r
Vandyck, and his "Beauties at Hampton Court" are pictures which are known
the world over. He has been accused of not painting eyes as he ought; but
the ladies of his day had an affectation in the use of their eyes. They
tried to have "the sleepy eye that spoke the melting soul," so Sir Peter
Lely was not to blame for painting them as these ladies wished them to be.
He was knighted by Charles II., and became very rich. His portraits of men
were not equal to those of women. When Cromwell gave him a commission to
paint his portrait, he said: "Mr. Lely, I desire you will use all your
skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but
remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see
me, otherwise I will never pay you a farthing for it." Sir Peter Lely was
buried in Covent Garden, where there is a monument to his memory with a
bust by Gibbon.

Sir GODFREY KNELLER (1646-1723), born at Luebeck, was a rival to Sir Peter
Lely, and had the honor of painting the portraits of eight crowned heads
and a very great number of other people of importance. He had studied both
the Dutch and Italian manner; for he was the pupil of Rembrandt and Bol,
of Carlo Maratti and Bernini. Some critics praise his pictures very much,
while others point out many defects in them. He painted very rapidly, and
he sometimes hurried his pictures off for the sake of money; but his
finished works are worthy of remark. He especially excelled in painting
hair; his drawing was correct; some of his groups of children are fine
pictures; and some madonnas that he painted, using his sitters as models,
are works of merit. His monument was made by Rysbrach, and was placed in
Westminster Abbey.

Both Sir Peter Lely and Sir Godfrey Kneller had pupils and followers; but
there was no original English artist before the time of WILLIAM HOGARTH
(1697-1764), and he may really be named as the first master of a purely
English school of painting. When Hogarth was fifteen years old he was
apprenticed to a silversmith, and the grotesque designs which he copied
for armorial bearings helped to increase his natural love for all that was
ridiculous and strange. After 1718 he was much occupied in engraving for
booksellers, and at length he began to paint small _genre_ pictures and
some portraits, in which he made good success, but he felt that he was
fitted for other work. In 1730 he married the daughter of the artist, Sir
James Thornhill, w