h left us notable portraits of the great
Irish personages of their day. To fellow countrymen in London,
Charles Jervas (1675?-1739), Thomas Hickey (d. 1816?), and Francis
Cotes, R.A. (1725-1770), we owe presentments of other famous people.
George Barrett, R.A. (1728-1784), one of the greatest landscapists of
his time; Nathaniel Hone, R.A. (1718-1784), an eccentric but gifted
painter, with an individuality displayed in all his portraits; James
Barry, R.A. (1741-1806), still more eccentric, with grand conceptions
imperfectly carried out in his great historical and allegorical
pictures:--these, with Henry Tresham, R.A. (1749?-1814), and Matthew
Peters, R.A. (1742-1814), historical painters of considerable merit,
upheld the Irish claim to a high place in English eighteenth century
art. A little later, miniaturists such as Horace Hone, A.R.A.
(1756-1825), George Chinnery (1774-1852), and Adam Buck (1759-1844),
also worked with remarkable success in London. Among resident Irish
artists, the highest praise can be given to the miniature painters,
John Comerford (1770?-1832) and Charles Robertson (1760-1821), and to
the portrait-painters, Robert Hunter (fl. 1750-1803) and (especially)
Hugh Douglas Hamilton (1739-1808), of whose work Ireland possesses
many distinguished examples. Some day Hamilton's pictures will appeal
to a far wider public than his countrymen can provide. One must omit
the names of many clever Irish artists like the Wests, Francis and
Robert, who were the most successful teachers of perhaps any time in
Ireland, and come at once to that branch of art in which Ireland
stands second to none--mezzotint-engraving.

One of the earliest engravers in this style was Edward Luttrell,
already named as a painter, but it was John Brooks (fl. 1730-1756)
who is justly considered the real founder of that remarkable group of
Irish engravers whose work may be more correctly described as
belonging to a school than any other of the period. For many years in
Dublin, and afterwards in London, a succession of first-rate artists
of Irish birth produced work which remains and always must remain one
of the glories of Ireland. Limits of space allow only the bare
mention of the names of James McArdell (1728?-1765), Charles Spooner
(d. 1767), Thomas Beard (fl. 1728), Thomas Frye (1710-1762), Edward
Fisher (1722-1785?), Michael Ford (d. 1765), John Dixon (1740?-1811),
Richard Purcell (fl. 1746-1766), Richard Houston (1721?-1775), John
Murp