Something was, however, done before the end of the reign to mitigate the dangers arising from darkness. One man obtained a patent for lighting London, and it was thought a great thing that he placed a lantern in front of one door in every ten in winter only, between six and midnight.
18. Painting.—The art of the time, so far as painting was concerned, was entirely in the hands of foreigners. Van Dyck, a Fleming, from Antwerp, had left to the world numerous representations of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, of Strafford and Laud, and of the ladies and gentlemen who thronged the Court. An Englishman, Samuel Cooper, made posterity acquainted with the features of Cromwell (see p. [567]). Charles II. again called in the services of a foreigner, whose real name was Van der Goes, but who called himself Lely, because his father's house on the borders of Germany and the Netherlands was known by the sign of the Lily. Lely painted Court beauties and Court gentlemen. He had far less power than Van Dyck of presenting on canvas the mind which lies behind the features, and in many cases those who sat to him had minds less worthy of being presented than those with which Van Dyck had to do. When Charles II. wished for a painting of the sea and of shipping he had to send for a Dutch painter, Vandevelde; whilst an Italian, Verrio, decorated his ceilings with subjects taken from heathen mythology.
19. Architecture.—In architecture alone English hands were found to do the work required; but the style in which they built was not English but Italian. The rows of pillars and round arches, with the meaningless decorations which bespoke an age preferring sumptuousness to beauty, superseded the quaint Elizabethan and early Jacobean houses, which seemed built for comfort rather than for display, such as Ingestre Hall (see p. [471]) and Hatfield House (see p. [485]). In the reign of James I., Inigo Jones planned the great banqueting hall at Whitehall (see p. [493]), and so contemptuous was he of the great architecture of the middle ages, that he fitted on an Italian portico to the west front of the old St. Paul's. This style of building culminated in the work of Sir Christopher Wren. The fire of London gave him an opportunity which he did not throw away. The steeple of St. Mary-le-Bow is an example of his powers of design (see p. [614]), but his greatest achievement, the new St. Paul's, was, when Charles II. died, only slowly rising from the ground, and it remained uncompleted till long after Charles II. had been laid in the grave.
20. Science.—The foundation of the Royal Society (see p. [598]) had borne ample fruit. Halley and Flamsteed were the astronomers of the time till their fame was eclipsed by that of Isaac Newton, who before the end of the reign of Charles II. was already meditating on the views contained in his 'Principia,' in which the law of gravitation was set forth, though that work was not written till after the death of that king.
Costume of a gentleman: from Sandford's Coronation Procession of James II.