en
published. It is true that the portraits, as well as the other objects of
attraction in our royal palaces, have been described in print with
tolerable accuracy, and some good accounts are to be met with of the
pictures at Woburn, and Blenheim, and Althorpe, and many of the residences
of the nobility which can boast their local historian. We are, however, in
most cases obliged to content ourselves with the meagre information
afforded by county topography, or such works as the _Beauties of England_,
_Neale's Country Seats_, and unsatisfactory guide-books.

No one, then, can doubt that such a compilation as I am advocating would
prove a most welcome addition to our increasing stock of historical lore,
and greatly assist the biographer in those researches upon which, from no
sufficient materials being at hand, too much time is frequently expended
without any adequate result. A catalogue would also tend to the
preservation of ancient portraits, which, by being brought into notice,
would acquire more importance in the estimation of the possessors; and in
the event of any old houses falling into decay, the recorded fact of
certain pictures having existed there, would cause them to be inquired
after, and rescue them from destruction. Opportunities would likewise be
afforded of correcting misnomers, and testing the authenticity of reputed
likenesses of the same individual; further, the printed lists would survive
after all the family traditions had been forgotten, and passed away with
the antiquated housekeeper, and her worn-out inventory. The practice, too,
of inscribing the names of the artist and person represented on the backs
of the frames, would probably be better observed; and I may mention as a
proof of this precaution being necessary, the instance of a {234} baronet
in our day having inherited an old house full of pictures, which were _one
and all_ described, in laconic and most unsatisfactory terms, as
"_Portraits of Ladies and Gentlemen Unknown_." The losses of works of art
and interest by the lamentable fires that have occurred so frequently
within the memory of man, may furnish a further motive for using every
endeavour to preserve those pictures that remain to us; but probably a far
greater number have perished from damp or neglect, and a strange
combination of mischief and ignorance. Let us hope that in this respect the
times are improving. For one, I cannot consent to the wanton destruction of
a single portrait