ed is rude as a work of art, and yet there is on it the impress
of such individuality as demonstrates that the sculptor did his best to
represent the king. Singularly fine as achievements of the sculptor's
art are the effigies of Henry III., Queen Eleanor of Castile, and her
ill-fated son Edward II., the two former in Westminster Abbey, the last
in Gloucester cathedral; and of their fidelity also as portraits no
doubt can be entertained. In like manner the effigies of Edward III. and
his queen Philippa, and those of their grandson Richard II. and his
first consort, Anne of Bohemia (all at Westminster), and of their other
grandson, Henry of Lancaster, with his second consort, Joan of Navarre,
at Canterbury--all convince us that they are true portraits. Next follow
the effigies of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York,--to be succeeded, and
the royal series to be completed, by the effigies of Queen Elizabeth and
Mary Stuart, all of them in Westminster Abbey. Very instructive would be
a close comparison between the two last-named works and the painted
portraits of the rival queens, especially in the case of Mary, the
pictures of whom differ so remarkably from one another.

As the 15th century advanced, the rank of the personage represented and
the character of the art that distinguishes any effigy goes far to
determine its portrait qualities. Still later, when more exact
face-portraiture had become a recognized element, sculptors must be
supposed to have aimed at the production of such resemblance as their
art would enable them to give to their works; and accordingly, when we
compare effigies with painted portraits of the same personages, we find
that they corroborate one another. The prevalence of portraiture in the
effigies of the 16th and 17th centuries, when their art generally
underwent a palpable decline, by no means raises all works of this
class, or indeed the majority of them, to the dignity of true portraits;
on the contrary, in these effigies, as in those of earlier periods, it
is the character of the art in each particular example that affects its
merit, value and authority as a portrait. In judging of these latter
effigies, however, we must estimate them by the standard of art of their
own era; and, as a general rule, the effigies that are the best as works
of art in their own class are the best also and the most faithful in
their portraiture. The earlier effigies, usually produced without any
express aim at exact p