ispiece to Moore's Life of
the Statesman and Dramatist. Here is the "man himsel," in the formal cut
blue dress-coat and white waistcoat of the last century. The face may
be accounted handsome: the cheeks are full, and, with the nose, are
rubicund--_Bacchi tincti_; the eyes are black and brilliantly
expressive;--and the visiter should remember that Sir Joshua Reynolds,
in painting this portrait, is said to have affirmed that their pupils
were larger than those of any human being he had ever met with. They
retained their beauty to the last, though the face did not, and the body
became bent. How much it is to be regretted that Sheridan with such fine
eyes had so little foresight. There is in the gallery a younger portrait
of him, in a stage or masquerade dress, which is unworthy of comparison
with the preceding.

231. Scene in Covent Garden Market. One of the best views of the old
place, by _Hogarth_; and one of the last sketches before the recent
improvements, will he found in _The Mirror_, vol. xiii. p. 121. By
the way, the pillar and ball, which stood in the centre of the square,
and are seen in the present picture, were long in the garden of John
Kemble, in Great Russell-street, Bloomshury.

243. Portrait of the late Mr. Holcroft. _Dawe._ In this early
performance of the artist, we in vain seek for the "best looks" of the
sitter: such as the painter threw into his portraits of crowned heads.

248. The Happy Marriage. An _unfinished_ picture by _Hogarth_;
yet how beautifully is some of the distant grouping made out;--what life
and reality too in the figures, and the whole composition, though seen,
as it were, through a mist.

249. Study of a Head from Nature, painted by lamp-light. _Harlow._
A curious vagary of genius.

258. Daughter of Sir Peter Lely. _Lely._ We take this to be the
oldest picture in the gallery. Lely has been dead upwards of a century
and a half.

263. One of _Lawrence's_ Portraits of himself.

286. Sir John Falstaff at Gad's Hill. _T. Stothard_, R.A. The
figure has not the fleshy rotundity of the Falstaff of Shakspeare; he is
like a half-stuffed actor in the part.

298. Portrait of the late King when Prince of Wales. _Lawrence._
The features at this period were remarkably handsome; and considering
the influence of pre-eminence in birth, the expression is not
over-tinged with _hauteur_. No persons have their portraits so
frequently painted as princes; and the artist who has the fortune to
pa