his sons. They were men of much taste and skill, as their coins show, though by no means equal to Simon, the coiner of Cromwell. They, however, introduced some decided improvements into our coin, particularly that of graining or letters on the rims of the coin. Charles called in all the Commonwealth money, and coined fresh. In 1662 the gold coin called a guinea was first invented, from gold brought from the coast of Guinea, and bore the stamp of an elephant under the king's head, in honour of the African company which imported it. In the last year of Charles's reign he coined farthings of tin, with only a bit of copper in the middle. The figure of Britannia still retained on our copper coinage was first introduced in the copper coinage of Charles (see p. 205), and was modelled by Philip Roteri from Miss Stuart, afterwards Duchess of Richmond, of whom Charles was deeply enamoured, much to the scandal of all decent subjects.
James II. followed the fashion of Charles in coining tin halfpence and farthings with copper centres. After his abdication he was reduced in Ireland to the necessity of coining money out of old brass cannon, and pots and pans, and, when these failed, out of pewter.
With the Restoration came back mirth and music, which had been banished by the Puritans from both churches and private houses. However, it is but just to except Cromwell and Milton from censure. Cromwell was especially fond of the organ, and gave concerts in his own house when at the head of the Government. Milton, as might be supposed from his poetical nature, and the solemn music of his verse, was equally attached to harmony of sounds. He was the friend of Henry Lawes, one of the greatest composers of the time, and addressed to him the well-known sonnet on the publication of his airs, beginning
"Harry, whose tuneful and well-measur'd song
First taught our English music how to span
Words with just note and accent."
But perhaps the Royalists were all the more musical on their return to power to mark their contempt of the gloomy Puritans, and music burst forth in church and chapel, in concert, and theatre, and private house with redoubled energy. The theatres and operas did not delay to draw the public by the charms of music as well as of representation. Even during the latter years of the Commonwealth Sir William Davenant opened a kind of theatre under the name of masque and concert, and enlivened it by music. The Royalists at Oxford during the time Charles I.'s Court was there, held weekly musical parties with the members of the University; and no sooner was the Commonwealth at an end than the heads of houses, fellows, and other gentlemen renewed these parties, and furnished themselves with all necessary instruments, and the compositions of the best masters. But what marks the musical furore of this period more than all was the flocking of the aristocracy and the finest musical performers to the miserable house of a dealer in coal-dust in Clerkenwell, where musical parties were held. "It was," says Dr. John Hawkins, "in Aylesbury Street, Clerkenwell. The room of the performance was over the coal-shop; and, strange to tell, Tom Britton's concert was the weekly resort of the old, the young, the gay, the fair of all ranks, including the highest order of nobility." Dr. Pepusch and frequently Handel played the harpsichord there—though this must have been at a later period, for he did not arrive in England till 1710. Mr. Needler, Accountant-General of the Excise; Hughes the poet, Wollaston the painter, and many other amateurs were among the performers. Walpole says Britton took money from his visitors, but Hawkins entirely denies it.
The example of Tom Britton was contagious, and similar places of musical entertainment, but on the principle of professional emolument, were soon opened east and west. Amongst the first of these was Sadler's Wells.