LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[1.]	Lady Hamilton with a Goat	Tankerville Chamberlayne, Esq.	[Frontispiece]
			Facing p.
[2.]	The Parson’s Daughter	National Gallery	[4]
[3.]	Thomas John Clavering, afterwards eighth Baronet, and his sister, Catherine Mary	Col. C. W. Napier Clavering	[8]
[4.]	Maria Margaret Clavering, afterwards Lady Napier	”” ”	[12]
[5.]	Colonel Thomas Thornton	”””	[16]
[6.]	Miss Ramus	Viscount Hambleden	[20]
[7.]	Mrs. Robinson as “Perdita”	Wallace Collection	[22]
[8.]	William Pitt, the Younger	National Gallery	[26]
[9.]	Portraits of Mr. and Mrs. William Lindow (1770)	””	[28]
[10.]	Lady Craven (1778)	””	[32]
[11.]	Mrs. Mark Currie (1789)	””	[36]
[12.]	Portrait of a Lady and Child (1782)	””	[40]
[13.]	Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante (1786)	””	[44]
[14.]	Emma, Lady Hamilton	National Portrait Gallery	[46]
[15.]	Miss Benedetta Ramus	Viscount Hambleden	[48]
[16.]	Portrait of Romney by Himself (unfinished) (1782)	National Portrait Gallery	[52]

GEORGE ROMNEY

That Reynolds and Gainsborough were the two greatest portrait painters in England during the latter half of the eighteenth century is a proposition which no one is likely to question. Both had qualities which raised them far above the general, and considerably higher than even the foremost of their competitors; and though preference for the work of the one or the other of them is often as much a matter of taste as of opinion, the pre-eminence of the two is beyond dispute.

When we come to fill the third place, however, the question is not so readily settled. There are many candidates who are, or ought to be, in the running; and although the fashion of the present time may send up the prices of now one now another beyond all that is reasonable and sensible, it would be rash to say that the most popular has the best right to the position. Only last year, for example, a new planet swam into the dealers’ ken, a portrait of Benjamin Franklin, painted in 1762 by Mason Chamberlin, one of the original members of the Royal Academy, realising the extraordinary figure of two thousand eight hundred guineas; a figure which, as the Times felicitously observes, “places the artist on an auction level with Reynolds and Gainsborough.”

Judged by the fickle standard of the auction room, Raeburn, at the present moment, would have precedence over Hoppner, and Hoppner, unless I am mistaken, over Romney. But who can say whether before another season is over, the merits of Lawrence or Beechey, West or Copley, may not come up in the market, and impress an uncritical public with ideas of beauty and genius which have hitherto escaped their notice?

In my own opinion, George Romney has better claim than any of the others to be considered next to Reynolds and Gainsborough as a portrait painter, inasmuch as he seems to me to have exhibited more consistently the variety of qualities necessary for excellence in that particular branch of his art.

In its outward manipulation of charm and beauty, the work of Romney is all that an amateur need ask of it, and considerations of mere elegance have probably advanced his popularity in the sale room as much as others more really important. But charm and beauty of this sort are delusive guides and, unless backed by some more enduring test of excellence, will lead us downwards only, through the scale of Hoppner, Lawrence, Harlow, and Shee, till we find ourselves in the company of the simpering beauties of the early and mid-Victorian age, with their sloping shoulders and curling ringlets. With Romney we are perfectly safe. No twinge of conscience warns us to withstand the allurements of Lady Hamilton, or the fascination of the Parson’s Daughter. We may flirt as long and as desperately as we please—in an artistic sense—with Mrs. Mark Currie, without the slightest stain on our æsthetic morals. There is nothing technically meretricious about any of these beauties, and the virtue of our taste is only strengthened by the pleasurable enjoyment of their society.